Geek Girl

  I know a lot about stories and magic – thanks to reading loads of books and also belonging to a forum on the internet – and the most basic rule is that it has to come as a surprise. Nobody hopped into a wardrobe to find Narnia; they hopped in, thinking it was just a wardrobe. They didn’t climb up the Faraway Tree, knowing it was a Faraway Tree; they thought it was just a really big tree. Harry Potter thought he was a normal boy; Mary Poppins was supposed to be a regular nanny.

  It’s the first and only rule. Magic comes when you’re not looking for it.

  But Nat’s looking for it, and the harder she looks, the less likely it is to turn up. She’s scaring the fashion magic off with her knowing, waiting vibes.

  “Come on,” I say, trying to distract her by pulling at her (or technically my) coat sleeve. I need to get her to think about something else so that the magic can do its thing. “Let’s just go and shop, OK?”

  “Mmm.”

  I don’t think she can even hear me any more. “Look!” I say enthusiastically, pulling her to the nearest stall. “Nat, look! Handbags! Shoes! Hair bobbles!”

  Nat gives me a distracted glance. “You’re dragging my coat on the floor.”

  “Oh.” I bundle it back under my arm and start tugging Nat towards the next stall.

  “What do you think?” I say, picking up a small blue sequined hat and plopping it on my head. When we were little, we’d spend hours and hours in department stores, trying on different hats and pretending we were going to a royal wedding.

  “Uh-huh.” Nat gets a little bit more tense and looks over her shoulder.

  “Come on, what about this one?” I pick up a large floppy hat covered in big pink flowers and put it on. “Look.” I wiggle my bottom at her.

  Nat abruptly whips round. “Oh my God,” she whispers and it takes me a few seconds to realise that it has nothing at all to do with my bottom.

  “Have you seen one?”

  “I think so!” She looks again. “Yes, I think I can definitely see an agent!”

  I peer into the crowd, but I can’t see anything. They must be like fairies: you can only see them when they want you to.

  “Stay right here, Harriet,” Nat whispers urgently. She starts moving into the crowds. “Don’t move a muscle. I’ll be back in a second.”

  Now I’m confused. “But…” This makes no sense. “Don’t you need me with you?” I call after her. “Isn’t that why I’m here? For support?”

  “In spirit will do just fine, Harriet,” Nat shouts back. “Love you!”

  And then she disappears completely.

  s she kidding me? In spirit?

  I could have done in spirit quite happily from my bedroom, thank you very much. I could have texted Nat support from my own fake deathbed. I pick up another hat crossly. Next time Nat wants me to go shopping, I am so throwing myself down the stairs.

  “Excuse me?” a voice interrupts, and when I turn around, there’s a lady staring at me with a deep crease between her eyebrows. “Can you read?”

  “Umm,” I reply in surprise. “Yes. Very well, actually. My reading age is over twenty. But thank you for asking.”

  “Really? Can you read that sign there? Read it out loud.”

  Poor lady. Maybe she didn’t go to all of her English lessons at school. “Of course,” I say in a friendly and – I hope – not patronising tone. Not everyone benefits equally from a full education system. “It says, Don’t Touch The Hats.”

  There’s a pause and then I realise that she probably doesn’t have a literacy problem after all. “Oh,” I add as her meaning sinks in.

  “That’s a hat,” she says pointing to the one in my hand. “And that’s a hat.” She points to the one on my head. “And you’re touching them all over.”

  I quickly put the one in my hand back on the stall and grab the one on my head. “Sorry. It’s, erm, very…” What? How would you describe a hat? “Hatty,” I improvise, and then I pat it and put it back on the stall. At which point my chewed nail snags on a flower.

  We both watch as the flower separates itself from the hat and throws itself on the floor, like a little child having a hissy fit. And then – as if in slow motion – what was clearly just one piece of thread breaks and, one by one, every other flower on the ribbon follows it.

  Oh, sugar cookies.

  “That’s a very interesting design concept,” I say after clearing my throat awkwardly a couple of times and starting to back away. “Self-detaching flowers? It’s very modern.”

