Dad is doing the same thing.
Except a lot more energetically.
Then he runs back into the driveway, opens the car door and kisses the steering wheel. “It’s on the right side!” he shouts, giving it a hug. “It’s so good to be back!”
Finally, I walk in slow steps up to my bedroom.
And then I stop.
Because sitting on the bed, grinning at me, are a boy, a girl and a dog.
suddenly feel even weirder.
As if nothing has changed at all, but at the same time everything has.
Hugo, in the meantime, has leapt off the bed and is running backwards and forwards, his bottom wriggling so hard there’s a strong chance his head is about to rattle off.
I kneel down and he throws himself clumsily on top of me and starts trying to clamber over my head. I have no idea what the odds for Death By Licking are but it looks like my dog is giving it his best shot.
When Hugo’s finally calmed down, I take a deep breath and look up.
“Did you know,” Toby says amicably, “that dogs are capable of understanding up to two hundred and fifty words and have the average intelligence of a two-year-old child? Watch this, Harriet.”
He clicks his fingers. “Two times three, Hugo.”
Hugo wags his tail and then snuggles a bit further into my arms and ignores him completely.
Toby sighs. “It turns out two-year-old children aren’t that smart at all,” he says sadly. “And also that I am not very popular with animals.”
I stand up cautiously and look at my friends.
Nat is in a bright blue dress that seems to be unravelling slightly around the ruffles. Toby is wearing a black and white T-shirt with a little bow tie drawn on it and a ring with a built-in laser which he’s currently shining into the middle of my face.
“Hi,” I say awkwardly, putting my hand up to block it. “How are you?”
“Awesome,” Nat says slightly stiffly. “How was New York? Are you disappointed to be back?”
I clear my throat. “New York was, um. Well … Spectacular. You know, big and … How’s, umm, Jessica?”
“She’s OK,” Nat says, biting her lip. “Very … you know … cool and stuff.”
We stare at each other uneasily, and it suddenly hits me just how much I haven’t told Nat over the last few weeks.
Like literally anything.
She thinks I’ve been living the New York dream in a huge mahogany skyscraper, with celebrities cluttering up the pavement, and eating hot dogs out of vans with the boyfriend I no longer have in tow.
“Nat,” I say weakly. “The truth is …”
“Harriet!” Nat cries, suddenly jumping off the bed and lobbing herself around my neck. “Oh, Harriet, I’m so glad you’re back. I’ve been trying to be happy for you in your new glamorous life but it’s been so hard. College sucks and I never have time for anything any more and, and Jessica’s a total pain in the backside and she doesn’t have any lists or plans or anything and, and …”
Nat squeezes me tighter. “She’s not even a little bit like you, Harriet. Even if she has got the same hair colour. It’s like … trickery or something.”
I blink into her shoulder. “Y-you …” I start, and then swallow. “You missed me?”
Nat pulls away and stares at me. “What are you talking about? Of course I missed you. You’re my best friend.”
I can feel my eyes starting to prickle. “You didn’t want me to go?”
Nat frowns. “Of course I didn’t. I was trying to be excited for you. Because you’re my best friend.”
My nose is tickling now, as if miniscule spiders are crawling up and down inside it.
“And you’re not planning on replacing me with a college girl who knows all about shoe colours and handbag shapes and doesn’t have any interest in coordinated dances around the living room?”
Nat laughs. “Harriet, if I wanted those things, I’d have made friends with Alexa years ago. I love our dances. They’re ace.”
Oh my God. For the billionth time in a very short period, I have been very, very stupid.
Nat’s not going anywhere. She’s my white pigeon.
And I, obviously, am her monkey.
I wrap my arms around her and then mumble into her shoulder, “If it helps, I didn’t see any celebrities, Nat. Not one.”
“And if it helps,” she laughs, “it turns out I hate coffee. Like, really hate it. It tastes like cat poop.”
I laugh.
“Natalie is right, Harriet,” Toby says, standing up and awkwardly trying to cuddle us both at the same time. “It’s been super-boring without you. We’re so very glad to have you home.”
