Geek Girl and Model Misfit

“B-b-but who is it?” I stammer.

“If I tell you, you’ll panic,” he says, frowning at me.

I’m already panicking. I’m not sure he can say anything that’s going to make it worse. “I won’t,” I lie.

“You will. You’ll panic, and then I’ll panic, and then you’ll panic again, and she’ll be able to tell we’re weak and she’ll eat both of us.”

“Wilbur, I promise I won’t panic. Just tell me who it is.”

Wilbur takes a deep breath and grabs my arms. “Darling Strawberry-mush,” he says in a reverential voice. “It’s Yuka Ito.”

And then he waits for my reaction. Which is obviously extremely disappointing for him because, after a short silence, he shakes me gently and taps my head. “Are you still in there? Has the shock killed you?”

“Who?”

“Yuka Ito.” Wilbur waits a little longer for the penny to drop and then sighs because the penny is clearly going nowhere at all. “Legendary designer, personally discovered at least five supermodels? Best friends with eight Vogue editors around the world? Has her own personalised seat at New York Fashion Week? Current Creative Director of Baylee?” Wilbur pauses and then sighs again. “Bunny-button, this woman doesn’t work in fashion, she is fashion. She is the beginning of it and she is the end of it. A bit more panic might be appropriate.”

According to scientists, the slowest that information travels between neurons in the brain is 260mph. I don’t believe them because my brain is working nowhere near that fast.

My mouth has gone suddenly dry. I haven’t heard of Yuka Ito, but I have heard of Baylee. People at school buy the fake version handbags at the local market. And they’re just going to send me in like this? In a suit? Without any preparation at all? Where the hell is my metamorphosis?

“B-b-but w-w-what do I d-d-do?”I start stuttering because my ears have done what they always do when I’m extremely frightened: they’ve gone totally numb. “W-w-w-what do I s-s-say?”

Wilbur sighs in relief. “That’s better. Total breakdown. A much more respectable reaction.” He pats me and pushes me towards the second glass cubicle. “You don’t do anything, Doughnut-face. Yuka Ito does. Trust me, she’ll know straight away if you’re what she’s looking for. And if you’re not… Well. She’ll probably just bite you.”

“B-b-b-but…”

“It’s OK, she’s totally sterile. This is the moment when the rest of your life takes shape, Harriet,” Wilbur says, putting his hand reassuringly on my shoulder. And then he considers this statement. “Or fails completely,” he amends. He opens the door. “No pressure,” he adds.

And pushes me forward.

Deep breaths. In, out. In, out. But keep them subtle: I don’t want Yuka Ito to think I’m going into labour.

Everything is dark, except I don’t know whether it’s just my brain closing down in shock or my eyes adjusting to the light. The whole room is pitch-black, and there’s just a small lamp in the corner. And right in the middle, sitting in a chair, is a very small woman.

She’s very still, and very silent, and she’s wearing black from head to toe. Everything is black: her long hair is black, her minuscule hat is black and the lace hanging over one eye is black. Her dress is black and her shoes are black and her tights are black. The only thing on her that isn’t black is her lips, and they’re bright purple. Her hands are folded very neatly in her lap, and the only other way I can think of to describe her is that she’s everything that Wilbur isn’t: quiet, controlled and absolutely rigid. She looks exactly like a fashionable spider.

I knew I should have stuck to my first outfit choice.

As if on cue, Wilbur cries, ‘Sweetheart!’ and flounces across the room to greet her. ‘It’s been tooooo long!’

She looks at Wilbur without a flicker of expression on her perfect, pale face. “I saw you eight minutes ago. Which I believe is two minutes longer than we agreed.”

“Precisely! Tooooooo long!” Wilbur runs back to me, totally unfazed, and pushes me forward. “I had difficulty retrieving this one,” he explains happily, as if he’s Hugo and I’m some kind of really nice stick. “But retrieve her I finally did.”

