touch the painful spot on my forehead and tap my feet on the floor of the car. They’re starting to sound a little bit like – oh, I don’t know – cloven hooves.
I quickly type out a reply.
Nat, no soup thanks – am going straight to sleep. Am also contagious so don’t come round. See you soon. H x
I stare at it for a few seconds then press send.
That’s another lie. Two in fact. The balls inside the box in my head are going crazy, so I mentally sit on the lid so they don’t all come bursting out at the same time.
When I glance to the side, Dad looks pretty uncomfortable too. “Hell’s a pretty cosy place, right?” he says, closing his phone. “I mean, it’s probably not as bad as they say, I reckon.”
“Let’s hope not,” I sigh as we draw up outside an astonishing, white, beautiful, huge carved building with a red carpet spread out in front of it.
Because I have quite a strong feeling we’re about to find out.
“Oh, my heavenly mango juice,” Wilbur says when we walk in, putting his hand over his eyes and making a loud retching sound. “It’s like the Sugar Plum Fairy exploded in here.”
“If you don’t like it, William,” Yuka says, stalking past in her heels, “I can send you somewhere a lot less fancy.” She walks up to the front of the stage.
Wilbur looks at me in shock. “Where did she come from?” he whispers, placing a hand over his heart. “Am I right in thinking that was a physical threat?” He looks resentfully at Yuka, who’s now checking the runway. “And it’s bur not iam,” he points out loudly.
“I can’t begin to tell you how little I care,” Yuka snaps and beckons me over to where she’s standing. “Harriet Manners,” she continues seamlessly. “Everyone’s getting ready backstage. Please go and join them. Important people are going to start arriving imminently and I can’t have the face of my new campaign standing here in a hamster and horse jumper.”
I look down, momentarily stunned. “He’s not a hamster. He’s Winnie the Pooh. A bear.” And then I turn round and point to my back. “Eeyore’s a donkey.”
Yuka studies me for a few seconds. “I don’t like donkeys,” she decides eventually. “Or bears. Please go away and get into the outfit I’ve chosen for you, which features neither. Your name is on the tag.”
I nod meekly. I’m not sure what to say to a woman who doesn’t recognise Winnie the Pooh.
“And Harriet?”
I turn round on the stage, where I’m trying to find my way behind the curtains. My foot is caught in one of them. “Yes?” I say, trying to extricate it as subtly as possible.
Yuka’s eyes slide down until she’s staring at it. “If somebody offers to shave your legs,” she snaps, “let them.”
*
Well, I’ve found all of the Russian people.
All of the really good-looking female ones anyway. They’re tucked into a little room behind the stage, crammed together like beautiful, thin, blonde sardines. I’ve never been so uncomfortable. There is skin everywhere. It’s not flashes of puppy fat and training bras either. Really tall, toned girls are wandering around, laughing and almost naked, as if it’s the most natural state in the world.
And I don’t care what documentaries on television say: it’s not.
I’ve climbed down the backstage stairs, beyond a screen, and now I’m standing by the doorway. Nobody has noticed I’m here; they’re just walking past me as if I’m on work experience. At school, Alexa is the Cool girl, Nat is the Beautiful girl and a girl called Jessica is the girl who insists upon stripping down to her underwear at any possible opportunity. I’m the hairy-legged geek in the corner with the white ankle socks. I think the scale has just shifted and I should be in a hole under the floor somewhere.
I start backing out of the door I just came through.
“My daughter needs me,” a voice yells from behind me. When I look round, Dad’s standing on his tiptoes by the door, trying to see over the screen. “She needs me, I tell you.”
“I don’t need you,” I call back.
“You see?” Dad says again, doing little jumps so that the top of his head bobs up and down. “I demand you let me into the room full of tall Russian models this minute.”
Oh, for the love of sugar cookies.
“Dad,” I hiss through the screen, “if you embarrass me any more, I’m sending you home. I mean it.”
There’s a pause and then Dad sighs dramatically. “Fine,” he snaps in a sulky voice. “I’ll just go and eat pickled cabbage at the back of the hall, shall I?”
“Yes, please.”
“Being a sidekick sucks,” he mutters and strops back into the theatre.
I look at the room again, which is getting more overwhelming by the minute. There’s commotion and chaos everywhere: mountains of clothes, dozens of people, the shine of bright lights, the smell of hairspray, the roar of hairdryers and girls. People taking off clothes and putting them back on again. Confidence oozing out of every pore in the room. I am totally and utterly out of my depth.
I reckon if I just tucked myself into a ball in one of the prop cupboards, nobody would notice I was missing. I mean, how important can I be?
“There she is!” somebody shouts, running forward and dragging me into the room by my arm. “The most important model of all!”
Oh.
I guess that’s my answer.
This isn’t school after all. I can be someone else here. Someone cool. Someone different. I don’t have to be a geek any more. I look down at my satchel. The red words are still vaguely visible and I hastily put my hand over it. I have got to get a new bag.
“Hello,” I say confidently to the models who have all stopped what they’re doing and are now watching me with their eyes narrowed. “I’m Harriet Manners. It’s nice to meet you.”
It’s totally working. They’ve all stopped talking, and I can tell from the expressions on their faces that any minute now they’re going to stand up, envelop me in a warm group hug and start arguing over who will get to be my Russian penpal. I grin in relief and hold out my hand to an astonishingly beautiful brunette.
“Bite me,” she says in a strong accent, and then she turns round and continues putting on black stockings.
“Black