Picture Perfect (30 page)

Then I wait.

And I wait.

The sad fact is, there are 7,220,400,641 people on this planet, and right now I haven’t got a single one to talk to.

Finally, just as I’m climbing off the train, there’s a small ping.

From: Alexa Roberts

To: Harriet Manners

Plan for Harriet and Nick’s Most Romantic Summer Ever
(MRSE)

• Read poetry together, quoting alternate lines.
  
• Take a moonlit walk along a beach, holding hands and making interesting observations about the ocean.
  
• Write love letters to each other and leave them in a trail with a map so only we can find them.
  
• Pick wildflowers and put them in my hair.
  
• Have dinner on a roof, surrounded by candles and an appropriately positioned fire extinguisher.
  
• Feed the ducks.
  
• Find a sunlit clearing in a forest, and then slow-dance in it.
  

Dear Harriet,

Even your fake boyfriend doesn’t like your lame plans. At least you fed the ducks. SCORE.

A

Apparently if you shrank our sun down to the size of a white blood cell and shrank the Milky Way galaxy down by the same scale, it would be the size of the United States.

I’m not sure how tiny that makes us, but that’s about the size I feel now.

My romantic summer didn’t happen.

And I didn’t even notice.

I start walking towards the house, and then make a decision. Or whatever it’s called when there’s no other option left to take.

I take a piece of paper out of my pocket, look at Kenderall’s number scrawled there and then text:

OK. You’re right. Tell me what I have to do. Hx

hen the
holothuroidea
is under attack, it turns itself inside out and uses its digestive tract’s toxic juices to protect itself from its enemies.

It can also turn its body into mush and slip through cracks before solidifying again: essentially the equivalent of scattering itself into pieces and then reassembling them.

As I approach the front door of my house, I wish I was a sea cucumber.

It’s the only way I’m going to survive the next ten minutes.

For the second time, I have been missing
all day
.

I open the front door as quietly as I can.

“Annabel?” I whisper. “Dad?”

But the only sound in the house is a steadily dripping tap in the otherwise unlit kitchen.

With infinite slowness, I start inching silently up the stairs. Each step is an achievement.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven …

I’ve just reached the landing when the front door opens. With a small crash, Annabel tries to get the buggy over the step while Tabitha screams at an unprecedented level.

“Tabby,” she sighs as the shrieks go up another notch. “Please. It says in the baby book that going for a long walk calms babies down. Do I need to make you read it again?”

Then, in slow motion, Annabel looks up.

We stare at each other, the way a cat and mouse stare at each other just before one of them gets eaten.

I have a strong suspicion it’s going to be me.

“Annabel,” I say, steadying myself against the wall with a terrified hand. “Before you say anything, I can explain …”

“What are you doing out of your room?”

I blink. “What?”

“I told you, Harriet,” Annabel sighs. “You’re to stay in your bedroom. You’re grounded. That doesn’t mean waiting until I go out and then running around the house like an escaped gerbil.”

Apparently the brain generates between ten and twenty-three watts of power, which is enough energy to power a normal-sized light bulb. At this precise moment, mine wouldn’t even fuel a single Christmas tree light.

“Uh?”

“Go back to your room,” Annabel says tiredly. “I’ll bring up whatever it is you think you need.”

“OK …” I frown and start backing up the remaining stairs. “Sorry.”

What the
sugar cookies
is going on? I’ve been gone
all day.
How did Annabel not notice?

I push open my bedroom door and stare at Miss Hall, sitting calmly on the armchair in the corner.

“Umm,” I say, and start backing out again.

Then I stop.

I can either stay here and get ripped apart by a six-foot-two woman wearing Gore-Tex, or I can go downstairs and get ripped apart by a lawyer instead.

Neither are an experience I’m totally keen on testing out.

“Harry,” Miss Hall says, lifting her eyebrows. “How nice to see you.”

I look around the bedroom. Maybe if I quickly grab the lobster heels from their gift bag I can use them to pinch her into submission. Except … I appear to have left the bag behind.

Figures.

“I can explain,” I say for the second time in under a minute, even though I have literally no idea how.

“I don’t see why,” Miss Hall says sharply. “If you don’t want an education, it is not my job to force you.”

My eyes open wide. “But—”

She holds an enormous hand up. “Yesterday, I was sent home without pay. That will not happen again. If your parents do not run a tight ship, that is their problem, not mine. As long as my wages keep coming in, you can do what you like.”

I stare at her.

Shouldn’t she be shouting at me, or at least giving me a long, disappointed lecture on the importance of education? Doesn’t she care?

No
, I realise suddenly.
No
,
she does not.

“But I
want
to study,” I say, clenching my hands tightly in front of me.

“Maybe.” Miss Hall leans back in her chair. “But some people just aren’t mentally equipped for academia. I think it is time to accept the fact that you are one of them.”

My hands are shaking.

Today has just raced on to my Top Ten List of Least Favourite Days Ever, slightly above the time Alexa made everybody in class say they hated me and slightly below the day I ate a bad piece of chicken and couldn’t leave the bathroom for twenty-four hours.

“I
am
,” I say in a small squeak. “I
am
equipped.”

Because if I’m not equipped for academia, what else do I have left? If I can’t study, who else can I
be
?

“Some of us are strong and capable,” Miss Hall says, pointing to herself. “And some of us are not.”

She stares pointedly at me.

Thanks to my first day of study, I know that scientists think that a
quark
is the smallest thing in the known universe.

Right now, I’m so little I could climb inside one.

Alexa was completely right.

“OK,” I say quietly. I sit heavily on my bed and stare blankly at the wall. “So what do I do now?”

“Whatever you like,” Miss Hall says, looking at her watch and standing up. “My shift is over. See you tomorrow.”

ver the next three days, I am entirely on my own.

And I mean that in every sense possible. (Miss Hall sitting in the corner of my room ignoring me does not count.)

I am on my own when I eat: my meals are left outside my bedroom door. I am on my own when I study: trawling through books and trying desperately to work out what everything means. I am on my own when I wake up, and when I go to sleep, and when I go to the toilet.

I’m actually quite glad about that last one. It would be a bit weird if I wasn’t.

In the meantime, Nat doesn’t ring me or text back.

Toby/Hugo doesn’t email me.

My parents don’t talk to me. (They are taking the How to Ground Your Teenager manual far too seriously for my liking.)

Miss Hall sits in a corner and reads a book with a man carrying a woman on the front cover, which – given her stature – might be a little optimistic.

And Nick?

He rings three times, but I’m under strict instructions from Kenderall not to answer his calls.

This is the list I’ve been sent:

I put it in a list, obviously.

It came from Kenderall in a series of text messages with ‘babe’ scattered at random throughout.

I’ve written it down and studied it carefully.

I’ve also compared it to dating advice on the internet, and it mostly tallies up. Frankly, I can’t believe I didn’t research this before now. Thank goodness I finally have a plan to follow.

This is what happens when you don’t do your homework properly. I have nobody but myself to blame for the mess I’m in.

So I do my best.

I dutifully ignore all of Nick’s phone calls. I ignore most of his text messages. And then, occasionally, eight or nine hours later, I send a reply that says:

Sorry! Crazy busy and mysterious! Will speak soon! Hx

or

Oops, I missed your call! Have you seen the interesting stuff in the news about Pakistan?! Hx

And, sure enough, Nick’s phone calls and text messages get increasingly frequent, and increasingly confused, culminating in:

What is going on? Has somebody stolen your phone? LBx

Finally, Kenderall decides it’s ‘time to bring out the big guns’.