He gives me another nudge with his fingertips until I’m standing awkwardly in front of Yuka. There is something so queenly about her that I find myself suddenly dropping into a curtsy, the way I was taught to in ballet class before the teacher asked Annabel not to bring me back because it was “impossible to teach me grace”.

Yuka Ito looks at me with a stony face and then – almost without moving – touches a little button on a remote control on her lap. A bright spotlight fades in dramatically, almost directly above me, and I jump a little bit. Seriously. What kind of room is this?

“Harriet,” she says as I squint upwards. There’s no inflection to her voice, so I’m not sure whether it’s a question or a statement or whether she’s just practising saying my name.

“Harriet Manners,” I correct automatically.

“Harriet Manners.” She looks me up and down slowly. “How old are you, Harriet Manners?”

“I’m fifteen years, three months and eight days old.”

“Is that your natural hair?”

I pause briefly. Why would anyone dye their hair this colour? “…Yes.”

Yuka raises an eyebrow. “And you’ve never modelled before?”

“No.”

“Do you know anything about clothes?”

I look down at my grey pinstripe suit. It must be a trick question. “No.”

“And do you know who I am?”

“You’re Yuka Ito, Creative Director of Baylee.”

“Did you know who I was before Wilbur told you thirty seconds ago?”

I glance at Wilbur. “No.”

“But she’s very bright,” Wilbur bursts enthusiastically, clearly no longer able to contain himself. “She picks things up ever so quickly, don’t you, my little Bumblebee? Once I told her who you were she didn’t forget straight away at all.”

Yuka slowly slides her gaze over to him. “At what point exactly,” she says in an icy voice, “did it seem as if I was attempting to engage you in conversation, Wilbur?”

“None at all,” Wilbur agrees and takes a few steps back. He starts gesturing at me to get behind him.

“And,” she continues, looking at me, “how do you feel about fashion?”

I think really hard for a few seconds. “It’s just clothes,” I say eventually. Then I close my mouth as tightly as possible and mentally flick myself with my thumb and middle finger. It’s just clothes? What’s wrong with me? Telling the fashion industry’s most powerful woman that It’s Just Clothes is like telling Michelangelo, It’s Just A Drawing. Or Mozart, It’s Just A Bit Of Music. Why is there no kind of net between my brain and my mouth to catch sentences like that, like the one we have in the kitchen sink to catch vegetable peel?

“Would you mind explaining why you want to be a model in that case?”

“I guess…” I swallow uncertainly. “I want things to change.”

“And by things she means,” Wilbur interrupts, stepping forward, “famine. Poverty. Global warming.”

“Actually, I mean me mainly,” I clarify uncomfortably. “I’m not sure fashion is going to help with anything else.”

Yuka stares at me for what feels like twenty years, but is actually about ten seconds with a totally blank expression on her face. “Turn around,” she says eventually in a dry voice.

So I turn around. And then – because I’m not sure what else to do – I keep turning. And turning. Until I start to worry that I’m going to be sick on the floor.

“You can stop turning now,” she snaps eventually, and her voice sounds high and strained. She flicks her finger again and the light above me abruptly switches off and plunges me back into the dark. “I’ve seen enough. Leave now.”

I stop, but the room continues spinning, so Wilbur grabs me before I fall over.

I can’t believe it. That was my chance and I blew it. That was the escape hatch from my life and I managed to shut it on myself within forty-five seconds. Which means I’m stuck being me forever.

Forever.

Oh, God. Maybe I am actually a moron after all. I might have to recheck my IQ levels when I get home.

“Go, go, go,” Wilbur whispers urgently because I’m still standing in the middle of the room, staring at Yuka, totally paralysed with shock. “Out, out, out.”

And then he bows to Yuka, shuffles backwards out of the room with me behind him and shoves me back into the real world.

I stomp back miserably into the little office where my parents are waiting: Annabel, with her head in her hands, and Dad, pointedly ignoring her and staring out of the window in huffy silence.

