Geek Girl

  One simple metamorphosis story and I couldn’t even get that right.

  Dad and I spend the entire night trying to fix things. I haven’t told him about the back of the note, though. I think about telling him, but Annabel asked me not to. I’ve betrayed her quite enough already without adding that to the list as well.

  “We’ve got to do something dramatic,” Dad tells me sternly after staring at the wall for half an hour. “We have to prove to Nat and Annabel how sorry we are.”

  So we make ‘sorry’ cakes, we make cards, we film ourselves singing an apologetic song. I take Nat a mix CD, a little silver necklace that splits in half and a box of chocolates. Then a barely used bottle of perfume, then flowers with a cunningly amended poem on the card. She trashes everything apart from the chocolates, which she eats without offering me any.

  Dad goes to Annabel’s law firm and stands outside with a bunch of flowers and a sandwich board that says (and on the back says ). He stands there until the security guard comes down with a note saying:

  Dad says he’s not good at maths, but that’s not a number he wants to calculate.

  Finally, totally defeated and unsuccessful, we give up and sit on the sofa for the rest of the evening. Then we get up the next morning and sit on the sofa for the rest of the next day. I have no idea what we watch on television because I’m not really watching it.

  All I’m thinking, over and over and over again, is: How? How do I make everything go back to exactly the way it was? Because I’ll go through everything again – the bullying, the ugliness, the unpopularity – just to have my old life back. I’ve traded the only things that mattered to me for a whole load of stuff that doesn’t matter to me in the slightest. And I did it on purpose. Out of choice.

  My IQ is clearly nowhere near as high as I thought it was.

  “My little Tadpole,” Wilbur gasps when I eventually pick up my phone. “Where have you been?”

  “On the sofa.”

  “Jelly-bean, we have things to do. Everyone wants a piece of you, my little Ginger-cake. Journalists, television shows, designers, big brands. My phone hasn’t stopped, Sugar-plum, apart from when I turned it off so I could drink a coffee. The genius that is Yuka Ito has turned your little sit-down-athon into a PR coup. She’s telling everyone you’ve inspired her. You’re her new muse.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say without really listening.

  “You know what that means, my little Frog?”

  I continue staring impassively at the television. “No.”

  “It means you’re hot, darling. You’re at boiling point. Your saucepan simmereth over.”

  There’s a silence. Modelling is how I got into this mess in the first place. OK, technically lying is how I got into it. But I wouldn’t have had to lie if the modelling had never happened. Nothing’s going to get better if I keep going down this path.

  “I don’t care,” I say. “Sorry, Wilbur.”

  Wilbur laughs. “That almost sounded like I don’t care,” he says, giggling. “But obviously I misheard you. This is… this is… the stuff of dreams.”

  “Not of mine.”

  And I put down the phone.

  I’m not sure what my next plan should be. But it’s going to start with Annabel.

  he best way to make amends for lying is probably not by lying, but I can’t really see an alternative. Not after the way Annabel responded to Dad.

  Luckily the receptionist is new, which makes the process significantly easier. As long as there isn’t a little warning photo of me taped behind the desk: you know, like the photos they have of terrorists and people who steal penny sweets from newsagents.

  “May I speak to Annabel Manners, please?” I ask sweetly, taking the fur hat off and making myself look as small and vulnerable as physically possible.

  The receptionist reluctantly puts down her magazine. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Yes.” I widen my eyes to make my face a vision of innocence. “Gosh, that’s a nice ponytail you have. Did you do it yourself?” And when she turns round to try and look at it, I lean over the desk and quickly scan the schedule. “My name is Roberta Adams,” I say as she turns back.

  She frowns at the list. “Bit young to have your own lawyer, aren’t you?”

  “I’m suing my parents,” I say calmly.

  Her expression immediately clears. “Oooh, I thought about doing that too. Let me know how much money you get. Go straight up.”

  And she buzzes me through before I get a chance to change my mind.

  This building has always scared me. When I was young, I refused to come in alone when Annabel was working late because I thought it was haunted.

  “It’s not haunted,” Dad said when I told him. “Haunted buildings are full of souls with no bodies, Harriet. A lawyer’s office is full of bodies with no souls. There’s a big difference.”

  And then he’d laughed until Annabel put salt in his wine glass.

  Even the lift feels like some sort of creepy horror-movie glass coffin. When I finally get to Annabel’s office, I can see through the window that she has her head down and is writing some kind of report.

  “Ahem,” I say softly.

  “Roberta,” she says without looking up. “Take a seat. I’ve been going through the file and I think getting custody of the guinea pig isn’t going to be a problem.”

  I take a seat despite not being Roberta and squirm. I’ve just realised that Roberta is a real person and not just a name on a sheet, and she might actually turn up too. Annabel writes a few more things down and then glances up. She fixes me with a long stare, while I try desperately to activate the dimples in my cheeks.

  “Well, Roberta,” she says eventually. “Can I just say that you have grown a lot younger in the three weeks since I saw you last. Being away from your husband is clearly doing wonders for your complexion.”

  “Annabel—”

  “And,” she says, looking at my head, “that’s a great improvement on your last hairstyle. Although as your last hairstyle was a purple rinse, that’s not necessarily saying much.”

