Model Misfit (27 page)

I look down.

A ginormous cockroach is slowly climbing up my bare leg.

Entomophobia
= fear of insects.

Herpetophobia
= fear of crawling things.

Fear of enormous black beetles the size of your palm creeping up your leg?

That’s just called normal.

I look down, and then up again. “Oh,” I say calmly to nobody in particular. “There appears to be a large semi-tropical insect of the order
Blattodea
and the subclass
Pterygota
currently meandering up my
tibialis
anterior
.”

Or – you know:

GETITOFFMEGETITOFFMEGETITOFFME.

In one graceful, seamless movement, I lurch in blind panic straight into the glass side of the box.

And straight out the other side.

here isn’t as much blood as you’d think.

That’s the good news. The bad news is I don’t think there’s as much blood as Yuka would probably like.

I’ve done it again.
Again.

There’s smashed glass and dolls everywhere and, in my lunge for freedom, my dress caught on the metal side of the box and ripped all the way down the skirt. My wig has fallen off, my lipstick is smeared, my beaded necklace has snapped and I’ve got a metre-long scratch across my arm and tiny bits of glass lodged in my hands. Shion and Naho quickly pick me off the floor, brush me down and stick a plaster over the worst of it, but there’s still enough damage to ensure I’m never allowed to get in any glass boxes again.

Not that I’d want to. Like Snow White, I think I’ve probably had enough of them for a while.

As soon as it’s been ascertained that I’m not mortally wounded or going to sue anyone, Yuka’s expression shifts from concern to fury. She thinks I’m making up excuses again.

In fact,
nobody
believes me. Once I’m out of the ruined dress, I clamber around on the floor trying to find evidence, but there’s nothing there. I point out that cockroaches can move up to 80 cms per second and
fly,
but it’s useless. Unless I can explain how an enormous insect could get into a sealed glass box I’m either:

Or – worse:

Again.

“
Atarashi moderu ni kaeruzo
!” Haru shouts.
“Harriet ga nayamino tane dattandayo.
”

I’ve studied enough Japanese since Monday to know that
moderu
means
model,
atarashi
means
new
and
kaeru
means roughly:
change right now
. I’m very glad my translation skills end there.

“Well,” Bunty says when the team starts packing up again. “It’s certainly never boring with you around, is it, darling?”

I look to the corner of the room, where Yuka is speaking on her phone. I don’t think she’s ordering a takeaway pizza.

A few minutes later, mine starts ringing. It’s Wilbur. Without a second of hesitation, I swallow hard and cancel the call.

Looks like it’s game over.

s soon as I get back into the flat, there’s a flurry of activity. Rin and Poppy see the plasters and bandages and immediately want to know if I’m OK, have I hurt my head, have I seen the video already circulating the internet?

“Harry-chan,” Rin says desperately when I don’t respond to a cup of green tea, a rice biscuit or a ‘Shouting Vase’. (I’m supposed to shout my frustrations into it to make them go away, but it just makes them go all echoey.) “Maybe you will go walk? Walk makes all person feels better.”

“Yes,” Poppy says, looking worried. “My boyfriend says that going outside always puts life in perspective. Especially if it’s raining.”

I flinch and my mood sinks a couple of metres lower.

“Actually,” Bunty says wandering around, casually picking things up and putting them down again, “it’s a medical fact that exercise just pushes sadness around the bloodstream faster.”

That doesn’t sound like a medical fact.

“I’ll go,” I say numbly. Not because I want to walk, but because I don’t know what else to do.

“Super!” Rin cries. She jumps up. “
Chotto matteh!
I mean – wait!” She runs into the bedroom and comes back carrying a sound-asleep cat. “Maybe you take Kylie with you? Kylie love walk.”

The cat abruptly opens her eyes and gives Rin a look that seriously questions that statement.

I shrug. “Sure.”

“I get Kylie ready for you!” Rin stops and then says, “Are you wearing these clothes for a walk, Harry-chan?” I look down. I’m still in the black trousers, white vest and silver ballet flats from this morning. I nod.

Rin claps her hands, then disappears into the bedroom.

When she returns a few minutes later, Kylie is wearing a black jumpsuit with a white collar and little silver booties. Rin grabs a sparkly pink harness, sequined lead and wrestles her indignant cat into it. “Ready!” she says, handing the animal to me. “Enjoy!”

The cat and I look at each other, faces like thunder. For the first time, we’re in total agreement.

And I slink out of the front door with the cat flopped unhappily in my arms.

There’s an old expression:
misery likes company.

