by Holly Smale
Plus unless I want to be disembowelled on the spot I don’t think I should push Yuka’s patience any further.
I nod grimly.
“Excellent,” Nick says. “I’ll be there, so don’t worry, OK?”
That is simultaneously the best and worst sentence I’ve heard in the last two months. “Uh-huh.”
Nick turns to a chair behind him and picks up what looks like a huge white scarf and a very large safety pin. “Here’s your costume. See you out there.”
And he winks at me then disappears through the doors, into the crowd.
stare at the scarf in horror.
It’s a traditional Japanese sumo loincloth, known as a mawashi. It’s thirty foot long, two feet wide, made of silk and is passed repeatedly around the stomach and between the thighs and secured over the – you know. Front area. And it’s worn by men.
But I can’t afford to make Yuka any angrier, so I take a deep, professional breath as I walk into the changing room, then experimentally wind the scarf up over my penguin pyjamas and secure it with the enormous safety pin. I untie it and wrap it a little higher. Finally, I criss-cross the silk over my entire body and pin it so I’m completely mummified.
That’s better.
Now I look like the world’s most prudish baby.
I’m on the floor, trying to tug off my pyjamas from underneath it, when the door opens. A young Japanese woman with blue raccoon stripes in her hair walks into the room, followed by a large group of people wearing black.
People with brushes and lights and boxes and folded-up tables.
People with the serious, focused expressions of highly experienced professionals.
They stare at me, and then the woman with the stripes holds out a beautiful dark blue dress. It’s floor-length and silky, with little holes punched in the bottom so that the light shines through it like stars. It has little straps, and a slit up each side. It’s beautiful, my size, and exactly the sort of thing Yuka designs.
I am so gullible.
“Hello,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster. Then I wait patiently for the floor to open up and swallow me whole.
“My name is Shion,” the girl says, grinning. “I’m the new stylist.” She looks me up and down. “You must be Harriet Manners.”
Right.
I am going to kill Nick. That was so not funny.
Unfortunately, nobody else agrees with me. I spend the next ten minutes having my hair speedily gelled into a neat bun by a giggling hairdresser, my shoulders sprayed with sparkly sticky stuff by a snorting stylist and my eyes heavily painted in dark blue glitter by a shuddering make-up artist. By the time they’ve finished with me, I’m so embarrassed by all the giggling and snorting I’ve actually forgotten to be nervous.
Plus I’m far too busy working out the various forms of punishment I can wreak on my ex-boyfriend. Enormous seagulls I can train to attack him; lime-flavoured sweets I can eat without offering him any. Ominous-looking rain clouds I can get to follow him around.
That kind of thing.
Shion points me down a long corridor in the direction of the stage doors, and I’m so focused on revenge that I’m totally calm. A quick peek through the doors proves that everybody in the crowd really is just minding their own business: chatting, eating, laughing, drinking. Getting ready for the show they’ve actually paid to see.
Which means I can do this.
Quietly, I slip through the doors into the arena. At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the stage is a pair of amazing, bright pink, glittery high-heeled shoes with six tiny red straps. Attached to them with tape is a little note that says:
It’s the shortest possible distance. x
I laugh, bend down and flick the note on to the floor. The shoes are a bit too small, but I manage to wedge my feet into them and get the straps tied.
Then I straighten up, square my shoulders and walk up the stairs on to the stage.
he first thing I see is Nick.
He’s standing on the other side of the enormous square stage in a pair of dark blue silk trousers and a dark blue shirt buttoned all the way to the top. His head is down and facing away slightly, his skin is glowing, and for the first time I realise – with a painful pang – that even though most of his hair has gone, he still has that tiny curl at the back like a little duck tail.
Then I notice Yuka. She’s partially hidden behind an enormous screen next to scowling photographer Haru: hands neatly crossed in front of her, black lace dress on, little black hat perched, face hard and white.
And then I notice the sound of my heart.
Because, as I step towards Nick and he turns and steps towards me, this is all I can hear:
The drum of my heart.
My heels against wood.
The quiver of my breath.
The entire crowd is completely silent.
n pretty much all of the romantic films I’ve ever seen, there’s always a moment when the hero and heroine meet and the rest of the world becomes a blur. It doesn’t matter where they are; the only thing they can see or hear is each other.
All I can say is: romantic films lie.
There isn’t a convenient fog, misting out the audience. I see thousands and thousands of people: paused, silent and watching me intently.
Quickly, I do my best to wipe the terror from my face and walk like a model into the middle of the ring. I raise my chin and try to get my entirely rigid body to bend into a shape other than that of a stale pretzel.
None of my limbs are working properly. As I jerk awkwardly around the stage, with every movement Yuka’s eyes get narrower and angrier, and Haru’s hand gestures more demonstrative.
Swallowing hard, I turn away and try another pose. Then I move to the left and try again: curving forward with my hand on my hip and my right shoulder pushed back.
At which point I realise that Nick is following me.
OK, isn’t this hard enough without my ex-boyfriend chasing me around the stage? He’s supposed to be a boy-shaped prop. In the background.
Why is he winding me up again?
