Before I can stop him, Nick kisses me gently on the cheek.
And my entire body is covered in light.
or a fraction of a second, I actually think that the light is coming from me. That my emotions are so strong, I’ve rendered them a literal, physical, visible fact. I’m a scientific phenomenon.
Then I think, Wilbur was uncannily prescient and I’ve just burst into flames.
It’s only when Nick pulls away and I look down that I realise the light’s coming from the dress. Every single fibre of the material is a hair-thin LED, woven tightly together, and the whole dress is now shining neon white with tiny clustered knots of light around the neckline like stars.
I am glowing and glittering all over, and the light is spreading through the water and swirling around me.
Never mind metaphors. Never mind lightning bugs.
Nick has literally just lit me up.
Above me, the sky is starting to change colour into a dark, gold-ish pink, brightening to red at the horizon, and tiny dots of stars are forming in the blackness. In front of me, lights from the car park are bouncing off the water and an assistant is holding a soft golden light over my head. And below me, my dress is reflecting and shining through the water.
There is light everywhere. I’m surrounded by it, and covered in it, and full of it.
At some point I’m going to have to come back down to earth again. But for a few minutes, I’m going to stay exactly where I am.
Suspended somewhere a few metres above it.
“Jyunbi ha iikai?”
“Ready, Harriet?”
I nod blankly and silently lower myself into the freezing-cold water. Now that Nick’s no longer touching me, it’s incredibly, ridiculously cold.
And I don’t care in the slightest.
“Kirei dane?” Haru says, gesturing around as the camera starts clicking and I stare into space somewhere over his left shoulder.
“Yes. Beautiful.” Nick nods and looks at the mountain carved against the horizon behind me. “Without equal.”
And then he looks directly at me.
hatever Wilbur has done to protect me, it works.
The shoot goes perfectly. I sit quietly in the cold water for ten minutes, then bend into it, then lean forwards on my elbows. Finally I lie down completely so that Haru is shooting directly over me and my wet hair and glowing skirts are swirling around my head like I’m a water nymph trapped in some kind of magical, ghostly seaweed. I even manage not to inhale water into my lungs or drown.
Everyone is utterly delighted.
“Shashin kara kannjyou ga afurete kuruyo, Harriet. Kimino kokoroga mieruyouda.”
“There’s so much emotion in these pictures, Harriet,” Naho translates happily. “Haru says it’s like he can see right into the middle of you.”
Sugar cookies.
I quickly blink and try very hard to be a little less transparent.
Finally, Haru gives a satisfied nod, Naho wraps a towel around my freezing shoulders and we all splash and slip back out of the lake again, where Yuka is waiting for us.
I’m not even vaguely surprised. I’m going to guess she got less than three metres down the road before spying with her night-vision binoculars.
“Umaku ittakashira?” she asks Haru stiffly.
“Sugoiyo,” Haru says with a nod, and I beam. That means ‘excellent’. “Honntouni sugoi noga toretayo.”
And then it happens again – Yuka’s smiling. No, Yuka Ito is grinning.
Even Nick looks startled.
“Excellent,” Yuka says, smoothing down her dress and carefully composing her face. She looks me up and down and then clicks her fingers. “What are we standing around for? I’m not paying anyone to catch pneumonia. Get my model dry.”
Wilbur is going bonkers on the beach behind us. He’s shouting and spinning in little circles with his pink jacket pulled over his head. “BOOM! I told you, Peaches! I told you my little Frankie-chops would knock it right out of the park!” He bends down and starts attempting Russian dancing on the pebbles.
Yuka frowns. “If you’re going to be working directly for me, William, I strongly suggest you stop that immediately.”
Wilbur pauses in his crouch-jumping. “For the bajillionth time,” he says indignantly: “It is Wilbur, with a bur and not an iam, and I would thank you to—” Then he stops and stands up straight. “Working for you?”
Yuka gives an almost imperceptible nod as she climbs back into her waiting car.
