Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2014

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

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Geek Girl: Picture Perfect

Text copyright © Holly Smale 2014

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Cover typography © Mary Kate McDevitt

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Holly Smale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007489480

Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007489497

Version: 2015-01-24

For my dad. My rock. My hero. My Richard.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Also by the Author

Exclusive Extract

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

model [mod-l] noun, adjective, verb

1 A standard or example for imitation or comparison

2 A representation, generally in miniature

3 An image to be reproduced

4 A person whose profession is posing for artists or photographers

5 To fashion something to be like something else.

ORIGIN from the Latin modulus: ‘absolute value’

y name is Harriet Manners, and I am a girlfriend.

I know I’m a girlfriend because I can’t stop beaming. Apparently the average girl smiles sixty-two times a day, so I must be statistically stealing somebody else’s happiness. I’m grinning every thirty or forty seconds, minimum.

I know I’m a girlfriend because I’m giggling at my own jokes, singing songs I don’t know the words to, hugging any animal within a hundred-metre radius and twirling round in circles with my hands stretched out every time I see a small patch of sunshine. Thanks to my brain drowning in the love chemicals phenylethylamine, dopamine and oxytocin, I’ve basically morphed into a cartoon princess.

Except one with an astronomically high phone bill and a tendency to look up ‘symptoms of being in love’ online when her boyfriend isn’t looking.

Anyway, the final reason I know I’m a girlfriend is this, written on the inside back page of my new bright purple diary:

I did it, obviously. It would be a really weird thing to doodle on someone else’s private stationery. There’s a sketch of me and it’s timed and dated to commemorate the precise moment – four weeks and two days ago – that Lion Boy and I became an official item.

That’s right: Nick and I are finally a proper duo.

A couplet. A twosome never to be divided, like salt and pepper or cheese and tomato. We are the human versions of seahorses, who swim snout to snout and change colour to demonstrate how much they like each other, or Great Hornbills, who sing in duets together to show the world how utterly in tune they are.

And it’s changed everything.

After the Most Romantic Summer Ever together (MRSE™), all that’s left are rainbows and sunsets and good-morning texts and good-night phone calls and somebody to tell me when I’ve got chewing gum stuck to the back of my hair and I’m gummed to the bus seat behind me.

For the first time in my entire life, I wouldn’t change a single thing. There are 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and I wouldn’t alter a jot of any of them. My life is exactly as I want it to be.

Everything is perfect.

nyway, the truly great thing about being so chipper all the time is that nothing can really upset you. Not an early-morning start when you’re used to a summer of lie-ins. Not your dog, Hugo, moulting all over your brand-new Special Outfit. Not the prospect of seeing your nemesis again after ten blissful weeks without her.

Not even the fact that it’s the single most important day of your life and nobody has remembered.

Nope. I am a paradigm of calmness and maturity.

Like Gandalf. Or Father Christmas.

“Good morning,” I say as I float into the kitchen. That’s how I travel these days, by the way: in a magical, joy-filled bubble. “What an auspiciously lovely day, don’t you think? Almost propitiously sunny, you could say. A day for great things to happen.”

Then I stare optimistically at my snoring parents.

It looks like somebody tried to destroy the house overnight and then gave up and filled it with sleeping gas instead. The room is dark except for the glow from the open fridge door, and cups and plates are everywhere. Dad’s leaning back in a chair with a tea towel over his head, and my stepmother Annabel is slumped over the breakfast table with her cheek resting gently on a piece of buttered toast.

Tabitha is lying in her cot, making cute snuffling sounds as if she’s not the bomb that keeps going off.

I clear my throat.

“Did you know that it’s actually called August after the first Emperor of Rome, Augustus? It was his most successful month. How significant is that?”

Silence.

It’s a good thing I am newly shiny and happy on a permanent basis, or I’d be throwing a hissy-fit round about now. Instead, I abruptly pull the curtains open so my parents can see the epic day in its full glory.

“FIRE!” Dad yells, whipping the tea towel off his head and peering at me through his fingers. “Ugh, worse. What have we told you about daylight, sweetheart?”

“It’s 9.21am,” I point out. “You’re not vampires.”

I don’t say that with a lot of conviction. My parents have grey skin and red eyes, they’re up all night, rarely eat and seem to communicate without actually talking. The signs aren’t looking good.

“Mnneurgh,” Annabel mumbles, propping herself up slightly. The toast is still stuck to her face. “How long were we asleep?”

Dad sticks a finger in the cup in front of him. “Not long enough –” he sighs and waves a hand in front of his face – “nope, Elizabeth Hurley is gone.”

“Oh, God,” Annabel sighs and squints slightly. Her normally perfect fringe is sticking up like the crest of a blonde cockatoo, and there are crumbs stuck in her eyebrow. “I need to get the laundry on, the bathroom cleaned …” She slumps down again. “This toast is surprisingly comfortable.”

Yup.

It’s been exactly seven weeks since you last saw us, and anything resembling domestic order has totally disappeared.

At an average of 125 decibels, it turns out my new sibling is slightly louder than a rock concert (120dB) and only very slightly less loud – and painful – than being shot repeatedly by a machine gun at point-blank range (130dB). Apparently the word ‘infant’ comes from the Latin word infans, which means ‘unable to speak’, but all I can say is: the Ancient Romans obviously never met Tabitha Manners.

Much like somebody with a fully automated firearm, my tiny sister is capable of expressing exactly how she feels.

I pick Tabby out of her cot and she opens her eyes and beams back at me. That’s just one of the plethora of things I love about my sister: we’re like peas in a pod. Except luckily her pod is in my parents’ room, on the other side of the house.

Plus I have very high quality ear-plugs.

“Does anyone happen to remember what day it is?” I prompt. Maybe I should show them today’s pie chart. I can’t stop the anxious butterflies, but I can at least put them in the right ten-minute time slot.

“Tuesday?” Dad attempts. “Friday? 1967? Could you give us a ball-park figure?”

“Lift the green towel on your right, Harriet,” Annabel murmurs, eyes still shut. “And the dishcloth next to it. We’ll be awake in a second.”

I step over a couple of large boxes and suitcases lying open on the kitchen floor.

Then I tentatively move the towel with my fingers. Underneath is a brand-new red leather satchel with a sale sticker still attached and the letters HM engraved on the flap. When I open it, it’s packed to the brim with new pencils and pens and rulers and books.

Under the dishcloth is a home-made chocolate cake shaped vaguely like a robot that reads ‘GOOD LUCK HARRIET’ in white buttons down the front, and ‘(NOT THAT WE BELIEVE IN LUCK – YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR DESTINY)’ in almost illegible blue icing on the feet.

I beam at them.

See what I mean? My life is going exactly to plan. Even my parents are following my cake-and-gift related schedule, despite being asleep when I told them about it.

“Awww,” I say happily, zooming Tabby over as if she’s a wriggly aeroplane and giving them both a kiss. “Thank you so much, sleepyheads. You’re the best.”

“I’m just going to go tell Liz Hurley that,” Dad murmurs, closing his eyes. “Be back in a minute.”

“Say hi to her from me,” Annabel says, yawning and rubbing a bit of butter off her face. “If she wants to come over and do some washing-up, tell her to knock herself out.”

And my parents go straight back to sleep.

Right.

According to today’s schedule, I now have six and a half minutes left. Just six and a half minutes to put my purple flip-flops on, pick a couple of chocolate buttons off the cake, smudge the icing so my parents don’t notice and get to the bench on the corner of the road where my best friend will be waiting for me: eager, bright-eyed and ready to confront our mutual destinies.

I have it timed to absolute perfection.

Unfortunately, I obviously forgot to show the plan to my little sister. Because as I kiss her tiny nose she gives me one bright, adorable smile.

And vomits all over my head.

eriously.

Just once I’d like to start an important day without being covered in the partially digested contents of somebody else’s stomach.

This was so not on the pie chart.

Anyway, while I’m scrubbing baby sick out of my hair I may as well update you on what else has happened in the last seven weeks:

1 I still haven’t turned sixteen. My birthday is the last possible day of the academic year, which according to recent newspaper reports means I am statistically likelier to fail in life.

2 I’ve had quite a lengthy go at my father for making me statistically likelier to fail in life.

3 My Best Friend Nat and I have spent plenty of time together, despite me being in my First Ever Relationship. This is because friends should always come first.

4 And also because my model boyfriend spends quite a lot of time working abroad and isn’t around very much.

5 Toby has spent a lot of time with us too. Despite not always being invited. Or encouraged.

6 Or actually seen for big chunks of it. His stalking skills are really improving.

7 Dad is still out of work. Unless you count playing ‘Galloping Major’ with a baby as employment.

8 My grandmother, Bunty, left. She managed five days of Tabitha screaming, and then found a Buddhist retreat in Nepal and decided she might be more ‘useful’ in a ‘country very far away’.