I flash him a dark look and hobble over to another corner of the stage. He follows, so I move again, but so does he. After a whole minute of being chased in a circle I finally accept defeat. Nick stands close enough for me to feel his breath on my neck, and every single hair on my body immediately stands up.
“What are you doing?” I hiss, bending into another pose. His hand touches my waist and an unwelcome thunderbolt shoots through the right side of my body.
“What are you doing?” Nick whispers. “What are you wearing on your feet?”
“Gloves,” I snap, changing my pose. “What do people normally wear on their feet?”
“This is a sumo ring. You’re not allowed to wear shoes. Especially not heels. The audience is furious.”
It’s as if the entire stadium suddenly goes dark. My brain shuts down in shock, and when I come back to my senses, I can suddenly feel where the eyes of twenty thousand people are focused: entirely on my shameful, painful, sparkling feet. “B-b-but I d-don’t—”
“Take them off,” Nick whispers urgently. “Now.”
I bend down but my hands are shaking too hard. The red straps are too tiny and there are too many of them. All I can do is paw desperately at the buckles while my eyes fill with water and blood rushes to my head.
Suddenly Nick bends down in front of me. “I’ll do it,” he says. “Stay still.”
He calmly takes my hand to balance me, and removes each shoe like Prince Charming in reverse, bows deeply to the crowd in every direction and dramatically throws the shoes off the stage.
“Now,” Nick says with a tiny nod. “Copy me.”
here’s an animal that lives at the bottom of the ocean called a Pacific Ocean Hagfish. When it feels threatened, it oozes a defensive slime from its pores that envelops its predator in a mass of fibrous goo. It then gets trapped in its own goo and dies.
I’m so embarrassed I can�
�t breathe properly. I can’t blink. I can’t move. I can’t pose. I definitely can’t model. Like the Hagfish, I am basically starting to suffocate on my own panic.
Rigid with humiliation, I watch Nick go back to his original starting mark on the stage, and then – to my absolute disbelief – turn around and cock his leg high in the air like a dog about to pee on an invisible lamp-post.
Before I can even blush for him – nobody is good-looking enough to get away with that kind of position – Nick looks me straight in the eye, slams his foot on the ground and yells at the top of his voice: “AAAAAARRRRRGH!!”
Then he waggles his elbows and blows a tiny raspberry, just like he did in the snow in Russia.
And I can’t help laughing, just like I did on my first ever photo shoot, and everything in me suddenly starts to relax.
Trying not to look at Yuka or the photographer, I obediently lift my leg as high in the air as I can, pause and then slam my foot down with an immense “AAAAAAAARGGH!!”
Nick does the same with the other leg and shouts: “AAARRRGH AAAARGH!”
I’ve never felt less dignified in my entire life and – frankly – that’s really saying something.
It’s only when Nick hitches up his trouser legs, kicks one leg slowly out to the side and leans into a deep crouch that I suddenly understand.
Sumo. He’s doing sumo.
Slowly, I pick up the sides of my dress, compose my face and kick a leg out. I bend into a squat, lift on to my toes and hold it as long as I can.
Then Nick and I stand up straight, take a few slow steps towards each other and do it all over again. And again. And again.
As we get closer and closer – as we stamp and crouch and shout and pace – something amazing starts happening. The crowd really does begin to disappear. They fade and fade until it’s just the two of us.
Circling each other.
Stamping at each other.
Staring at each other, as if nothing else exists.
It’s only when Nick snarls at me – and I grin and snarl back – that I finally hear a noise from the audience. A gurgling sound that gets louder and louder and louder.
And it’s only when I look up that I realise the audience is laughing. When I glance at Haru and he inclines his head slightly, I know I’m going to be OK.
Which means Lion Boy has saved me.
Again.
ow, I have many skills.
I can recite the entire Periodic Table and six Shakespearean sonnets by heart. I can tell you every single King and Queen of England since Kenneth the Third in 997, and I can draw an almost perfect circle freehand as long as nobody’s watching.
Of my many useless and untransferable skills, however, accurately interpreting subtle facial expressions is not usually one of them. But I don’t think that’s something I need to worry about today.
Yuka Ito is livid.
“Explain,” she says quietly as we climb down the stairs and push through the stage doors. She looks like the White Witch of Narnia just after she finds the first snowdrop. “Now.”
Every drop of adrenaline evaporates, and I’m suddenly so scared I feel like I’m flashing colours like a human disco ball: white, then red, pink and green, then some kind of petrified purple colour. “I’m s-sorry,” I stammer quickly. “We were trying to … harness the Japanese culture creatively and—”
“I’m not talking about the poses.”
No. Of course she isn’t. “I …” I swallow. “It …”
“Where were you this morning?”
“I was … I set my … at least I thought I set my … my alarms didn’t …” I’m too scared to complete a sentence.
“You were three hours late.” Yuka doesn’t need to shout. Every quiet syllable is a pointed jag of ice. “The driver waited outside your building for two hours. He rang your doorbell thirteen times. Where did you stay last night?”
My eyes widen in surprise. What?
“I was th … I was th …” I was there. I was right there.
