Forever Geek

by Holly Smale

  For once, I’m not going to analyse what it is.

  “Fine,” he says, smiling broadly for the first time. “You know, Manners, this was an incredibly extreme way to pass on a message. You could have just rung. Or sent a postcard.”

  And I suddenly remember our race to the postbox last summer: happy and giggling and dizzy from the roundabout and the sunshine and the kissing.

  “I could have,” I smile back. “I guess this time I just wanted to get here first.”

  British person makes an average of 396 friends in a lifetime.

  So far I’ve made seven and lost three of them.

  But as Nick grabs a bag from his house, says something I can’t hear to his parents and starts walking with me down the road, I realise that I may have just gained another one.

  Just like love, you don’t always see friendship coming.

  “And then I fell into the casting,” I chuckle as we walk, eating mint ice creams we picked up on the way. “Straight on to the floor. I think I actually said ‘oomph’.”

  “Ha!” Nick grins. “A bit like me on our first date, then.”

  I laugh, remembering him: sprawled on the floor of the ice rink outside the Natural History Museum, like the world’s most ungainly starfish.

  “I still can’t believe you managed to answer Toby’s quiz questions accurately,” I smile. “I’ve failed that about fourteen times now.”

  “Indiana Jones is a legend. Did you know that in Raiders of the Lost Ark the sound of the boulder chasing Indy was actually made by rolling a car down a gravel road? I was so disappointed I wasn’t tested on that.”

  “At least Tobes didn’t ask you how they achieve Wolverine’s claw sound. He’s added that on recently.”

  “They tore a turkey apart,” Nick says promptly. “What a missed opportunity.”

  I laugh again: Jasper got that one wrong and was furious about it.

  Jasper. I should really call him.

  Swallowing, I take the Brick out of my satchel and press a few huge buttons, but the bizarrely long-lasting battery appears to have finally died.

  I have to call him as soon as I get back to Sydney.

  “And what was it like being a dive instructor?” I say, popping the Brick back in my satchel and trying to ignore an intense flicker of relief in my stomach. “How much of the ocean did you get to see?”

  “Not all of it, sadly.” Nick laughs and licks his ice cream. “There was a humpback whale and her baby and we could hear them singing to each other underwater. And there were quite a few dugongs, bustling around like the nannies of the sea world.”

  “Did you know that sailors thought they were mermaids? Apparently Christopher Columbus said they ‘weren’t quite as beautiful as they were said to be’?”

  “What an idiot,” Nick laughs. “I mean, if it’s not bad enough that Columbus so-called ‘discovered’ countries that were inhabited already, he then goes around negging on sea cows?”

  “Exactly! Discovered.” I point at a ginger cat, crossing the sunny street. “I discovered a cat! It’s mine now.”

  “That house?” Nick points at a large one. “Discovered. Mine.”

  “The sun? I’ve just come across it. Bagsy.”

  “Stars? All mine.”

  “Just wait a minute,” I frown. “You can’t have all the stars, Nick. That’s just being greedy. Can I at least have the northern hemisphere?”

  “OK,” he agrees. “I suppose we can split the sky.”

  We both smile, and for a moment the three stars we decided to share when we were together – the three stars you can see from both the northern and southern hemispheres – hang silently and unseen in the air above us.

  Then I look up the road.

  Bunty is sitting outside the bus station: propped against a wall like a fluffy pink budgie, reading the Daisy book. Parts of her spangly outfit keep catching the sunlight and throwing rainbows on to surfaces around her.

  She looks tired, and I feel a wave of guilt.

  Should I ever decide to stalk somebody again, I’ll do it on my own.

  “Darlings!” she says, looking up with a sudden bright smile as we approach. “Harriet, sweetheart, you’re dripping wet! Don’t worry, I’ve got dry clothes in my bag.” Then she beams at Nick. “Hello again.”

  “Hey, Bunty,” he says, grinning warmly back. “How are you?”