“Tell your stepmother you don’t mind being named after a tortoise,” Dad immediately demands, still staring out of the window. “Tell her, Harriet. She won’t talk to me.”

I sigh. Today is really going downhill. And given the start, I wasn’t sure that was possible. “I suppose I should just be grateful you weren’t browsing the FBI’s Most Wanted lists as well as scanning the Guinness Book of Records, Dad.”

“Tortoises are incredible creatures,” Dad says earnestly. “What they lack in elegance and beauty they more than make up for in the ability to curl up and defend themselves from predators.”

“What, like me?”

“That’s not what I was saying, Harriet.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“No,” Annabel snaps suddenly, lifting her head.

Dad remains nonplussed. “They do, Annabel. I saw a documentary about it on telly.”

Annabel whips round and her face is suddenly the colour of the paper she’s still gripping in her hands. “Why you felt the need to tell her about that bloody tortoise I have no idea. What’s wrong with you?” Dad looks at me for help, but I’m not going to drag him out of this one. “And,” she continues, turning to look at me, “I mean no; you’re not modelling. Not now, not next year, not ever. Full stop, the end, finis, whatever you want to put at the end of the sentence that makes it finite.”

“Now hang on a second,” Dad says. “I get a say in this too.”

“No, you don’t. Not if it’s a stupid say. It’s not happening, Richard. Harriet has a brilliant future in front of her and I’m not going to have it ruined by this nonsense.”

“Who says it’s brilliant?” I ask, but they both ignore me.

“Have you been listening to a single word that crazy man has been saying, Richard?”

“You just want her to be a lawyer, don’t you, Annabel!” Dad shouts.

“And what if I did? What’s wrong with being a lawyer?”

“Don’t get me started on what’s wrong with lawyers!”

They’re both standing a metre away from each other, ready for battle.

“Do I get a say in this?” I ask, standing up.

“No,” they both snap without taking their eyes off each other.

“Right,” I say, sitting down again. “Good to know.”

Annabel puts her handbag over her shoulder, quivering all over. “I said I would think about it and I have. I’ve even made notes and I have seen nothing that convinces me that this is right for Harriet. In fact, I’ve only seen things that convince me of exactly the opposite: that this is a stupid, sick, damaging environment for a young girl, it was a terrible idea and it needs to stop now before it goes any further.”

“But—”

“This conversation is over. Do you understand? Over. Harriet is going to go to school like a normal fifteen-year-old and she is going to do her exams like a normal fifteen-year-old and have a normal, fifteen-year-old life so that she can have a brilliant, successful, stable adult one. Do I make myself clear?”

I could point out that it’s irrelevant – seeing as I’ve just blown any chance I have – but Annabel looks so scary and we can both see so far up her nostrils that Dad and I both duck our heads and mutter, “OK.”

“Now, when you’re ready, I’ll be outside,” Annabel continues from between her teeth. “Away from all this rubbish.”

And Dad and I continue to stare at the table until we hear the front door close, with Annabel safely on the other side of it.

You know, the human brain never stops surprising me. It’s always evolving: not just through the centuries, but from day to day, and minute to minute. Always in a constant state of flux. Forty-eight hours ago, I would have laughed if somebody had told me I couldn’t be a model or perhaps stared at them as if they were strange alien beings with feet coming out of their heads. I’ve always wanted to be a palaeontologist, or maybe a physicist. But… I don’t want to go back to my life the way it was.

Not now I’ve imagined an alternative.

I look at Dad and realise he’s studying my face. “What do you want, Harriet?” he says gently. “Never mind Annabel, I think it must be her time of the month. You know, when she turns into a werewolf. What is it you want to do?”

I think about Nat and how devastated she would be if this went any further. I think about Annabel and her fury, and then I think about Yuka Ito and her open contempt.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say in a small voice. “It’s not going to happen anyway.”

