Picture Perfect (Geek Girl, Book 3)

  “Giraffes?”

  “I was aiming for ‘models’,” Nick laughs. “But yeah, there’s some of them wandering about too.”

  I giggle like an idiot.

  Normally this would be the point where I’d break into an array of interesting facts. For instance, did you know that giraffes have four stomachs, and their spots are like fingerprints and no two giraffes have the same pattern?

  Or that their necks are too short for their heads to reach the ground so they have to drink water by squatting?

  Or that they are the only animal who moves two legs on one side of the body and then two on the other to walk?

  Instead I clear my throat.

  “Come on then,” Nick says. He’s smiling: the words are all stretched and snug. “Hit me with it.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Whatever is preventing you from telling me multiple facts about giraffes right now.”

  Sugar cookies.

  “I’m … umm.” I cough. “I think that …”

  Of course. I should be approaching my news about America from a totally different angle.

  “Nick, did you know Admiral Horatio Nelson started dating Emma Hamilton in 1798, and then went away for two years to fight the Napoleonic Wars? They wrote a lot of letters, and their budding relationship wasn’t affected in the slightest and remained strong and beautiful throughout.”

  “Is that so?”

  “And OK, he was fatally wounded by a musket ball at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and died before he could see her again, but that’s not really the point.” Wrap it up, Harriet. “So …”

  “Harriet,” Nick says. “Are you going away to fight the Napoleonic wars?”

  “No.”

  “Are you at risk of getting hit by a stray musket ball fired from a French ship in suburban Hertfordshire?”

  “No.”

  “Are you planning on dying next to a man named Hardy and then having your body preserved in a large barrel of brandy?”

  My boyfriend knows a lot more about Admiral Nelson than I thought he would. “No.”

  “Then you probably don’t need to sound so worried.”

  OK.

  I need to pull this out all at once, before it gets all green and liquidy like the splinter in Year Two.

  “I’m leaving England,” I say quickly. “My family is moving to New York for six months and I’ll be gone before you’re home but I’ll buy some pretty stationery and write you some poignant and heartbreaking letters and get novelty stamps and—”

  “Harriet, that’s brilliant,” Nick interrupts. It’s a genuine, delighted brilliant.

  I blink.

  Right. It’s bad enough that Toby and Nat are thrilled by my departure, but my boyfriend? He’s supposed to be making impassioned speeches on the edge of bridges about the darkness of life without me. Not throwing a mini verbal celebration and cracking out the Harriet’s Finally Leaving banners.

  “Fine,” I snap, “if that’s the way you feel then you can just—” Nick’s laughter stops me mid-rage.

  “That’s not what I meant, Harriet. New York Fashion Week starts soon, so I’m going to be there too. I get more modelling jobs in America than anywhere else. I’ll be able to see you loads. This is really brilliant news.”

  I pull my phone away from my face while I get my emotions back under control.

  “Harriet? You haven’t been attacked by any other kind of artillery, have you?”

  “Really?” I say. “You’ll really be in New York?”

  “Of course,” Nick laughs. “It’ll take a bit more than a couple of miles and an inch of water to stop me seeing you.”

  I impulsively kiss my phone, even though Nick is seriously underestimating the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

  “Harriet, did you just kiss your phone?”

  “Umm. No. My cheek is just very … sucky.”

  “Ah,” Nick laughs. “I’ve always had a weakness for girls with sucky cheeks …” There’s a shout in the background. “Shoot. I have to go. Apparently the elephant I’m riding doesn’t like my voice.”

  “You rang me from the back of an elephant?”

  “Yeah. I suddenly got reception and I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  We beam at each other in silence. I don’t know how I know he’s beaming, but I just do.

  “Nick,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I l—”

  “Got to go. I’ll see you in New York, Freckles.”

  And the phone goes dead.

  And yes, there’s quite a lot of kissing, but I just quite like it, OK?

  By the next morning I am desperate to leave.

