Of all the people I wanted to see me with my bottom stuck halfway through a window, the only boy I’ve ever kissed was pretty much at the end of the list.
Him and whoever hands out the Nobel prizes, you know.
Just in case.
“Umm, hello Nick,” I say coolly, sticking my chin in the air as regally as I can. He smells green, even in a cupboard full of bleach.
“Hi Harriet. Were you under the impression that you’ve recently turned into a cat?”
It’s dark in here, but not quite dark enough: I can still see the end of his nose twitching in amusement.
“Of course not.” I try to lift my chin a little bit more. “I was just … umm …” What? What am I doing in a cupboard? “Keen to see as many elements of the fashion industry as possible. It’s important to get a really rounded view of modelling. From, you know, different angles.”
I clear my throat.
“Uh-huh,” he says, except this is nothing like the uh-huh the models gave me an hour ago. It’s a warm uh-huh. An amused uh-huh. An I inexplicably understand what happened without being told and I don’t think any less of you for it uh-huh.
“Umm.” I swallow. “What are you doing here?”
He grins and takes a step towards me. “I had to pick up a Versace contract from Wilbur, and he told me you’d gone missing. He’s checking under all the tables in the building, and I’m doing all the cupboards.”
My cheeks get steadily hotter.
Just because the first time I ever met Nick Hidaka I was hiding under a table doesn’t mean I’m always under one. I’ve seen him several times outside of furniture too.
His memory is very selective.
We stare each other out for a few seconds.
Clearly the only way to get out of this predicament in style is to stalk out of the cupboard. To stick my nose in the air, be dignified, and charge out in an adult, sophisticated kind of—
A bubble of embarrassed laughter pops out of my mouth.
Nope, that wasn’t it, was it?
“I’m a ninny, aren’t I?” I say, twisting my mouth and staring at the floor.
“A little bit,” Nick laughs in his warm Australian twang.
“I try really hard but I’m not entirely sure I can help it,” I admit. “It seems to be inbuilt.”
Nick puts a hand under my chin and gently tilts my head back up so I’m looking at him again. “Luckily, I have a soft spot for ninnies. Especially the kind that can recite the periodic table backwards.”
And as the boy I like best in the world leans down to kiss me, suddenly a cupboard doesn’t seem like the worst place in the world to be stuck in after all.
adly, we don’t get to stay in there.
I pitch for it quite hard. I suggest a cupboard picnic: I’m pretty sure I have a few bits of broken chocolate bar at the bottom of my satchel and, if I rummage hard enough, half a cheese and onion sandwich we can split in two.
Basically anything that will prolong my time in what now magically appear to be incredibly romantic surroundings.
Unfortunately, Nick has other ideas.
“Isn’t there somewhere you’re supposed to be?”
“The casting?” I poke my head out of the cupboard and frown. The lights of the corridor upstairs have all been turned off. “I think everyone’s gone now. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t that bothered anyway.”
I lean up to kiss him again.
“Nope,” Nick laughs, kissing the end of my nose instead. “Not Brink. Somewhere else.”
Sugar cookies. Why does he always remember everything I say? If I didn’t know better, I’d think Nick had my life itinerary bullet pointed and stashed away in his pocket somewhere.
Which is totally the kind of thing I’d do, but I didn’t think it was his style.
“Oh,” I say airily, waving a hand, “I guess I’ve missed it by now. Never mind.”
Nick lifts an eyebrow. “I’m not sure Nat would see it like that.”
Nat.
I’m suddenly flooded with a wave of shame and guilt so intense I almost fall over. Because I’m going to be honest: if there was another bright side to being stuck in a cupboard, it was that I couldn’t be anywhere else.
Somewhere even worse.
I look at the floor. “I suppose I did promise,” I admit in a small voice. “And she is my best friend.”
Only friend.
Now is probably not the time to make that clarification.
“Exactly.” Nick grins and leans towards me. “It’ll be fun. No biggy.”
