Geek Girl books 1-3: Geek Girl, Model Misfit and Picture Perfect

“Before we go anywhere, I want you to see this,” Dad says and he points in the mirror.

Next to a reflection that looks exactly like my dad is a girl. She’s got white skin and sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin and green eyes. She has thin long legs and a long neck and she’s sort of graceful yet clumsy-looking, like a baby deer. It’s only when I lean forward a bit and see that her nose turns up at the end just like mine does that I fully register that it’s me.

That’s me? Wow. The beauty industry actually works. I look… I look… I look kind of OK.

“You can say what you like,” Dad says after a moment. “But I think me and your mum must have done something right.”

I make an embarrassed but pleased peeping sound.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m taking full credit for the hair. But she had all the beauty. She’d be so stoked right now.” Then Dad spins me round again so that my toes are on top of his feet and starts half-carrying, half-dancing me out of the bathroom. “Roar for me?” he demands.

“Rooooaaaar.”

“That’s the one. Now let’s go get ’em, Tiger.”

“I think this is leopard, actually,” I point out, looking at the coat. “Tigers have stripes.”

Dad gives me his widest grin. “Then let’s go get ’em, Leopard.”

It takes another four minutes to get out of the bathroom, and by the time I’m back in the hotel room, Dad has corrected the leopard analogy to “baby giraffe learning how to ice-skate”.

Which is extremely unkind. I’d like to see him try and walk with eight-inch spikes attached to his feet. Plus, giraffes never lie down and there are at least three points where I’m sort of horizontal.

“Well, this isn’t going to work, is it?” Wilbur points out eventually. “At this rate you’ll be way too old to model by the time we get down to the shoot, Angel-moo. You’ll probably be in your early twenties and what good is that to anyone?”

“I could put my trainers back on?” I suggest, getting them out of my bag.

Wilbur visibly flinches. “A next season, perfectly cut, limited edition Baylee coat worn with… are they supermarket own-brand trainers?” He swallows. “I think I just sicked up in my mouth. Fashion sacrilege. I can’t allow it. Not while there’s a breath left in this beautiful body of mine.” He frowns and looks around the room. “Luckily I’m brilliant as well as stunning,” he adds happily. “And I have an idea.”

Ten minutes later, I enter Red Square with my entourage behind me. It’s not exactly the entrance I was hoping for. In fact, I believe I’ve got my head in my hands for all of it.

Nick takes one look at the wheelchair, accurately guesses why I’m in it and gives a very uncool shout of laughter so loud that pigeons fly off the top of a nearby statue. Yuka isn’t quite as impressed.

“Would somebody like to tell me,” she hisses as she stalks towards where I’m sitting, glaring at the seven people standing behind me, “who broke my model?”

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legant. Dignified. Graceful.

Three words that don’t describe me in the slightest. Five people have to pick me out of the wheelchair and carry me to where Nick is waiting in the snow, in front of St Basil’s Cathedral, and when they plop me down, it takes another few minutes to get me balanced enough to remain vertical on my own. Which I can just about manage. As long as I focus really hard, don’t move a muscle and scrunch my toes up into claws inside the shoes for leverage. And keep my hands out at the sides like a tightrope walker. None of which is aided by Dad’s continuous laughing.

Or – for that matter – Nick’s.

I’m briefly introduced to the photographer, Paul, who is a thin blond man without – as far as I can see – one single flamboyant tendency. He looks totally focused on the job, which is actually even more worrying. At least with Wilbur, it’s possible to forget that there’s a great deal riding on me.

It’s not a little metamorphosis experiment any more. It’s a job. It’s very expensive. It’s very important. And it matters to a lot of people.

“Look at me doing wheelies in the snow!” Wilbur screams in the background, spinning around in the wheelchair.

The photographer takes one look at him, grinds his teeth and looks back at Nick and me. “I just need to set up lighting,” he says in a tense voice, looking up at the sky. It’s starting to snow harder and the sky is a little darker than it was before. “Can somebody get my light reflector?”

A young boy races off and then runs back with a big gold circle.

“Just make yourself comfortable for a few minutes,” he says, fiddling with a little black box as the boy starts flicking the gold circle around. “I’ll take a few test shots when everything’s perfect.” He fiddles with the box again and then looks up. “Somebody might as well get Gary.”

Gary? Gary? Who the hell is Gary?

I look at Nick, who I’ve managed to avoid making eye contact with since I came back from the hotel. I feel extremely self-conscious now that my hair’s all gone. Like the Wizard of Oz after the curtain’s come down. Nick has his hands in the pockets of a large army-style coat and his hair gelled into a Mohican. He scrunches up his nose at me and my internal organs turn inside out again.

Shouldn’t I be immune to him by now? Or is he like the human version of the common cold?

“You want to watch out,” he says in his slow drawl. “Gary’s vicious.”

I look around in alarm. “Is Gary another model?” I whisper in terror. “A stylist? A hairdresser? Yuka’s assistant?”

“Nope,” Nick says and the corner of his mouth is twitching. “Worse. He’s a monster. Raises hell wherever he goes.” And then he looks past me and nods. “Here he comes. Watch yourself.” And out of the crowd comes a woman holding the teeny-tiny white kitten.

OK, first impressions are deceiving. As soon as the lady hands him over to me, Gary nips my finger and starts clawing his way up my shoulder, hissing like an angry kettle. It’s just not natural for something so cute and fluffy to be so nasty.

I look at Nick in distress. “Why is he spitting at me?”

“Maybe he thinks he’s a llama.”

I grab the kitten, who has changed his mind and is now scrabbling back down and trying to use my arm as a springboard. I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’s small and white: if he lands in the snow, there’s a really good chance we’ll never find him again.

“OK, guys,”Paul finally says. “We’re ready to do some test shots.” He pauses and looks at me. “Harriet. What are you doing to that animal?”

I look down to where I’m sort of hanging on to Gary by his back legs while he scrabbles away with his front ones. “Bonding?” I offer weakly.

“Could you bond in a way that looks a bit less like animal cruelty?”Paul clears his throat. “Right, I’m going to take a dozen or so frames. It’s not too important what you do now, but this might be a good time to practise.”

I nod nervously, grimly hold on to the cat and try to pretend that there isn’t a large group of people in a semicircle, all watching every single thing we do.

Right, this is it. I’d expected a little more training – perhaps a little step-by-step instruction sheet on modelling – but… this is fine. I’ll just go with it. Let the inner model out. Wilbur and Yuka obviously saw something deep within me, which has just been waiting to burst forth and impress everyone. Like a… dragon. Or a really big dog.

I stare at the camera with my most modelly face. There’s a pause and then Paul looks up. “What are you doing, Harriet? What’s that face?”

I gulp. “It’s my modelling face.”

“Your…” Paul says in confusion and then he rolls his eyes. “You have a modelling face, Harriet. You don’t need to strain it as if you’ve got a bad case of constipation. Relax.” There’s another silence. “Now what are you doing?”

“Smiling?”

Paul sighs. “Have you ever seen a fashion magazine in your life? Take a look at Nick, Harriet. What is he doing?”

I look at Nick. “He’s, erm… Just standing there.”

“Precisely. He’s being natural, in the best-looking way possible. Just pretend the camera’s not here, sweetheart, and focus on being as beautiful as you can be.”