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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Holly Smale 2016
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com;
Cover typography © Mary Kate McDevitt;
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016
Holly Smale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008163457
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008165642
Version: 2016-05-26
Some glittering reviews for the 
“Funny, original and this year’s must-read for teenage girls” Sun
“You won’t be going anywhere until this short-and-sweet book is complete and hugged to your chest” Maximum Pop
“A funny, light-hearted read that teenage girls will relate to” Sunday Independent
“Great … One to snuggle up with and enjoy!” Shout
“A funny, feel-good read for the holidays” The Times
“Smart, sassy and very funny” Bookseller
For Helen, Kate and Lizzie. Without whom none of this would exist.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Geek Girl Books
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Acknowledgements
Read on to see Harriet through Nick’s eyes – the very first time they met …
Read More from Geek Girl
Read on for a sneak peek of Head Over Heels …
About the Publisher
Light (noun, adjective, verb)
/1ʌɪt/
1 To make things visible or afford illumination
2 To set on fire
3 Pale or not deep in colour
4 Without weight
ORIGIN From the Old English leoht – light, shining or bright
Genki is a Japanese word that means high energy, full of beans or peppy, and I know it fits me perfectly because I haven’t slept properly in six whole days.
Frankly, I haven’t needed to.
I’m so super-charged, I’m basically a worker ant: grabbing hundreds of tiny minute-long power naps just to keep me performing as normal.
Trust me: I’ve got the data.
Thanks to the awesome new Sleep App on my phone, I’ve been able to track my nocturnal activities in detail. Statistically the average teenager needs 8.5 hours of decent rest per night, but – according to my sleep graphs – my deep sleep states have been dropping steadily for the last 144.3 hours.
Last night, in fact, I officially got no hours of proper sleep at all.
Not a single wink, let alone forty.
So it’s pretty lucky that today I am firing on all cylinders. Giraffes can go weeks without napping, and I can only assume that I must be able to do the same now too.
Seriously: I am buzzing.
“And,” I continue, stabbing a finger at the magazine in front of me, “it says here that the tunnel includes six thousand tonnes of railway tracks, which is the same weight as two thousand elephants! Isn’t that cool?”
I blink at buildings rushing past the window.
“At its deepest point, it runs seventy-five metres below sea level, which is the same as 107 baguettes on top of each other! Crazy, huh?”
Frowning, I click my biro rapidly in and out again with tiny snaps and make a little note next to this fact. “How many fish could you get into that space, do you think? Should I try and calculate it?”
“Oooh!” I add before anyone can answer, pointing at a squat bird on a wire. “French pigeon!”
It’s been a pretty exciting journey already.
Eleven in the morning, having departed London just two hours ago, and I’ve already completed three Sudoku puzzles, learnt three new foreign phrases and filled out my entire crossword book in pen. I didn’t even bother pencilling it in first: that’s how fired-up I’m feeling.
“Plus,” I say, my jiggling leg bumping up and down repeatedly, “did you know that the Channel Tunnel is the longest under-sea tunnel in the world? Doesn’t that just completely blow your—”
“Harriet?” a loud voice says from some way behind me. “Treacle-top, who the fiddlesticks are you talking to?”
I blink a few times.
Then – with a lurch of surprise – I spin round.
My modelling agent Wilbur is standing at the other end of the packed Eurostar train carriage wearing a fluffy green jumper covered in sequins, a pale lilac scarf covered with pink rabbits and neon-yellow trousers.
In one hand is a tray with two hot drinks on it and in the other is an enormous golden croissant.
Blankly, I turn to the seat next to me.
There’s a large purple suitcase with a bright blue fake-fur coat draped over it and a wide-brimmed, orange-feathered hat perched on top.
Oh my God: you have got to be kidding me.
At what precise point in this conversation did Wilbur get up and go to the buffet car without me?
Exactly how long have I been publicly monologuing at a pile of accessories?
Ugh. Up to now, the jellyfish was the largest animal on the planet without a brain.
I think we have a new winner.
“Umm,” I stammer as the young French couple behind me start quietly giggling. Cover your tracks, Harriet. “Hey there, Wilbur. I was just reading this magazine to the … uh … pigeon outside. He looked … lonely.”
