“I’m confused,” Annabel says when I’ve finally finished, still staring at the glittering girl clutched in her hand. “Where’s the PowerPoint presentation? What’s happening?”
“It’s a trick,” Dad says, narrowing his eyes at the corners of the room. “Mark my words, there’s a camcorder here somewhere, humiliating us on telly as we speak.”
He winks and blows the DVD player a kiss.
“It’s not a trick,” I say even more calmly. “Parents are statistically the most lied-to section of society, and I think I speak for all of us when I say I am normally at the very forefront of this movement. I just thought I’d experiment with a different approach this time, that’s all.”
There’s a silence while Dad checks under the coffee table.
Then he explodes into the air.
“OH MY GOD my daughter is a SUPERMODEL and I’m going TO MOROCCO!” he shouts, running into the hallway and tugging his suitcase out from under the stairs. “Finally! Casinos, Formula One and Grace Kelly! This is the life to which I’ve intended to become accustomed for ages.”
“That’s Monaco, Richard,” Annabel says, still looking at the flyer. “You’re thinking of Monaco.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Does Morocco have private jets? Because if so I think I could be equally happy there.”
Finally my stepmother looks up and stares steadily at me, as if I’m a foreign film she’s trying to translate and it’s much, much harder than she expected.
My hands are starting to sweat again. I’ve had an entire lifetime of trying to fool my parents. This was an extremely risky moment to stop doing it.
I grip my hands together a little more tightly.
Frankly, I know exactly who I have to convince, and it is not my father. I could have won him over with half a packet of crisps and a chocolate digestive.
“Please, Annabel. I miss modelling, it’s an amazing opportunity, a lot of money and I will make up the two days I miss from school. I’m even prepared to take Dad with me.”
Prepared. Which is not the same as willing.
“WOOOOOOOO!” my father yells from the corridor. “Yachts! Helicopters! A tax haven full of parties and glitz and—”
“Still Monaco, Richard.” Annabel hands the leaflet back to me. “That’s a lovely photo, Harriet. You look absolutely beautiful. The answer’s yes.”
I nod slowly.
“I understand. Thank you for your time and considera— Sorry, what?”
“You can go. Absolutely. Yes.”
“But …” My calmness has now evaporated. “What would you – why would you … Why?”
“Why not? You’ve just proved to me that you’re not a little girl any more. You’ve explained things logically, you’ve been honest and it makes total sense. It’s entirely our fault that you missed the first four weeks of term, so I don’t think two more days are going to make a vast amount of difference. In fact, I think a bit of an adventure in Morocco is just what you need right now given … everything. I’m wholeheartedly behind it.”
I stare at Annabel in amazement.
What? She has got to be kidding me. I can’t believe I’ve spent so many years slamming doors: I could have saved so many hinges if I’d just tried this approach earlier.
I close my eyes tightly for a few seconds – relief rushing through me – then impulsively throw myself on the sofa and bury my nose in my stepmother’s pinstripe shoulder-pad.
“Thank you,” I whisper, lobbing my arms round her. “I’m going to be so good, Annabel. I’ll do everything I’m told, I won’t break anything, I won’t get into any trouble, and I’ll …”
Somehow lose Dad.
Maybe exchange him for a camel, or a really useful leather footrest.
“Oh, I know,” Annabel says calmly, folding up her crossword and kissing the top of my head. “Because this time, I’m coming with you.”
ad sulks for the rest of the evening.
“You went to Russia with Harriet,” Annabel explains as she retrieves our summer clothes from under her bed. “It’s my turn, isn’t it?”
“Well, if I’d known it was a choice, I’d have picked this trip,” Dad complains. “It was really cold out there, and there was nothing but cabbage to eat. Plus none of the Russian supermodels would talk to me. This is so unfair.”
This is so unfair is then repeated for the rest of the evening.