  “Full of camomile tea and oatcakes,” she smiles, then turns to me. “Poppet, I’ve booked plane tickets back to Sydney for us in a few hours. Are you terribly disappointed that we’re not going to hit the road again?”

  The huge Greyhound bus is pulling in behind us.

  Missing another cramped fourteen hours spent doing Sudoku puzzles and trying not to get static shocks from my fuzzy seat on the Australian highway? There may be eight primary emotions, but disappointment is not one of mine right now.

  “I’ll get over it eventually,” I grin. “Thank you. Except …”

  I look worriedly at Nick: I’d assumed we could just pick him up a bus ticket when he was here.

  “It’s cool,” he says, shrugging and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll just hop on the bus and see you at the show tomorrow. I’ve got friends I can stay with in Sydney.”

  “Nicholas,” Bunty says warmly as a taxi pulls up next to us and the doors swing open. “I bought you a plane ticket too. Something told me we might need three.”

  Both Nick and I stare at my grandmother in amazement.

  How?

  How does she always know? Maybe whatever magical omniscience Annabel has is obviously passed on genetically from mother to daughter. It is such a shame I’m not related by blood to them.

  Thanks very much, non-magic Dad.

  “I booked it while you two were up the road chatting,” she laughs, waving her smartphone. “Sadly my crystal ball is far too heavy to go in my overnight bag.”

  Oh. Right: that’s probably how Annabel does it too.

  Observation and the internet.

  Nick and I climb into the back of the car, and I try not to notice that as he reaches over for his seat belt his hand briefly touches mine.

  Or the spark that runs through my arm straight after.

  “Darlings, did we get everything done?” Bunty says, stretching round to look at us carefully. “Is the universe aligned with everything in its rightful place?”

  Nick glances to the side and smiles.

  There’s still a little distance but the plan is working and I’m certain I’ve been the best friend I possibly can be.

  Even if I had to break a billion rules of social etiquette to do it.

  “Yes,” I nod happily. “Everything’s in the right place.”

  “Perfect,” Bunty sighs, looking out of the taxi window with a tiny smile. “Then so are we.”

  s we know, I have many fact books.

  And in one of them – intended by its publisher to be read on the toilet but actually propped on a Fact Shelf next to my bed – it says that human lungs are so elastic they are easier to blow up than a balloon.

  Which is kind of funny.

  Because as Bunty and I open the door to the Kookaburra Shanty, it appears that someone has done exactly that to Nat, and now she’s being released slowly at the neck.

  She’s rocketing around the flat so fast she’s practically making an eeeeeeee sound and smashing into walls.

  “You’re back early!” she cries, rushing over to the door. “How did it go?” She whizzes across to the coffee table that’s piled a metre high with fabric. “Bunty, do we have any other scissors anywhere? These are blunt.” She gets up again and runs to the cupboard. “Should I dismantle this dress, do you think? I can’t find lace as pretty anywhere but it seems such a shame.”

  She starts breathlessly ripping up a pink gown, wavy hair in a chaotic, curly halo round her head.

  Then she glances up. “Harriet, what are you wearing?”

  Because Natalie Grey will never be too busy to not notice my
outfit.

  For the record, I’m wearing a knee-length patchwork dress with a flower belt and purple glitter smeared over my cheeks. I also have an amber dream-catcher necklace round my neck and seven bangles round my wrist.

  “I went Full Bunty,” I say with a little smile at my grandmother.

  Then, putting my satchel on the floor, I glance guiltily at the phone charger in the corner of the room.

  Maybe I’ll just have a quick cup of tea first.

  “Scissors,” Bunty says efficiently, pulling a tiny pair out of her bag like Mary Poppins. How she got them past airport security will forever be a mystery. “Your wish is my command, darling.”

  “Ace, thanks!” Nat pauses in her enthusiastic ripping and glances behind us. “So where’s You Know Who?”

  As if Nick is Voldemort, or maybe Lord Sauron.

  “He went straight to his friend’s house,” I say as Bunty wanders off to “source” Moonstone. “We’ll see him at the show tomorrow.”