Wilbur’s face goes all red and shaky, and then he physically explodes. “OH, MY MINI-HUMMINGBIRDS, THIS IS THE BEST DAY THAT HAS EVER BEEN BORN IF DAYS WERE BORN WHICH THEY’RE PROBABLY NOT BUT WHO CARES I MADE IT! I’M IN! I’M FINALLY IN PROPER FASSSHHHIIIOOON.”
And he grabs my arm and starts swinging me round in manic giant circles. The way Nat and I used to spin years ago before I slipped and smashed into a park bench and had to be taken to hospital to get eight stitches in the back of my head.
I blush and spin, giddy and pink-cheeked.
I can’t believe it: everything’s going to be OK. The campaign’s a success and nobody’s angry with me. Wilbur’s got his big job, and I’ve kept mine.
And Nick?
Nick kissed me.
Which I can’t even think about until I’ve stopped being spun in nauseating circles. There’s only so much discombobulation a brain can handle.
Wilbur finally lets go of me and I dizzily stagger a few metres into the nearly empty car park.
Nick is on the phone, facing the other way. He’s talking quietly but I can still hear him.
And I really wish I couldn’t.
“Poppy?” His voice sounds tight. “What are you talking about?”
There’s a silence while my inner ear rebalances and the world slowly stops dipping and diving and gyrating around me. I think I’m going to be sick.
He’s on the phone to her already?
“Of course I care,” Nick continues impatiently. “You know I do. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Suddenly, all at once I’m aware of the water dripping from my hair down my nose and on to my top lip, and the icy droplets running down my arms and legs on to the floor, and the sogginess and dampness of my towel.
Apparently 300 million cells in our body die every single minute, and for the first time in my life I can actually feel them: shrinking and shrivelling all over me.
“I’m coming back now,” Nick says. “Stay there.”
And without even looking over his shoulder, Nick puts his phone back in his pocket, climbs on to a scooter and drives away.
Leaving me, unseen and speechless, behind him.
ere are a few new equations for you:
LOVE = 1 first kiss + 400 plus subsequent smaller kisses + 182 days + 278 daydreams + 186 phone calls + 2,087 texts + 1 last kiss.
LOVE = 4 nights spent crying – 2 months waiting for him to come back – 8 weeks of not being able to open a magazine or watch television in case he’s in it – 63 days of getting sad every time you see a seagull or a lion or a raindrop – 11 days of pretending you’re over him – a lifetime of never being able to eat lime-flavoured sweets, ever again.
LOVE = nearly ruining your GCSEs because all you’re thinking about is him.
LOVE = turning into a total idiot.
I have wasted six whole months on Nick Hidaka.
In the space of six months, Mercury has gone round the sun twice. In six months, I could have walked all the way across the width of Russia, or cycled over America, or sailed to Brazil. It took Jack Kerouac three weeks to write On the Road, and Charles Dickens six weeks to write A Christmas Carol. I could have written five classic novels in the time I spent thinking about a boy. I could have spent 444 days on Jupiter, and 391 days on Saturn and 1.4 really luxurious days on Venus.
Instead, I filled my head with big black curls and lips that curve up at the corner; with green smell; with shouted laughter; with a boy who disappears whenever he feels like it and
says whatever he wants and only ever thinks about himself.
You know what?
I am never liking a boy again, ever. When I get back to school, I’m going to invest all the extra time and brain space into learning Apalachee or Tsetsaut or Susquehannock, or some other language that has been totally dead for more than a hundred years.
And it will still be more productive.
“Done, my little Twinkle-bottom?” Wilbur says, tapping me on the shoulder. I take one last look at the space Nick has disappeared into the way he always does, like the proverbial genie.
Am I done? Is that it? Am I finally ready to let go?
“Yep,” I say, turning to Wilbur and taking a deep breath. “This time I think I am.”
I spend the rest of the journey back to Tokyo quietly staring out of the Shinkansen window at little lights scattered at random through the fields, while Wilbur lightly snores beside me.