It’s so unfair as we pack our suitcases, and so unfair as we fold up our maps and get out our guidebooks. It’s unfair as we pull the suncream out of the cupboard, and really really really unfair when we look at the temperatures and discover it’s twenty-six degrees in Morocco and climbing. It’s unfair as we put our suitcases in the car the next morning, and unfair as Dad drives us to the airport.
But by the time my father leaves us at the security gates, he appears to have finally made peace with the decision.
“On the bright side,” he says cheerfully, kissing us both goodbye, “when Harriet goes to the Maldives, I’m first in line, right?”
“Absolutely,” Annabel says, kissing him back and snuggling the top of Tabitha’s head. I give my sister a little kiss as well and she squeaks so adorably I’m temporarily tempted to put her in my bag and take her with us.
“Take care of my baby, OK?”
Although – frankly – by this point it’s not really clear which one of the two she’s referring to.
In the meantime, my excitement levels are rising rapidly and exponentially. With the help of my guidebooks, my fact books, my translation books and my detailed maps of Marrakech, I’ve spent pretty much the entire last fifteen hours studying.
I know about the prehistoric rock engravings of the Figuig region. I know about the 50,000-year-old remains of a sixteen-year-old Neanderthal boy discovered in a cave near Rabat, and the magical city of Chefchaouen: painted entirely blue to symbolise the skies and the heavens.
I also know that nobody else wants to know these things: the old man next to me pretends to fall asleep halfway through me reading him the Moroccan Political History Chart on page four of my chunkiest guidebook.
But as the plane climbs through the grey clouds over London and pops into a bright blue, shiny sky, it feels like the excited bubbles inside me are multiplying by the second: not unlike the experiment we did in biology last year with micro-organisms in a Petri dish.
Except hopefully slightly more glamorously.
And with slightly less fuzzy green mould.
“Ssalamu lekum,” I say experimentally to the air hostess as she brings us round peanuts. (This means hello in Arabic.) “Sbah el kheyr,” I say cheerfully as she gives me a wet towel. (Good morning.) “Me ssalami,” I chirp as she offers us breakfast.
“We don’t have salami,” she frowns. “It’s a cheese or beef sandwich.”
“I was trying to say goodbye in Arabic,” I explain.
“Then that’s m’a ssalama.”
I quickly scan my translation book for thank you. “Shukrun bezzef,” I attempt.
“Beef it is,” she says, plonking it in front of me.
By the time large, dusty expanses of land outside the plane window start to speckle with exotic peach and orange buildings, I’m so high on adrenaline I’m tempted to run up and down the aisles of the plane, clapping my hands together and screaming.
Except there’s already a four-year-old doing that, and it’s not making her very popular.
So I probably won’t.
Finally, the plane makes a smooth landing and the two of us – both child and I – break into uproarious applause. Then Annabel and I tug our suitcases through a white, delicately carved airport that looks exactly like an ornate wedding cake, towards a man holding a sign that says .
I’m way too thrilled to correct him.
According to my research, there are three Harriet Manners in the world, and for the next half-hour I am more than happy to no longer be one of them.
The driver leads us in silence out of enormous, glass air
port doors into hot, dense, fragrant air. Then I hesitate for a few seconds and fiddle anxiously with a piece of paper in my pocket.
Annabel looks at me steadily.
She’s let me chatter in excitement the entire way here: for six solid hours. In fact, when the lady sitting in front of us turned round and glared at me with a loud, pointed sigh, Annabel took her glasses off and stared until the lady went pink and disappeared again.
Now it feels like my stepmother’s reading me as carefully as I’ve been reading any of my guidebooks. I just don’t know quite what she’s looking for, that’s all.
“Umm.” I clear my throat. “Annabel, will you give me a few seconds? There’s just something quick I have to do before we get there.”
My stepmother studies my face a little longer.
Then she puts her sunglasses on.
“Absolutely. Take your time. I’ll be in the car, making sure your father hasn’t already exchanged our youngest for a PlayStation.”
She winks at me and I wink back.