  “They’re not self-detaching,” Hat Lady says in a low, angry voice, staring at the pile on the floor. “You detached them.” And then she points at a felt-tip sign that says You Break It You Buy It, followed by the most inappropriately placed smiley face I have ever seen in my entire life. “And now you’re going to have to pay for it.”

  God. She sounds a little bit like someone from the Italian Mafia. Maybe the Italian Mafia has a hat section.

  “You know,” I say, backing away a little bit faster. “You are very lucky that hat didn’t kill me. I could have choked on one of those flowers and died. The playwright Tennessee Williams died from choking on a bottle cap. Then how would you have felt?”

  “I’ll take a cheque or debit card details.”

  I take a few more steps backwards and she follows. “Tell you what,” I say in the most lawyer-y, Annabel-like voice I can find. “How about I forget that you tried to kill me if you forget that I broke your hat? How does that sound?”

  “Pay for the hat,” she says, taking another step towards me.

  “No.”

  “Pay for the hat.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Pay for the h—”

  At which point fate or karma or the universe or a God who doesn’t like me very much steps in. And sends me flying bottom-first into the rest of her stall.

  try to blame Nat’s coat dangling on the floor, but Hat Lady is having none of it. There is a lot of squeaking: mine, mostly, followed by hers. And then the crowd gets suddenly bigger.

  Apparently I haven’t just knocked over the hat table. Her stall has dominoed into the stall next to it, which has dominoed into the stall next to that, and before I know what’s happening there are six stalls, strewn creatively over the floor, with me lying in a heap in the middle. It’s the fault of those silly fake partitions, in my opinion. They just aren’t stable enough.

  Clearly, neither am I.

  “This is why I didn’t want you to touch the hats,” Hat Lady is screaming at me as I struggle to get up. Every time I put my hand down, something crunches. And not in a good-crunch kind of way. In a hand-through-hat kind of way. “You’ve ruined everything!”

  From my position on the floor I can see that the tables have crushed at least seven hats, and another three have been hit by the jug of water on one of the now tipped-over chairs. Along with the sign. Another four hats have shoe-shaped dents in them and footprints on the brim. I’m sitting on at least three.

  OK, she has a point.

  “I’m sorry,” I’m saying over and over again (crunch, crunch, crunch). Everywhere I look are the faces of people who don’t seem to like me very much. “I’m really sorry. I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay for all of it.”

  I have no idea how, but I suspect it’s going to involve a lot of car washing and about six hundred years’ worth of groundings.

  “It’s not enough,” the woman yells. “This is my biggest sale day of the year! I need to attract a client base!”

  I look around briefly. From the size of the crowd, she’s definitely attracted something.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, with my face flaming – because I really, truly, honestly am – and I’m just about to burst into guilty tears when a man wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket and a jaunty black hat leans forward and grabs hold of my hand.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me,” he says firmly. Then he looks at Hat Lady. “Don’t worry, Sugar,” he adds. “She’s going to pay for th
e hats. I’ll make sure of it personally.” And he starts leading me away from the carnage.

  I gape at him, totally speechless.

  So far today, I have nearly died of my own fake illness, fallen over – three times – been shouted at, humiliated, vomited on, abandoned and I’ve managed to trash an entire section of an indoor market. And now, just at the point where I thought it was impossible for things to get worse…

  I’ve just been arrested.

  his is what happens when I’m forced to go out in public.

  “I didn’t do it!” I gasp as the man pulls me through the crowds. He’s holding my hand and – I have to be honest with you – I’m not sure he’s allowed. I think it might be against the law or something. “I mean,” I clarify, “I did do it. But I didn’t mean to. I’m just…” How can I put it? “Socially disadvantaged.”

  And – just so you know – that’s what I’m going to plead in court as well.

  “Cherub-cheeks, that sounds so fun,” the man says over his shoulder in a high voice that doesn’t seem to fit him properly. “Society is tedious, don’t you think? Sooo much better to be pushed out of it.”

  What did he just call me?