9 Which surprised nobody, least of all Annabel.

10 I haven’t done any modelling.

Since quitting my job with fashion designer Yuka Ito, I’ve done nothing even vaguely related. Nada. Zilch. Zip.

It turns out Yuka and my flamboyant agent Wilbur were single-handedly keeping my career alive between them, like two Emperor Penguins raising their runty, dependent chick. Without them there to feed it every few hours and protect it from Giant Petrels, it couldn’t survive.

Except in this situation the Giant Petrel is less an enormous arctic bird of the Procellariidae family, and more an agent called Stephanie who replaced Wilbur at Infinity Models six weeks ago. She’s very stern, very professional and she doesn’t remember who I am.

I know this because she rarely answers any of my calls and the one time she did I heard her say “Who?”.

I haven’t heard from the agency since.

Honestly, I hadn’t realised quite how much I enjoyed getting painted gold, or wrestling octopuses, or jumping around in the snow, or pretending to be the world’s most elegant Sumo wrestler until it was taken away from me.

Literally.

Infinity Models told me to send back by FedEx the gold shoes Yuka had let me keep.

But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve got other things to focus on. Sixth form starts in ten days and I am so ready for it.

I have a brand-new red satchel.

I have an expensive calculator that does graphs and integration and quadratics and natural logarithms, whatever they all are.

I have a set of non-uniform clothes bought to be worn to my new classes. Almost none of which have cartoon animals on them.

I’ve stalked all of my new teachers on the internet and created a bullet-point summary for each of them, so I can win them over and/or force them to like me.

And – most importantly – I have a brilliantly conceived and carefully structured plan.

I have four A levels to ace, and a boyfriend and Best Friend to juggle properly for a healthy and balanced lifestyle. I have a stalker to keep away from bushes with thorns in them. I have my one and only sixteenth birthday to organise. I’m going to be the busiest I’ve ever been, so I’ve planned it all in minute detail.

The only problem is: every single bit of it depends on how I’ve done in my exams.

Which is exactly what I’m about to find out.

recently read an interesting article about a twelve-week-old abandoned monkey in China who was taken to a sanctuary where it formed a strong and intense friendship with a white pigeon. Despite having nothing at all in common, they immediately became inseparable.

Sometimes I wonder if my Best Friend Nat and I look as ridiculous together as they do.

Now is one of those moments.

By the time I’ve hastily pawed at myself with a damp cloth and kissed my comatose family goodbye, I’m more than fifteen minutes off schedule and hyperventilating with panic.

And Nat looks like she couldn’t be less bothered.

She’s sitting on the bench at the junction. Her new fringe is perfectly straight, black eyeliner is identical on both eyes and a stripy dress is hanging off one shoulder as if she totally means it to.

François may be long gone, but something about her French exchange must have stuck.

Nat looks like she should have English subtitles.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say breathlessly, handing her a chocolate button and then realising I’ve smudged brown icing all over my T-shirt and it looks disturbingly like something else. “Do you think the results are out yet? Do you think we’ve both passed?”

“This is an awful way to start a day,” Nat says, looking up from a copy of Vogue. “Harriet, what are we going to do?”

I smile at her in relief.

Obviously I totally misjudged my Best Friend. We will navigate these terrifying academic waters together.

“Don’t worry,” I say in my most reassuring voice as I start tugging her towards school. “I’m sure it’s not going to be as bad as you think.”

“No, it’s worse,” Nat says. “Harriet, what does this look like to you?”

She yanks at her dress.

I think it might be a trick question.

“Umm. That’s a …” Shift. Robe. “Frock, isn’t it?” Then inspiration hits me. “A gown?”

“It’s stripes, Harriet. I’ve gone and worn stripes. But Vogue says the hottest trend this season is miniature prints and florals. I wish they’d give me a bit of warning.”

This is what it’s been like ever since Nat got her official welcome letter from the Design College down the road. I haven’t seen her this focused since the blue-glitter frenzy of Year Two. For a few epic weeks, we both looked like Christmas tree decorations.

In a moment of inspiration, I grab a floral elastic band off my wrist and hand it over.

“Oh my God, how did you know?” Nat says, throwing her arms around my neck.

“I am very up to date on sartorial trends,” I say, nodding wisely. Plus a stylist left it in my hair once and I’ve been using it to keep my pencils together ever since.

My phone beeps, and I whip it out of my pocket with the speed of a technological ninja.

Ha.

I knew Nick hadn’t forgotten about me this morning. I knew he was just as supportive and romantic as a boyfriend should b—

Much congratulationings, Harry-chan! May your big day be full of cloud tens and elevens. Rin x

I grin – I’m glad Rin is making creative use of the Colloquial English Dictionary I sent to her home address in Tokyo – and then wait in case somebody else wants to make contact.

He doesn’t.

So I put my phone back in my pocket and nimbly change the subject.

“Nat, I’ve got each of our timetables cross-referenced and colour-coordinated so we know where the other person is at all times. Do you want to see them?”

This is how I’ve spent the last few weeks: carefully constructing an in-depth way of maintaining seamless contact with Nat when she’s at college and I’m at sixth form. We haven’t actually shared a class in five years, so it just requires a little extra imagination.

It also requires hanging out with Toby Pilgrim every day for the next two years, but let’s be honest: I’ve been unintentionally doing that forever anyway.

“Don’t be daft,” Nat laughs, tying her hair into an enormous top-knot. “I’ll just ring you after college and we can do coffee or something.”

Do coffee or something?

“Did you know that coffee can actually kill you in high doses, Nat?”

“I wasn’t suggesting 1,000 cups at once, Harriet.”

“Just a hundred will do it,” I say darkly. “Scientists have done tests.”

I’m just about to tell her that coffee was actually discovered by an Ethiopian goat herder who realised his goats were eating the berries and going totally mad, when we turn the corner and both fall silent.

Ahead of us, school looms exactly like it always has.

Except something is different. Inside that building at this very moment are our entire pasts and our entire futures. That building simultaneously represents the beginning and the end.

A little part of me suddenly wants to sit down on the pavement, dig in my heels and refuse to move.

Except I know from experience people don’t like it when I do that.

So I probably won’t.

“Can you believe this is the last time I’ll ever walk through those gates?” Nat says happily.

“Mmm.”

“The last time I’ll ever have to wear my hair in a ponytail for gym, which is totally inappropriate for my face shape.”

“The last time you’ll ever block the entrance with your insanely boring conversations.”

We both turn round.

“Hi, Alexa,” Nat sighs. “Great to see a long break has really brought you a sense of inner peace and compassion.”

“Whatever,” my nemesis says, flicking her newly highlighted hair and whacking me with her shoulder as she saunters past. “Such a shame you’re leaving, Natalie. What are we going to do without you?”

“Collapse and die, probably,” Nat says, folding her arms. “I live in hope.”

“Maybe then I’ll smell as bad as Harriet.” Alexa glances over to where I’m standing, still rubbing the top of my arm. “Hey, loser,” she adds. “Looks like this year it’s just going to be you and I.”

And – just like that – my summer is over.

n fairness, I’ve had a good run.

If you take away all the holidays and weekends, we actually only have to be at school for 195 days a year. Add to that night-times, mornings, a few field trips, an hour for lunch every day plus two fifteen-minute breaks and the potential for getting sick now and then, and I won’t have to see Alexa for more than 1,118.5 hours this academic year.

That’s only a full 46.6 days.

A month and a half of solid Alexa Roberts.

On my own.

Oh, God. I’d really rather get it all out of the way at once. Maybe I should ask if she wants to move in with me.

“This year it’s just going to be you and me,” I correct quietly as Nat kisses my cheek and runs through the school gates towards the office.

Then I stare at the shrieking crowd of girls she’s now surrounded by.

They look strangely unfamiliar, and it takes a while to work out it’s because for the first time apart from field trips that we’re not in our school uniforms. Laura has a leather jacket, and Lucie is almost unrecognisable wearing bright red lipstick. Anna has blue feathers wound into the back of her ponytail, as if she killed a bird and ceremoniously attached it to the back of her head. It’s like seeing a fully dressed theatre production when you’ve only seen the rehearsal before.

The boys are all wearing jeans and T-shirts and have clean faces and short hair.

I look down at the Spider-Man T-shirt I bought last week and then touch my new bob haircut. I think it’s obvious which camp I fall into.

Maybe I’ll just make the most of it, grow a moustache and hide in the boys’ toilets this year.

“Harriet Manners.” A thin boy in orange corduroys and a Spider-Man hoody taps me on the shoulder. There appear to be tiny cartoons of goldfish on his socks. “How coincidental that we match perfectly today. One might call it fate. Destiny. Serendipity.”

It’s none of those things. He was hiding behind a clothes rack when I bought my T-shirt.