  In fact I’m so keen to get to New York I’ve asked my parents if I can go ahead without them.

  “Do you think we’re insane?” Dad replies.

  “Yes,” I tell him promptly and focus on packing with renewed enthusiasm.

  Everything is ready. The house is clean. The electrics are off. The last of our belongings are being lobbed into a large van by a man who is tutting about our ‘ineffective boxing skills’.

  A note has been left for Bunty saying DO NOT TRY TO DYE, BURN OR REUPHOLSTER ANYTHING. PLEASE FEED THE CAT ON A DAILY BASIS. Hugo has been sent to live temporarily with a delighted Toby while we get his American passport sorted.

  And I’ve spent the evening putting together my own little box of home souvenirs to take with me. A 1,000-yen note with a picture of Mount Fuji on it. A T-shirt with a photo on the front of Rin and me riding a computer-generated unicorn. An American-English dictionary from Toby. An envelope containing a newspaper cutting of me sat with Fleur on the catwalk in Moscow, and a photo I took of Wilbur in Tokyo wearing wing-shaped sunglasses. A photo of me and Nat in cowboy hats and moustaches.

  Finally, I get out a brand-new scrapbook, write on the front and decorate it with a lot of hearts.

  There are going to be so many things to stick in it.

  Museum tickets and love letters and pressed flowers picked on our moonlit strolls in Central Park. The wrapper from a chocolate he unexpectedly pulls out of his pocket. A photo of us, playing with perspective so it looks like the Statue of Liberty is in our hands.

  I’m just contentedly tucking the toy lion he bought me into the corner when my phone beeps.

  H, I can’t make it to the airport! I forgot we have initiation day at college. I’M SO SORRY. Skype me when you get there! Love you so much. Nat xxx

  I look blankly at the message, then text back:

  No probs! Goodbyes are rubbish anyway, aren’t they? Speak soon! Love you too! H xxx

  “Ready?” Annabel says as I pop my little shoebox of memories into my backpack, zip it all up and sling it over my shoulders.

  “Ready,” I say quietly.

  America, here I come.

  ll I’m going to say about the ensuing journey is: two-month-old babies and long-distance flights are not a relaxing combination.

  I have a lot of things to do.

  Documentaries about turbulence to watch, crosswords to complete, key landmarks to look for out of the window, a long and confusing list of American spellings to learn.

  Unfortunately, Tabitha has other plans.

  I’d never realised she liked England so much, but she’s obviously quite attached. As soon as the air steward starts showing us the emergency exits, she starts yelling and doesn’t draw breath for the rest of the journey.

  Apparently women in Ancient Greece made blusher from a mixture of crushed mulberries and strawberries. By the time we land, seven hours later, Annabel is so flushed it looks like she’s made a bath of it and jumped straight in.

  “Tabitha,” she says firmly as we collect our bags from the overhead lockers. She wipes her forehead with her jumper sleeve. “I love you more than life itself, but if you scream again like that on public transport I will leave you in the hold, OK?”

  Tabby blinks at her with wide eyes, hissy-fit over.

  “Don’t give me that look, missy,” Annabe
l sighs. “I’ve had eleven years of practice with your father.”

  Dad leans over Tabitha. “She’s nailing it,” he says approvingly, tickling her tummy. “That’s my girl. Work that twinkle.”

  My sister squeaks and kicks her little legs like a frog attempting the high jump. An air steward stops by us in the aisle.

  “Oh ma Gahd,” she says, putting a hand on her chest. “Your baby is the cutest. Isn’t she just adorable? I could eat her up.”

  We look at Tabitha with narrow, exhausted eyes.

  Dad put her in a Union Jack onesie especially for the journey. Her red hair is all curly and fluffy, her cheeks are all pink, the toy rabbit I bought her is propped on her shoulder and she’s blowing enthusiastic bubbles like a tiny goldfish.

  Tabby does, indeed, look adorable.

  They were obviously working in a different part of the plane twenty minutes ago. There was an entirely different word for her then.