“Well of course he does, darling,” Wilbur agrees chirpily, swinging into the spare seat opposite. “They’re the rats of the sky, and who wants to date that?”
Then he holds out one of the coffees from the tray, pauses slightly and swings it back again. “On second thoughts, poodle, I think you’ve had quite enough caffeine for one morning. You’re starting to look like the victim at the start of a horror movie.”
Typical. First you’re given caffeine for the second time in your entire life, and then you’re suddenly being cut off at the source with no explanation at all.
I might be shaking and sweating slightly from the end of my nose, but I am fine.
Wilbur puts a gentle hand on my still-kicking foot until it stops, calmly takes my still-clicking pen off me and puts the Eurostar magazine away, from where I’m now folding and unfolding the corners repeatedly.
“Breathe, possum,” Wilbur smiles, patting my hand and proffering the golden croissant instead. “You’ve got this, munchkin, and you’re not a baby mouse: there’s no need to take in oxygen that fast.”
I swallow and stare out of the train window as we rush past another French station and one more surge of adrenaline, fear, apprehension and excitement blasts through me. I never said what kind of energy I’ve been packed to the brim with all week, did I?
Nervous, mainly.
Include the significant quantities of central nervous system stimulating methylxanthine alkaloid I’ve imbibed this morning (caffeine), and I’m basically powering off raw natural chemicals like a sleep-deprived rocket.
I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m—
“Mesdames et messieurs,” a calm female voice says as the Eurostar begins to pull into the enormous, cathedral-like Gard du Nord. “Je l’espère vous avez eu un voyage agréable. S’il vous plaît que vous prenez vos bagages avec vous. Bienvenue a Paris.”
And that’s the main reason I haven’t been able to sleep solidly for over a hundred and forty hours.
Why I’ve been lying on my back, staring at the glow-in-the-dark galaxy on my ceiling while my brain spins in tight little circles, like a dying neutron star.
Three little words, three long days, one huge city.
Yup.
I’m doing Paris Fashion Week.
How?
How did Harriet Manners – Destroyer of International Fashion Shows, Knocker-Over of Models, Sitter-Downer on Catwalks and Compiler of Compound Nouns – get selected to participate in Paris Couture Fashion Week: the most prestigious event a young model can possibly attend?
Well, I’m afraid I have no idea either.
Much like life’s other great mysteries – such as how exactly a bicycle works and why yawning is contagious – there appears to be no real scientific answer to that question.
And it’s basically what I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out.
Here are some things I do know:
I definitely checked.
“Darling,” Wilbur laughed when I suggested that my sartorial knowledge might elevate me above the thousands of other models also competing for the same positions, “one of my most well-known models – who shall remain nameless – once put a frozen chicken under the grill. I’m going to pause for a few seconds, to let that sink in.”
There was a long silence while he closed his eyes tightly, bit his bottom lip and grabbed my arm.
“A whole, raw, frozen chicken,” he repeated, slightly more squeakily. “Under the oven grill. And then couldn’t work out why the legs caught fire.”
Another pause.
Then he burst into peals of laughter. “I don’t think intelligence is high on the list of qualities being searched for right now, banana-boo. This is not NASA.”
By this point, Wilbur had been back from New York for just three days and had already swapped me with Stephanie for another one of his models, like Fashion Top Trumps except the opposite.
Let’s just say there wasn’t much of a struggle.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw her punch the air, shout WOOOHOOO then high-five the receptionist on her way out to lunch.
“Are you sure?” I said in dismay. “None of those facts are relevant? Not even the one about how couture seamstresses are called petits mains, which means little hands?”
I’d studied with a very overexcited Nat all night.
The brain only has so much space: I’m positive that at least eight of my most interesting animal facts had been replaced with fashion regulations from the seventeenth century.
“Sure as a seasick sailor on leave,” Wilbur giggled. “Just look angry but polite but distant but vague but smug in an untouchable kind of way and the world of couture is going to love you. Although you might want to switch your brain off for a few hours, pumpkin. Just in case you self-sabotage again like a baby lemming.”