By the time we pull back into Tokyo station, all I want is to have a hot shower, pull my penguin pyjamas back on and climb into bed with a crossword puzzle.
But it doesn’t look like that’s an option.
“Poppet-cakes,” Wilbur says in a daze as the train pulls to a stop. He rubs his eyes. “I know I have a super vivid imagination, but is that who I think it is?”
I look out of the window at a small huddle of people in black. Shion, Naho, Haru and a few assistants. And – almost entirely hidden in the middle – Yuka. Like some kind of tiny, fiercely protected, Faerie Queen.
“Perhaps they’re here to give us presents?”
Maybe that’s how modelling works. Maybe when you do a really good job at a shoot they all rush back to greet you at the station with a surprise basket of cupcakes or kittens and maybe a few celebratory personalised banners.
Then I see Wilbur’s face. It’s gone very white and very wobbly, as if all the bones have just been whipped out through his nose.
“My little Bumble-bee,” he says. “Maybe I’m not such a good meerkat after all.”
e get off the train in silence.
Wilbur and I stand as close to each other on the platform as we possibly can.
“Come here,” Yuka says. “Now, please. Both of you.”
I’ve been to the headmaster’s office at school plenty of times before. In Year Seven, I was called in to receive the Biology Award and the History Essay Award and the Debate Team Award. Then I went in again in Year Eight to accept the Physics Award and another History Essay Award. In Year Nine I got the English Award, and then in Year Ten I had to go back so that he could give me quite a large book voucher and inform me tensely that I wouldn’t be winning any more awards because it was upsetting the other students.
But I have never, ever been called in because I’m in trouble.
I imagine it would feel exactly like this.
Wilbur and I look at each other, and then start creeping down the platform, like two little children playing What’s The Time, Mister Wolf? I’m so hysterical with fear and nerves, I’m quite surprised when Yuka opens her mouth and the first line out of it isn’t ‘Dinner Time’.
“Who gave you your first break in modelling, Harriet.”
Her voice is terrifyingly gentle: in exactly the way a cat gets very slinky just before it pounces on a mouse.
I clear my throat. Technically Nick ‘discovered’ me, but the tiny part of me that knows how to stay alive steps in just in time to stop me saying that. “You.”
“And who has given you work ever since.”
“You.”
“And is this” – Yuka gestures serenely around her – “what normally happens. Are fifteen-year-old girls normally picked out of school trips and handed highly paid international jobs for a world-class designer with no castings, no competition, and no experience?”
I can’t help but feel that this is a slightly leading question. “No?” I guess weakly.
“Correct. Most models go on hundreds of castings and are rejected hundreds of times. They struggle for years against themselves and each other. Very few make any real money. Those that do have a few years, at best, before they are thrown aside. Fashion is hard work, fickle and unforgiving. It eats girls like you for breakfast.”
I suddenly feel as if I’m in a Roald Dahl novel. Hasn’t Wilbur said something like this before?
“I understand.”
“No, Harriet. You don’t understand, because I made sure of it. I gave you an exclusive contract from the beginning to ensure you would not be part of that world. And I have done everything I can since to keep you away from it.”
My eyes widen. Has my entire modelling career been a sort of glamorous babysitting?
“But … why?”
“I saw qualities in you I wanted to keep. And I was worried that the industry would take them away from you.”
I have literally no idea what qualities she’s talking about.
“Th-thank you?” I stutter, face flaming.
“And in return,” Yuka continues, “you have shown me disrespect, arrogance and disobedience. You have lied, you have been late, and you have failed to follow a single one of the basic rules I gave you.”
I shut my mouth abruptly and look at Wilbur in a panic. His entire face is now a shade of mossy green.