  “Please go for it,” Annabel says drily. “She goes well with ketchup and a bit of oregano.”

  The air steward’s eyes get very round. “Ha,” she says awkwardly. “Hahaha. You Brits are hilarious.”

  And then she hurries away as fast as possible.

  This is it, I realise as we push ourselves through the enormous, shiny JFK airport.

  It’s like we’ve just hit the restart button.

  It feels like London, except bigger. Glossier. Cleaner. The floors are sparkly and everything is ordered and in neat lines. There’s a twang in the air, and the biggest American flag I have seen in my life is hanging from the ceiling.

  We all stand and stare at it in silence.

  “Well,” Annabel says finally, “at least we don’t need to check that we’re in the right country.”

  “Unless it’s a trick,” Dad shrugs. “That would be pretty funny, right? Welcome to Australia! Hahaha GOTCHA!”

  “You have a nice day, now!” a lady in an airport outfit says chirpily as she walks past.

  “You too!” Dad shouts after her. “Thank you so much! How extremely thoughtful of you! Do you have anything fun planned?”

  She looks in alarm at the airport security.

  Well: safe-ish, anyway.

  Dad signs a few bits of paper and then leads us in excitement outside into an enormous car park and towards a large silver car. It’s so enormous it makes our car at home look like something a toy drives.

  “A Dodge Durango?” Dad says. “They sent me a Dodge Durango?” He starts running his hands along it. “Front engine, rear-wheel drive. Harriet, this is built on the same platform as a Jeep Grand Cherokee!”

  This is possibly the only fact in the world I’ve ever heard that I’m not even vaguely interested in.

  “Are we prepared for an adventure?” Annabel says, popping Tabitha into the car seat and winking at me.

  “Of course,” I say with a deep breath.

  And we start the drive into the bright lights of the Big Apple.

  ccording to the internet, New York City has:

  I don’t want to be rude, but frankly you’d think they’d be a bit more noticeable.

  Fifty minutes into the journey I still can’t see any of them. I’ve got my nose pressed against the window and three guidebooks on my lap, but the roads are getting wider and the buildings are getting smaller and the people fewer, rather than the other way round.

  There’s a dodgy-looking restaurant on the side of the road, and an enormous superstore with flashing lights on the other. There are some of the biggest trucks I have ever seen in my life, blowing their horns at each other.

  So far, skyscrapers spotted: 0.

  Parks: 0.

  Little ladies with push-along shopping trolleys: 6.

  The Empire State Building is 381 metres high. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see.

  Another twenty minutes pass, and then another thirty, and I’m finally starting to lose my brand-new shiny patience. I know I’m supposed to be acting like an adult now, but clearly my parents don’t know how to navigate America.

  “Are we lost?” I say helpfully, leaning forward and sticking my head in between the seats. “Because if you need help reading a map, I have a Brownie badge that will confirm I’m quite good at it.”

  Silence.

  I look back at the guidebook. “I think we should have gone over the Hudson River by now. Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?”

  Then I see my parents glance at each other.

  “What’s going on?” I say as the car starts pulling into a tiny little road surrounded by small, solitary houses made out of white, blue or grey slats and shutters around the windows and pointy roofs. There’s a dog sitting on the porch, casually licking itself, and a ginger cat perched on the fence opposite, staring at it in total disgust.

  One of the curtains twitches, and a small boy on a bike rides slowly past. Another silver SUV drives by with a family inside it.

  At random intervals on this road there is a tiny hairdresser’s called CURL UP AND DYE, a small mechanical shop called JONNO’S AUTOPARTS and somewhere that sells chicken called MANDYS.

  On the corner is a tiny church the shape of a box, with an enormous blue sign that says GREENWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST.

  And then, in small letters underneath:

  TRY JESUS! IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIM, THE DEVIL WILL HAVE YOU BACK.

  Dad pulls into a driveway and with a quick flick of his wrist turns the engine off.