Which – when you’re me – is easier said than done.
But I did my very best.
With a private black car specially booked for me and my Infinity portfolio tucked under one arm, I was driven to twelve different castings in London on one Saturday while my driver waited patiently outside (Wilbur said they were “taking no chances”).
Carefully shepherded to Dior and Balmain and Valentino and Elie Saab; Jean Paul Gaultier and Chanel and Versace.
And with my rebellious brain switched firmly off, I walked up and down enormous, air-conditioned rooms: eyes flat, chin up, shoulders back. Cold and disinterested. Unimpressed and severe: very much like our headmistress just before an assembly about truancy.
Refusing to smile or chatter or ingratiate myself with relevant conversation openers or factual tidbits, and making no attempt to form connections with the people around me at all.
Suffice to say, it was one of my biggest personal challenges of all time.
And it totally worked.
Without my inherent personality, I didn’t just get one high-fashion job for the week: I secured three.
Which was great – if a little hurtful – until last Saturday when I finally had to switch my brain back on and become …
Well, me again.
And then I went into meltdown.
There are 640 muscles in the average human body and not a single one of mine has relaxed in the six days since.
“Darling-pie,” Wilbur squeaks as the train doors whoosh open like a spaceship and he jumps out and spins around with his fluffy blue arms held wide like a gingerbread man, “can’t you just smell it?”
I clamber down after him and inhale.
It’s the end of January, and the Paris air is icy and fresh: underpinned with a faint whiff of train fumes, bread and the coffee Wilbur is guarding like the Crown Jewels.
“Winter?” I offer tentatively. “Odour molecules slow down when they hit a certain temperature, which is why cold air smells cleaner than warm air.”
“Fashion,” Wilbur exhales, before taking in another long, loud breath. “High fashion. Exclusive fashion. None of that high-street, something-for-everyone, we-can-all-be-part-of-it nonsense here.”
He leaps a few steps forward like a fluffy sequined leprechaun and kisses a French bollard. “I’m back, baby,” he sighs happily, wrapping his arms round it. “I’m home.”
Swallowing, I glance at the unusually glamorous people getting off the train behind us – all sunglasses and fur scarves and heels and an aura of sophistication and inevitability – and another lurch of energy fires through me.
I’m trying to stay a paragon of positivity, the embodiment of enthusiasm: a shining example of sunniness in the face of all odds.
But how do I put this?
Wilbur might be home: in his spiritual heartland, at the place of his stylish and chic roots.
I am definitely not.
Invisibly, in the form of Nat.
My Best Friend, non-kissing-soulmate and owner of a very strong Wi-Fi signal, judging by how many times my phone has vibrated since we emerged from the Channel Tunnel.
The Caribbean White-lipped Frog buzzes so hard it can be felt twenty feet away, and I think Nat has the same natural skill for getting attention.
Beep.
ARE YOU AT PARIS FASHION WEEK YET? What’s it like?! Is it amazing?! PICTURES! Nat xx
Beep.
Have you seen anyone famous? What were they wearing? Did you speak to them? PICTURES! Nat xx
Beep.
Need to see dresses and stages, front AND back. Try and find blueprints so I can copy at home. Nat xx
Beep.
PS PICTURES! :) :) Nat xx
With a small smile, I roll my new panda suitcase out of the station after Wilbur towards the taxi rank (it’s a very subtle panda, by the way: shiny black with little white patches and mini ears by the handles, therefore not childish at all).
We wait in line while he talks on his phone.
Then we climb into a white taxi and start driving through the achingly elegant, taupe-stone streets of Paris: all long sash windows and delicate iron balconies and grey-tiled turrets stuffed full of painters and poets and authors wearing berets and discarding crêpes and starving for the truth of their art.
I’m presuming, anyway.
Finally, my phone beeps again:
Oh yeah, I forgot. Good luck with the job etc! Nat xx
I grin.
Obviously, in her enthusiasm for all things fashion, Nat momentarily forgot why I’ve been sent abroad: for gainful, paid employment in the modelling industry and not as her personal documentary maker.
For the first time ever, I remembered.
