Model Misfit (7 page)

The tiger beetle is proportionately the fastest thing on earth. If it was the size of a human, it could reach 480 mph. I’m on the other side of the room so quickly I reckon I would leave it panting and retching behind me.

“Hello?” I pick the phone up, drop it and then grab it again and start randomly whacking buttons. “Hello? Hello? Wilbur? Hello? Are you there? Hello?”

“Where else would I be, Owl-beak? This is my phone, isn’t it?”

“What did you just say?”

“Love bless you, Plum-pudding. I forget your family has a problem with earwax. I
said
, try and eat some more vegetables before you land in Tokyo, or Yuka’s going to kick off again and we all know what that means.”

My entire body suddenly feels like it’s been electrocuted.
Before I land in Tokyo?
“I’m
not
fired?”

Wilbur shrieks with laughter. “
Au contraire
, my
petit poisson
. Yuka has a brand-new job for you in Japan, and if we get moving I should be able to get flights sorted in time.”

I stare at the wall in silence.

I’ve been obsessed with Japan since I was six years old. It’s the Land of the Rising Sun: of sumo and sushi; karaoke and kimonos; mountains and manga. Homeland of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Studio Ghibli; of Hayao Miyazaki and Haruki Murakami. Mecca for geeks and freaks and weirdos. I have dreamt about visiting Japan ever since …

Well. Ever since I realised it existed to visit.

Oh my God: this could fix
everything
. It will be my New and Infinitely More Glorious Summer Plan 2 (NAIMGS2). I can make a brand-new flow chart. It’s
perfect
.

And, yes, it might only be a temporary solution, but everybody knows that if you put enough temporary solutions together you’ve got something that lasts a very long time indeed.

“YES!” I shout, picking Hugo up and giving him the biggest, most twinkly kiss of his life, right between his eyebrows. “When do I leave? What’s the plan?”

“You leave on Saturday, my little Panda-pot. And
BOOM!
” he adds after another stunned silence. “Your fairy godmother strikes again.”

ight. Time to initiate the New Plan.

The first and most important step to convincing your parents that you are a responsible nearly-adult, capable of foreign jaunts, is obviously not being painted gold. So I hop in the shower and scrub myself until I no longer look like the death mask of Tutankhamen.

Then I peruse my wardrobe for something that says
I am an authoritative and totally trustworthy girl on the cusp of womanhood
. Something that says
I can be sent very far away without any repercussions
.

In a moment of poetic inspiration, I put on the most expensive thing I own and grab the matching accessories. I spend a few minutes fiddling on my laptop, then stride confidently into the kitchen to face my parents.

“Zac?” Annabel’s saying, pouring ketchup into an open tin of pears and mixing it up with the end of an empty biro. “For a boy or a girl?”

“Either. It’s very gender neutral.” Dad pauses and then adds, “Plus it’s the name of a Macaw from San Jose who can slam twenty-two dunks in one minute.”

“Vetoed.”

“What about Zeus?”

“
Zeus?
As in the lightning-lobbing Greek father of Gods and Men?”

“As in the world’s tallest dog. Great Dane. Nice eyes.”

Annabel laughs. “I don’t care how nice his eyes are, Richard. Vetoed.”

“Archibald, the world’s smallest bull?”

Annabel looks calmly at Dad. “I think it’s time to give Harriet back her
Guinness Book of Records
.”

Dad shakes his head. “I’m surprised at you, Annabel. Do you have no respect for the majesty of the animal kingdom?”

“I have plenty of respect for it, Richard. I just don’t particularly want it coming out of my uterus.”

“Liz?”

“You’d better be referring to the Queen.”

“Of course I am,” Dad says indignantly. “Two of them, in fact. Both fierce examples of female power, independence and majesty.” He pauses. “And, you know … Hurley.”

I quickly cough from the doorway before there’s only one parent left alive to appeal to. Then I walk regally into the centre of the room.

“Father. Annabel.” I look at Hugo who scampered down here at the first whiff of cheesy-bacon. “Dog. I would like to open this session by apologising
profusely
for my behaviour yesterday. It was an untimely display of vivaciousness due to the unexpected ruination of my Summer of Fun Flow Chart. I should have found a way to express my entirely valid opinions more reasonably.”

I pause to see if this heartfelt apology has sunk in. They’re both staring at me with wide eyes. Ha. I feel a bit like Atticus Finch in
To Kill a Mockingbird
. I’m totally going to nail this.

“Secondly,” I say, putting my laptop down on the table and pressing a button so that it shines at the wall. “I have something very important to show you.”

There are a few seconds of impressed, awed silence.

Then my parents burst into laughter so loud that Hugo steps back and starts barking at the ceiling.

“
Brilliant
,” Dad gasps. “What’s she wearing this time?”

“I think it’s her bridesmaid dress from Margaret’s wedding,” Annabel whispers, wiping her eyes. “You can still see where she sat on a candle during the after-dinner speeches.”

“Oh, thank God. I thought my daughter had turned into an enormous toilet-roll holder.”

I wait patiently for them both to stop giggling. I’m totally going to remember this moment when it comes time to put them in a retirement home.