At which point Wilbur bursts back into the room and flings himself dramatically into the chair that Annabel just vacated. He doesn’t seem to realise that anyone’s missing.

“You got the job,” he says abruptly, flinging his arms out in a wide motion. “She loves you.”

I stare at him in silence. “B-b-but – no, she doesn’t, she hates me,” I finally manage to stammer. “She turned the light off on me and everything.”

“Hates you?” Wilbur tinkles with laughter. “Golly-knickers. Did you see what she did to the other girls? Well, no, obviously not. We’d have all sorts of tribunals on our hands if anyone did. She does not hate you, my little Goldfish. She didn’t even turn the light on for most of the other candidates.”

“What’s going on?” Dad is still saying. At least, I think he is. My brain is making that high-pitched TV noise again. “What job?”

“The job of the century, my little Crumpet of Loveliness; the position of the millennium. The employment opportunity to end all employment opportunities.”

“Which is?” Dad snaps crossly. “Drop the jazz, Wilbur, and just tell us.”

Wilbur grins. “Gotcha. Yuka Ito wants Harriet to be the new face of Baylee. We’re on a deadline, so we start shooting tomorrow. In Moscow. For a twenty-four-hour whirlwind of fashion.”

I feel like I’m in an elevator, dropping thirty storeys in three seconds. My stomach doesn’t even feel remotely attached to my abdomen.

Dad opens and shuts his mouth a few times.

“For real?” he says eventually, and even in my catatonic state I cringe. I wish Dad would stop trying to be ‘street’.

“So real it could have its own TV show,” Wilbur confirms seriously. “We’ve been looking for the right person for ages. The advertising spaces are already booked and the crew is on standby. Now we’ve found her, it’s lift-off.”

“Gosh,” Dad says and he suddenly looks strangely calm. I thought he’d be up and dancing around the room, but he looks very composed and very – you know – fatherly. “Right,” he says in a faraway voice. “Wow.” He looks at me again. “So it’s actually happening then. Who’d have thought it?”

The white noise in my head is getting louder and louder. “Dad?” I manage to squeak. “What do I do?”

Dad clears his throat, leans toward me and puts his hand on my head. “Harriet,” he says gravely, in his most un-my-dad-like voice. “Think about it carefully. If you don’t want this, we walk now. No questions. If you do want it, I’m behind you.”

“But Annabel…”

Dad sighs. “I’ll deal with Annabel. She doesn’t frighten me.” He thinks about this. “OK, she frightens me. But I’ll just frighten her back.”

I try to swallow, but I can’t. The door has just been thrown wide open when I thought it was locked. This is the forked road that the poem talks about. I can take my old life back. I can be Harriet Manners: Best Friend to Nat, Prey to Alexa, Stepdaughter to Annabel, Stalkeree to Toby. Stranger and total Hand-sniffing Weirdo to Nick. Geek.

Or I can try to become something else entirely.

Something inside me breaks. “I want to do it,” I hear myself saying. “I want to try and be a model.”

“Well, duh,” Wilbur says happily.

“But what happens now?” Dad asks, taking hold of my hand and squeezing it. I squeeze it back. My whole body is trembling.

“Now?” Wilbur says, laughing and leaning back in his chair. “Well. Let’s just say that Harriet Manners is about to become very fashionable.” And he laughs again. “Very fashionable indeed.”

We debate the telling-the-truth option for about thirty seconds, and then decide that it’s probably much better all round if we just… don’t. Because we’re scared mainly. As Dad says, “Annabel is absolutely bonkers at the moment, Harriet. Do you really want to awaken the Kraken?”

So we’re going to lie to Annabel. And – I add this silently in my head – Nat. We’re obviously not going to lie to them forever. That would be ridiculous. We’re just going to keep the truth from them until the timing is right. And it feels like a suitable moment.