“Me too,” I say, shutting my eyes and smiling.
Because now I really, really am.
nyway, I have come to a recent conclusion:
If you’re the kind of person who makes plans for anything and everything – and I am – you might as well focus them on the things that really matter.
Things that you can actually do something about, instead of the things you can’t.
So on Friday afternoon after school, that’s exactly what I do.
I meet Nat on our bench at the corner of my road, and together we walk to the school gates and wait for Toby.
Apparently our new form tutor announced my intention to return to school on Monday morning with some scepticism, as if I was a nineties pop star and he wasn’t sure I would make it.
“I feel immensely non-conformist,” Toby says proudly as he sneaks out of the school with the sideways step of a ninja, or a crab. “The bell doesn’t ring for another …” He looks at his watch. “Three and a half minutes. The teachers think I’m in the lavatory but I went at 2pm instead.”
“Gross,” Nat says, scowling at him. “That goes on the list of things I never, ever want you to talk about in front of me again, Toby. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” Toby says firmly. Then he looks confused. “Do you mean bells? Or non-conformists?”
Nat rolls her eyes and plonks herself down on the wall.
And together, we wait.
Finally, the school bell rings and Alexa walks through the gates exactly when predicted, minions close behind her. Let’s just say that extra-curricular activities have never been high on her list of priorities.
Then she sees me and stops.
“Oh.” Alexa clearly wasn’t expecting to see me for another few days. I’ve surprised her, as was the plan. Then she rallies. “Look who’s back early. How delightful for the whole British population.”
“Hi, Alexa,” I say calmly. “Are you enjoying sixth form? I really hope so.”
She blinks a few times.
“Good to see the New York sense of style hasn’t made a single dent on your appearance,” she snaps, looking me up and down. “Are your shoes made out of rubber?”
I look at my faithful purple flip-flops. “Yes.”
“Shame,” she laughs. “If lightning hits you, you’ll probably be quite safe.”
“Right,” Nat says, jumping off the wall with pink cheeks. “I’ve had just about enough of—”
I put my hand out to steady my best friend. Alexa is rummaging in her bag, just as I knew she would. With a flourish, she pulls out the purple diary, and – with it – a handful of paper.
She has made photocopies, after all.
Hearts and equations and flowers and doodles; badgers I attempted to sketch; facts about stars and manatees and almonds. My biggest secrets, my most precious memories and my silliest ambitions.
All cut out and pasted together, with my face in the middle and the word
GEEK
written across it in thick red marker pen.
By Monday morning, these would have been spread around the common room, for all the new students who don’t know me yet to see.
But she hasn’t got round to it.
“Nice, huh?” she says, handing me a bundle and then distributing a few around. “I also checked out Nic
k Hidaka,” she adds, turning to look at the girls behind her. “Are you kidding me? He’s an actual model. You just got him off Google.”
I touch the planets around my neck. “So?”
Alexa’s eyes widen. “So, it’s pathetic.”
“Is it?”
Her eyes are now so big they look like they’re about to pop out. “Whatever. You’re clearly either insane or delusional. And I’m not giving the diary back, so don’t even ask. It’s nice to have a bit of fantasy bed-time reading.”
For the first time in ten years, it finally hits me how sad it is that Alexa’s life pivots on trying to hurt me.
“Keep it,” I say. “There’s nothing in that book I’m ashamed of.”
Because there isn’t.
Every single bit of it is me. The good stuff and the bad stuff. The geeky stuff and the girly stuff. The silly stuff and the serious stuff and the embarrassing bits and the bits I’m proud of.
It’s all me.
Because I am, and always have been, somebody.
“Wait,” Alexa says as I start calmly handing out the photocopies to students coming out of the gates. “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
“Helping out,” I say, shrugging. “You want everyone to know who I am before I start sixth form, don’t you? I mean, you obviously don’t want them to forget about me.”
And I spin round and hand out another two to students I don’t recognise.
“Leaflets, Lexi?” one of her minions says in a low voice. “You photocopied her diary and made leaflets? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” another girl says, frowning and looking at one. “Talk about getting carried away, Lex.”