“This outfit,” I say, nobly deciding to rise above both of them, “may be a bridesmaid dress, but if you use your
imagination
it represents something much bigger.”

I press a button on my laptop, and an image of a cygnet shines on to the wall. “I was once an ugly duckling—”

Dad puts his hand up. “With feathers all stubby and brown?”

I stick my tongue out at him and press the button again. The picture changes from cygnet to swan. “But in the last six months, I have grown up a lot. I have transformed.” I click quickly through a few photos of tadpoles and frogs, caterpillars and butterflies I copied from Google. “But what happens at the end of a transformation … is that where the story ends?”

I point at the slide that says:

TRANSFORMATION
→
WHAT NEXT?

“Yes.”

I scowl. “It’s a rhetorical question, Dad. The implied answer is clearly no.”

“Keep going, Harriet,” Annabel says through a mouthful of ketchup pear. “I’m curious to see where this will end up.”

“Does a caterpillar sit on the same leaf when it’s a butterfly? No! It goes for a little fly and sees something of the world. Does the tadpole stay in the same pond once it’s a frog? No! It stretches its legs, goes for a jump, explores other waters.” I gesticulate energetically with my matching fake flower bouquet. “Did Cinderella go back to cleaning hearths once she married the prince?”

“Probably,” Dad says. “They didn’t have women’s rights back then. She had to do the cooking too, and probably a bit of laundry.”

“For the love of sugar cookies, Dad,
stop answering rhetorical questions
.”

I take a deep breath and compose myself again.

“Transformation means moving
forwards
. If a butterfly stays on the same leaf and a frog stays in the same pond, then they may as well have stayed a caterpillar or a tadpole. There was no point in metamorphosing.”

“Wrap it up now, Harriet,” Annabel says gently.

I had an entire slide about a dragonfly, but maybe I’ll leave that for the encore. I click to the final slide, and a picture of Mount Fuji shines on to the wall with my face hastily copied and pasted on top of it.

“So, in summary: I assert my right to go to Tokyo for a modelling job. Thank you for listening.” And I plonk myself triumphantly down on a chair.

Excellent. That should do it.

Maybe I won’t be a physicist after all. I’ll be a lawyer, and my poetic and powerful Powerpoint presentations will be made into poignant fridge magnets for years to come.

Dad’s expression reminds me of Hugo when we get takeaway pizza. “
Japan?
The agency wants Harriet to go to
Japan?
Annabel, that’s where those little trees that look like big trees but smaller come from. Can I go with her, Annabel? Please?”

“Richard,” Annabel says, “if you had a full-sized koala lodged in your abdomen, would you want me to stay with you?”

Dad looks horrified. “Definitely.”

“Then let’s assume I feel the same way, shall we?” She turns back to me with a softer voice. “We can’t take you to Japan, sweetheart. I wouldn’t be able to get through the doors of the aeroplane, for starters, and I need your dad here because I could go into labour at any moment. You understand, don’t you?”

I nod. Of course I understand that.

Annabel’s eyes widen. “So what you’re
actually
asking is to go to Tokyo, entirely on your own? At fifteen years old?”

“Yuka will be th—” I start, and Annabel looks at me sharply.

She has a point: Cruella De Vil would make a more reassuring guardian.

I clear my throat and clutch my fake flower bouquet as tight as I can. “Like Cinderella, I believe it is my turn to stop cleaning hearths.”

“Harriet,” Dad points out. “You don’t even make your own bed.”

“I’m talking
symbolically
.” Dad clearly doesn’t understand the subtleties of the English language. “
Please?
”

Annabel smiles. “Come here,” she says affectionately, and when I perch on the sofa next to her she nudges me with her shoulder and spikes another pear with her biro. “Listen, we know things are hard for you at the moment, Harriet. Don’t think we haven’t noticed.”

I shrug.

“But I’m sorry, you can’t go to the other side of the world on your own. You might be older than your age in some ways, but in quite a few of them you’re also much, much younger.”

What?

“Just because I don’t have any boobs yet doesn’t mean you can stop me going abroad! That’s discrimination!”

Annabel laughs. “That’s not even slightly what I’m talking about, Harriet.”

Then I turn to Dad with my widest, most beseeching eyes. “Tell her I can go, please!”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but for the first time ever I’m with Annabel on this one.” Dad twinkles at me but I block it with my firmest scowl.

“So what am I expected to do all summer? Just sit here and rot in a corner?”

“I don’t know, Harriet,” Annabel sighs. “Draw. Read. Paint. Go for walks. Build nuclear warheads. Take your dad to the zoo. Whatever you want as long as you remain within a 500-mile radius of this house.”

“So what you’re telling me,” I shout furiously, “is I can’t go to Japan because of
that
?” and I point at Annabel’s belly.

Annabel suddenly looks incredibly tired. “No, Harriet.” She puts the pear tin down. “I am saying that you can’t go to Japan because of
that
.”

And she points directly at me.

bviously the most important thing at a time like this is to remember to maintain the moral high ground. To react with dignity and self-control: noble in defeat, gallant in loss.