Model Misfit (8 page)

Which is why it’s a massive disappointment when I throw the fake flower bouquet across the kitchen and yell, “Stop trying to ruin my life! This is so unfair! I wish I’d never been BOOORRRN!”

And charge over to the front door, pull it open and stomp out with as much vigour as I can muster. Leaving it hanging wide open behind me.

Before I actually run away, I’d just like to point out how incredibly unreasonable my parents are being.

I’m nearly sixteen. By this age, Isaac Asimov was at university, Eddie Murphy was doing stand-up comedy shows in New York, Louis Braille had invented raised writing, chess champion Bobby Fischer was an international grandmaster and Harry Potter was well on his way to saving the entire world of magic.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate having people in my life who want to be with me, every step of the way. But still.

I bet Isaac Asimov didn’t get this kind of disrespect from
his
parents.

My plan is to stomp all the way to Nat’s house and then stay there a) forever or b) until my parents are so prostrate with grief at my absence that they’ll let me do whatever I want as long as I come home again.

Unfortunately the huge silk skirt of my bridesmaid dress gets caught on a bush at the bottom of the road, and by the time I’ve managed to rip myself free I don’t really have any stomping energy left. I just feel like a bit of an idiot.

Nat’s door swings open before I’ve even knocked, and – not for the first time – my brain spins slightly. When Nat’s mum isn’t covered in colourful miracle paste and wearing a dressing gown, she looks so much like Nat it’s like having a worm-hole into the future.

“Harriet, darling!” she says, beaming at me. “What a pretty dress!” She leans forward to give me a kiss. “And I adore the tiara.”

“Hello, Ms Grey,” I say politely. “I’ve run away and I’m living here now.”

“Are you, sweetie? How terribly exciting.”

“Is Nat in, please?”

“She’s upstairs, packing for her trip.” Nat’s mum pauses and sniffs. “And by the smell of it she’s taking my Chanel perfume with her.”

“IT’S NOT THE CHANEL ACTUALLY, MUM,” Nat yells downstairs. “IT’S THE PRADA. SHOWS HOW MUCH YOU KNOW.”

Nat’s mum leans up the stairs. “You’re being punished, Natalie. You’re not taking
any
perfume, mine or otherwise. And no high heels, make-up or jewellery either. I
will
be checking.”

Nat appears at the top of the stairs in about half a second, like a magic genie. “
Mum
. I can’t leave the house without make-up. I’m not a
savage
.”

“Maybe the next time you decide to skip an exam because you feel like testing out lipsticks, you’ll think twice.”

“Or maybe I’ll just check first that my mum isn’t testing out eyeshadow in the aisle behind me.”

Nat’s mum laughs. “
Touché
, Natalie. Unfortunately only one of us is Mum and it’s not you.”

Nat looks furious. “Fine.
Whatever
. Have it your way,
as always.
”

She looks at me and makes her Can You Believe This? face.

Then she looks at me again with her What The Hell Are You Wearing? face.

“Harriet, why do you look like something that just got kicked off the
Disney Channel?”

I hold out my skirts. “Parental manipulation.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope. Not even a little bit.”

“I honestly don’t know why we bother making an effort in the first place.” Nat glares at her mum again, then beckons to me. “Anyway, come on up, Harriet. I think I might need your help.”

at needs
somebody’s
help, that’s for sure.

I can barely open the door to her room, and – when I finally do – I realise it’s because every single piece of clothing she owns is on the floor. It looks like our garden after a mole has been through it, except that instead of mounds of soil there are about fifteen hills of shoes and dresses and jumpers and handbags and scarves and vest tops and leggings, erupting from the carpet.

Nat’s already crouched in the middle of her bed, holding a box of tampons.

“Hop up here,” she says as I squeeze my way in, pointing at a spot on the bed with her foot.

I carefully clamber over a pile of skirts. “What on earth are you doing?”

Nat holds up a tampon with a grim face. “This.” She pulls the cotton wool out of the applicator and rams a pink lipstick in. “I reckon I should be able to get five in a box, and quite a few eyeliners and lipglosses as long as they’re short ones.” Then she holds up a small conditioner bottle. “This is foundation.” She pulls out a tiny tub of moisturiser. “This is cream blush.” Finally, she pulls out a ridiculously thick copy of
Harper’s Bazaar
. “I need you to cut a hole in the middle of all the pages so I’ve got somewhere to put my eyeshadows and mascara.”

I stare at her in awe and then take the magazine off her.

“You could put a pair of strappy high heels inside a tissue box, with tissues on top? And maybe little sachets of perfume inside sanitary towels?”

Nat grins at me and holds up her hand. “Harriet Manners, what would I do without you?”

I high-five her. “Be slightly shorter and less fragrant, I’d imagine.” Then I pick up the scissors and start neatly cutting through a few pages of a beautiful model with blonde waves down to her waist.

After several hours of industrious productivity, during which I tell Nat all about the awesome trip to Japan that I won’t be going on, I say, “Seriously, Nat, what am I going to do without you? At least you’ll be in France. I’m going to be stuck here on my own.”