And we have absolutely no other alternative. Which makes me feel no better about anything at all, so as soon as we’re home from the agency, I make my excuses and go straight to the only place in the world I go when I need to run away.

The local launderette.

It’s about 300 metres away from my house, and I’ve been coming here since I was allowed to leave the house on my own. For some reason it always makes me feel better. I love the soft whirring sounds, I love the soapy smells, I love the bright lights, I love the warmth coming out of the machines. But most of all I love the feeling that nothing could ever be bad or wrong in a place where everything is being cleaned.

I dig fifty pence out of my pocket and put it in one of the tumble dryers. Then – when it’s switched on and hot and vibrating – I lean my head on the concave glass window and shut my eyes.

I don’t know how long I sit with my head on the dryer, but I must nod off because I suddenly jerk awake to the sound of: “Did you know that the average American family does eight to ten loads of laundry each week, and a single load of laundry takes an average of one hour and twenty-seven minutes to complete from wash to dry? That means that the average American family spends approximately 617 hours a year doing laundry. What do you think it is for England? Less, I think. We just seem to be a bit dirtier.”

And there – sitting on top of a washing machine – is Toby.

I stare at him in silence.

“Hey, you’re awake!” he observes. “Look!” And then he points to his T-shirt. It has a picture of drums on it. “It’s interactive! When I press the drums, they make the sound of drums.” Thud, thud.

“Toby. What are you doing here?”

“Did you hear that?” He’s wearing a yellow bobble hat and it’s bobbling in excitement. Thud, thud, thud. “They’re realistic, aren’t they? Do you think if you got one with a guitar on it, we could start a band?”

“No. What are you doing here?”

“Obviously I’m doing laundry, Harriet.”

I raise my eyebrow. He looks completely at ease with this terrible excuse, which – considering the fact that he has no laundry with him – is a little worrying. “Did you just follow me here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You looked sad. And also because it’s dark and it could be dangerous if you wander around on your own.”

I scowl. “Yes, Toby. I might be at risk from stalkers.”

Toby looks around us. “I think it’s just me, Harriet. I’ve not run into any others while on the job. Are you excited about the modelling assignment?”

I stare at him for a few seconds. “How the hell do you know about that?”

How am I supposed to keep it a secret from Nat and Annabel if I can’t even keep it secret from Toby?

“Well, I wouldn’t be a very good stalker if I didn’t, would I?” Toby laughs. “I’d have to hang up my stalker gear in shame.” He thinks about it. “Which would be unfortunate because all I’ve really got is this flask and I’m quite attached to it.” He pulls out a red flask and shows it to me. “Soup,” he explains. “In case I get hungry.”

“Toby, nobody is supposed to know.”

“So that makes this a secret between the two of us, right?” I glare at him. “Which makes us kindred spirits? And – correct me if I’m wrong – soulmates?”

“We’re not soulmates, Toby. You can’t just go round stealing secrets and then forcing people into being your soulmate.”

“OK.” He seems unabashed by the rejection. “But you’re glad I gave that model man your number.”

For a few seconds all I can do is stutter without any noises coming out. “You gave the modelling agency my number?”

“You ran off at The Clothes Show so quickly I think you forgot. Good, huh?” Toby grins at me and the yellow bobble bounces up and down cheerfully. “Now the whole world is going to see you the way I already see you. I’ve always been a little bit ahead of the trends.”

I point to the scraped-up word on my satchel. “And what if they see me the way everyone at school sees me, Toby?”

Toby considers this for a few moments. “Then I think you’re going to need a bigger bag.” And he hits the drum on his T-shirt. Thud, thud.

Suddenly I’m not so sure the launderette was a good idea after all. “I’m going home.”

“OK. Would you like me to follow a few metres behind?” I frown at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “By the way,” he adds, “did Nat tell you what she did yesterday? She was amazing, Harriet. Like Boadicea, except without the chariot. Or the horses, or the swords, but still: it was awesome.”