“Morning, Toby,” I say as he wipes his nose on his sleeve and stares at it in fascination.

Then I see the opened white envelope in his hands.

There are ten times more bacteria in your body than there are actual body cells, and I can suddenly feel them: squirming all over me.

“Is that …” I swallow as my entire body begins fizzing. “Is that them?”

“Yes,” Toby says. “Or no. That’s a very vague question, Harriet. They wouldn’t let you into the FBI with that kind of approach. I’ve checked.”

“One day,” Nat sighs, returning from the office, “you’re going to answer a question like a normal person, Toby, and we’ll all pass out with shock.”

“So …” I swallow. “How did you do?”

“14 A*s,” Toby says, carefully tucking the piece of paper into a folder with TOBY’S EPIC ACHIEVEMENTS written on the front. “Those Mandarin and Classical Civilisation evening classes were not the waste of time and money my parents said they were.”

My stomach spins and I take my phone out of my pocket.

“Here,” Nat says, thrusting a large envelope at me. “Stop thinking about Nick. You know he’s on a shoot in Africa: he’s probably busy having a staring contest with a hippo or something. This one’s yours.”

I stare at it, and then try unsuccessfully to lick my lips.

One way or another, everything in my life is about to change. Be calm, Harriet. Be Zen-like in your acceptance of the roller coaster of life and all its ups and downs and—

“Stop whispering at your results, Harriet,” Nat laughs. “Ready?”

“Mmmmmn.”

“Steady?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now GO!” Nat yells.

And together we rip open our futures.

t any typical moment, your brain will be using twenty per cent of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream. Mine must have got greedy, because my head suddenly feels so light it could float away like a balloon.

I passed.

In fact, I passed with flying colours.

I don’t want to boast, so all I’m going to say is: I got one more star than the Chamaeleontis constellation and one less than Orionis.

I also got a C in technology, but if I ever need a pine box or a red plastic wall clock that looks like a badly sanded hummingbird, I’ll just go to the shops and buy one.

Nat is spinning on the spot in tiny circles.

“College here I come!” she yells, giving me a high five on every revolution. “I failed history but who cares, I’m going to college!”

Then she stops spinning so we can stare at each other.

My head promptly floats away.

“Sugar cookies!” I squeak, jumping up and down. “We did it!”

“Massive sugar cookies!” Nat shouts.

“UBER sugar cookies!”

“STELLAR sugar cookies!”

“IMMEASURABLE, BOUNDLESS SUGAR COOKIES! Our cookies have gone into orbit!”

“Ah,” Toby says, getting a small green book out of his bag. “I was under the impression that sugar cookies was a negative expression but I will now make a note that it can be used either way.”

Nat and I bounce and giggle hysterically and then gradually start half-hopping out of the school gates.

All this talk of cookies has made me hungry. Maybe my parents will have baked me another cake: a strawberry one, with ‘CONGRATULATIONS’ written in marshmallows and Smarties for the dots on the ‘i’s and—

“Oi,” a voice behind us says. “Did one of you losers drop something?”

And every last bounce and giggle suddenly drains out of me.

Because:

read somewhere that a fully grown octopus is flexible enough to climb all the way through a human’s intestines. From the feeling in my stomach right now that is exactly what’s happening.

Is that … my diary?

It can’t be. My diary is at home, next to my bed. Safe and private and protected by a carefully placed ginger hair, exactly as it’s supposed to be.

Except … I can see a British Library sticker on the spine, and the row of gold stars I gave myself at the bottom, and the corner Hugo chewed in a huff when I wouldn’t let him have a bite of my sandwich.

It can’t be, but it is.

Everything I’ve written in that book over the last seven weeks hits me so hard my entire body is suddenly full of cold, squirming, slippery sea creature.

No. No. No no no no no no NO.

I run towards Alexa, but it’s too late: she’s holding it high over her head and opening the front pages.

“Mr Harper, physics,” she reads loudly. “Divorced. Secret fan of Zumba. Member of Royal Horticultural Society. Note to self: learn more about Latin dancing and plants. And marital problems.”

Behind her are a few snorts of laughter.

When you blush, it’s not just your cheeks that turn red: the inside lining of your stomach does too. I’m so hot, I think I’ve accidentally cooked the octopus. How is this happening? What the sugar cookies was my diary doing in my bag?

Oh my God.

Annabel must have thought it was my school diary and popped it in my satchel. She’s so tired she probably didn’t notice the words INTENSELY PRIVATE written in silver pen on the front. And it must have fallen out when I was jumping around like an idiot.

This is exactly why I never do any kind of physical activity.

“Miss Lloyd, advanced maths,” Alexa continues in glee. “Inappropriate Facebook photos. Subtly offer to edit her online networking privacy settings.”

Teachers milling around the school entrance are starting to glance in our direction. I recognise Miss Lloyd in the distance. This is going to end my sixth form academic career before it’s even started.

I start leaping for the book, but Alexa continues flicking through with her other hand on my forehead while I scrabble frantically at her like a cat in a pond.

“Give it back,” I beg desperately, making another lunge for it. “Please, Alexa. It’s private.”

Nat is fishing around in her handbag. “Hand the book over,” she yells, blotched with fury. “Or I swear to God this time I’m going to scalp you.”

“Until the day it inevitably becomes a bestseller,” Toby concurs, “it is Harriet’s intellectual property, Alexa.”

But it’s too late.

Alexa has turned to the back of the book and is staring at the last page.

“Girlfriend?” she says. She looks almost speechless. “Girlfriend? Are you kidding me? You?”

The octopus in my stomach is about to die from heat exhaustion. “Yes.”

“Who?” Alexa looks around. “Him?”

“No,” Toby says, in answer to her pointing finger. “We discovered this summer that we lack the chemistry of physical lust and also that Harriet needs to work on her kissing skills.”

The octopus promptly goes BANG.

Alexa looks back at me. “Are you telling me a real live boy – other than this weirdo – actually wants you?”

“Yes,” I say again in a small voice.

I try to lift my chin, but all I can smell is a pungent cocktail of baby puke, damp dog hair and out of the corner of my eye I can still see brown icing on my boy’s clothes and stuck in my boy’s hair.

It suddenly seems pretty unbelievable to me too.

Alexa shrieks with laughter.

“OMG, this is priceless.” She turns to the group behind her. “Can you imagine the geekiness levels? I bet they’re off the chart. I bet he’s short and greasy and hasn’t learnt to shave yet.” She starts giggling. “Bet he – haha – studies physics and smells of Brussels sprouts and farts every time he bends down. Hahahaha.”

I think of Nick’s big black curls; his coffee-coloured skin and slanted brown eyes; the huge grin with the pointed teeth that breaks his face apart. I think of the mole near his eyebrow; the green smell of him and the tilt at the end of his nose.

I think of how he laughs at the wrong bits in the cinema; how he leans his cheek against mine when he’s sleepy; the way he tucks my feet between his knees when they’re cold and I don’t even have to ask him to.

I think of how extraordinary he is.

“H-he’s not,” I say in a tiny voice. “And he doesn’t.”

“Actually,” Nat snaps. “Harriet’s boyfriend is a successful international supermodel. So stick that in your cauldron and smoke it.”

Alexa starts giggling even harder, and rolls her eyes at her underlings. “Of course he is.”

“Show her,” Nat demands, flushing and pointing at my satchel. “Show her a picture of Nick, Harriet.”

“I … don’t have one,” I admit. “It’s a new bag.”

Alexa takes a step closer. “An imaginary boyfriend,” she says. “That’s pathetic, even for you.”

“He’s real,” I say, except it comes out as two tiny mouse squeaks. “And I’m not pathetic.”

“Oh, you are. Or should that be ‘you-apostrophe-r-e’?”

My whole body goes cold.

On the last day of exams I grammatically embarrassed Alexa in front of a lot of girls in our year. I had hoped maybe she’d forgotten.

She hasn’t.

“Do you expect me to believe,” Alexa says, “that anybody would want you, Manners? You’re the most boring person I’ve ever met. You’re a nobody. A nothing.”

I blink at her. For some reason I can’t fathom, I wish she’d just stuck with geek.

“I told you I’d get you back, Harriet,” Alexa adds, giving me a final shove backwards, putting my diary in her bag and closing it with a click. “Reading can be such an education, don’t you think?”

And she storms out of the school gates, with her minions scuttling behind her.

pparently horses and rats can’t vomit.

Unfortunately, I am neither a horse nor a rat. It’s taking every bit of focus I have just to make sure I don’t get sick on myself for the second time today.

“Are you OK?” Nat says, putting a hand on my arm.

“Mmm,” I say chirpily. “Sure. It’ll be fine. Just fine. Fine.”

Then I bite my lips. Stop saying ‘fine’, Harriet.

“She doesn’t sound fine,” Toby observes, tugging his rucksack back on to his shoulders like a broken tortoise. “I don’t think Harriet sounds fine at all, Natalie.”