  “I haven’t been pushed out of it,” I tell him indignantly. “I just don’t seem to be able to get in it in the first place. Anyway,” I add as firmly as I can, “you should know I’m only fifteen.” Too young to go to jail, I want to add, but I don’t want to give him any ideas.

  “Fifteen? Perfectomondo, my little Sugar-kitten. So much potential for free publicity.”

  The blood drains from my cheeks. Free publicity? Oh, God, he’s going to use me as a warning to other underage wannabe hat vandals.

  “Before you take me anywhere,” I say quickly, “I need to find my best friend. She’s not going to know where I’ve gone.”

  He stops walking and swivels round with his spare hand on his hip.

  “Mini-treetop, once I have a photo of you, you can go wherever the tiddlywinks you like.” And then he tinkles with laughter.

  I freeze. “A photo?”

  “Well, yes, my little Peach-melba. I could draw a picture, but Head Office thought that was ever so unfunny last time.” He giggles and pushes me away with a limp wrist. “Oh,” he adds casually. “I’m Wilbur, by the way. That’s bur not iam. From Infinity Models.”

  My knees abruptly buckle, but Wilbur-not-iam keeps tugging as if I’m on wheels. Suddenly I know how Toby feels when he tries to do the high jump.

  Infinity Models?

  No.

  No, no, no, no.

  No no no no no no NONONONONO.

  “Oh, it has just been a mare this morning,” Wilbur continues as if he’s not dragging me bodily across the floor.

  “But w-w-why?” I finally managed to stutter.

  “Oh, you know, total chaos. The Birmingham Clothes Show: highlight of the fashion year etcetera etcetera. Well, apart from London Fashion Week, obviously. And Milan. And New York. And Paris. Actually, it’s quite far down the list, but hey, it’s still a blast.”

  I can’t really feel my mouth. “N-n-not why is it busy. Why would you want my photo?”

  “Oh, Baby-baby Panda,” he says over his shoulder. “You’re, like, so tomorrow you’re next Wednesday. No, you’re the Thursday after. Do you know what I mean?”

  I stare at him with my mouth slightly open. I think it’s safe to say that the answer to that question is no. “But—”

  “And I am loving this look,” he interrupts, pointing at the football kit. “So new. So fresh. So unusual. Inspired.”

  “My jeans had sick on them,” I blurt out in disbelief.

  “My Jeans Had Sick On Them. I love it. Such an imagination! Darling-foot—” and here Wilbur pauses so that he can pull me through a particularly dense crowd of really angry-looking girls – “I think you might be about to make my career, my little Pot of Tigers.”

  One of the girls behind me mutters in confusion: “Hey, she’s ginger.”

  (She’s wrong, by the way: I’m not. I am strawberry blonde.)

  “I don’t underst—”

  “All will become clear shortly,” Wilbur reassures me. “Maybe. Maybe not, actually, but hey, clarity is so overrated.” He pushes me against the wall. “Now stand there and look gorgeous.”

  What? I don’t even know how to start attempting that.

  “But—” I say again.

  Wilbur takes a Polaroid picture, shakes it and puts it on the table. “Now turn to the side?”

  I stare at him, still frozen in shock. None of this is making sense. He tuts and gently pushes my shoulders round so I’m facing the other wall, and then takes another photo.

  “Wilbur—” I turn to frantically search the crowd for Nat’s dark head, but I can’t see anything.

  “Baby-pudding,” Wilbur interrupts, “you know you look just like a treefrog? Darling, you could climb up a tree with no help at all and I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest.”

  I pause and stare at him with my mouth open. Did he just say I look like something with suckers on its feet? Then my mind clears. Focus, Harriet. For God’s sake, focus.

  “I have to go,” I explain urgently as Wilbur twists me round and takes a final photo. “I have to get out of here. I have to—”

  But I can see Nat heading straight towards us. And I know two things for certain:

  iding under the table probably isn’t the best impromptu decision I’ve ever made, but it’s the only one I can think of. Which is a problem.

  First of all, because Wilbur knows I’m here. He just saw me drop to my knees and crawl away. Second, because the table cloth doesn’t quite reach the floor. And third, because there’s already somebody else under here.