  “Are we visiting someone?” I say curiously, rolling down the window. “Or maybe picking up the keys to our super-cool Manhattan loft-with-a-view?”

  There’s another silence.

  And then I can feel it: sticky alarm rising from my feet upwards until my whole body feels full of something explosively panicky.

  “This isn’t New York,” I say slowly as Annabel and Dad open their car doors. We’re parked outside a small grey house with neat little hedges and a pointed window in the roof. “This isn’t New York. We’re nowhere near it.”

  “Umm.” Annabel clears her throat. “Yes. About that …”

  I can feel the panic starting to surge into my head until all I can hear is an incoherent, wordless roar.

  “This is our house?”

  Annabel inclines her head. Just slightly enough to mean uh-huh.

  “But … you said.” The roar is getting louder. “You said your job was in New York, Dad.”

  “My job is in New York,” he says, turning around in the driver’s seat. It’s a token gesture, because he’s not actually looking at me. He’s staring at a bit of car seat to the side of my left ear. “But the house … kind of isn’t.”

  As if half of it is here, and half of it is situated in Central Park with a magic tunnel between the two.

  “We’re not staying in a cool skyscraper New York loft apartment in the middle of Manhattan?”

  “No.”

  “With a doorman who always forgets our names even though we’ve told him lots of times?”

  “No.”

  “With our very own gold and glass elevator with a mahogany floor?”

  “Umm.” Dad and Annabel glance at each other. “That’s not really how skyscrapers are, sweetheart.”

  I am never going to trust an adult again. This is exactly like when I was five and found them scoffing the mince pies I left out for Santa.

  “So where are we?”

  “Greenway,” Annabel says quietly. “New York is only an hour and a half away by train.”

  Only an hour and a half away by train.

  Nick is an hour and a half away.

  The Empire State Building is an hour and a half away.

  The ice rink is an hour and a half away, as is Central Park and romantic horse-drawn carriages and boat rides and the Statue of Liberty.

  Marilyn Monroe’s famous grate and the Museum of Modern Art are an hour and a half away.

  The buildings, the lights, the museums, the galleries: everything I’ve got planned for the next six mon
ths.

  My new life is an hour and a half away.

  And I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  My parents tricked me into giving up everything I care about and everyone I love for this.

  For nothing.

  I try to take a deep breath. Be calm, Harriet. Be mature. Be the adult you know you should be growing into and respond in an orderly and—

  “OH MY GOD!” I scream, opening the car door and jumping out of it. I’m so furious my hands are shaking as if they’re resting on top of a road drill. “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE AND I NEVER WANT TO SPEAK TO EITHER OF YOU, EVER AGAIN!”

  And I run straight into the garden behind the house and burst into tears.

  n the upside, at least my parents have got the old Harriet they know and love back.

  On the downside, they won’t be able to enjoy it because I am never talking to them, ever again.

  It’s a good thing the American legal services are so comprehensive, because I am going to divorce them and there’s not a single thing they can do about it. I’ll start the procedure just as soon as I come out of the enormous bush I’ve crawled into.

  I curl into a ball and cry silently into my knees.

  Maybe I can go back.

  Maybe Bunty will look after me.

  How long does it take to book a new flight to England? How can I let school know that I need my place back immediately?

  Everyone is going to laugh at me because I couldn’t make it in America, like some kind of failed pop star.

  “Harriet?” A blonde head pops into the bush, and then a ginger head joins it. “Shuffle over.”

  I don’t shuffle over, but somehow Annabel and Dad manage to squeeze into the bush next to me.

  Tabitha has been propped up in her car-seat just outside the bush and is staring at us with a strangely wise, owl-like expression.

  Maybe I should have screamed for the entire plane journey too.

  “We know this probably isn’t what you were hoping for, sweetheart,” Dad says, putting an arm round me. “And we’re sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” I snuffle into my shorts. My nose is damp, and leaves a shiny trail. “You lied.”