Excerpt: Graceless

Grace embarks on her new diet:

"After my appointment and despite the feeling that Dr Wilson had installed a fully functioning 3 foot tall robot in my mouth, I was hungry. My teeth already felt painfully tight, so anything I ate would have to be on the soft, mushy or liquid side. I moved the car from the client car park at the orthodontist's to the supermarket car park. The moment I entered the supermarket, I was confronted with an enticing display of raspberry buns. You know, the soft, melt-in-your-mouth bread with thick, sweet jam inside and pink icing and coconut on top? I loved them. Without thinking twice, I grabbed a six pack and headed for the fruit section. It was on my way there that I remembered I was supposed to be getting skinny. I panicked momentarily, looking at the bag of delicious buns in my shopping basket, miserable that I had to put them back on the shelf. Then I reasoned with myself. It would be my last treat before I embarked on my new lifestyle. It would be wrong to deny myself of my favourite food as my last meal before the new me. I would only eat one and take the rest home for my family. My teeth would be too sore to eat anything harder, these buns were ideal in their softness. Knowing deep down that it was a bad idea, I left them in my shopping basket and added a couple of bananas and half a dozen mandarins. In the drinks aisle I successfully steered clear of the coke and settled on a healthy-looking bottle of mineral water. "

~

Grace's overactive imagination - Sean is a boy she has a crush on, but he barely registers her existence.

"In my mind, I appeared on a reality TV show, and Sean sat at home watching me run in the wild weather. Kate was with him, dressed in a trashy red dress, all ready to go to the school formal. When she told him to change the channel (she couldn't stand watching this programme; it made her depressed seeing my life) he switched off the tv and told her he couldn't go to the formal with her any more. He said he was really sorry and that he wished he'd realised sooner (he was really very sweet to her), but he'd just realised he really really liked me and would feel terrible going with anyone else. Somehow this made Kate want to be my best friend and I gave her the stunning piece of advice to never wear red ever again, which she gladly accepted. Soon everyone in the school was asking me for fashion tips and to keep up with demand I started publishing a weekly newsletter, which became a monthly magazine, which started selling internationally and I became world famous as the world's youngest magazine millionaire. All the boys at school vied for my attention, hoping to get a cut of my wealth, but only Sean remained true to me."