Model Misfit (30 page)

“That’s not exactly how she’s referring to Harriet at the moment, but – yes.”

“And how about the … you know?”

“Ready. It pains me to say it, but my aunt is a genius.”

“That good?”

“Uh-huh.”

It’s like they’re talking in code. To be honest, I’m not even sure I want to know what they’re on about.

So far my modelling career has consisted of: jumping around in snow with bare feet; being covered in gold paint; getting attacked by an octopus; feeling humiliated in front of 20,000 people and being put in a glass box.

Judging by past experiences, I would imagine they’re now planning to wrap me in clingfilm and drop me off the top of a mountain attached to an elastic band. It’s for the best all round if I just don’t ask.

“And any sign of …” I say to Wilbur, lifting my eyebrows. I can totally do code too.
Ha
.

“What?”

“You know.”

“No, what?”

For God’s sake. How come when
I
try to be all mysterious, nobody understands what I’m talking about?

I blush. “Poppy or Rin,” I whisper under my breath. “Any sign of them?”

“None,” Wilbur whispers back. “Your grandmother’s still guarding the flat like a gloriously sparkly Pyrenean Mountain Dog. She texted me to say she’s got them baking wasabi cookies. It’s going to be fine this time, my little Human-firework. We’ve made absolutely sure of it.”

My shoulders relax, but only slightly.

Over the last ten years, Alexa and her minions have shown me so many shades of hatred I could draw you an Unpopularity Rainbow.

I know the shade of hatred you get when you tell people they’ve used the wrong word in a sentence; the shade when you’ve just had a six-page spread in
Harper’s Bazaar
; the shade when you’ve accidentally tripped in the school canteen and thrown baked beans and chicken Kiev all over the back of the person in front of you.

I even know the shade of hatred that comes from telling people about shades of hatred, and offering to draw them an Unpopularity Rainbow.

But I’m not sure anyone has ever hated me enough before to change my alarms, wear out my phone battery, plant a pair of culturally offensive shoes on me and manhandle a cockroach, all to try and get me fired when I’m 6,000 miles from home
.

Not even Alexa.

’ve had a picture of Japan in my head for more than a decade. Skyscrapers, flashing lights, crowds, technology, sushi, girls in cute outfits and dogs in clothes and a random mountain floating in the air somewhere behind it.

In other words: Tokyo.

As we drive away from Shin-Fuji train station, I suddenly realise there’s an entire country that I had ignored completely.

Huge green fields full of tiny purple flowers, dense thickets of gnarly woods with tiny roads winding through them. Huge bright blue skies, silence and rustling and birds; little restaurants with wooden chairs and paper lanterns hanging from the ceilings; regal red temples built into rocks. In between the trees and the flowers are enormous shining lakes: sometimes seasoned with tiny boats and fishermen, sometimes with windsurfers, sometimes completely empty.

And – looming behind it all, reflected perfectly – Mount Fuji.

Proud and completely alone.

The only thing that could possibly make the journey more amazing would be
not
being squidged against the van door, curled into a stiff, semi-fetal position. I’m squashed next to Nick in the front, and every time we go round a corner, his left knee brushes against my right knee, or his left elbow brushes against my right elbow, and I spring a little further into the door as if I’ve just been electrocuted.

And there appear to be a
lot
of corners.

Wilbur’s not helping. In fact, he seems to be going out of his way to make it worse. “Nick, Sugar-pot, tell Harriet where we are now.”

“This is Fuji Five Lakes.”

Three minutes later: “Nick, Monkey-bum, tell Harriet where the name Fuji comes from.”

“I think it translates to
without equal.
”

One minute: “Nick, Orange-pip, tell Harriet what those flowers are called.”

Cue laughter. “How would I know, Wil? Purple ones?”

I’m not a naturally violent person, but after three-quarters of an hour of this I am
seconds
away from smacking Wilbur’s head against the seat in front to get him to shut up. Just so that I can stop blushing scarlet and avoiding eye contact and trying to hide my sweaty palms by cramming them between my legs. Just so I can stop saying ‘ah’ and trying to sound all mature and indifferent.

Just so I can stop pretending I can’t feel Nick’s shoulder knocking sporadically against mine or his foot three centimetres from mine or that it’s slightly killing me.

Finally, we pull into an enormous, muddy car park. I’m out before the engine’s switched off. Next time, I am
so
sitting in the back.

I hop straight into a puddle.

Nick laughs and carefully climbs over it. “That was pretty selfless of you, Manners, protecting my jeans like that. You’re like some kind of girl knight.”