There is
nothing
in the entire world more miserable than a cat being taken for a walk. Kylie’s so wretched with despair and disgust at me and the world and everything in it, I feel slightly chirpier simply by comparison.

A walk with my dog tends to go: “Wait, Hugo. Hang on, Hugo. Stop, Hugo. Don’t sniff that, Hugo. Stop licking that, Hugo. Leave her bottom alone, Hugo.
Hugo, that is not your ice cream. HUGO! DOWN! NO! HUGO, COME BACK HERE!
”

A walk with a cat goes: “Please get off the floor.
Please
.”

As soon as I put Kylie Minogue down, she defiantly spreads herself flat out on the pavement, and that’s it: walk over.

I cajole. I plead. I even try a bit of mild bullying and half-hearted insults. Kylie simply glares at me.

When I tug hard on the harness, she allows herself to be dragged along the floor sideways like a wheely suitcase without wheels.

Eventually – when I’ve given up all hope – she stands up and walks three paces. I get over-excited, Kylie sniffs a pebble, promptly decides she’s done and lies back down again.

It’s only when I look up and see an old Japanese lady, dragging a ginger cat along with its eyes narrowed and its legs stiff and its claws outstretched and digging into the pavement that I start to see the funny side.

This is ridiculous. I am ridiculous.
My entire life is increasingly ridiculous.

I get my phone out of my pocket.

“
Hello. This is a digital recording of the electromagnetic wave of Toby’s voice, which has been encoded on to a binary system of data. Leave your own electromagnetic wave, and I will call you back when I’ve finished playing Plants versus Zombies but that could be a while because frankly it’s almost impossible to get through the iron bucket on their head with a few bits of sweetcorn and a cabbag—”

BEEP.

“Hi, Toby.” I frown. I’m starting to get a little bit concerned. I know it’s the middle of the night in England but why isn’t he answering? “It’s Harriet. Are you OK? I was just ringing to … umm … find out whether we need to purchase our own Bunsen burners for Chemistry A Level. Let me know. Bye.”

I hang up, bite my lip and immediately try Nat’s number but that goes straight to voicemail too.

“Hi,” I say, desperately attempting breeziness. “It’s me. Again. I just wanted to … umm … tell you that I read somewhere that cows can be identified by their nose prints. Can you have a look for me and see if you can tell a difference between them?” I pause and breathe heavily down the phone while I search for another way to say
I need you.
“Hope you’re having an OK time. Speak soon. Bye.”

I’m trying to ignore the deep ache at the base of my throat. It feels as if I’m trying to swallow a whole apple without biting into it first.

Despite the fact that Kylie and I have got no further than three metres from the flat, I decide that this ‘walk’ is over.

I tie Kylie to a lamp-post and climb up on to the top of a high wall. Then I ignore the sullen meowing below – obviously
now
she’s keen to get going – and close my eyes.

The lump in my throat is getting bigger and bigger, and there’s something niggling at me; something at the base of my brain, chewing away like a mouse at a piece of cheese.

I can hear Tokyo in distant beeps and peeps, the indecipherable chatter of my next-door neighbours, an aeroplane lowering itself into Narita airport. It’s still hot, but I’m getting used to the smell and the density of the city air: the flowers and the traffic fumes and the incense and the breaded pork and the slightly soapy scent coming from the laundry hanging two floors above my head.

I take a deep breath. That bit reminds me of home.

Home
.

The big lump moves down to the middle of my chest. Suddenly none of this feels exciting any more.

When I was really little, Dad would tuck me into bed and turn off my bedroom light, and everything would suddenly change. Teddy bears and ornaments and books that made me happy and content during the day would abruptly become strange, unfamiliar and scary. The room and everything in it was the same, but the darkness made me different.

That’s how it feels now. As if Tokyo is exactly as it was when I got here, but I’m suddenly less capable of knowing what to do with it. Because now it’s just me.

I’m in one of the most populated cities in the entire world, and I have never, ever felt more alone in my life.

“My little Owl,” a kind voice says. “Look at you, perched up there, just like Humpty Dumpty.”

I keep my eyes tightly shut. Yuka was right: my imagination really
does
have a life of its own. Oh my God. Is this the start of madness? Is this the beginning of a downward spiral into seeing vague, shadowy shapes in the wallpaper and having my food mashed up for me before I eat it?

“Are you meditating, Baby-baby Panda?” the voice says. “I’ve tried to do that ever since I heard Gary Barlow was into it, but I did three sessions and didn’t see him. Not even
once
. Such a waste of twenty-five pounds.”