  “Hi,” the person under the table says, and then he offers me a piece of chewing gum.

  There are times in my life when the synapses in my brain move quite fast. For example, during English exams I’ve normally completed the essay with plenty of time to doodle little relevant pictures in the margin in the hope that it gets me extra points. However, there are other times when those synapses don’t do anything at all. They just sit there in confused silence, shrugging at me.

  This is one of them.

  I stare at the chewing gum in shock and then blink at the boy who’s holding it. He’s so good-looking, it feels like my brain has collapsed and my skull is about to fold in on itself. Which is actually not as unpleasant a sensation as you might think.

  “Well?” the boy says, leaning back against the wall and looking at me with his eyelids lowered. “Do you want the gum or not?”

  He’s about my age and he looks like a dark lion. He has large black curls that point in every direction and slanted eyes and a wide mouth that curves up at the edges. He’s so beautiful that all I can hear in my head is a high-pitched white noise like a recently switched-off television.

  It takes an interaction of seventy-two different muscles to produce human speech, and right now not a single one of them is working. I open and shut my mouth a few times, like a goldfish.

  “I can see,” he continues in a lazy accent that doesn’t seem to be English, “that it’s an extremely important decision and you need to think about it carefully. So I’ll give you a few more seconds to weigh up the pros and cons.”

  He has really sharp canine teeth, and when he says Fs, they catch on his bottom lip. There’s a mole under his left eye and he smells sort of green, like… grass. Or vegetables. Or maybe lime sweets.

  One of his curls is sticking up at the back, like a little duck tail. And I’ve just realised that I’m still staring at him, and he’s still looking at me, and he’s still waiting for me to answer him. I quickly trawl my mind for an appropriate response.

  “Chewing gum is banned in Singapore,” I whisper. “Completely banned.” And then I blink twice. It’s probably not the best introductory statement I’ve ever opened with.

  His eyes shoot wide open. “Are we in Singapore? How long have I been as
leep? How fast does this table move?”

  Nice one, Harriet.

  “No,” I whisper back, my cheeks already hot,“we’re still in Birmingham. I’m just making the point that if we were in Singapore, we could be arrested for even having chewing gum in our possession.”

  Stop talking, Harriet.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” I gulp. “Luckily we’re not in Singapore, so you’re safe.”

  “Well, thank God for UK legislation,” he says, leaning his head against the wall again. His mouth twitches. And then there’s a long silence while he closes his eyes and I go red all over and try to work out whether it’s possible to make a worse first impression.

  It’s not.

  “I’m Harriet Manners,”I admit finally and then I put my hand out to shake his, realise it’s sweaty with nerves, swoop it back in and pretend I’m scratching my knee instead.

  “Hello, Harriet Manners,” Lion Boy says and all I can think is: I know there’s something outside the table that I’m supposed to be running away from, but I can’t quite remember what it is.

  “Erm…”Think, Harriet. Think of something normal to say. “Have you been here long?”

  “About half an hour.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m hiding from Wilbur. He’s using me as bait. He keeps chucking me into the crowd to see how many pretty girls I can come back with.”

  “Like a maggot?”

  He laughs. “Yes. Pretty much exactly like a maggot.”

  “And have you… caught anything?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” he says, opening one eye and looking straight at me. “It’s too early to say.”

  “Oh.” I glance briefly at my watch. “It’s not that early,” I inform him. “Actually, it’s nearly lunchtime.”

  The boy looks at my watch – which has a knife, fork and spoon instead of hands – raises an eyebrow and stares at me hard for a few seconds. His nose wiggles a little bit. And then – clearly fascinated by the mesmerising first impression I’ve made – he closes his eyes again.

  With Lion Boy apparently unconscious, I suddenly feel a great need to ask him all sorts of questions. I want to know everything. For instance, what is his accent and where is he from? If I get a world map out of my bag, can he point to it for me? Does it have strange animals and really big insects? Is he an only child too? Were the holes in his jeans there when he bought them, like Dad’s, and if not, how did he get them?