“Shut up, Toby,” Nat says kindly, and then she puts her arm round me. “Don’t worry, Harriet. I mean, it’s just a few scribbles. How bad can it be?”

“The way I see it,” Toby adds cheerfully, “the more information people know about you the better, Harriet. Personally, I’d like to know everything. I’m hoping she makes photocopies and distributes them around the classroom.”

I flinch.

My diary isn’t the ‘today it rained, I stroked a cat, we had spaghetti for dinner’ kind of report I kept when I was five and I thought every day was riveting and unprecedented.

Everything I am is in that book.

My hopes and dreams; my worries, my doubts. My most precious, perfect memories of me and Nick, written in unnecessary, humiliating detail. My lists; my plans; the bit where I attempted to rhyme Nick Hidaka with big squid packer.

My process of falling in love, page by page.

In short, I’ve just given Alexa the strongest weapon she’s ever had against me:

Myself.

Nat starts gently leading me away from the school fence. I can’t really feel my legs any more: I feel like I’m being rolled forward on rubbery wheels.

“Forget about it,” she says firmly and shakes her head. “Anyway, we should be celebrating.”

I blink a few times.

Celebrating. Exam results. It already feels like a billion years ago.

This is like when that guy leaked classified National Security Agency information that revealed operational details of global surveillance and threatened to take down all of America. Except that instead of the US spy programme, it’s my personal secrets that are going to be spread around the sixth form.

And instead of temporary asylum in Russia, I’ll end up in a cold corner of the classroom.

“I think,” I say slowly, “I should probably go home. My parents are going to want to know my results straight away.”

This is a lie, obviously. If they’re even awake it’ll be a modern-day miracle.

“Are you sure? Because Mum promised she’d take me shopping for new college clothes and I thought you could come with us.”

“Ooh,” Toby says. “Yes please. I think I need to buy new boxer shorts.”

“Never,” Nat says, rolling her eyes, “talk to me about boxer shorts again.”

“Briefs?”

‘No.”

“Swimming shorts?”

“Why would you be wearing swimming shorts when you’re not even swimming, you weirdo?”

I’m subtly edging away from my best friends in a little sideways crab shuffle.

“Shopping sounds great, Nat,” I lie again as cheerfully as possible. “Maybe another time?”

“Sure. I mean, I’m going to have lots on with college and stuff. But we’ve still got weekends, right?”

“Right,” I say in a tiny voice.

And I spin round and run home as fast as my legs will carry me.

hich is faster than it used to be.

Nothing makes you take up jogging quite like a brand-new baby and nowhere to escape to apart from the garden shed.

“Annabel?” I say as I open the front door and Hugo barrels towards me, tail wagging. I bend down and give him a cuddle. “Dad? I thought you might like to know what I—”

And then I stop.

In the last hour and a half, the house has totally transformed.

The curtains are wide open, the kitchen is almost clean, and there are half-filled cardboard boxes lying at random points around the hallway. Piles of shiny plates and saucers are in stacks on the table, and the mugs are out in neat, organised lines as if they’re getting ready to break into an impromptu can-can.

The air smells of air freshener, and sunshine is pouring in through the window on to the huge suitcases still lying on the kitchen floor.

This is more like it.

My parents have finally decided to give my special day the respect it deserves and spring clean in my honour.

Although they could have just used drawers and cupboards like normal people. Lining everything up on the table seems a bit excessive.

“Harriet?” Annabel yells down the stairs. Tabitha has decided to recommence screaming. It only takes 100dB at the right pitch to break glass, and for once the windows in our house aren’t just in danger from my door slammings. “Is that you?”

“Who else is it going to be?” Dad says, wandering in from the laundry room. “If only strangers would consider politely breaking in with keys. Maybe they’d dust while they took our valuables.”

His arms are full of tiny pink things: little towels, trousers, onesies, cardigans, socks, bibs. It takes another glance to realise that they aren’t supposed to be pink. There’s a lone red sock on top of the pile.

Dad gives me a look that indicates he knows just how much trouble he’s about to be in.

“Harriet?” The screaming goes up a notch. “How did you do?” Annabel appears at the top of the stairs and Dad quickly lobs everything into a cardboard box and closes the lid.

“It went really well,” I say as the screeches get louder.

“What?” Annabel transfers Tabitha to a different arm and jiggles her up and down. “Say it again, Harriet.”

“My exams went really well,” I say, holding my thumbs up in the air. “Better than expected, actually.”

Dad climbs the stairs two at a time and takes Tabitha out of Annabel’s arms. “Pipe down, junior,” he says firmly, and my sister immediately goes silent.

Annabel crumples against the wall as if she’s just been popped.

“You’re like some kind of Baby Whisperer, Richard.”

“Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin were all premature babies like Tabby,” Dad explains. “Genius recognises genius.”

I hand Annabel my results and she looks at them and then beams at me. “Brilliant. Well done, sweetheart. You worked incredibly hard for them.”

“Hard schmard,” Dad says, fondly scruffing up my hair. “Both my daughters are geniuses. I genetically gave them my fierce intellect, fantastic cheekbones and the ability to make great spaghetti bolognese.”

“Marmite,” he adds, turning to the side and sucking his cheeks in. “The secret is Marmite.”

“Did you genetically give them your laundry skills too?”

There’s a long silence. Then Annabel lifts an eyebrow and looks at the tiny pink sock stuck with static to the side of Dad’s trousers.

He coughs.

“Maybe,” he admits. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

I look around briefly at the tidiness of the house.

It’s a lovely gesture of support and encouragement, but I think they’re overestimating how much I value seeing carpet. I haven’t seen the rug in my bedroom for weeks.

“There’s quite a lot of extra space in my wardrobe,” I say, tucking my results back in my satchel. “If you need it.”

Dad and Annabel look at each other.

“Huh?”

“I’ve got a spare drawer too, if you want it for some of Tabitha’s stuff. There’s no point boxing it while you clean.”

“Umm, Harriet …” Dad starts, clearing his throat.

“Thank you, darling,” Annabel says, raising her eyebrows at him whilst putting her arm around me. “It’s your big day. How would you like to celebrate?”

I think about it.

Starting the day again and making sure I do my satchel up properly doesn’t seem appropriately upbeat.

“I’m going to go upstairs and speak to my boyfriend,” I say instead. “I bet he’s been trying to call me all morning.”

“Young love,” Dad grins at Annabel as I start heading towards my bedroom.

They lean over and give each other a little kiss.

“Scientists have said that romantic love is only supposed to last a year,” I mumble, “due to diminishing levels of neurotrophin proteins in the blood. You guys are just making a mockery of statistics.”

And, with my parents giggling away, I walk into my bedroom and close the door as quietly as I can behind me.

t takes a computer with 700,000 processor cores and 1.4 million GB of RAM forty minutes to map just one second of human brain activity.

Forty minutes.

No computer in the entire world can do what we each do in our own heads every minute of the day. No computer is as complicated or as interesting.

I bet they don’t get into anywhere near as much trouble either.

Or write diaries and then drop them in the playground.

The first thing I do is pull my T-shirt over my head and slide down the back of my bedroom door. Then in the stuffy, deodorant-scented darkness I pull out my phone and stare at the blank screen.

No texts.

No missed calls.

No emails or Skype messages.

Not a single light flashing anywhere to say Nick has tried to reach me. I turn it upside down, just in case any incredibly romantic and supportive texts want to fall out.

They don’t.

This afternoon, for the record, was supposed to go like this:

Instead – on yet another pivotal day of my life – I’m hiding under a T-shirt on the floor of my bedroom.

I knew I shouldn’t have used my new calligraphy pen to write the list. All the curly Es took ages.

My phone beeps, and my stomach does a sudden unexpected backflip like a maverick seal on YouTube.

You have such a vivid imagination, weirdo.

Can’t wait for next week.

A

And it’s as if somebody has thrown a pebble straight into the middle of me: panic starts rippling from it in small waves.

They start in my chest, and then they spread outwards. They spread to my shoulders, then to my arms and fingers. They spread through my stomach, into my legs and knees and toes until I’m full of undulating, pulsing ripples.

The waves get bigger and stronger and the pebble gets heavier and harder until everything inside me is threatening to spill out.

Which in a way it already kind of has.

Apparently thirty-nine per cent of the world’s population uses the internet, and Alexa is on every social networking site available. With a few clicks of a button, she has access to everyone.

There’s a knock on my door.

“Harriet?” Annabel says gently. “I just downloaded a meerkat documentary narrated by David Attenborough. I thought you might quite like it.”

Meerkats have really thin fur on their bellies so they can lie flat like sunbathers and warm up in the sun, and I’m intrigued to see what David has to say about that.

But right now, I just don’t care.

So I do the only thing I can.