“I rang your mobile repeatedly. It went straight to voicemail. You do not turn your phone off while you are working for me.”
“I didn’t—”
“I explained very clearly that you are not here to party.”
My mouth opens in shock. Party? Has Yuka ever met me before?
“I wasn’t—”
“And when you decide to grace us with your presence, you accessorise my outfit with heels of your own. On a sumo stage. A stage reserved for men.”
“But—”
Yuka holds her hand up. “No,” she says. “I don’t want to hear it, Harriet. You have shown rudeness, disobedience and a total lack of respect, and you have done it in front of twenty thousand people.”
I’ve been called a lot of names in my life, but ‘rude’, ‘disobedient’ and ‘disrespectful’ are not three of them. The shock finally knocks the voice back into me. “Yuka, I was at the flat, I set three alarms, I don’t party – ever – I don’t own shoes like that, I wouldn’t even know where to buy any—”
“Do not compound errors with lying,” Yuka interrupts. “And don’t think that completing this shoot exonerates your behaviour. An ability to copy a professional is not what I have flown you halfway around the world for.”
There’s nothing I can say: she’s absolutely right. Without Nick, I would have stood there and quietly drowned in my own panicky mucus.
“I’m so sorry,” I say quietly as my eyes start to go blurry.
“If I hadn’t already invested so much in you, Harriet, you would be going home now.” Every word sounds like it’s been bitten off. “Do not make me regret this decision any more than I do already.” And before I can say anything, Yuka turns and walks out of the building.
I stare after her, open mouthed.
“The mawashi,” Nick says after a few seconds, raking a hand over his head. “It was a joke. I never would have—” but I’ve stopped listening. I’m already pushing through the doors and running back to the edge of the stage.
If I can just find the note – if I can show it to Yuka – maybe she’ll believe me. She’ll see that I do respect her, and that I love Japan. That I know I’m lucky to be here, and I’m trying as hard as I can.
That I’m not the person she thinks I am.
But it doesn’t matter how hard I look.
The note is gone.
have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start.
Actually, that’s not true. I totally do.
As soon as I’m back at the flat, I charge straight into the bedroom. Rin’s lying on her front on the bottom bunk, reading an English dictionary with her head cocked to one side: pink lace dress on, purple-socked feet crossed behind her. Kylie’s sprawled out across the small of her back in exactly the same outfit. Poppy’s perched against the wall of the top bunk, carefully painting her nails pink and humming a riff from The Sound of Music over and over and over again.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
They stop what they’re doing and look at me.
My cheeks are hot, and my breathing is getting faster and faster. There’s a tight feeling around my throat. “You left early this morning, Poppy. Why didn’t you wake me up before you went?”
Poppy looks blank. “What for?”
“For my photo shoot with Yuka! You knew I had to be—”
Rin knew about the job, but Poppy didn’t.
“Oh no,” Poppy says, her hand flying to her mouth. “Did you have a shoot this morning? Did you miss it?”
I shake my head. “Rin – you didn’t hear the alarms?”
Rin’s chin is starting to wobble. “I hear no alarm, Harry-chan. I have whales on.”
“What about the doorbell? It was being rung for two hours and none of us heard it?”
Poppy’s eyes fly open. “Oh, Harriet, it’s been crackling for ages and it finally broke. I left a note about it for you.” She points at a small piece of paper duly stuck next to the bed. “And we le
ft another one on the front door asking visitors to ring our phones.”
My phone.
I crouch down and start fumbling around under my bed. After three or four seconds, I find it tucked behind a stray pillow. The battery is totally dead.
Oh my God. What is wrong with me? What kind of person am I?
Actually, I’d really appreciate it if nobody answers that.
Then something else in my head clicks. I run to the bird alarm, pick it up and sure enough: it’s still on British time. All my alarms are set to go off three hours from now.
The entire morning has been my fault.
But what about the shoes? I think. Except …
Nobody actually told me to put them on, did they?
Maybe they were a gift. Maybe the note was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Maybe they weren’t even for me.
This is exactly what happens when you just blindly do what notes tell you without asking appropriate questions first. Did Lewis Carroll teach me nothing?
Rin and Poppy are staring at me with wide, slightly reproachful eyes, and suddenly I don’t want to be here any more. I want to be far, far away, in a universe where I am not such a horrible human being. In a nicer, alternative world where I take responsibility for my own mistakes like a nearly adult, instead of stropping about, ruining things and then blaming everyone else like a spoilt little child.
It’s moments like this when my unpopularity is nowhere near as much of a mystery as I’d like it to be.
“I’m so sorry,” I say for the billionth time, my face getting steadily hotter. I start backing out of the room. “I didn’t mean to … I don’t know what I’m … I’m” – I blush even deeper – “I’m so, so sorry.”
And in a wave of shame, I grab my mobile and the charger, run into the hallway and climb into the cupboard.
efore you say it, no.
There is nothing weird about hiding in a cupboard. C. S. Lewis based an entire series of books on the premise that this is what normal people do on a regular basis. Anyway, I don’t have any other choice. This is the only piece of furniture in Japan I can fit either into or under.