I blush and shake the muddy water from my leggings.

“Owl-cakes,” Wilbur says, clambering out and stretching like an enormous pink sparkly cat. “Can I leave you to entertain yourselves? I’m just going to go pull the brief out of Yuka.”

I glance nervously at Nick and then away again. I’m not entirely sure that
entertain
is the right word. When a frog vomits, it ejects its entire stomach and uses its forearms to empty out the contents.

There’s a small chance I may be about to do the same thing.

“Sure,” I say.

“Absolutely,” Nick says, and – to my distress – his nonchalance sounds totally genuine. “Take your time.”

“My darlings,” Wilbur sighs. “If time belonged to me I totally would.”

And he skips towards a familiar big black car waiting on the other side of the car park.

tudies have shown it takes exactly four seconds for a silence to become awkward.

I think somebody needs to tell Nick this.

He’s still standing in the car park with his hands slung nonchalantly in his pockets. There isn’t a flutter of discomfort or embarrassment on his handsome face.

Five seconds: nothing. Six seconds: nope. Seven seconds: nada. Eight sec—

“Come with me,” he says abruptly, looking up. I’m forced to quickly pretend I’ve been studying an imaginary pigeon in a tree just behind his head.

“Pardon me?”

He awkwardly scratches his head. “Please? Unless you want to spend the next ten minutes standing in a car park?”

Pretend, Harriet. Pretend as hard as you can.

“Actually,” I say in a desperate attempt to sound like I’m not bothered either way, “white vans are quite interesting. Did you know that you would need 772 of them to move one billion Cheesy Wotsits?”

Yeah. That’ll work.

He’ll either think I’m totally over him or inordinately obsessed with private transport. And cheese-flavoured snacks.

“Of course,” Nick says, nodding seriously. “Everybody knows that. Let’s go.”

He turns and starts striding towards the other side of the trees. I start objecting that Wilbur won’t be able to find us again, that we’ll get into trouble, that we’ll get lost, and then I realise that with every hesitation he’s getting further away. So I set my shoulders into their most cool, unbothered position and saunter casually after him. Then – because he’s so fast – I saunter a little more quickly.

Then I break into a cool, unbothered kind of jog.

I’m just about running – cool and unbothered, and breathing quite heavily through my mouth – when the trees suddenly clear.

In front of us is an enormous, sparkling lake. A few flossy white clouds are hovering in the sky, which is now starting to deepen to a faint lilac colour with a slightly pink horizon. The lake is surrounded by a grey pebble beach and tiny flowers, and directly behind it is Mount Fuji.

We are totally alone.

I suddenly feel uncomfortable. As if I’m doing something very, very wrong.

I turn around and start walking quickly back towards the car park. “Harriet?” Nick says, and I pause then turn to face him. “Are you OK?”

I half nod without saying anything.

“Here.” Nick reaches into his pocket. He walks forward and hands something to me.

“What’s this?” I look at the money he’s just forced into my hand. “What are you
paying
me for?”

“Hold it up.”

There’s a picture of a man on it with big bouffant hair and a bushy moustache. “Hideyo Noguchi, the famous Japanese bacteriologist?”

Nick frowns then shouts with laughter. “Not that side. Turn it over.”

On the other side of the note is a little circle: a blue picture of a mountain topped with snow, reflected in the lake below it. I must have used 1,000-yen notes at some stage in the past week but I’ve never noticed it. I look back at the view in front of us. “Is this—”

“Where we are now? Yes. This is the exact spot where that picture was drawn. I wanted you to see it.”

There’s a silence while I try to process this.

“
Why?
”

“I don’t know,” Nick says. “I suppose I wanted to give
you
something this time.”

We both look at the floor while I fiddle with the corner of the note. Then I say quietly, “Poppy’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”

I sort of feel as if I need to put her name out there, like a line in the sand.

Even though it’s not actually sand: it’s pebbles.

But you know what I mean.

Nick glances at me sharply, and a deep line appears between his eyebrows. He pauses, then says, “Yes, she is. But I prefer you.”

The awkwardness in my stomach is getting tighter and tighter, and the urge to run away is unbearable.

What the sugar cookies is Nick
doing
?

I suddenly don’t want him to say anything else. I feel as if I’m about to lose the boy I knew for good. And not to someone else this time: to a different version of himself. One who is a cheat.

Which is so, so much worse.

“I think we should stop talking to each other now,” I say in a brittle voice. “Frankly, I think you’re being awful.”