“Oh, Nick,” I shout as loudly as I can into my dead mobile. “The monkey did what? How funny! Tell me more about it! You are just so hilarious.”

“Say hi to Nick from me,” Annabel calls through my door.

I don’t know why parents always want to send greetings vicariously. I think it’s their way of making sure they’re still watching us.

“Annabel says hi,” I tell nobody. Then I wait a few seconds in horrible silence. “Nick says hi back.”

“Great. I’ll go prepare your father by explaining that a meerkat is not, in fact, a real cat.”

Annabel retreats down the stairs, and I grab a slice of the chocolate cake she’s thoughtfully left on my dresser.

Eating cake on my own on my bedroom floor is not exactly how I planned to spend one of the biggest afternoons of my life.

But it’s the only thing left on my list I can still tick off.

he rest of the day is spent:

1 eating cake

2 lying flat on my back, trying not to be sick

3 attempting to get brown icing off my duvet.

When I was in Japan I learnt that Buddhist monks in training must eat every single grain of rice in their bowl or it represents ingratitude towards the universe.

I’m pretty sure the same thing applies to chocolate cake.

The next thing I know, it’s 7am and the doorbell is ringing.

I sit up groggily and rub my eyes.

I’m still in my Spider-Man T-shirt, and there is a melted chocolate button stuck to my forehead. My phone is still in my hand, from where I fell asleep gripping it like a small, hard and square stress-ball.

“Annabel?” I shout. “Dad?” The doorbell rings again.

There’s a silence so – grumbling slightly – I grab my dressing gown off the back of the door and start plodding down the stairs: heavily, so my parents know that on the Day After My Big Day I cannot believe I am expected to get out of bed and operate as some kind of family doorman.

Then I swing the door open and stop scowling.

I knew Nick hadn’t forgotten about me. I knew the big romantic gesture was coming: I just had to be patient and wait for it.

I beam at the postman, and at the huge package he’s holding. Maybe it’s exotic flowers. Maybe it’s a carved African mask with a fascinating history, or indigenous jewellery with our names carved into a heart and—

“Are you going to take it or what?”

“Sorry?”

“I’ve got a lot of things to deliver, missy. Please sign here and let me get on with it.”

I don’t think this postman appreciates the level of grand romance he’s participating in.

“Approximately 360 million items are sent by post every year,” I say sympathetically, scribbling my name. “You must be very tired.”

The postman lifts his eyebrows. “I don’t deliver them all, love. I’m not Santa Claus.”

Then he marches off down the pavement without even looking back to appreciate the joy on my face.

The stamp is beautiful and exotic, and on the front is written in large, curly writing:

Which is a bit weird.

Nick gets on really well with my parents, but I think this might be taking integration a little too far.

I rip open the package, and pull out a small piece of yellow fabric that says:

A string of red beads that say:

A tiny pair of silver cymbals, engraved with a dragon.

Which sounds a bit dangerous. I’m not sure my father needs any help in that area.

Finally, I pull out a beautiful little engraved golden bowl with a cloth-covered stick.

This is the most inappropriate gift a boyfriend has ever sent anyone.

What on earth was Nick thinking?

Then I tip the package upside down and a card falls out.

erve impulses bring information to the average brain with the same speed as a high-powered luxury sports car.

Right now, mine feels like a milk float.

I turn the card over four times, just in case I’ve missed a pivotal piece of information. A code or perhaps a translator.

I’m just turning it over for the fifth time when there’s a heavy shuffling sound behind me.

Annabel pauses in dragging another suitcase down the stairs and flushes slightly. “Harriet, I didn’t expect you to be awake so early.”

I look at the suitcase, and then at the hallway. There are even more boxes everywhere; the bookshelves have been cleared; the taps in the kitchen are shiny. Dad’s loudly singing the wrong lyrics to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen, which is what he always does when he’s cleaning the oven.

“What’s going on?” I say, thrusting Bunty’s card at her. “Why is Grandma coming back? What adventure? And what does she mean by next year?”

Annabel goes a darker shade of pink and mutters, “Oh, God. Nice timing, Mum.” Then she clears her throat.

“Well, we were going to tell you yesterday, Harriet, but it was your big day – it’s all been very last minute – and …” She pauses. “Richard? Can you get out here, please?”

My eyes widen. Annabel never asks for Dad’s help in anything. Ever.

Through the kitchen door I see Dad use the cooker to pull himself up.

“Ouch,” he says, staggering into the hallway. “Maybe I should start doing yoga. Or pilates. Which is the most manly, do you think? Which would Batman do?”

“Can somebody please just tell me what’s going on?”

“Well,” Annabel says, going even more red. “There’s this thing … The fact is … Actually, you wouldn’t believe what’s … We were just thinking that …”

I’ve never seen Annabel unsure how to word anything before. It’s like watching a tiger paint its nails.

I look at the suitcases.

Then at the bulging cardboard boxes. The clear shelves. The cleanness of the kitchen. The masking tape and marker pens and Tabitha’s crib, dismantled and propped up against the living-room wall.

Oh sugar cookies.

They’re not cleaning at all.

They’re leaving.

“We have news, Harriet,” Dad confirms, grinning and putting his arm around my shoulders. “Massive news. Epic news. In fact, it’s the most epic-est news that’s ever happened ever.”

Epic-est?

“Will you please just tell me!”

“Harriet,” Dad shouts, exploding into the air like a firework: “WE ARE MOVING TO AMERICA!”

e each blink approximately 15,000 times a day. In the following silence I use up a week’s worth, minimum.

I’m desperately trying to piece that sentence into an order that makes sense, but it’s not working. AMERICA TO MOVING ARE WE. TO AMERICA WE ARE MOVING. WE TO AMERICA MOVING ARE.

With the best grammar skills in the world, they all kind of mean the same thing.

“B-but you can’t just leave me here,” I stammer. “I don’t know how to work the oven properly. I don’t know the code for the burglar alarm.”

“31415,” Dad says promptly.

“The first five numbers of pi?” At least that should be easy to remember.

“You’re coming with us, Harriet,” Annabel says calmly. “How ridiculous do you think we are?”

Dad has a piece of burnt pizza stuck to his knee.

I’m not going to answer that.

“But there isn’t time,” I state stupidly. “School starts next week.”

“It’s not for a holiday, sweetheart. It’ll be for six months, at least.”

“I got a job!” Dad shouts, jumping into the air again. “I’m going to be head copywriter at a top American advertising agency! I am no longer a draining sap on the life-source of this family!”

I thought Dad quite enjoyed sitting around in his dressing gown, losing his temper at people on the television and eating red jelly out of a big bowl.

“But when?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Annabel says, face getting blotchier by the second. “Sweetheart, we didn’t have a choice. It was that or they’d give it to another candidate. We’re leaving a lot of stuff here and Bunty’s going to take care of the house.”

I don’t think ‘Bunty’, ‘house’ and ‘care’ have ever been put together in a sentence before. She’s going to sell it, or burn it down, or cover it with glitter paint and glue feathers to the windows.

I’m definitely going to have to hide the cat.

“Your father’s new company is getting you a tutor,” Annabel continues gently. “That way you won’t miss anything and you can slip straight into sixth form when you get back.”

I blink at her a few more thousand times.

“Your father has to take it, Harriet,” Annabel adds when I still don’t say anything. “He’s been out of work for nine months, and New York will give him the break he needs. Plus –” she clears her throat – “we’ve, umm, run out of savings. We can’t afford for both of us to be out of work any longer.”

“New York? The job is in New York?”

What am I supposed to say?

That I’ve spent the entire summer making carefully laminated plans and timetables for the next academic year?

That I have a pencil case full of brand-new stationery I haven’t used yet?

That their timing couldn’t be worse and I hate them I hate them I hate them?

I’m just opening my mouth to say precisely all of that when I see a familiar expression on their faces. The Harriet’s-About-to-Throw-a-Tantrum look. The Hide-the-Breakables look. The We’ll-Need-to-Buy-New-Door-Hinges look.

And then I see what’s underneath it.

Under the nerves, they both look sad. Worried. Tired.

Dad’s excitement suddenly doesn’t look so real any more. It looks like he’s faking it, to try and make us all believe in it. Including him.

They don’t want to leave.

They have to.

“I think,” I say, taking a deep breath. “That I may need a few minutes to think about this.”

And – trying to ignore my parents’ astonishment – I turn my back, grab Hugo out of his basket and quietly walk upstairs to my bedroom.

K, I am never laminating anything again.

Ever.

The first thing I do is lie on my bed with my nose in Hugo’s fur and try to slow-breathe, the way Nick taught me to for times like this.

i.e. when I’m about to throw a wobbler.

Then I sit up, grab a pad off my desk and slowly write:

Frankly, this should be the easiest list I’ve ever written.