Then I walk across a bright, sunlit pavement into the shade of an enormous palm tree, feeling more full of hope than I have in weeks.
Maybe this time I don’t need Wilbur after all.
autiously, I move around the side of the tree until Annabel can’t see me. Then I open the scrumpled piece of paper that has been clutched tightly in my hand ever since I printed it out this morning: the online research I did while sitting on the bench last night.
The bit of truth I kept from my parents.
How To Find Your Inner Star!!!
1. Be Confident! You are a creature unlike any other!
2. Take Risks, Be Brave! There is no limit to what you can do!
3. Be Stylish! Shake it up and try something new!
4. Inspire! Lead, never follow!
5. Don’t try too hard! It just looks desperate!!!!
6. Believe in yourself! Soon everyone else will to!
I’ve been surreptitiously reading and memorising it since I found it.
I didn’t write it, obviously.
If I had, I’d have corrected to to too and held back on quite a few of the exclamation marks. That much punctuation is basically the grammatical equivalent of grabbing somebody by the collar and shaking them while screaming right into their face.
Which is exactly why I screenshot the list directly off the internet and left them all there. This is incredibly important, and I don’t want to get anything wrong because I’ve gone and corrected some grammar.
Also, maybe this kind of aggressive positive energy is exactly what I need in my life right now. Something to get me moving in the right direction, when I’m not sure quite how to do it by myself. It’s like having my very own perky, bouncy life coach in my pocket, or maybe some kind of tiny sergeant major.
Jubilantly, I kiss the list that’s going to alter my life.
I put the paper in my pocket, walk to the car and climb into the back with the most confident swish of my head I can possibly manage.
Then – just for added impact – I put my sunglasses on.
They’re bright red and they’ve got glitter all over them. I got them in the airport and they remind me of Dorothy’s magic slippers.
Except I didn’t have to kill anyone to get them.
Obviously.
“Ready?” Annabel says as the car pulls away from the airport and begins its dusty, winding journey into the centre of Marrakech.
“I am.” I smile brightly at her. “I’m ready.”
Because if you do the same thing over and over again, you can’t expect different results.
If I really want things to change …
They have to start with me.
hen I was ten years old, I had my tonsils out.
And I still managed to tell the entire hospital ward that for thirty minutes after they’ve been removed, human tonsils can bounce higher than a rubber ball if dropped on the floor.
What I’m trying to say is: it takes an awful lot to shut me up. Within three minutes, Morocco has somehow achieved it.
As we drive slowly into the ancient medina, the world outside the car windows begins to unravel into a carnival of colour and noise. Narrow, dusty streets are crammed with people in long turquoise robes, pink scarves, blue and red and green hats, embroidery in white and grey and purple. Cars are everywhere – beeping at each other and parked willy-nilly in streets while drivers talk to each other, yell, laugh and shout – and scooters weave nonchalantly in and out of the traffic.
Dotted here and there are animals: horses, trotting along the road drawing little green carriages; wild-eyed ginger cats, streaking down alleyways; brown donkeys laden with brightly woven bags and camels chewing patiently in little huddles.
And as we get out of the car and start wheeling our bags through narrow, cobbled streets, it intensifies yet further.
From uneven peach and yellow walls hang fabrics in every colour of the rainbow; red and yellow bags, silver jewellery, rows of sparkling slippers in greens and oranges, glass lanterns, carved wood and painted ceramics.
Sunshine stripes the walls and floors with lines of yellow, and the smell changes every few seconds: from fruit to incense to flowers to a faint scent of urine mixed with leather.
Sounds are blended – French, Arabic, English, American, laughter, music, shouts – and piles of food lie glistening on tables: pointed mounds of musky spices, trays of figs, mountains of oranges in carefully constructed pyramids.
Every time I turn my head, there’s something else to see, something else to smell.
Finally, the driver stops outside a small, heavy wooden blue door and knocks on it.
With a loud squeak, it swings open.
And the world transforms yet again.