We all know what he means when he says that, which is: exactly the opposite. I try to look cross, which is almost impossible when you’re being kissed.
“Next you’ll be telling me to break a leg,” I mutter grumpily.
Nick laughs and grabs my hand. “Come on, Table Girl. There’s a train to your school in fifteen minutes. I’ll walk you to the station.”
up: school.
It’s 6:30pm on a Saturday evening, and I’m now standing back outside the gates of what should really be a closed building. Usually I’d be delighted to be here out of hours, but right now, frankly, there are other places I’d rather be.
Anywhere, actually.
The winds on Neptune reach at least 2,000 kilometres per hour and are capable of ripping a building to shreds. After a bit of consideration, I’d probably choose to hang out there instead.
“Where have you been?” Nat charges towards me like Boudicca on the back of a chariot: perfectly straightened hair flying, perfectly lined eyes narrowed and what I guess is an expensive silver handbag wielded like some kind of boxy shield. “I’ve been calling for hours and left a billion messages and—” She frowns and looks down. “Harriet, why do you have a ring of dirt around your waist?”
I tug at my stripy jumper. I now look like a grubby human version of Saturn. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
My best friend takes a deep breath and then lets it out with one smooth hand gesture, like a composer about to conduct an orchestra. “It’s OK. There’s still time.”
Sugar cookies. There was still a tiny bit of me hoping I’d managed to totally miss the whole thing.
The horrible, selfish, terrible-friend part, obviously.
Break a leg.
Oooh. That’s quite a good idea. If I can just find a few stairs to fall down, I might be able to—
“Don’t even think about it,” Nat snaps as I start frantically searching the school corridors for some kind of stepped elevation. “I mean it, Harriet. Don’t even think about thinking about it. You’re auditioning for Hamlet with me if I have to wheel you up there in a shopping trolley.”
Every now and then I wish I didn’t have a best friend who knows me inside and out.
Now is definitely one of those times.
“But you don’t even like Shakespeare, Nat,” I point out. I’m going to give it one last shot. “You use Julius Caesar to prop up your magnifying mirror.”
Nat pulls a face, and I suddenly realise how nervous she is. There’s a pink flush on her neck and she’s nibbled off all but one varnished nail: her stomach must be full of tiny bits of blue enamel.
Nat sticks her thumb in her mouth and starts attacking the final nail. “This is my last chance, Harriet. If I can’t be a model then an actress is the next best thing, right? Maybe I can get some kind of lipstick campaign this way instead.”
I flinch.
This is exactly why I agreed to audition with her in the first place. Three months ago, I accidentally stole my best friend’s lifelong dream of modelling while on a school trip in Birmingham. The least I can do is support her while she tries to find a different one.
I just wish she’d picked astrophysics. Or gardening.
“Please?” Nat adds in a tiny voice. “I think I might really enjoy it.”
She gives me the round-eyed look I’ve been a sucker for since we were five, and I rally and put my arm around her. “You’re going to be amazing, Nat. Let’s do
it. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Then we open the door to the gym and that question is no longer rhetorical.
Apparently dolphins shed the top layer of their skin every two hours, and there’s a chance I may now be turning into one. It feels like every cell on my outer body is falling off far too quickly for a human being.
This can’t be happening. It can’t be.
But it is.
In the gym hall are two chairs featuring Mr Bott, our English teacher, and our drama teacher, Miss Hammond. On a makeshift stage in the middle is a Year 10 boy, attempting some kind of half-hearted backflip. On the floor is what appears to be nearly half of our entire year group, chatting quietly and playing on their phones: all one hundred and fifty of them.
And right at the front, in the middle of a number of her minions, is the person I thought was least likely to turn up for an extracurricular play audition.
My bully of ten years, my nemesis, my arch-enemy, my foe.
The girl in the world who hates me the most.
Alexa.
eriously.
