Geek Girl and Model Misfit

“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.

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e continue to stare at the table for quite some time: me absorbed in thought and Dad possibly just really interested in the table.

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.”

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o Dad and I have worked out a cunning plan. It’s not particularly complicated and it consists of one simple step: lie. And that’s it.

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.