“You can stop turning now,” she snaps eventually, and her voice sounds high and strained. She flicks her finger again and the light above me abruptly switches off and plunges me back into the dark. “I’ve seen enough. Leave now.”
I stop, but the room continues spinning, so Wilbur grabs me before I fall over.
I can’t believe it. That was my chance and I blew it. That was the escape hatch from my life and I managed to shut it on myself within forty-five seconds. Which means I’m stuck being me forever.
Forever.
Oh, God. Maybe I am actually a moron after all. I might have to recheck my IQ levels when I get home.
“Go, go, go,” Wilbur whispers urgently because I’m still standing in the middle of the room, staring at Yuka, totally paralysed with shock. “Out, out, out.”
And then he bows to Yuka, shuffles backwards out of the room with me behind him and shoves me back into the real world.
he real world, as it turns out, is even icier than the fashion one.
I stomp back miserably into the little office where my parents are waiting: Annabel, with her head in her hands, and Dad, pointedly ignoring her and staring out of the window in huffy silence.
“Tell your stepmother you don’t mind being named after a tortoise,” Dad immediately demands, still staring out of the window. “Tell her, Harriet. She won’t talk to me.”
I sigh. Today is really going downhill. And given the start, I wasn’t sure that was possible. “I suppose I should just be grateful you weren’t browsing the FBI’s Most Wanted lists as well as scanning the Guinness Book of Records, Dad.”
“Tortoises are incredible creatures,” Dad says earnestly. “What they lack in elegance and beauty they more than make up for in the ability to curl up and defend themselves from predators.”
“What, like me?”
“That’s not what I was saying, Harriet.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“No,” Annabel snaps suddenly, lifting her head.
Dad remains nonplussed. “They do, Annabel. I saw a documentary about it on telly.”
Annabel whips round and her face is suddenly the colour of the paper she’s still gripping in her hands. “Why you felt the need to tell her about that bloody tortoise I have no idea. What’s wrong with you?” Dad looks at me for help, but I’m not going to drag him out of this one. “And,” she continues, turning to look at me, “I mean no; you’re not modelling. Not now, not next year, not ever. Full stop, the end, finis, whatever you want to put at the end of the sentence that makes it finite.”
“Now hang on a second,” Dad says. “I get a say in this too.”
“No, you don’t. Not if it’s a stupid say. It’s not happening, Richard. Harriet has a brilliant future in front of her and I’m not going to have it ruined by this nonsense.”
“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.
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. W
ho’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.”
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.
The local launderette.
It’s about 300 metres away from my house, and I’ve been coming here since I was allowed to leave the house on my own. For some reason it always makes me feel better. I love the soft whirring sounds, I love the soapy smells, I love the bright lights, I love the warmth coming out of the machines. But most of all I love the feeling that nothing could ever be bad or wrong in a place where everything is being cleaned.
I dig fifty pence out of my pocket and put it in one of the tumble dryers. Then – when it’s switched on and hot and vibrating – I lean my head on the concave glass window and shut my eyes.
I don’t know how long I sit with my head on the dryer, but I must nod off because I suddenly jerk awake to the sound of: “Did you know that the average American family does eight to ten loads of laundry each week, and a single load of laundry takes an average of one hour and twenty-seven minutes to complete from wash to dry? That means that the average American family spends approximately 617 hours a year doing laundry. What do you think it is for England? Less, I think. We just seem to be a bit dirtier.”
And there – sitting on top of a washing machine – is Toby.
I stare at him in silence.
“Hey, you’re awake!” he observes. “Look!” And then he points to his T-shirt. It has a picture of drums on it. “It’s interactive! When I press the drums, they make the sound of drums.” Thud, thud.
“Toby. What are you doing here?”
“Did you hear that?” He’s wearing a yellow bobble hat and it’s bobbling in excitement. Thud, thud, thud. “They’re realistic, aren’t they? Do you think if you got one with a guitar on it, we could start a band?”
“No. What are you doing here?”
“Obviously I’m doing laundry, Harriet.”
I raise my eyebrow. He looks completely at ease with this terrible excuse, which – considering the fact that he has no laundry with him – is a little worrying. “Did you just follow me here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You looked sad. And also because it’s dark and it could be dangerous if you wander around on your own.”
I scowl. “Yes, Toby. I might be at risk from stalkers.”
Toby looks around us. “I think it’s just me, Harriet. I’ve not run into any others while on the job. Are you excited about the modelling assignment?”