It’s the eighth-biggest city in the world. It has 8,336,697 people and 4,000 individual street-food vendors. It has been the setting for more than 20,000 films, and it has the lowest crime rate of the twenty-five largest cities in America. The rents are some of the highest in the world, and the wages totally insufficient.

How do I know all this? Because I’m fascinated by the city, just like everyone else. And because every time I watch reruns of Friends I go online to try and work out how they all survive, financially.

This could be an enormous adventure. Bigger than modelling. Bigger than Moscow. Bigger than Tokyo. In six months, I’d become a local. A resident. One of them.

And I mean that quite literally. Thirty-five million Americans share DNA with at least one of the 102 pilgrims who arrived from England on the Mayflower in 1620. We’re pretty much blood relatives anyway.

Plus I’d get my very own tutor, who I will refer to as my ‘governess’. I could learn to speak Latin and sing about whiskers on kittens or spoonfuls of sugar and be gently guided by the hand through my formative years, learning to embroider.

But for some reason, I can’t make myself write any of that down.

Instead, I chew on my pencil and scribble:

My life is here.

This is my home.

Everything I love is here.

Nat and Toby are here. Nick is here, albeit sporadically. My dog is here, my school is here, my bedroom is here. My memories are here: the corner of the garden where Nat and I used to build forts out of bed sheets, and the washing line I trained Hugo with when he was a puppy, and the area that used to be an expensive plant before I ran over it with my tricycle.

My books are here, my fossils, my photo-montage wall, the cold dent in the wall I lie against when it’s hot in the middle of the night.

The road where Nick and I ran through the rain.

The bush outside where Toby waits for me.

The bench where Nat waits for me at the end of my road, in exactly the same position.

I love my life as it is, and I just want everything to stay exactly the same.

I chew on my pencil and stare at the wall.

Except … it’s not going to, is it?

Alexa has my diary, and humiliation levels at school are about to reach unprecedented levels. For the first time ever, I’ll have to handle her alone.

My modelling agency has already forgotten who I am.

I haven’t heard a peep from my former agent, Wilbur, for weeks.

Nick hasn’t called me.

And then my stomach twists uncomfortably.

Nat.

Because it doesn’t matter how many schedules and lists I write to try and keep us together, things are about to change. As soon as term starts, Nat is going to make new college friends and she’s going to start a new college life.

A life full of fashion people who know things about colour-coordination and handbag shapes; a grown-up life full of parties and shopping and coffee or something. A life where inventing codes and making choreographed dances in the living room just aren’t on the plans any more.

A life without me.

Pretty soon, the pigeon and the monkey are going to start wanting to fly and climb without each other, and the gap between us is going to get bigger and bigger.

Until one of us falls straight through.

Right now, I have a strong feeling that person is going to be me.

Slowly, I take my pencil out of my mouth and spit out a few bits of yellow paint.

And then – painfully, carefully – I write:

hat are we going to do?” I hear Annabel say quietly as I slip back downstairs with Hugo chasing after me. “Did you see the way Harriet reacted?”

Dad sighs.

“She responded calmly, with thought and consideration. I’ve never been so frightened in my entire life.”

You have got to be kidding me.

Just once in fifteen years I respond to unexpected news in a mature fashion, and all I’ve successfully achieved is terrifying my parents.

“Ahem,” I say at the door. Maybe I should slam it a few times, just to reassure them.

They both look up.

“Wait,” Dad says, looking me up and down. “Why isn’t Harriet wearing an appropriately themed costume, Annabel? Where’s the top hat and walking stick and monocle?”

“Go on then,” Annabel says, nodding to the seat next to her. “Hit us with the Anti-American Powerpoint Presentation, Harriet. I’ve cleared a space on the table especially.”

She’s even got the extension lead out so I can plug in my laptop.

A little part of me wishes I’d given it a shot. Apparently twenty-seven per cent of Americans believe we never landed on the moon. That would have been a really excellent way to start.

I stand in the middle of the room with Hugo sitting quietly by my feet and clench and unclench my fists. I’m about to say goodbye to everything I know. Every person. Every brick.

Every piece of my life.

“Let’s do it,” I say. “Let’s move to America.”

“Oh,” Annabel says, dropping her head into her hands. “Oh, thank God.”

“It’s a trick,” Dad says, squinting at me. “I want to know where my daughter is, Mature Stranger. I bet she’s locked upstairs in a wardrobe. I demand you let her back out again in three or four hours’ time once we’ve had a nice quiet cup of tea and some lunch.”

I stick my tongue out at him.

“Oh, there she is,” Dad grins. “Phew.”

“Seriously?” Annabel says. “You’re not just saying that, Harriet? You really want to come?”

“Yes,” I say firmly. “I do.”

My parents both assess me with blank, surprised expressions. Then – in one seamless movement – they jump simultaneously off the sofa and tackle me into a hug with Tabitha tucked carefully between us.

“YESSSS!!” Dad shouts, grabbing my sister’s little hand and punching the air with it. “In your face, boring old England! The Manners are taking over Ameeerrricaa!”

I smile into my parents’ shoulders.

I can change my plans. But I can’t change my family.

And this way, I’ll leave everything behind before it gets the chance to do the same to me.

Instead, I opt for the truth.

The truth, and closing my eyes tightly.

When Nat is hurt, she gets angry, and when she gets angry she throws things. There’s a pair of high heels in close proximity, and there’s a good chance they are about to get wedged into me permanently.

Finally, I open one eye and peer cautiously through my eyelashes.

Nat’s still sitting on her bedroom floor, surrounded by a heap of clothes. Her first words when I entered the room were: “According to Elle I need a capsule wardrobe, Harriet. Twelve items that can be mixed and matched to create a seamless and coordinated outfit choice for any occasion so as to achieve maximum sartorial efficiency.”

There’s an endangered language in Peru called Chamicuro, and I think I’d have had more chance of understanding this greeting if Nat had just opted for using that instead.

“Are you OK?” I ask, after the silence that follows my bombshell.

“What do you mean you’re emigrating?”

Pink splodges are starting to climb up Nat’s throat and on to her cheeks. She’s gripping the sleeve of a jumper so tightly it looks like it’s about to get ripped off. “Like a … woodpecker?”

I don’t think Nat’s been paying attention to any of the recent documentaries we’ve been watching.

“Woodpeckers tend to stay very much in the same place, Nat.” I sit carefully on the floor next to her. “You’re thinking of King Penguins.”

“But … forever?”

“Well …” I may have slightly over-egged the pudding. “Not exactly forever. Six months, if we’re being precise.”

The pink flush climbs higher and higher until Nat’s ears look totally separate from the rest of her face, like Mr Potato Head.

And then – in one sweeping motion – she jumps up and the entire pile of clothes falls over.

“Oh my God,” she shouts, gripping her hands together. “Harriet, isn’t this just the best news ever? You’re so lucky!” Nat starts leaping around the room, picking things up and spinning dreamily around with them. “You’ll have your own doorman. You can eat hot dogs every day. You can find the grate where Marilyn Monroe’s dress blew up and copy her.”

“You can go to the Museum of Modern Art and study The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali,” a voice says from outside the bedroom. “I’ve heard it’s disappointingly small.”

I open Nat’s door.

“Toby, how long have you been here?”

“Long enough,” Toby says happily, wandering in. “Although this news does mean I’ll have to reorganise my stalking plans. Would you consider wearing a tracking device? That way I can just follow you online from the comfort of my own room.”

I stare at them in dismay.

Aren’t there supposed to be tears? Recriminations? How could you do this to me? and What is my life supposed to be like without you in it?

“OOOH!” Nat shouts at the top of her voice. “You can see where Calvin Klein was born and Leo DiCaprio lives!”

“You can visit the Museum of Math in Brooklyn.”

“You can stand outside shop windows wearing lots of costume jewellery and eat pastries,” Nat sighs, her eyes lit up. “You can see celebrities buying sandwiches every day.”

“Hopefully,” Toby adds, “you will not be one of the 419 murders that happen per 100,000 people in the city. Statistically, the odds are in your favour.”

I blink.

If I’d known the impact of me leaving the country would be so slight, I’d have started training to be an astronaut some time ago.

“I’m glad you’re both so delighted.”

“Harriet,” Nat laughs, putting an arm round me. “Six months is nothing. Although it does suck that you’re going before your birthday – maybe you can have second-round celebrations when you get back, like Kate Moss or the Queen. And you’ll be having so much fun it will just whizz past.”

“It’s only 184 days,” Toby agrees, nodding enthusiastically. “4,416 hours. 264,960 minutes. I can invest the time wisely and think up a really excellent plan for when you get back.”

As mature and supportive as they’re being, I can’t help wishing I was having a shoe thrown at my head. Or an eyeshadow compact.

At least then I’d know they’d miss me.