Stomach still lurching, I reverse the camera on my phone, take a quick selfie with my eyes crossed and my tongue out, then send it with:
PICTURE Number One! I hereby promise I shall document compulsively ;) Hxx
Then I turn back to Wilbur.
He’s been tapping away on his phone with so much urgency since we got signal again, it looks like he’s playing Whack-A-Mole with his fingers. I’ve never seen him so focused and professional, ever, in fifteen months.
It’s slightly disorientating.
“Et voilà,” the taxi driver says darkly, pulling up outside a small grey, sculpted building with an arched door and HOTEL written subtly on a canopy. “C’est ça.”
“Sar,” Wilbur says without looking up.
The driver glares at him through the rear-view mirror, to absolutely no effect: my agent just keeps jabbing at his phone.
Nervously, I lean forward.
Time to break out my French language skills from school. Except maybe not the bit I remember about the lamp being on the table: I don’t think that’s going to help very much right now.
Or ever, actually.
If there’s a lamp on a table, people can usually see it for themselves.
“Mer-ci,” I say incredibly awkwardly, “pour le –” car lift drive journey … what’s the word? – “uh, vroom vroom.”
Thanks for the vroom vroom.
Approximately 220 million people in the world speak French and, thanks to giving it up in Year Nine, I am not one of them.
“Mercy,” Wilbur agrees distractedly as there’s a loud whoosh from his hand. “Silver plate and whatnot. Comment ally views.”
Clearly neither is Wilbur.
The driver taps his fingers on the steering wheel: obviously waiting for us to get out of his vehicle so he can continue with his normal, French-speaking day.
“Wilbur?” I prompt as the boot pops and – with some difficulty – I manage to clamber out awkwardly and drag my panda suitcase out of the back and on to the street.
Wilbur carries on typing.
“What’s the first thing you want to do?” I peer through his window curiously. “Do you fancy grabbing lunch round the corner? Apparently they do an amazing croque-monsieur, which is a toasted cheese and ham sandwich and means ‘bite-mister’, although I’m not completely sure why. Or whatever you prefer. I’m totally ready for anything.”
That’s kind of the problem.
I’ve been ready for anything for six whole days: in adrenaline-fuelled, fight-or-flight mode for a hundred and forty-four straight hours.
A flash of black flickers in the corner of my eye and – with another bang of fear and nerves – I spin round quickly, but it’s just a cat.
Calm, Harriet.
You’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re –
There’s a pause, and then Wilbur finally puts his phone in his lap and glances up.
Then he starts laughing.
“Oh moon-puddle,” he says affectionately, cocking his head to the side, “you don’t think you’re my only model at Paris Fashion Week, do you?”
I blink at him.
Yes. Obviously I do.
I’ve even got a little plan written out for any spare time we’ve got between shows: Wilbur And Harriet’s Awesome Parisian Fun-time Fashion Week Trip™. We were going to fit in a visit to Le Cimetière de Chiens (resting place of Rin Tin Tin and a heroic Saint Bernard called Barry) and definitely a trip to Shakespeare & Co, the famous bookshop where Hemingway and Fitzgerald used to hang out.
I’ve even sent the proprietors an email using Google Translate preparing for our arrival.
“N-no,” I lie, flushing hard. “Of course not.”
“My little box of tigers,” Wilbur laughs, picking his phone back up. “I’ve got twelve models to manage this week. April’s got a fitting at Versace in thirteen minutes and Joy needs introducing properly to Chanel because she had flu last week. I’m going to be busier than a fly with proverbial blue buttocks for the next week, or maybe green because blue’s kind of passé this season.”
I can feel myself literally crumple inwards.
I’m way too used to it being just me and Wilbur versus the high priests and priestesses of fashion.
“Although I did get to choose who I travelled with,” he adds with a tiny smile, patting my fingers still clutching the top of the car window next to him, “and I picked my favourite baby-baby panda in the whole world.”
Within seconds I’ve uncrumpled again.
I’m his favourite? Yesssss.
“So what do I do?” I ask, anxiety starting to pulse again. “How will I know what my first job is or where to go or how to get there or—”