Geek Girl (32 page)
t’s not hard to see where my family is, even in dim lighting.
Dad’s doing his dance again. Toby’s bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet and Nat’s standing on a chair and clapping. Even Annabel’s nodding her head to what looks suspiciously like an internal beat. Wilbur is sitting on the edge of a box with his head in his hands and his hat off.
“Whoop!” Nat shouts across the room.
“Whoop,” agrees Toby gravely. “And again, what Nat said: whoop.”
“My daughter!” Dad cries as soon as I get close. He punches the air, scruffs my hair up and then folds me into a bear hug in one seamless movement. “Feminist, pioneer, trailblazer, general bottom kicker.”
Annabel nods. “Harriet Quimby would be proud,” she says approvingly, leaning forward and touching my face.
“As would Harriet the tortoise,” Dad adds, nodding up and down. Annabel rolls her eyes. “What, Annabel? She
would
.”
“I’m glad you guys liked it,” I say, my face going pink with pleasure. “I think that might be it for my modelling career, though. I’m so sorry, Wilbur. I let you down.”
Wilbur looks up with a pale face. “No, you didn’t,” he says in a quiet voice. “That was really brave, Harriet. Don’t worry about Yuka. I’ll deal with her.”
“Nobody
deals
with Yuka,” a sharp voice says from behind us and we all spin round. Yuka Ito is standing in the middle of yet another spotlight, totally in black lace, but this time with bright red lips.
OK, does she just carry the spotlight around with her or does she just stop when she gets to one?
Yuka looks straight at me. “I do not appreciate being sat on, Harriet. Don’t do it again.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “This time I’m definitely fired, right?”
“Why would you be fired? If I had known you would say that, I wouldn’t have given you an earpiece in the first place.”
My mouth falls open. “But wasn’t it just a PR…”
“Of course not. If I believed that fashion was about being the same as everyone else, would I dress like a negative of Miss Havisham every single day for thirty years?”
“I guess not.”
“Then this conversation is over. You’ll sign your next contract with me tomorrow morning.”
Yuka turns around and starts walking back towards the door.
“On one condition,” I hear myself say in a clear voice. She stops and turns slowly back around to face me. “I’m not missing any more school. If you want me, you’ll have to do evenings, mornings and weekends. Like a…” I think about it briefly. “A paper round.”
Yuka narrows her eyes. “Did you just compare working for me to doing a
paper round
?”
I nod. “Yes.”
She shuts her eyes for a few seconds and then opens them again. The corner of her mouth twitches. “Condition accepted. I’m hiring you for another season so you keep me on my toes. After that, I’ll probably ditch you for somebody younger.” She glances in the air. “Nick?”
Nick steps out of the dark where he’s been standing, unseen. My whole stomach squeezes shut. “Yes, Aunty Yuka?” he says with a cheeky grin.
“Call me
that
again and you can collect your P45.”
“Yes, Aunty Yuka?”
Yuka sighs. “Get your own taxi home, Nicholas. Like your father, you’re far too irritating to sit with.” And she turns around again and abruptly stalks out of the room.
I giggle slightly, feeling about six years old, and then turn back round to introduce Nick to the people I love most in the world. Except I can’t.
Because they’ve all sugar cookied off.
ell,” I say after an embarrassed silence. There’s still a door swinging, and if I listen
very
hard, I can hear the distant sound of my loved ones betraying me. “Everyone was here a minute ago.” I cough a couple of times.
“
I’m
still here,” Wilbur points out, standing up slowly and putting his top hat back on. “And wouldn’t you know it, my little Chuckle-bum, Nick is here too. What a
coincidence
.”
My cheeks are bright pink and when I glance at Nick, I notice with a spark of surprise that his cheeks are starting to… It must be a trick of the light. It’s very dark in here.
“Well,” I say, squeezing out the most unnatural laugh I’ve ever heard. “I guess we do work for the same person.”
“And why is that, do you think?” Wilbur shifts his pose so that his chin’s on his hand, like Rodin’s
The Thinker
statue. “Nick? Any idea?”
Nick coughs too. “Nope. No idea at all.”
Wilbur gives him a stern look. “So what was the point in doing all that Jane Austen stuff if she doesn’t know about it, Poodle-bottom?”
The blush drains out of my body so quickly my head feels like it might float away. “W-what?” I manage to stammer.
“Nothing.” Nick glares at Wilbur. “Have you been sniffing glitter again?”
“Harriet, my Baby-baby Panda,” Wilbur says, rolling his eyes and sticking his tongue out at Nick. “
I
didn’t discover you, honey, Nick did. Yuka recruited him to find the female face for the collection and then you fell into that hat stall… And the rest, as they say, is geography.”
“History,” I correct automatically.