“Exactly,” I say in my fakest, sunniest voice. “It’s all very exciting. Anyway, I’ve got some packing to do and …”

My phone starts ringing.

Oh, thank goodness. My parents have finally got their interruptive timing spot on.

“Oops,” I say loudly as I grab my phone out of my pocket. “I should probably take this outs—”

There are five million hairs all over the human body, and suddenly every single one of mine is standing on end.

Because it’s not my parents.

It’s Nick.

July 8th

“Are you sure?” I said doubtfully. “I’m not really on the list.”

Nick laughed.

“You’re on my list,” he said, putting his arm around me. “Admittedly it’s a really short one and for the next few hours your name is –” he looked at the silver ticket in his hands – “Isobel Marigolden.”

I stared at the enormous warehouse.

It looked like it was still under construction. There were dark grey bars lining the ceiling, and blotches of white paint on the floor. Dirty plastic sheets were hanging in grimly lit sections at the back. Down the middle was a wide, shabbily painted silver strip and hard metal seats neatly lined the two longest sides of the room.

I sat down nervously.

“Can I come backstage with you?” I asked. “Maybe I can help you get ready.”

Nick gently picked me up and moved me three seats along and two rows back.

“You can’t just sit where you like at a Prada fashion show, Harriet,” he laughed. “And backstage there are going to be thirty boys in dirty underpants and mismatched socks. I’m not entirely sure you’d want to see that, even if the designer allowed it.”

The boy’s PE changing room at school sounded eerily similar. “Good point.”

“So can you wait here?”

“I have this,” I said, waving Anna Karenina. “I can probably sit for three whole days happily.”

“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content,” Nick said in a bizarre voice.

My eyes widened. “OK, a) you’ve read Anna Karenina? and b) that was possibly the single worst attempt at a British accent I’ve ever heard.”

“That’s because it was Russian,” Nick said, raising an eyebrow. “And yes, I’ve read it. Or, you know: looked at the pictures really hard. I am a model, after all.”

He smiled and leant down to kiss my nose.

“I’ll wait,” I said, flushing and opening the book, which I suddenly liked a billion times more because it now had Nick in every single line.

“Thank you.” My boyfriend gave me another quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll see you later, my little geek.”

Over the next two hours, the room filled with people; slowly at first, and then in great, noisy swarms.

People in shiny black, people in red lace, people in white shirts with pointy collars. People who knew exactly where they were supposed to sit and were doing it without complaining about the hardness of the seats.

Then the room got very quiet and very dark. Music started pumping and lights started flashing. The dirty plastic sheets parted.

And out walked the boys, one by one.

They slunk to the front of the room, stopped, stared, turned and slunk back out again like prowling, pointy-hipped wolves. Dozens of them: angular and floppy-haired and stern. In sharp silver shirts and grey suits; black jackets and blue ties.

As the music vibrated, I could feel my stomach clenching.

I miss this, I suddenly realised.

I missed the music I didn’t recognise and the bright lights and the dark audience. I missed the bustle and panic and noise in a room somewhere behind us. I missed the excitement and the bright eyes and the rustle of papers as people made notes.

I missed Wilbur and his ridiculous outfits and his made-up language. I missed Rin and Kylie Minogue, the sock-wearing cat who hated going for walks. I missed Tokyo and being transformed by stylists. I even slightly missed the terrifying Yuka Ito.

But most of all I missed Nick.

Suddenly, the plastic sheets parted and out walked another boy. A dark-haired, olive-skinned boy in a sharp black jacket with a bright silver collar. His face was set, his dark eyes were narrowed, his mouth was clenched. He strode towards us with firm, straight steps: purposeful. Furious.

I blinked as this angry, tense stranger pounded down the catwalk. There wasn’t a single twinkle or slouch. Not a jot of laughter or crinkle around his eyes.

Two hundred people watched keenly as my boyfriend got to the end of the catwalk, stopped and posed.

The blue whale has a heart big enough for a human to crawl through its ventricles. For just a few seconds, my heart felt so big, a blue whale could have swum through mine.

I waited for Nick to turn towards me. To notice me in the crowd.

Finally, just before he started back towards the curtains, he looked straight at me.

He winked.

And – just like that – I had my Lion Boy back.

have never left a house as quickly as I leave Nat’s.

Seriously.

If it had been on fire, I doubt I could have moved faster.

“Nick?” I say breathlessly as soon as I’ve shut the front door. “Nick? Are you there?”

Then I try to rephrase it so I sound a bit less desperate. “I mean, hi, whatever, how are you?”

“Hey,” he laughs warmly. “And whatever to you too.”

Apparently butterflies need an ideal body temperature of between eighty-five and one hundred degrees to fly. I must be exactly the right habitat, because my entire body is suddenly full of them. Red ones, blue ones, green ones, white ones. Fluttering like a rainbow inside me.

Then I remember the silence over the last few days.

“How’s Africa?” I say, and the butterflies suddenly go very still.

“Harriet, I’m so sorry. I’ve been out in the desert on a shoot, and there was zero reception. I even got the photographer to drive me to the nearest village, and there was still nothing. How did you do? I want to know everything.”

A wave of relief hits me so strongly that I have to temporarily lean against a statue that Nat’s mum thinks is Andromeda but is actually Artemis just to get my breath back.

Roughly forty-three per cent of Africa is desert, and it hadn’t occurred to me for a single second Nick might be stuck in any of it.

“It went kind of brilliantly,” I say, giving him a brief update on my result.

“I’m so proud of you.”

I beam at the phone, and then at the sky, and then at a random passing squirrel. I’m so warm the butterflies have given up flying and have started sunbathing instead.

“So,” and this time it’s a real, genuine question, “what is Africa like?”

“Hot. Lots of weird-looking tall creatures that can’t run properly hanging around with long necks and eyelashes and horns coming out of their heads.”

“Giraffes?”

“I was aiming for ‘models’,” Nick laughs. “But yeah, there’s some of them wandering about too.”

I giggle like an idiot.

Normally this would be the point where I’d break into an array of interesting facts. For instance, did you know that giraffes have four stomachs, and their spots are like fingerprints and no two giraffes have the same pattern?

Or that their necks are too short for their heads to reach the ground so they have to drink water by squatting?

Or that they are the only animal who moves two legs on one side of the body and then two on the other to walk?

Instead I clear my throat.

“Come on then,” Nick says. He’s smiling: the words are all stretched and snug. “Hit me with it.”

“Hmm?”

“Whatever is preventing you from telling me multiple facts about giraffes right now.”

Sugar cookies.

“I’m … umm.” I cough. “I think that …”

Of course. I should be approaching my news about America from a totally different angle.

“Nick, did you know Admiral Horatio Nelson started dating Emma Hamilton in 1798, and then went away for two years to fight the Napoleonic Wars? They wrote a lot of letters, and their budding relationship wasn’t affected in the slightest and remained strong and beautiful throughout.”

“Is that so?”

“And OK, he was fatally wounded by a musket ball at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and died before he could see her again, but that’s not really the point.” Wrap it up, Harriet. “So …”

“Harriet,” Nick says. “Are you going away to fight the Napoleonic wars?”

“No.”

“Are you at risk of getting hit by a stray musket ball fired from a French ship in suburban Hertfordshire?”

“No.”

“Are you planning on dying next to a man named Hardy and then having your body preserved in a large barrel of brandy?”

My boyfriend knows a lot more about Admiral Nelson than I thought he would. “No.”

“Then you probably don’t need to sound so worried.”

OK.

I need to pull this out all at once, before it gets all green and liquidy like the splinter in Year Two.

“I’m leaving England,” I say quickly. “My family is moving to New York for six months and I’ll be gone before you’re home but I’ll buy some pretty stationery and write you some poignant and heartbreaking letters and get novelty stamps and—”

“Harriet, that’s brilliant,” Nick interrupts. It’s a genuine, delighted brilliant.

I blink.

Right. It’s bad enough that Toby and Nat are thrilled by my departure, but my boyfriend? He’s supposed to be making impassioned speeches on the edge of bridges about the darkness of life without me. Not throwing a mini verbal celebration and cracking out the Harriet’s Finally Leaving banners.

“Fine,” I snap, “if that’s the way you feel then you can just—” Nick’s laughter stops me mid-rage.

“That’s not what I meant, Harriet. New York Fashion Week starts soon, so I’m going to be there too. I get more modelling jobs in America than anywhere else. I’ll be able to see you loads. This is really brilliant news.”

I pull my phone away from my face while I get my emotions back under control.

“Harriet? You haven’t been attacked by any other kind of artillery, have you?”

“Really?” I say. “You’ll really be in New York?”

“Of course,” Nick laughs. “It’ll take a bit more than a couple of miles and an inch of water to stop me seeing you.”

I impulsively kiss my phone, even though Nick is seriously underestimating the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Harriet, did you just kiss your phone?”

“Umm. No. My cheek is just very … sucky.”

