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people who help others often help themselves.”
    â€œWill the girl have a problem like mine? You know, a weight issue.”
    â€œWe try to match girls we feel can help each other,” Joan explains. “The particular issue isn’t what’s important. Sometimes it’s better to mentor someone who has a totally different problem than yours. So what do you think? Do you want to mentor, Eve?”
    â€œYes. I’d like to try.”
    Joan nods and I sign her list. She hands me a brochure. I need to get permission from my parents, but that won’t be a problem. They’ll like the idea that I’m helping someone.
    I walk out of the meeting glad that I signed up for the program.
    And even more glad that I didn’t eat a cookie.

“The first thing you lose in a diet is your sense of humor.”
    â€”Author Unknown
    chapter eleven
    Mom and Dad love the mentoring idea. They sign the permission papers over their supper of roast chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and salad.
    I watch them sign it over my supper of boiled potatoes, corn (no butter), salad (no dressing) and melon. Tonight’s supper isn’t bad. Tomorrow will be terrible. Bananas and milk. I groan at the thought. Mom asks what’s wrong. “Nothing,” I say. I don’t want them to know how much I hate my diet.
    I feel like I’ve been dieting for months, not just three days. I think about food all the time. I never used to think about food. I just ate it.
    The next morning I create a banana and milk smoothie for breakfast. It’s not great but it’s drinkable.
    â€œAre you sure you want to continue with this diet?” Mom asks as I grab two bananas for lunch.
    â€œI have to,” I tell Mom. “I need to get back to my old weight.”
    â€œBut fad diets don’t work, and they’re unhealthy.”
    â€œThis isn’t really a fad diet. Fad diets make you eat only one food or really weird food like cabbage or blueberries all day. This one doesn’t. Well, except for today. Today is weird. But the weekend will be normal. I can eat beef, chicken or fish with vegetables. And I’m pretty sure the diet is working already. My pants feel looser.”
    â€œWhere did you find this diet?”
    â€œI saw it on the Internet. Gotta go.”
    Before Mom can give me more reasons my diet is stupid, I’m out the door.
    As I hurry down the street, I check my pants. They’re not really looser, but I had to say something to get Mom off my case.
    In homeroom Sarah talks to me for a few minutes, but it’s like she’s talking to someone she’s met on a bus for the first time.
    In art, I hear that Carolyn and Denise are both sick with the flu. I’m on my own at lunch.
    As soon as I walk into the lunchroom, I see Sarah with Zoe. I hurry toward a bench at the other end of the lunchroom. I slip in beside a bunch of grade-eleven girls.
    I eat my two bananas quickly. I consider buying milk, but the thought of drinking plain milk makes me ill. Maybe day four of this diet is to test your willpower. If you can survive a day of bananas and milk, you can survive anything.
    What now? I can’t just sit here. I have to go somewhere till my next class. But where? Not the bathroom. There are too many gross possibilities there. How about the library? It smells better than the bathroom, and I can read till the bell rings. I dump my banana peels in the garbage and head for the library.
    I find a quiet corner and grab a mystery from a rack. For fifteen minutes I forget about food, Zoe or Sarah.
    I try listening to every word the teachers say in my next two classes, but all I can think about is how hungry I am. By the end of the day, I know I can’t stand another bite of a banana or a sip of white milk.
    On the way home from my school, I buy chocolate milk. I know I’m cheating, but chocolate milk is milk. It just has a little sugar, and it won’t make me