“N-n-no, Yuka,” I say, but there’s so little saliva in my mouth that my tongue’s starting to make a sticky, clacking sound. “I didn’t … I haven’t … you don’t understand—”
“Yes, Harriet,” Yuka says quietly, “I think I do.” She reaches into her bag, pulls out a newspaper in English and hands it to me. There’s a full-page spread: a large photo of a much, much younger Yuka in black lace, and the caption:
INDUSTRY ICON STEALS DESIGNS
Fashion icon Yuka Ito has broken her contract with fashion powerhouse Baylee in order to set up her own label. A source close to the fashion icon says: “A small group of us models have been flown all over Asia for the launch of her new label and it’s all super top secret. I was so excited to get my shoot in Tokyo.”
A spokesperson for Baylee said: “Yuka Ito is currently signed exclusively to our label. While she did design these clothes herself, until her contract expires, they technically belong to us. We are seeking legal advice.”
Yuka Ito has so far been unavailable for comment.
“I-I-It wasn’t me,” I say urgently, looking back at the article. ‘Us models’? That’s not even grammatically correct. “Although I know it sounds a bit like me I didn’t tell anyone about—”
But I did, didn’t I?
I knew precisely how important it was to keep my mouth shut – I promised Yuka and Wilbur that I would – and I still let the secret out. Trying to make two girls like me was more important than keeping my word.
“I should have explained earlier,” Wilbur says, stepping forwards while a hot, burning wave of shame knocks the wind out of me. “It’s not really my little Monkey-bum’s fault, there’s been some unprofessional activity going on—”
“Enough,” Yuka says. “I’m not interested in hearing any more stories.” She turns to me and says flatly: “Do you think it was a coincidence that you were positioned in Tokyo, Harriet.”
I blink. “Umm …”
“Japan is my home. You were to be the face of the whole campaign. But that was clearly the worst decision of all. So you’re fired. I trust this is one instruction you won’t have a problem following.”
“Now just a second—” Wilbur starts, and Yuka turns to him.
“And you’re fired too, William. Please take Harriet back to the flat, collect her things and go to the airport. Your tickets will be waiting for you there.”
Wilbur looks as if somebody has snatched the battery out of him. He gets visibly smaller. “It’s Wilbur,” he says. “With a ‘bur’ and not an ‘iam’.”
“I don’t think it really matters,” Yuka says. “We will not be working together again.”
either of us says another word for the rest of the journey home: we’re
both locked in our own private miseries.
I’ve been waiting to come back down to earth with a bump for a while now. Wilbur, on the other hand, has almost definitely never been near it before in his life.
Finally, the taxi stops and I gently tell Wilbur to wait in the car while I get my things. He stares at me blankly, and then looks at the leather seats. “I suppose,” he says, “if I’m going to cry and snot uncontrollably it may as well be somewhere wipe-clean, right?”
“Umm, yes,” I say with a tentatively supportive little pat. “That’s the spirit?” Then I climb out of the car and make my way over to the flat.
Nobody else appears to be at home, so I tiptoe into the bedroom as quickly and as quietly as I can.
I need to get out of here before either Rin or Poppy returns.
I’m like a feather. I’m like a mouse. I’m like a ninja of invisibility and poise and—
“Are you going?”
Sugar cookies.
I turn around, and there is Princess Poppy: leaning against the doorframe with her perfect golden hair spilling over her shoulders and her perfect shoulders tensed and her perfect arms crossed and her perfect mouth set in a totally straight and expressionless line.
I start throwing items haphazardly into my suitcase. “Uh-huh.”
“That’s such a shame.”
I flinch and start lobbing everything faster: trousers, shoes, shirts.
“I mean, what with you sneaking around with other people’s boyfriends and stuff, it’s a real pain that you can’t stick around.”
My stomach plummets. Poppy’s cheeks are pink, her blue eyes are gleaming, and I’ve never, ever seen anyone look more angry or more perfect. “God, no, Poppy: I didn’t—”
“I know everything so don’t lie as well.”
I shut my eyes briefly. Thanks, Nick. Thanks for blaming me. “Poppy, I didn’t see it coming, I wasn’t prepared. I would have pushed him away, I-I didn’t mean to hurt you …”
“Why can’t you just LEAVE. HIM. ALONE?”
I feel sick. Is this all my fault too?