And – though it’s barely noticeable – the group around Alexa take the smallest, tiniest step away from her.
Alexa’s entire face slowly drains of colour.
“It was a joke,” she says loudly. “What’s wrong with you people? God, hasn’t anyone got a sense of humour these days?”
“Oh, I do,” Nat says, taking a few steps forward and snatching the diary out of Alexa’s loose grasp with a threatening growl. “How about this for a laugh?”
And then she holds out a huge roll of paper.
“I got it made into an A2 poster last week,” she says, winking at me. “Thought it might come in handy at some point.”
Nat unrolls it and holds it up high.
It’s an enormous photo of me and Nick. He has one arm around me, and he’s laughing so hard his head is thrown back and you can see the little mole at the base of his throat. His curls are matted, his canine teeth are pointy, and his eyes are shut so his dark lashes are throwing shadows across the top of his cheeks.
I’ve got my eyes crossed and my tongue out, because Nat kept telling me to ‘work the camera, babbbyyy’ and it was really irritating me.
“Funny, huh?” Nat snaps. “Isn’t that just hilarious?”
Alexa is still staring at the picture.
“Photoshop,” she says briskly, face now ashen. “You can fake anything these days.”
I think about New York.
I think about Kenderall and her oversized miniature pig and her undersized knowledge of relationships, and Caleb and his artificial charm. I think about Miss Hall and her fraudulent CV, and Fleur and her brittle unhappiness.
Then I think about my family, and my friends, and the boy in the photo in front of me.
And how I feel about all of them.
“No,” I say, looking straight at Alexa. “Not anything, you can’t.”
And then, with Nat and Toby on either side of me and the giant photo tucked safely under my arm, I start walking home.
My phone beeps and I pull it out of my pocket.
It’s not the end, Table Girl. We’re just hitting pause.
LBxx
PS ILY
I smile.
Apparently a butterfly’s wings are actually transparent, but thousands of tiny scales reflect light at different wavelengths. In my stomach now, I can suddenly feel them: glinting and flickering inside me. Every colour of the rainbow.
I kiss my phone, put it back in my pocket and hug my friends a little bit tighter.
Because that’s the thing about love.
You can plan it, and schedule it, and map it out. You can tell it how you want it to be, and where you want it to go, and what it’s supposed to do. You can try to make it fit you.
But it won’t listen to any of it.
Love puts itself first, and makes its own plans. It maps you out instead.
Maybe that’s what makes it perfect.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my editor, Lizzie Clifford, who has understood Harriet completely from the start: these books would not be the same without you. Thanks to my agent, Kate Shaw, my very own army of one, and to Em Manchee, for helping the numbers make sense.
Thanks to my darling grandma, who was always so proud of me, despite not being Agatha Christie. Thanks to Grandad, for believing I can do anything and making me believe it too; to Mum, whose support and kindness are never-ending (and whose scrapbook-making skills are exemplary); to Tara, my little sister, my best friend, my non-kissing soulmate, and to Dan, for looking after her for me. Thanks to Dad, who can always inspire and make me laugh: your pies (and patios) are really something.
Thanks to Caro, Vero and Louise, for giving me a home in another country, and to Aunty Judith, who will always be there too. Thanks to Lucy, for not putting her hand up, and to Anna and Lucie: you have made long days at a computer seem so much shorter.
Thanks to everyone at HarperCollins for working so tirelessly and creatively behind the scenes: in particular Rachel, Sam, Abby, Geraldine, Nicola, Hannah, Lily, Kate, Elorine and Mary. You have made me a part of the team, and I am so very grateful.
Finally, to everyone I have ever loved, or been loved by in return. It is – and will always be – the thing in the world most worth writing about.
Thank you. x
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Copyright
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2014
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Holly Smale 2014
Cover photography © Shutterstock.com;
Cover typography © Mary Kate McDevitt;
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2014
Holly Smale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007574568
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007489497
Version: 2014-05-08
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Holly Smale, Picture Perfect (Geek Girl, Book 3)
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