I stare at him for a few seconds. “How the hell do you know about that?”
How am I supposed to keep it a secret from Nat and Annabel if I can’t even keep it secret from Toby?
“Well, I wouldn’t be a very good stalker if I didn’t, would I?” Toby laughs. “I’d have to hang up my stalker gear in shame.” He thinks about it. “Which would be unfortunate because all I’ve really got is this flask and I’m quite attached to it.” He pulls out a red flask and shows it to me. “Soup,” he explains. “In case I get hungry.”
“Toby, nobody is supposed to know.”
“So that makes this a secret between the two of us, right?” I glare at him. “Which makes us kindred spirits? And – correct me if I’m wrong – soulmates?”
“We’re not soulmates, Toby. You can’t just go round stealing secrets and then forcing people into being your soulmate.”
“OK.” He seems unabashed by the rejection. “But you’re glad I gave that model man your number.”
For a few seconds all I can do is stutter without any noises coming out. “You gave the modelling agency my number?”
“You ran off at The Clothes Show so quickly I think you forgot. Good, huh?” Toby grins at me and the yellow bobble bounces up and down cheerfully. “Now the whole world is going to see you the way I already see you. I’ve always been a little bit ahead of the trends.”
I point to the scraped-up word on my satchel. “And what if they see me the way everyone at school sees me, Toby?”
Toby considers this for a few moments. “Then I think you’re going to need a bigger bag.” And he hits the drum on his T-shirt. Thud, thud.
Suddenly I’m not so sure the launderette was a good idea after all. “I’m going home.”
“OK. Would you like me to follow a few metres behind?” I frown at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “By the way,” he adds, “did Nat tell you what she did yesterday? She was amazing, Harriet. Like Boadicea, except without the chariot. Or the horses, or the swords, but still: it was awesome.”
I stop near the door. “Nat?” I say, totally confused. “What are you talking about?”
“She heard what happened to you in Mr Bott’s English class and she went crazy. She stormed into the changing rooms while Alexa was getting ready for hockey and did a whole world of yelling.” Toby pauses. “I didn’t see this because they wouldn’t let me in. Apparently that room is only for girls and I am not one of those, Harriet. I assure you. Whatever Alexa might say. I am all man.”
My blood is running cold, and not just because Toby just said the phrase all man.
“And you want to know the best bit?” Toby adds, apparently totally unaware that every single muscle in my face is now twitching with guilt and horror. “You want to know what else she did?”
“What?”
“Honestly, you won’t believe it when I tell you.”
I almost snarl at him, I’m so tense. “Tell me,” I pretty much shout across the launderette. “Tell me what she did.”
“She chopped Alexa’s ponytail off. Right off. At the base. With some scissors. And then she said, ‘Now let’s see how you like everyone laughing at you,’ and stormed off.” Toby laughs. “Apparently Alexa looks a bit like she’s all man too now.”
> Oh my God. I groan and put my hand over my eyes. This is the school equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, which led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia, which led to Russian mobilisation, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia. Which led to World War One.
Nat just started a war for me. In defence of me. Because of me.
And I am not worth it.
This is about as horrible as it’s possible to feel. I’ve reached new heights of self-shame (or lows, depending on which way up the scale is). “I…I…” I say faintly, holding on to the door handle. “I really have to go home, Toby.”
And I run out of the door as fast as my legs will carry me.
run all the way home.
OK, that’s not true. I don’t run all the way. I just wanted you to think I could if I needed to. Because I probably could. I run most of the way and then I Brownie Walk for the rest of it (walk twenty paces, run twenty paces). But I can’t run fast enough to get me away from what it is I’m running from. Which is me, mainly.
What am I doing? I’m about to screw over my Best Friend while she defends me, my stepmother while she protects me and possibly – depending on exactly how bad I am at this modelling thing – Wilbur and the entire fashion industry.
My head feels like it’s starting to rattle with words bouncing around inside it like balls. Every time Moscow, Nick, Baylee or Metamorphosis hit the side, my entire body jolts with excitement. Every time Nat and Annabel make contact, I feel like I’m about to implode with guilt and anxiety. And every time the Alexa ball bounces, I feel like vomiting.
But it’s too late. I’ve made my choice. So I spend the rest of the evening making an imaginary box in my head. And into this box I put all of the balls. I close the lid. And then I lock it up and temporarily misplace the key.
I’m going to Russia, I’m going to be transformed and there is nothing anybody can do to stop me.
First thing on Monday morning, the lies begin.