  Then my eyes flick towards the charger again.

  “Cool,” Nat nods, with slightly forced breeziness. “There’s so much to do, Harriet.” She bossily pats the floor beside her. “Silva needs a dress and now I need a dress. Front row, Harriet. Front freaking row.”

  I grin and perch next to the mountains of fabric.

  Although, honestly, I’m not sure exactly what kind of service Nat thinks I can provide: during Year Seven textiles I managed to accidentally sew my trousers to Jessica’s.

  And we were actually both wearing them at the time.

  “Ooh,” Nat breathes, jumping up again and running to the sideboard. “I can’t believe I didn’t give this to you straight away. You’ve got a very important invitation, Harriet.”

  Then she runs back and hands a piece of card to me with an I’ve-Clearly-Already-Read-It wink.

  It’s small and cream.

  Across the front, in formal gold script, it says Harriet Manners in writing so curly it’s almost illegible.

  And on the back it says:

  To whom it may concern,

  You will be taking part in my show.

  Arrive at Millers Point at 6:30pm ON THE DOT with a clean face, washed hair and nude underwear.

  As a previously employed model, you have already been compensated.

  Yuka Ito

  I blink at it in surprise.

  On the upside, at least now I won’t have to gatecrash yet another fashion event I’m not actually invited to. Plus – after being blacklisted by every modelling agency in Sydney – I get to do what I actually came to Australia for in the first place.

  But … this may be the last time I ever model for Yuka.

  I’m suddenly filled with a wave of sadness.

  And also gratitude: with this invitation, she’s somehow managed to help me yet again.

  “Soooo …” Nat grins cheekily as I read the card and try to work out whether nude underwear is an oxymoron. “Does this mean I finally get to see you on a catwalk for myself?”

  I put it carefully in my pocket. “You could at least try to pretend you haven’t been reading my mail before I have, Natalie.”

  “Sorry. Ahem. What’s that fashion show invitation postcard from Yuka all about, Harriet? And does this mean I finally get to see you fall off a catwalk, sit down on one or crawl under it for myself?”

  I stick my tongue out at her. “Haha.”

  “Oh,” Nat adds as she sticks a bit of black thread through a needle and snaps it off with her teeth. “And Jasper’s been texting me.”

  Apparently a heartbeat changes to mimic the tempo of the music you’re listening to, which is weird because mine has just sped up even though there’s now total silence.

  “Mmm?” I say, licking my lips and glancing at the phone charger again. “How … err … is he?”

  Nat looks at me while I study a bit of lace so intently I’ve basically engraved delicate swirls and flowers on my brain.

  “Harriet,” she says finally. “I know you’re confused, but you can’t keep shutting Jasper out. He was your friend before he was anything else. Don’t be such a ninny.”

  I open my mouth indignantly. “I’m not a …”

  OK, the word ninny was first recorded in the 1590s and meant “fool”; possibly as a result of a mis-division of an innocent or from the Italian word ninno, which means “baby or child”.

  Yeah, Nat’s got a valid point.

  “Is he angry with me?” I say, picking at the lace nervously. “I did mean to call him, but the Brick ran out of battery and …”

  Nat takes the lace off me. “I actually need that. Stop destroying it. Jasper’s not angry, Harriet. But you need to talk to him.”

  “I will,” I nod, stroking a red ribbon.

  “Soon.”

  “I will.” I wrap it carefully round my finger.

  “Like, now.”

  I look up and Nat lowers her chin and stares at me from under her eyebrows, like our headmistress when I told her that I didn’t think our GCSE syllabus was “expansive enough”.

  “OK, but first I just have to charge my—”

  “Now,” she says again, giving me her mobile phone.

  Sighing, I take it and stand up.

  She’s right: I’m sixteen and a half years old, a legal adult in many countries (if not my own) and I don’t have the excuse of being a child any more.

  Fool, however, sounds pretty spot on.

  “I’m not sure what to say to him,” I admit quietly, twisting the red ribbon round my hand like an anxious cat’s cradle. “I’ve never … been in this kind of situation before.”

