Disclaimer: The characters and canon situations in the following story belong solely to Meg Cabot. I am not making any money from the publishing or writing of this story.
Dear Jen...
People always say that if things are going wrong then to talk to someone about it, like a friend or a 'trusted adult'.
What if what's going wrong is that you don't have any friends, ever thought of that? And who is a 'trusted adult' anyway? My mum would just tell me that she loves me and to act more like Jamie and my dad would ruffle my hair and tell me to not grow up and just be myself, but I didn't know who myself was. I didn't want to be the Poppy Lake who had horrible clothes and no friends. I wanted to be pretty and popular and to have a boyfriend. I wanted people to stare at me as I walked down the corridor in amazement at my long shiny blonde hair. I wanted people to come up to me in the mornings and say hi and be happy to see me and text me and fight to sit next to me.
What really happened was people would shove past me on the way to their lockers and act like I didn't exist. If people spoke to me it was to ask me for something and they looked surprised to hear I had a voice when they did.
That's what you got when the most popular girl in the year didn't like you, nobody else would like you either in fear of being branded a loser. The worse thing was, this was before the Incident with Heather, this was a different popular girl, they all didn't like me. I didn't even have a clue as to why Angelina didn't like me. I hadn't done anything to her, we'd barely spoken. We weren't even in the same class. I hadn't tried to steal her boyfriend, I didn't take her place on the girls football team (because I was so unfit I wouldn't be able to run the length of the pitch), I wasn't really clever or anything. I couldn't work out why she didn't like me.
One time, we had switched classes around for an activity day and I was left to sit at her table because I had no one else to sit with. This happened a lot and I was used to sitting with strangers, but this time, they actually started talking to me, first about the work and then about other things. Angelina had asked in a really strange and snobbish tone if I'd ever kissed a boy. She said it as if she was just being curious but there was a malicious look in her eyes. Tentatively, I said no, of course. I'd never kissed a boy and I was young and saw no benefit to lying. They all laughed at me in high pitched giggles and kept sharing looks that meant something to them and nothing to me and I've always been on the outskirts of every group I've been in.
I still sort of had friends afterwards, that wasn't the Incident, but it made me feel the worst I had ever felt about myself. We were only eleven and so young, and even though I see now that they were silly, foolish girls who acted as if they were so much more mature me, their taunting laughs still cut deep. It didn't need to be words, it could be the secrets other people kept to themselves and didn't tell you, that hurt even if they were stupid secrets.
I felt better then when I spoke to my parents about it, but I wasn't eleven anymore and I couldn't go running to my parents when I felt low. But that didn't mean I didn't have anyone to tell.
My emails were pulled up in seconds before I lost my nerve and I typed in the address Steph had given me. I was really going to do this.
Dear Jen,
Steph told me to write to you, she's staying at my house in England and she's kind of taken me under her wing. She's told me a bit about you and how you used to be an agony aunt in your old school. That's why I'm writing this to you now. I wouldn't write it otherwise. You must be used to crazy teenagers writing to you like this right? Oh, and thanks for the advice on the makeover, Steph did a great job. She said you helped her too when she wasn't sure of who she was. So I was wondering... would you help me?
Okay so just to fill you in on the details: my name is Poppy Lake, I'm 13 years old, in Year 9 (I have no idea what that is in American grades sorry). I am not very attractive, (more so now than before thanks to yours and Steph's help), I now have fairly short blond curly hair, I'm quite large and I have a very bad taste in clothing. Oh, and I've never had a boyfriend, nobody wants to be friends with me, even the social rejects have got bored of me. I've kind of befriended my computer ever since joining high school two and a half years ago, life is hell at the moment. I've just started my GCSEs and I never realised how much time and effort it would take. I've never really had a social life, but I still don't have any time to do anything I love.
Sorry went off in a bit of a ramble there. Steph said I look great after the makeover but I don't feel like that's going to make a difference to anyone. I don't care about the way I look so why would anyone else? She said I needed a lesson in confidence, and that you could help with that. I'm confident writing this behind a computer screen, but I don't know if I could ever tell anyone about this kind of stuff to their face. Same for normal stuff. I can't talk to people easily. They tell me I'm being too shy, but then when I talk they say I'm loud and aggressive. There is no way to find the right balance.
I would love to be part of the popular crowd, not the 'cool' people, but the ones that everyone loves for who they are. I also have a tiny crush on the most popular boy in the year. Okay a huge crush. I don't know what to do about it. On teenage blogs they say to do 'eye magnet' but he's too tall for me to catch his eye. Please help. I want him to know me for who I am. But then I also need help finding her.
Thanks for listening to my extremely boring problems. I'll understand if you don't reply. I'm used to it.
Poppy Lake
I clicked send before my conscious started calling me foolish. Jen was someone who lived on the other side of the world. She would probably never read it anyway.