“Yes,” Wilbur agrees gravely. “His story indeed.
Nick
pointed you out to me,
Nick
gave your photos to Yuka and
Nick
said you’d be perfect for the campaign in Russia. With – as it just so happened –
him
.”
I can’t really breathe any more. Nick is the reason I’m here?
“But the table…” I say in confusion. “The pavement…”
“The table was a coincidence,” Nick sighs, visibly giving up. “You just happened to crawl under there. How was I to know you’d dive under it? Normal people don’t do that and wannabe models definitely don’t.” He laughs. “And the pavement… I came to get you. I knew you’d freak out.”
“But…” My head still feels like a helium balloon. “
Why?
”
Nick looks blank. “Because you always freak out.”
I shake my head. My voice feels like I’ve swallowed it. “I mean, why do you care if I freak out?”
There’s a long silence.
“Well,” Wilbur finally bursts, “I can take a shot in the dark, if you want.”
“
Seriously
,” Nick snaps, making his fingers into a gun shape. “I’m going to take a shot in the dark in a minute and it
will make contact
.”
Wilbur looks charmed. “Isn’t he adorable?” he says fondly. “My duty as Fairy Godmother is complete, anyhoo, and I believe it’s time to spread my magic dust elsewhere. So many pumpkins after all; so little time.” And Wilbur makes a few skipping steps backwards, takes a little bow and disappears with a dramatic flourish behind the door.
I’m going to pretend – simply for the sake of this moment – that I can’t hear whispering on the other side of it.
There’s a long silence. “I like you,” Nick says finally. He’s still speaking slowly, but the laziness that is always there seems to have disappeared. My whole body feels like it has a light bulb in it.
He likes me?
Lion Boy likes me?
“But…
Why?
” I manage to stutter.
Nick shrugs. “You’re different.”
I frown at him. “Good different or bad different?”
He grins. “Good,” he says. “And bad. But even the bad bits are good different and they always make me laugh.”
“That makes no rational sense at all,” I tell him, crossing my arms. “There are 6,840,507,003 different people in the world. You clearly just haven’t met that many.”
“I’ve met enough,” he says, twinkling at me and taking a step forward. His cheeks have gone pink now as well. I didn’t know it could happen to boys.
A human heart is supposed to beat between sixty and ninety times a minute, while resting. A hedgehog’s heart beats up to 300 times a minute when standing still. Honestly, I think I might be turning into a hedgehog.
Oh, God. Is he going to kiss me? It’s my first kiss. My first…
anything
.
I haven’t brushed my teeth for hours and hours.
“Are you sure you don’t want to meet a few more before—” I start and then I hear the door behind me open.
“Harriet? It’s Toby.” I turn round and only his fluffy head is visible. “I just want to reassure you that I am fine with this development. Fifty-three per cent of all marriages in the UK end in divorce and so statistics are actually on my side.”
“Shut up, Toby,” Nat says and I see a hand reach round and yank Toby back behind the door. Then the hand reappears, gives me a thumbs up and disappears again.
I look at Nick and clear my throat. I’m not a hedgehog any more. I’m a rabbit: 325 beats per minute.
Nick takes another step.
Now I’m a mouse: 500 beats a minute.
Another step.
A hummingbird: 1,260 beats.
And as he leans forward, all I can think is the following realisation:
nobody really metamorphoses
. Cinderella is always Cinderella, just in a nicer dress. The Ugly Duckling was always a swan, just a smaller version. And I bet the tadpole and the caterpillar still feel the same, even when they’re jumping and flying, swimming and floating.
Just like I am now.
And in the fraction of time before Nick kisses me and every other thought in my head explodes, I realise: I didn’t need to transform after all.
My name is Harriet Manners and I am a geek.
And maybe that’s not so bad after all.
Thanks to Dad – a constant source of inspiration, encouragement and laughter – and Mum, for “doing the voices” at bedtime. Thanks to my little sister, Tara, for a lifetime of believing I’m better than I am; to Grandma and Grandad, for their never-ending wisdom and support and supplies of Jaffa Cakes; to Aunty Judith, who read the first few chapters and gave me the confidence to keep going. Thanks also to Hel, for reminding me to “write what I know”. It shortened the process significantly.
Thanks to my agent, Kate Shaw, who rescued Harriet and has fought patiently and valiantly for both of us ever since; to Pippa Le Quesne, a wise guiding hand not unlike a literary Gandalf; to Lizzie Clifford, the most brilliant and sensitive editor a writer could ask for. Thanks also to the entire team at HarperCollins, for embracing geeks so warmly and wholeheartedly.
Finally, there is one person without whom this book would not exist: my very own “Alexa”. You gave me a reason to write
Geek Girl
, and I will always be grateful.
Thank you. x