“Ah,” Nick laughs. “I’ve always had a weakness for girls with sucky cheeks …” There’s a shout in the background. “Shoot. I have to go. Apparently the elephant I’m riding doesn’t like my voice.”

“You rang me from the back of an elephant?”

“Yeah. I suddenly got reception and I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

We beam at each other in silence. I don’t know how I know he’s beaming, but I just do.

“Nick,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I l—”

“Got to go. I’ll see you in New York, Freckles.”

And the phone goes dead.

And yes, there’s quite a lot of kissing, but I just quite like it, OK?

By the next morning I am desperate to leave.

In fact I’m so keen to get to New York I’ve asked my parents if I can go ahead without them.

“Do you think we’re insane?” Dad replies.

“Yes,” I tell him promptly and focus on packing with renewed enthusiasm.

Everything is ready. The house is clean. The electrics are off. The last of our belongings are being lobbed into a large van by a man who is tutting about our ‘ineffective boxing skills’.

A note has been left for Bunty saying DO NOT TRY TO DYE, BURN OR REUPHOLSTER ANYTHING. PLEASE FEED THE CAT ON A DAILY BASIS. Hugo has been sent to live temporarily with a delighted Toby while we get his American passport sorted.

And I’ve spent the evening putting together my own little box of home souvenirs to take with me. A 1,000-yen note with a picture of Mount Fuji on it. A T-shirt with a photo on the front of Rin and me riding a computer-generated unicorn. An American-English dictionary from Toby. An envelope containing a newspaper cutting of me sat with Fleur on the catwalk in Moscow, and a photo I took of Wilbur in Tokyo wearing wing-shaped sunglasses. A photo of me and Nat in cowboy hats and moustaches.

Finally, I get out a brand-new scrapbook, write on the front and decorate it with a lot of hearts.

There are going to be so many things to stick in it.

Museum tickets and love letters and pressed flowers picked on our moonlit strolls in Central Park. The wrapper from a chocolate he unexpectedly pulls out of his pocket. A photo of us, playing with perspective so it looks like the Statue of Liberty is in our hands.

I’m just contentedly tucking the toy lion he bought me into the corner when my phone beeps.

H, I can’t make it to the airport! I forgot we have initiation day at college. I’M SO SORRY. Skype me when you get there! Love you so much. Nat xxx

I look blankly at the message, then text back:

No probs! Goodbyes are rubbish anyway, aren’t they? Speak soon! Love you too! H xxx

“Ready?” Annabel says as I pop my little shoebox of memories into my backpack, zip it all up and sling it over my shoulders.

“Ready,” I say quietly.

America, here I come.

ll I’m going to say about the ensuing journey is: two-month-old babies and long-distance flights are not a relaxing combination.

I have a lot of things to do.

Documentaries about turbulence to watch, crosswords to complete, key landmarks to look for out of the window, a long and confusing list of American spellings to learn.

Unfortunately, Tabitha has other plans.

I’d never realised she liked England so much, but she’s obviously quite attached. As soon as the air steward starts showing us the emergency exits, she starts yelling and doesn’t draw breath for the rest of the journey.

Apparently women in Ancient Greece made blusher from a mixture of crushed mulberries and strawberries. By the time we land, seven hours later, Annabel is so flushed it looks like she’s made a bath of it and jumped straight in.

“Tabitha,” she says firmly as we collect our bags from the overhead lockers. She wipes her forehead with her jumper sleeve. “I love you more than life itself, but if you scream again like that on public transport I will leave you in the hold, OK?”

Tabby blinks at her with wide eyes, hissy-fit over.

“Don’t give me that look, missy,” Annabel sighs. “I’ve had eleven years of practice with your father.”

Dad leans over Tabitha. “She’s nailing it,” he says approvingly, tickling her tummy. “That’s my girl. Work that twinkle.”

My sister squeaks and kicks her little legs like a frog attempting the high jump. An air steward stops by us in the aisle.

“Oh ma Gahd,” she says, putting a hand on her chest. “Your baby is the cutest. Isn’t she just adorable? I could eat her up.”

We look at Tabitha with narrow, exhausted eyes.

Dad put her in a Union Jack onesie especially for the journey. Her red hair is all curly and fluffy, her cheeks are all pink, the toy rabbit I bought her is propped on her shoulder and she’s blowing enthusiastic bubbles like a tiny goldfish.

Tabby does, indeed, look adorable.

They were obviously working in a different part of the plane twenty minutes ago. There was an entirely different word for her then.

“Please go for it,” Annabel says drily. “She goes well with ketchup and a bit of oregano.”

The air steward’s eyes get very round. “Ha,” she says awkwardly. “Hahaha. You Brits are hilarious.”

And then she hurries away as fast as possible.

This is it, I realise as we push ourselves through the enormous, shiny JFK airport.

It’s like we’ve just hit the restart button.

It feels like London, except bigger. Glossier. Cleaner. The floors are sparkly and everything is ordered and in neat lines. There’s a twang in the air, and the biggest American flag I have seen in my life is hanging from the ceiling.

We all stand and stare at it in silence.

“Well,” Annabel says finally, “at least we don’t need to check that we’re in the right country.”

“Unless it’s a trick,” Dad shrugs. “That would be pretty funny, right? Welcome to Australia! Hahaha GOTCHA!”

“You have a nice day, now!” a lady in an airport outfit says chirpily as she walks past.

“You too!” Dad shouts after her. “Thank you so much! How extremely thoughtful of you! Do you have anything fun planned?”

She looks in alarm at the airport security.

Well: safe-ish, anyway.

Dad signs a few bits of paper and then leads us in excitement outside into an enormous car park and towards a large silver car. It’s so enormous it makes our car at home look like something a toy drives.

“A Dodge Durango?” Dad says. “They sent me a Dodge Durango?” He starts running his hands along it. “Front engine, rear-wheel drive. Harriet, this is built on the same platform as a Jeep Grand Cherokee!”

This is possibly the only fact in the world I’ve ever heard that I’m not even vaguely interested in.

“Are we prepared for an adventure?” Annabel says, popping Tabitha into the car seat and winking at me.

“Of course,” I say with a deep breath.

And we start the drive into the bright lights of the Big Apple.

ccording to the internet, New York City has:

I don’t want to be rude, but frankly you’d think they’d be a bit more noticeable.

Fifty minutes into the journey I still can’t see any of them. I’ve got my nose pressed against the window and three guidebooks on my lap, but the roads are getting wider and the buildings are getting smaller and the people fewer, rather than the other way round.

There’s a dodgy-looking restaurant on the side of the road, and an enormous superstore with flashing lights on the other. There are some of the biggest trucks I have ever seen in my life, blowing their horns at each other.

So far, skyscrapers spotted: 0.

Parks: 0.

Little ladies with push-along shopping trolleys: 6.

The Empire State Building is 381 metres high. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see.

Another twenty minutes pass, and then another thirty, and I’m finally starting to lose my brand-new shiny patience. I know I’m supposed to be acting like an adult now, but clearly my parents don’t know how to navigate America.

“Are we lost?” I say helpfully, leaning forward and sticking my head in between the seats. “Because if you need help reading a map, I have a Brownie badge that will confirm I’m quite good at it.”

Silence.

I look back at the guidebook. “I think we should have gone over the Hudson River by now. Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?”

Then I see my parents glance at each other.

“What’s going on?” I say as the car starts pulling into a tiny little road surrounded by small, solitary houses made out of white, blue or grey slats and shutters around the windows and pointy roofs. There’s a dog sitting on the porch, casually licking itself, and a ginger cat perched on the fence opposite, staring at it in total disgust.

One of the curtains twitches, and a small boy on a bike rides slowly past. Another silver SUV drives by with a family inside it.

At random intervals on this road there is a tiny hairdresser’s called CURL UP AND DYE, a small mechanical shop called JONNO’S AUTOPARTS and somewhere that sells chicken called MANDYS.

On the corner is a tiny church the shape of a box, with an enormous blue sign that says GREENWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST.

And then, in small letters underneath:

TRY JESUS! IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIM, THE DEVIL WILL HAVE YOU BACK.

Dad pulls into a driveway and with a quick flick of his wrist turns the engine off.

“Are we visiting someone?” I say curiously, rolling down the window. “Or maybe picking up the keys to our super-cool Manhattan loft-with-a-view?”

There’s another silence.

And then I can feel it: sticky alarm rising from my feet upwards until my whole body feels full of something explosively panicky.

“This isn’t New York,” I say slowly as Annabel and Dad open their car doors. We’re parked outside a small grey house with neat little hedges and a pointed window in the roof. “This isn’t New York. We’re nowhere near it.”

“Umm.” Annabel clears her throat. “Yes. About that …”

I can feel the panic starting to surge into my head until all I can hear is an incoherent, wordless roar.

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