Geek Girl and Model Misfit. Holly Smale
it’s nicer on the inside?” Annabel suggests.
“Ironic, for a modelling agency,” Dad says, then they both laugh and Annabel leans over and gives Dad a kiss, which means they’ve forgiven each other. Honestly, they’re like a pair of married goldfish: squabbling and then forgetting about it three minutes later.
“Well,” Annabel says slowly and she squeezes Dad’s hand a few times when she thinks I won’t notice. She takes a deep breath and looks at me. “I guess this is it then. Are you ready, Harriet?”
“Are you kidding me?” Dad says, ruffling my hair. “Fame, fortune, glory? She’s a Manners: she was born ready.” And – before I can even respond to such a shockingly incorrect statement – he adds, “Last one in is a total loser,” and runs to the door, dragging Annabel behind him.
Leaving me – shaking like the proverbial leaf in a very enthusiastic proverbial breeze – to sit down on the kerb, put my head between my knees and have a very non-proverbial panic attack.
This might surprise you, but here’s a fact: people who plan things thoroughly aren’t particularly connected with reality. It seems like they are, but they’re not: they’re focusing on making things bite-size, instead of having to look at the whole picture. It’s procrastination in its purest form because it convinces everyone – including the person who’s doing it – that they are very sensible and in touch with reality when they’re not. They’re obsessed with cutting it up into little pieces so they can pretend that it’s not there at all.
The way that Nat nibbles at a burger so that she can pretend she’s not eating it, when actually she’s eating just as much of it as I would.
Despite my rigorous planning, I can’t break this down into any smaller pieces. Walking into a modelling agency and asking strangers to tell me objectively whether I’m pretty or not is one big scary mouthful, and the truth is I’m terrified.
So, just as I think things can’t get any worse, I abruptly start hyperventilating.
Hyperventilation is defined as a breathing state faster than five to eight litres a minute, and the best thing you can do when you’re hyperventilating is find a paper bag and breathe into it. This is because the accumulation of carbon dioxide from your exhaled breath will calm your heart rate down, and your breathing will therefore slow.
I haven’t got a paper bag, so I try a crisp packet, but the salt and vinegar smell makes me feel sick. I think about trying the plastic bag that came with the crisp packet, but realise that if I inhale too hard, I’m going to end up dragging it into my windpipe, and that would cause problems even for people who weren’t struggling to breathe in the first place.So, as a last resort, I close my eyes, cup my hands together and puff in and out of them instead.
I’ve been puffing into my hands for about thirty-five seconds when I hear a human kind of noise next to me.
“Go away,” I say weakly, continuing to blow in and out as hard as I can. I’m not interested in what Dad thinks. He plays games of Snap with himself when he’s stressed.
“This isn’t Singapore, you know,” a voice says. “You can’t just fling yourself around on the pavement. You’ll get chewing gum all over your suit.”
I abruptly stop puffing, but I keep my eyes closed because now I’m too embarrassed to open them again. My suit is grey and the pavement is also grey; perhaps if I stay very still and very quiet, I’ll disappear into the background and the owner of the voice will stop being able to see me.
It doesn’t work.
“So, Table Girl,” the voice continues, and for the second time today somebody I’m talking to is trying not to laugh. “What are you doing this time?”
It can’t be.
But it is.
I open one eye and peek through my fingers, and there – sitting on the kerb next to me – is Lion Boy.
Him and whoever hands out the Nobel Prizes. Just – you know. In case.
“Umm,” I say into my palms, thinking as quickly as I can. Hyperventilating doesn’t sound very good, so I finish with: “Sniffing my hands.”
Which, in hindsight, sounds even worse. “Not because I have smelly hands,” I add urgently. “Because I don’t.”
I take a quick peek through my fingers again and see that Lion Boy is lazily flexing his feet up and down and staring at the sky. Somehow – and I don’t know how he has done this – he has managed to get even better looking than he was on Thursday.
“And how are they?”
“A bit salty,” I answer honestly. Then I nervously blurt out: “Do you want to smell them?”
I trawl through fifteen years of knowledge, passions and experience and the best I can come up with is: Do you want to smell my hands?
“I’m trying to cut back,” he says, lifting an eyebrow. “But thanks anyway.”
“You’re welcome,” I reply automatically and then there’s a short silence while I wonder if – in an alternative universe somewhere – another Harriet Manners is having a conversation with a ridiculously handsome boy called Nick without making herself sound like a total idiot.
“So,” Nick says eventually. “Are you ready to go upstairs yet? Because your parents are waiting in reception, and judging by the look on your mum’s face five minutes ago, everybody up there may already be dead.”
Oh, sugar cookies. I knew Annabel was going to start channelling Tomb Raider: she’s been in a scratchy mood all morning. “How do you know they’re my parents?” I ask coolly, hoping to pretend that I’ve never seen them before in my life.
“Your mum is wearing exactly the same thing as you, for starters. And you have the same hair colour as your dad.”
“Oh.”
“And they keep saying, ‘Where the hell is Harriet?’ and looking out of the window.”
“Oh,” I say and then I stop talking. My hands are shaking and I’m not sure I can handle any more shades of embarrassment. I’m already purple as it is. “You know,” I say, after giving it a little thought, “I think I might just stay here.”
“Hyperventilating on the kerb?”
I look up and see that Nick is grinning at me. “Yes,” I tell him curtly. He has no business laughing at breathing problems. They can be very dangerous. “I am going to stay here and I am going to hyperventilate on the kerb for the rest of the day,” I confirm. “I’ve made an executive decision and that is how I shall entertain myself until nightfall.”
Nick laughs again, even though I’m being totally serious. “Don’t be daft, Harriet Manners.” He stands up and a little flicker of electricity shoots through my stomach because I’ve just realised he has remembered my name. “And don’t be nervous either. Modelling’s not scary. It can actually be sort