I’ve turned up for two auditions in the last four hours. Why couldn’t this be the one I got locked in a cupboard for?
Nat’s face has gone so abruptly white that her blusher is standing out like the two pink spots on a Russian doll.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers as we slip in and sit quietly on the floor at the back. “Why is everybody here? I thought it would be just the drama keen-beans.”
And with one swift chew, the last few shreds of blue nail varnish disappear.
“Apparently, if you take part in the play you don’t have to do homework for the entire duration of the rehearsals,” a girl in front of us says, over her shoulder. “Like, any. Not even maths.”
My stomach twists. This is so unfair: I have to do a play and miss homework? It’s my favourite bit about education: you get to do schoolwork without actually being at school.
Then I brighten.
There are approximately eighty girls here and only two female parts in Hamlet: if this many people audition, my chances of getting a role are statistically reduced to almost nothing. All I need to do is stay as quiet as I can and maybe they won’t even notice I’m—
“Harriet!”
I close my eyes momentarily.
“Harriet! Harriet! Harriet Manners!”
Everyone in a fifteen-metre radius stops chatting and spins to look at a cheery figure waving energetically at me. He’s wearing orange trousers and a bright blue T-shirt that says:
NEVER TRUST AN ATOM, THEY MAKE UP EVERYTHING
I give a tiny nod and then curl myself up into a ball and try to disappear into myself like a hedgehog.
It doesn’t work.
“You’re here!” Toby fake-whispers loudly, standing up and starting to pseudo-crouch-step towards me. “I was certain you said you’d be here, but then I was worried if maybe that listening device I set up outside your house wasn’t working properly and I was going to return to the shop and ask for my money back. But technology prevails! You’re actually here!”
Never mind a hedgehog. I’ve now shrunk to the size of a particularly embarrassed woodlouse.
“Hi Toby,” I murmur as my stalker starts charging not very carefully across the people sitting on the floor between us.
“Ow!” somebody mutters as he steps on one of their fingers.
“Oi!” another person snaps as he kicks their bag a few metres across the room.
“Who invited the geeks?”
Toby continues, totally unabashed. “What part are you going to be auditioning for, Harriet?” he says happily, plonking down next to me. “I think you would make an excellent Ophelia, although you might want to rethink because of all the singing. I’ve stood outside your bathroom window in the morning and it is not one of your many profound talents.”
A snigger goes round my immediate vicinity.
There’s a long curtain a few metres away: if only I had more defined stomach muscles I might be able to shimmy behind it like a snake.
“Toby,” I mutter as my cheeks start getting hot, “I don’t think I—”
Toby is waving a piece of paper. “I’ve narrowed down your possible audition speeches to Kate from The Taming of the Shrew, and Lady Macbeth. How good are you at cleaning up blood?”
Half the room is now nudging each other and giggling. My cheeks get a bit hotter as I glance nervously at Alexa at the front. She’s staring blankly at the boy on stage, who is now inexplicably doing some kind of juggling act. “Toby …”
“Or the eponymous Juliet.”
“Toby …”
“Or Desdemona from Othello. The bit where she dies.” He pauses. “Except she sings too. Maybe scrap that one.”
Fifteen more people turn to giggle.
“Or—”
And – just like that – my entire head explodes. “TOBY, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF SUGAR COOKIES. GO AWAY.”
Then there’s an abrupt silence while the entire room spins to look at us.
Yeah. I don’t think that helped much.
“Harriet Manners.”
Mr Bott is standing at the front of the room with his arms folded and his face creased up like a damp pair of socks.
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh – “Yes?”
“Stand up please.”
I cautiously uncurl myself from the floor and somehow get to my feet. My entire face is now pulsing red like the pause button on our washing machine at home.
Mr Bott’s face gets just a little sock-ier.
“From what I recall, Harriet, this is not the first time you have chosen to disrupt others by shouting. After your last little display, I’m surprised you haven’t learnt your lesson.”