“And Toby. Don’t forget Toby.” Nat wrinkles her nose at me so I hit her with the magazine. I said
small doses.
“I’ve got it worse. I’m staying on a
farm
. An actual working
farm with animals
in it and stuff. What’s the prison on that island called?”

“Alcatraz?”

“Yeah. I’d rather have been sent there. At least I could have jumped out and swum to the shops in San Francisco. I’m going down in style though.” She holds up a lipstick. “I’m going to look like one of the women who works behind a beauty counter in John Lewis by the time I’m finished.”

“Are you going to milk cows and make butter and collect eggs?”

“I most certainly am not.” Nat shudders. “You realise eggs come out of chicken’s butts, right?”

“They don’t, Nat,” I laugh, cutting through another piece of paper. “They’re actually called cloacas, and all birds and amphibians and reptiles have them. For joint reproductive and digestive purposes.”

“Ew. That’s actually more gross.” Nat sits on the bed next to me, looking miserable. “Oh, God, Harriet. This summer is a total disaster. I bet there’s going to be some disgusting boy on the farm with a little wispy moustache and a habit of accidentally walking into my bedroom while I’m getting changed.”

I giggle. “And every time you take a shower he’ll lurk outside so when you come out in a towel he’s
right there
.”

“Yeah,” Nat says, starting to laugh. “And he’ll ask for the salt at the dinner table with, like,
meaning
.”

“And every ten minutes he’ll offer to give you a massage with olive oil he stole from the kitchen.”

“I bet he wears shiny green lycra cycling shorts around the house and his T-shirts are too short.” We’re both giggling uncontrollably now, and rolling around on the bed making vomiting sounds.

“I’m going to have to run away,” Nat says decisively. “I’m going to steal a pig and ride it into Paris.”

My phone beeps and I grab it out of my pocket. “Pigs can trot at up to eleven miles per hour at top speed,” I say, clicking on a message from an unknown number. “It’s definitely faster than walking.”

“Or a tractor. I can’t drive but I reckon if you’re in a tractor everything else gets out of the way for you. Do you think a tractor has gears, like a car …”

Nat continues chattering but I can’t really hear her any more.

The human brain consists of eighty per cent water, and for the first time in my life that’s exactly what mine feels like: as if it’s swishing and swirling around inside my head. My ears fill with the roaring sound you get when you sit at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Because I’ve just received this:

Hope you smashed your final exam. Would love to talk. Thinking of you. Nick x

Reasons Not to Think About Nick

1. He told me not to.
   
2. I have much more life-changing things to think about.
   
3. It’s all I do.
   

January 22nd (156 days
ago)

“A seagull,” Nick said, leaning his head against the rope of my tyre-swing.

We were both wrapped up in big coats and scarves; I was wearing the big furry hat I got from Russia with the flaps in the sides. I leant back and looked at him, pointing at the faint scar just above his eyebrow. “A
seagull
gave you that?”

“Yeah. So I wrestled it to the ground with my bare hands. Then another seagull joined in so I fought that too. By the end there were, like, fifteen seagulls, all totally defeated. They called me Seagull Dundee after that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How old were you?”

“Four. I was a very strong little boy.”

I laughed. “Now tell me the truth.”

Nick’s mouth curved up at the corner. “I cannot
believe
you don’t trust that I wrestled fifteen seagulls with my bare hands before I was out of kindergarten. What kind of rubbish girlfriend are you?”

“The kind with quite detailed knowledge of seagulls, unfortunately for you. No knowledge of boys but it balances out.”

He shouted with laughter. “I
knew
I should have gone for the girl on the Dolce & Gabbana shoot.” Then he pushed my swing a few times while I stuck my tongue out at him. “OK. What actually happened is I ran away from my parents when we were collecting rocks at the beach. I was pretty tiny so I didn’t get very far, but a massive seagull freaked me out and I fell over and smacked my head on a rock. When I woke up a few minutes later, it was standing on my chest.”

“Were you scared?”

“No. Heroes don’t get scared.” Nick thought about it. “One of us definitely pooped, though. I’m pretty sure it was the seagull.”

I laughed again. “I hate seagulls. Did you know that they’re so smart that they hang around bridges so they can steal the heat coming off the roads, and that they tap on the ground with their feet and pretend to be rain so earthworms come out?”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all. They’re so sneaky.”

“How big was this one?”

“The size of a tiger. Comparatively, anyway.”

I tried to imagine Nick small and frightened, but I couldn’t quite do it. “So what gave you the scar? The rock or the seagull?”

“The rock. Although the seagull got really close to my face too. Really, really close. Like, this close.” Nick suddenly stopped the swing and put his face near mine.

I held my breath. I could see the different shades of black and brown in his eyes, and the tangle of black lashes underneath them. I could see my hat reflected in his pupils. I could see the little mole on his cheek and smell the greenness which – I had finally managed to establish – was the result of a fondness for lime shower gel combined with a tendency to constantly sit on wet grass in his jeans.