  “Annabel, I—”

  She looks at the hat in my hand. “I thought for a moment perhaps you had brought the guinea pig with you, but I’m relieved to see that’s not the case. I would suggest, however, making sure that whatever that is, is definitely dead. It looks like it might bite.”

  “Annabel—”

  Annabel leans forward and presses a button on her phone. “Audrey? When the other Roberta Adams turns up, please keep her in reception until I alert you otherwise. And for future reference, none of my clients are schoolgirls. Thank you.”

  And then she leans back in her chair and looks at me in silence.

  fter what feels like forever, I finally manage to say, “Hello, Annabel.”

  “Hello, Harriet.”

  “How are you?” This seems like a good conversation opener. Actually, I think this is the only conversation opener. I don’t know how she is at all.

  “Sleeping on the floor of my office, which is never ideal, but apart from that I’m just dandy, thank you.”

  I stare at her stomach. It doesn’t look any different, but I can’t stop staring. It’s amazing really. A few days ago it was a stomach containing strawberry jam and now it contains a person. I’m actually really excited, even though it does mean that every minute I’ve spent in the last five years researching famous only children on the internet was a total waste of my time. “So it’s true?” I ask. “What you wrote?”

  “That I am gravid, parous, fecund, enceinte, teeming with child?”

  “Umm.” I think Annabel’s thesaurus is bigger than mine. “Yes?”

  “Absolutely. I’m gestating like nobody’s business.”

  “Wow.” I’m so overwhelmed with this information. I don’t know anything about babies: it’s a massive hole in my general knowledge base. I’m going to have to go home and do some research.

  “Does your father know?”

  “No, y
ou told me not to tell him.”

  “Quite right. The man should learn to turn a Post-it over now and then.”

  It feels like something tight in my chest is finally starting to unravel; as if everything from the last week is starting to melt. Why didn’t I just come to Annabel in the beginning? Why did I tell her I was OK when I wasn’t?

  “Annabel,” I say, folding my arms round my knees. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “As long as it’s not about bodily functions. I’m not going to start discussing disgusting things just because I’m pregnant.”

  “It’s not about bodily functions.” Then I close my eyes and say in a rush: “Do you hate me?”

  Annabel raises an eyebrow. “No,” she says after the longest pause that has ever existed in the history of the world. “I don’t hate you, Harriet.”

  I take a deep breath, and without warning everything in my chest comes pouring out. “I didn’t want to lie to you, Annabel, I really didn’t. I mean, I did want to lie to you because that’s why I lied to you, but I didn’t do it to hurt you or because I don’t respect you or I don’t think that you’re usually right all the time, because you are. It’s just… haven’t you ever wanted to be somebody else?”

  Annabel looks at me as if I’m mad. “Not really,” she says finally. “Who in particular?”

  “Anybody. Just to see what it’s like? Just to see if it’s better? To see if things can be different?”

  Annabel thinks about it. “No,” she admits. “Never.”

  “Well, that’s what I wanted. I was so tired of being me. And I thought maybe if I became a model instead of a geek, I would be somebody else and my life would change, or maybe everyone else would change, or maybe the way they saw me would change.”

  Annabel crosses her ankles under the desk. “Hmm,” she says.

  “But nothing’s changed and all I’ve done in the last week is make a big mess of everything, and I don’t know what to do to take any of it back.”

  Annabel folds her hands together. “Huh,” she says.

  “And my list keeps getting longer,” I continue in a slightly smaller voice. “Longer and longer. I’m in trouble with just about everyone I’ve ever met and I don’t know what to do now, Annabel. I’m out of my depth and I don’t know how to fix it. Just… Just… Please. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make it all better again.”

  I’m not going to cry. I’m not. But now I can feel a lump in my throat I can’t quite swallow. Like when I’m taking those huge vitamins Dad makes me eat in the winter.

  Annabel nods calmly. “And what list is this?”

  Oh. I forgot she didn’t know about my list. I reach in my pocket, get it out and hand it over the desk. You thought that was just a mental list, for your benefit? No, it’s a real one. I carry it around in my pocket and update it regularly.

  “Well, it’s very neat and well spaced,” Annabel says approvingly. “Underlined with a ruler?”

  “Of course.” I feel a little burst of pride. “Two lines, actually, if you look carefully.”

  “Nice,” Annabel agrees. “Now give me the pen and the ruler. May I mark the list?”

  I nod because it’s a bit rude to tell her I don’t really like other people editing my lists.

  “Right. So first of all, we’re taking this one off.” And she draws a neat line through her own name. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop putting people who love you very much on to lists like this.” She looks at the list again with the pen lid in her mouth and crosses another one off. “And you can take off Mrs Miller too.”

  I shake my head. “She’s going to suspend me for missing school.”

  “No, she’s not.” Annabel looks straight at me. “Harriet, when are you going to realise that you are just as bad at lying as your father is? I saw your faces when you came out of the agency and therefore kept in daily – sometimes minutely – touch with Wilbur. I gave my permission for you to have your hair cut and I also rang Mrs Miller and explained that you would be taking three days off school and I would supervise the catch-up: two for the trip to Russia and one to recover.”