Last term, I accidentally yelled at Toby in the middle of an English class, which led to getting in trouble with Mr Bott, which led to accidentally upsetting Alexa, which led to her forcing everyone to put their hands up to say they hated me.
I’m quite surprised I didn’t learn my lesson too.
Maybe they need to do a class on that instead.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice.
Mr Bott raises his eyebrows. “As you’re obviously so eager to be a pivotal part of this production, why don’t you come up next?”
I look at the stage.
Then at the staring, silent crowd around me. Then at Alexa, who has spun round and narrowed her eyes at me. Then at Toby, who infuriatingly beams and puts both thumbs in the air.
Finally, I look at Nat.
“Please?” she whispers. “I don’t want to do it on my own.”
I think of what happened last time I was on a stage: I accidentally knocked another model to the floor and ruined an entire fashion show.
Then I think of where I’ve been today: at a modelling-agency casting for Brink magazine (or attempting to be, anyway). I think of how much my best friend of a decade would have given to be there instead.
Then I swallow and grab the piece of paper out of Toby’s hand.
“All right,” I say as loudly as I can. “I’ll do it.”
And I make my way up on to the stage.
here’s a small fresh-water animal called a hydra that lives in ponds, lakes and streams.
The hydra can be torn completely into pieces, and it’ll still be OK. The bits of it will, cell by cell, creep and crawl towards each other and reassemble, forming a hydra again.
There’s just one condition: some of the brain cells have to remain unharmed throughout. The secret to the hydra’s survival is keeping its head.
Sadly, I am not a hydra.
As soon as I stand on the stage, my brain disintegrates. I know Juliet’s speech by heart – sometimes I recite it in the bath, just for fun – but I’m desperately scanning the script clutched in my sweaty hands because now I can’t remember a single word.
Every time I look at Nat, I know I have to try as hard as I can to get a part in the play. Every time I think about
performing in front of the entire school, I know I have to try as hard as I can not to.
And every time I look at Alexa, sitting two metres away with a smug smile, all I want to do is run behind a curtain or down a hole in the floorboards somewhere.
Plus there’s my innate lack of acting talent to contend with. I love Shakespeare, but I appreciate it academically. My artistic abilities are, as ever, non-existent.
So I just have to get this over with as fast as possible before I’m ripped apart.
Sugar cookies. Sugar cookies sugar cookies sugar c—
“O Romeo, Romeo!” I blurt nervously, clutching hard at my chest as if I’m having a small coronary. “Wherefore art thou … umm …” I hold the paper in front of my face. “Sorry, I’ve lost my place.”
“She speaks!” Toby says from the side of the room where he’s edged closer. “Oh, speak again, bright angel!”
The whole room starts sniggering again.
Alexa raises her eyebrows and her smile gets a little cattier.
“Err …” I briefly consider curling up into a ball and rolling off the stage, and then glance at Nat and decide against it. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not …”
Alexa rolls her eyes and yawns elaborately.
“… I’ll no longer be a Montague. No, sorry, a Capulet. I’m a Capulet.”
“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?”
“I think you should probably be quiet, Toby,” Miss Hammond says firmly. “Or you’ll be asked to leave the room.”
“But Harriet is the sun,” Toby objects.
“That’s as maybe, but I suggest you enjoy her silently.”
Toby pulls a pretend zip across his mouth and winks at me from the corner of the stage. I’m going to kill him when I get out of here, and not a single jury in the country will convict me, due to the reasonable circumstances.
I take a deep breath.
Keep your head, Harriet.
“TisbutthynamethatismyenemythouartthyselfthoughnotaMontaguewhatsMontagueitisnorhandnorfootnorarmnorfacenoranyotherpartbelongingtoamanobesomeothernamewhatsinanamethatwhichwecallarosebyanyothernamewouldsmellassweetsoromeowouldwerehenotromeocalledretainthatdearperfection—”