She was the most delicate girl in town - pale skin stretched tight over a skeletal face, hair the colour of fresh milk, body tall and angular. Her eyes were of the softest blue, her cheeks flushed pastel pink, her lips like an English rose. Fragile, barely there, more ghost than anything real: that's what people said about her, that's what they thought when they passed her in the street. But as delicate as she was, as insubstantial, there was something very real and present in the way that she held herself and in the manner of her walk. One couldn't help admiring that and envying it too. She seemed so sure of herself, so confident, like she was party to a secret that no one else knew something that was important and useful and integral to getting through the long and tangled journey of life. Jessica, a short and plump sixteen year old, was especially jealous. She was at that frustrating stage where choices had to be made at school, subjects selected that would, or at least could, determine the outcome of the rest of her life. Who did she want to be? What did she want