  Honestly, I don’t even know what situation it is: that’s how completely inexperienced I am at anything even approaching a triangle.

  I’m really much more of a straight lines girl.

  “There’s always the truth, Harriet,” Nat says, glancing back at her fabric with a small smile. “Maybe you could start with that.”

  ere are some statistics about lying:

  That last one doesn’t sound quite right to me.

  Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever told a falsehood that hasn’t been found out, so either that statistic is inaccurate or I’m a terrible liar.

  What I do know, however, is that telling fibs is one of my least favourite things about myself.

  In Greek tragedy, hamartia is the name for the fatal flaw in the hero or heroine that eventually leads to their downfall. So in Hamlet, for instance, it’s his indecisiveness; Victor in Frankenstein succumbs to his own pride; Romeo and Juliet both believe in love conquering all, including themselves.

  And when it comes to lying, if I’m confronted, or pushed into a corner, or anxious, or want people to like me, or I don’t want to let someone down, or I’m stressed or desperate or confused or need to get out of an awkward situation, I don’t seem to be able to stop.

  Especially when I don’t want to hurt the person I’m lying to.

  Or when that person is myself.

  “Hi,” I say as the phone finally connects.

  I’m in my bedroom with the door locked, lying flat on my back on the bed: staring in vague surprise at a large cut-glass crystal strung from the ceiling directly above my head.

  Where the sugar cookies did that come from?

  “Hi,” Jasper replies. “So I guess you’re still alive, then. That’s good to know.”

  I decided not to video-call so I can focus on the words I’m saying, rather than what I’m doing with my face while I say them. Nat assured me that Jasper wasn’t angry, but he definitely sounds it.

  And, honestly, I can’t blame him.

  It’s now been six days since I spoke to him or texted him or acknowledged him in any way.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,” I say, closing my eyes tightly. Just tell the truth, Harriet. “This isn’t an excuse, but my head’s been … Who was that abstract artist you showed me at the Tate?”

  “Picasso.”

  “No.” Although actually
he made quite a few pictures of women with two faces so that’s a pretty accurate guess. “The one who laid canvases on the floor and then walked around, flinging paint at them randomly?”

  “Jackson Pollock.”

  “Yes. That’s what the inside of my head has looked like for the last week: like a big mass of messy swirling paint. Except it’s not worth a hundred and forty million dollars.”

  “And nobody would want it on their wall.”

  “Exactly.” I smile sadly. “I … didn’t know how to hang my splodges on your wall, Jasper. So I disappeared on you. I’m so sorry.”

  There’s a long silence: the kind of silence that feels like it stretches 21,300 miles all the way round to the other side of the world and back again.

  “What happened?” Jasper says finally.

  “I put my own life in danger,” I say in a low voice, because it’s starting to hit me that that’s exactly what I did. “And someone I care about is very ill, and I …” I swallow. “I saw Nick.”

  The silence just keeps stretching: round and round, as if it’s never going to end.

  Keep going, Harriet. Say it all.

  “And then I … lost control for a little while.”

  Because the truth is: I’ve spent my whole life arranging everything, managing everything, organising everything; keeping it all locked in boxes, in filing cabinets, in folders.

  Putting everything in order, in lists, in bullet points, in charts.

  And I think that for a few days, I couldn’t keep it straight any more and everything fell apart.

  “Did you kiss Nick?” Jasper says after a lengthy pause. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Harriet?”

  OK, I may not be a voice-reading expert but there’s no doubt: Jasper is definitely angry.

  “No,” I say in surprise. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” he snaps. “Because it sounds like that’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Then …” Another pause. “I don’t understand.”

  Frowning, I blink at the crystal hanging over my head.

  When light hits sheer crystal, the rays pass straight through to the other side so it’s transparent. But when light hits cut crystal, the rays refract from the cut edges and shatter into rainbows around the room. So, while it might look transparent, if you hold a cut crystal up to the light it’s hard to see anything on the other side.