  There’s a stunned silence while my mouth makes an O shape. “But—”

  “However clever you think I am, Harriet, I’m much, much cleverer.” Annabel looks at the list. “And you can take Hat Lady and the stall owners off too: I paid them. Or, I should say, I recalculated the damages and paid them what they were actually worth, and then I threatened to sue them for extortion.”

  I stare at her with my mouth still open.

  “You can pay me back if you want to, but trust me: the amount you earned this week – and Wilbur promised me he wouldn’t tell you how much that is – you won’t even notice.” Annabel looks at the piece of paper again. “As for the models, we can obviously put that down to the fact that they’re models and also women.”

  She crosses them off as if that explains itself.

  “But everyone at school… everyone in my class, they—”

  “Put their hand up? Nat rang and told me. Has world history taught you nothing, Harriet? Countries will always side with those who have the biggest weapons. Your classmates were scared of Alexa and not scared of you. You should take that as a good thing, unless you have dictator ambitions.”

  And she crosses them off the list as well.

  I blink a few times. I suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way, but countries with lots of nuclear weapons tend to have an awful lot of allies.

  “And as for Alexa…”Annabel pauses. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the girl. The point is: who cares?”

  “I care.”

  “I know you do,” Annabel says and her voice is gentler now. “That’s the problem. You need to stop caring what people who don’t matter think of you. Be who you are and let everybody else be who they are. Differences are a good thing. It would be a terribly boring world if we were all the same.”

  “But, Annabel, I’m a… I’m a…” I can’t get the word out, so instead I lift my satchel and point at what’s left of the red word.

  “A…” Annabel squints slightly. “CE-H? What’s a Ceh?”

  “A geek. It says Geek. Or, at least, it used to.”

  “Oh.” Annabel shrugs. “So? Some of the best people are. And – for the record – I didn’t want you to model precisely because I didn’t want you to become someone else.” She picks up the newspaper and points at the article of me. “But I was wrong. You’ve stayed you and I’m so proud. What you did was kind. It was courageous. It was strangely inspired. It was everything I love best about you. It came from a good place.”

  “Russia?”

  Annabel gives me a long look. “No, Harriet. Not Russia. You.” She lifts an eyebrow and then looks back at the paper. “Take yourself off the list and you’ll find that the rest start to disappear as well.”

  And she draws the final line.

  I can feel my head starting to go swirly again. Annabel looks at me in silence and then she hands me the paper.

  “There’s still one on there,” I point out sadly.

  “What did I tell you about putting people who love you very much on this list, Harriet?”

  “Nat doesn’t—”

  “Don’t be daft – she’s just hurt and angry. Nobody likes being lied to by somebody they trust. When you’ve worked out what it is Nat needs from you, you’ll be able to cross her off too.”

  “Is it…”

  “No, it’s not personalised flapjacks, Harriet.”

  I nod and tuck the list in my back pocket. I don’t know why I didn’t come here first of all: Annabel always knows how to organise the world for me so it makes sense again. Just as she does when she tidies my room. “Are you coming home, Annabel? Ever?”

  Annabel sighs and looks back at her report. “I don’t know. Your dad has his own list to think about. And unlike you, he’s old enough to do it on his own.”

  Her phone beeps.

  “Annabel? Roberta Adams says if she doesn’t g
et back soon, Fred is going to start getting anxious.”

  “God forbid I should make a guinea pig feel unloved. Send her up, Audrey.” Annabel looks at me. “Now go home and study that list,” she adds in her normal sharp voice. “You know where I am if you need me. My bed is in the cupboard.”

  And as I turn round and walk back out of the office with the paper in my hand, I realise how happy I am that Annabel knew about everything the whole time. It reminds me of that famous fridge magnet: the one about footprints in the sand.

  I wasn’t as on my own as I thought I was.

  o I no longer have a plan.

  The universe has shown me, repeatedly, that it has no respect at all for bullet points or pointers or lists or charts. Plans don’t work and even when they might work and should work, people ignore them. So I’m going to try a brand-new strategy: not having a plan.

  For the first time in my life, I’m just going to attempt to bumble through from one moment to the next and see where I end up. Just like a normal human being.

  Or, you know. A bee.

  “Are you kidding me?” I say as I open the front door. Dad’s still in his dressing gown from yesterday, and the only difference is that he now has a family-size packet of gummy sweets nestled in the crook of his arm. I read somewhere that in an average lifetime we each use 272 cans of deodorant, 276 tubes of toothpaste and 656 bars of soap, and it is quite clear that since Annabel left, Dad hasn’t touched one of them.

  “Look how depressed I am,” he says as soon as I walk into the room. He holds up a sweet, looks at it sadly and then puts it in his mouth. “I’m even eating the green ones. I have nothing to get up for any more. Nothing. I think I’m just going to stay here until I grow into the sofa and they have to winch me out of the window every time I need the toilet.”

  “Dad,” I say, sitting next to him. The situation is clearly critical. Dad is starting to sound like he thinks he’s in some kind of made-for-TV film. I have to do something. “Dad, does Annabel like strawberry jam?”