Model Misfit (28 page)

I open my eyes. “W-w-what are you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” Wilbur says, smiling. “I’m like all the Queen’s horses and all the Queen’s men, my little Sugar-puff. I’ve come to put you back together again.”

At which point I promptly throw myself off the wall, fling my arms around Wilbur’s neck and burst straight into tears.

ilbur takes charge immediately.

“My little Butter-crumpet,” he says gently after a few minutes of relieved sobbing (mine, not his). “It’s lovely to be appreciated, Mini-chickpea. But you’re getting salty water all over my Hermès silk scarf.”

“I can’t believe you’ve come all this way for me,” I say, ignoring his warning and weeping happily into his shoulder.

“Of course I did, my little Pineapple-chunk.” Wilbur pats me on the head, the way you comfort a puppy on firework night. “Fourteen hours squished next to a woman with body odour and wandering feet. Most Fairy Godmothers can just
appear
, so if that’s not commitment to a cause I don’t know what is. Let me have a look at you.”

Wilbur holds me at arm’s length.

“Twinkle-monkey, now I
know
something’s wrong. What’s with the yawn-o-gear? Where has my little Munchkin gone?”

I look down at my outfit, and suddenly I feel like somebody’s drained the Harriet Manners out of me.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Then let’s get her back, my little Sugar-peanut,” Wilbur says. He bends down and unties Kylie, who immediately starts prinking and purring like the contrary little madam she is. Then Wilbur drops a polka-dot holdall on the pavement, climbs on top of the wall and pats the spot next to him.

“I suggest you tell me exactly what the sugar-monkeys has been going on since I last saw you, Teeny-possum.”

I take a deep breath and hop up next to him. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Wilbur nods wisely. “Then begin at the end and work your way through to the front. We can piece the story together from there.”

Over the next hour, I tell Wilbur everything. I tell him about the octopus and the dress, my alarms, oversleeping, the pink shoes, the sumo shoot, smashing the arcade game. I tell him how much Haru hates me. I tell him about my new flatmates. I tell him about Bunty. I even tell him about Nick.

For the first time since I’ve known him, Wilbur listens without a single word.

“OK, Peach-plum-pear,” he says when I finally draw to a flushed halt. “Just one question: is there
any
chance you’ve been abducted by aliens and that the girl in front of me is actually from a world a billion miles away?”

Exactly what kind of magazines has Wilbur started reading?

“No chance,” I say reluctantly.

“Because that would make it an
awful
lot easier to get Yuka back on side.”

I remember with a sickening thump that it’s not just me my behaviour has consequences for.

“I’m so sorry, Wilbur. I just don’t think I’m cut out for modelling.”

“Baby-baby Giraffe,” he says firmly, “not a single thing that’s gone wrong has been anything to do with your modelling skills. I thought that you’d have figured that out for yourself by now.”

I stare at him. “What do you mean?”

“Tinkle-berry,” Wilbur says tying the harness back on to the cat and picking his spotty bag up. He swings it over his shoulder like a slightly podgy Huckleberry Finn. “I mean it’s time to find out what the diddle cat is going on.”

y first instinct on entering the flat is one of panic. Bunty’s lying flat on the living-room floor in a shower of flashing lights. It’s only when she holds up a crystal necklace that I realise I probably don’t need to call an ambulance. She’s lying in a small patch of sunshine, waving the necklace so that tiny rainbows bounce around the walls.

Suffice to say, Kylie immediately runs in and tries to violently kill one.

“Bunty-boo,” Wilbur says, walking over and prodding my grandmother with a stripy sneaker. “May I join you?”

“Of course, darling. Take a pew.”

Wilbur lies down next to her, and they both watch the rainbows in silence. Finally he says, “Any ideas?”

“Quite a few, as it happens.”

“About—”

“Exactly.”

“And the—”

“I thought so too. Nothing yet but it’s getting there.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing to worry about, my little Paper-flip-chart,” Wilbur says with a smile.

“Harriet, darling, why don’t you go into the bedroom and have a little look round? See if there’s anything
missing
?”

The mouse in my brain suddenly wakes up and takes another nibble. I shift uncomfortably.

“Harry-chan?” a small voice says from the doorway. “Do we have visit? Is it Ted? Do we need more presents?”

“Is it Nick?” Poppy says from behind her. “I’ve been calling and calling him and …”

They spot Wilbur, and there’s suddenly silence. A strangely long and uncomfortable silence. The kind of silence you could drink, if you were interested in drinking silences.

“Poppy,” my agent says. “Cherry-winkle, I haven’t seen you since you jumped shipski to that other agency without cancelling our contract first. How’s tricks, Pumpkin?” There’s a slight edge to Wilbur’s voice that I haven’t heard before.

“Umm – hi, Wilbur,” Poppy says awkwardly, tucking her golden hair behind her ear and standing on a different foot. “Nice to see you again. How are you?”

“Fandabby, naturally, Darling-cake.” Then he looks straight at Rin. “And how’s my little Rin-chops?”

Wilbur knows
Rin
?
How does Wilbur
know Rin
?

Then I see that Rin has gone bright red, and has immediately grabbed Kylie and buried her face in Kylie’s fur. “Wilbur-San,” she says, dropping into a low, formal bow. “Iamfinethankyouandyou?”

“Marvelly,” Wilbur says, sitting up. “And tell me, Sheep-pudding: have you found much work since Yuka dropped you from the Baylee campaign and replaced you with Harriet?”

Rin abruptly steps backwards until she’s pressed against the wall with Kylie held protectively in front of her.

What the sugar cookies is going on?

“Not so much,” she says in a small voice.

“Not at all, I’ve heard,” Wilbur says, flashing a glance my way.

I suddenly realise that although Rin said she was a model, she hasn’t actually mentioned a single modelling job since I got here.

“I am OK. I enjoy the chill time.” Rin’s cheeks are now scarlet.

“Of course you do,” Wilbur says. “Who doesn’t just
adore
penniless, anonymous unemployment, Rabbit-nose?”

My head is starting to make an incomprehensible buzzing sound.
Rin
used to be the Baylee model? I replaced her? I ruined her modelling career and I didn’t even
know
? I’ve Googled
everything in the world that has ever happened ever,
and it never occurred to me to look up the model I replaced last year?

“B-but I don’t understand,” I say, looking at both of my flatmates. “What are you saying—” and suddenly the mouse in my brain stops chewing.

Annabel changed the time on my alarm clocks.

While I was getting ready to leave the house for the airport, she changed my watch, my phone and all three alarm clocks. Dad had to help her screw on the back of the little bird because it was too tight.

A fraction of a second later, the mouse sighs and clonks me gently round the head.

I charged my phone the night before the sumo shoot. I
know
I did, because I had to get my six-piece adapter kit with snap-on plug out of my suitcase. And plug it in next to the doorway.
Not
under my bed.

There was no note about the doorbell next to my bed when I went to sleep.

The shoes at the sumo ring were
pink
,
glittery
and
too
small
.

My brain continues making a few more whirring sounds, and – finally – the mouse stands up, rolls its eyes and punches me straight in the face.

No. No.

NO.

Feeling sick, I turn round and run to the bedroom; hoping I’m wrong, hoping I’ve made a mistake, hoping I’ve jumped to irrational conclusions. But I haven’t.

The corner of the room is empty.

The cockroach trap is gone.

ix months ago, I had a list.