The chaos has abruptly disappeared.
A long turquoise pool stretches across the floor, lit from below. Lanterns line pale, marble floors with arched doorways, tinkling flute music plays, columns and ornate iron balconies stretch upwards in a mass of stone carvings.
Enormous stained-glass lights hang from the ceiling, and flowers, mirrors, incense sticks, elaborately painted furniture and silk cushions are scattered everywhere like a carnage of tired butterflies.
It feels as if we’ve climbed inside the lamp of a particularly house-proud genie.
“Right,” Annabel says after a few minutes of totally awestruck silence. She sinks into one of the velvet sofas with a little sigh. “This is my new house, Harriet. If your father wants me, tell him I will be in this exact position for the next three years.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” A gentleman walks towards us in white trousers and a white tunic. He has two tiny glasses of steaming honey-coloured liquid, which he places calmly in front of us. “I’m so glad you like it. Alan wa Salan. Mint tea?”
“Make that five years,” Annabel says, gratefully taking her glass. “Six if there’s a ginger biscuit.”
“Hello, Alan,” I say, sticking my hand out confidently and plonking my suitcase down. “It’s nice to meet you, and also super cool that your first name rhymes with your last name. You must have very poetic parents.”
Alan laughs.
“Alhan wa salhan means welcome in Arabic. My name is Ali, and I’m the manager of this riad. There is a Berber proverb that says you have to calm the surface of the lake to see to the bottom.” He waves a hand gracefully around. “That is what I try to achieve here. Anything you wish, it is my pleasure to grant.”
I beam at him. Looks like we found the genie.
“Eight years,” Annabel whispers, standing up and looking at the carved stone ceiling. “Nine if there’s a garden.”
“I’m afraid you only have a couple of minutes to freshen up,” Ali continues, gently pivoting both our suitcases and leading us quietly through a little marble hallway into a powder-blue room, full of flowers and lilac silks and bright paintings. “The crew is setting up in Jemaa el-Fnaa at the moment.”
There’s a four-poster
bed, which I immediately sit on and start happily bouncing up and down.
“Ali, did you know that Morocco contains one of the most ancient civilisations in the entire world? The oldest ever child’s skull was found here. It dates back a hundred and eight thousand years, which means it’s all the way from the early Pleistocene period. Isn’t that cool?”
“Very cool,” Ali says with a small smile. “The director and stylist are in the lounge now. When you’re ready, I’ll take you down.”
“Thank you so much.” I bounce a few more times. “Also, did you know that in Morocco you have forty different ecosystems of animals, which used to include lions and bears and—”
I abruptly stop. Hang on a minute.
“Sorry, director? Do you mean … photographer?”
“Apologies,” Ali says, bowing slightly. “I’m not totally up to speed with fashion terminology. What do you call a man who directs a television commercial?”
A man named Ashrita Furman holds the current world record for the most forward rolls ever done in one hour (1,330). He also holds the record for the fastest somersaults, longest top spinning, quickest leapfrogging and most star jumps, and is arguably a very twisty and flippy kind of man.
I think my stomach just beat him at all of them.
Oh my God.
I’m here to shoot a television commercial?
“I think th-there’s been some kind of mistake,” I eventually stutter, jumping up and grabbing Ali’s hand. “I’m not an actress, I’m a model and I’m here to shoot a campaign for Jacques Levaire and—”
“I’m afraid there’s no time,” Ali says brightly, handing me three sheets of A4 paper covered in very small writing. “See you in a few minutes, Hannah Manners.”
ere are just a few occasions when I have failed to move as expected in public:
Frankly, my clumsiness has already been pretty well documented.
I’m not entirely sure we need any more evidence.
Especially not on film.
With my brain making small, desperate clicking sounds, I stare in confusion at the paper I’ve just been given. It appears to be some kind of brief, with JACQUES LEVAIRE INTERNATIONAL TIMEPIECE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN typed at the top. With a CV and photo stapled to the front.