by Holly Smale
In fact – now I’m not hiding in a bush fifteen metres away, being attacked by spiders – I can see a general shininess about Nat, as if her insides have just been dipped in something twinkly. Her eyes are sparkling and her cheeks are pink; there are little dimples in the corners of her mouth and her skin looks like it could glow in the dark.
I look down: the varnish has been chewed off every single one of her nails.
Then I remember her on my doorstep yesterday.
I really need to talk to her.
Oh my God, why did I automatically assume it was about me? Ugh. Maybe Jasper has a point after all.
“Is it François? Are you back with him?”
“Who?” Nat frowns. “Oh, the French dude. Ugh: no. He won’t stop sending me postcards with rabbits cuddling in front of the Eiffel Tower. This one is called Theo. He’s studying photography at college, and we kissed on Friday night for the first time. He’s all right, I guess. For a boy.”
My best friend is playing it cool, but her entire face is luminous as if something has been set on fire behind it.
I stare at Nat in confusion. She has left literally fifty-six messages on my phone over the last few days, and not a single one of them mentioned this.
“But … why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because you’re my best friend and you’ve just had your heart broken and this is terrible timing and I didn’t want to make you sadder.”
I suddenly love my Best Friend so much it’s hard to swallow.
“Nat,” I say finally, “do you know what happens to metal when it touches another piece of metal in outer space?”
“It makes a really loud screeching sound and the universe goes aaaaaargggh stop it?”
I grin at her. “There’s no sound in space, so no. What happens is that those two bits of metal weld together permanently. Nothing that makes you happy could possibly make me sad, Nat. We’re welded.”
She considers this briefly and then pulls a face. “Remind me never to go into space with Toby, in that case.”
We both laugh, then sit in comfortable silence for a few seconds with one shoulder touching.
“So how did you know I’d be here, anyway?”
Nat stretches and yawns. “I tagged you with an electronic chipping device while you were sleeping. Like a cat.”
My hand automatically goes up to my neck.
“Plonker. As soon as I got that last text I knew where you’d be, Harriet. You never use exclamation marks in a text unless you’re lying. So I figured your first day back had blown, and you’d be heading straight here.”
I blink at her in amazement.
See what I mean? Nat had known I was coming to the launderette before I even knew it myself.
Now, that’s a best friend.
“Well,” I start, ready to tell her everything: about Toby and Alexa and Jasper, and how nobody likes me. About how lonely I am without her already, and how I want her to come back to school so it can be just us again, the way it always has been.
Then I stop.
If we’re welded, it works both ways, right? My sadness will make her sad too, and I don’t want that. It’s her turn to be happy now. I’ve had my big, amazing romance. My best friend deserves to have the world light up for her too.
“Au contraire, Natalie,” I say as airily as I can, with a quick hand flourish. “In fact, I’ll have you know I won the class quiz in my very first hour.”
This doesn’t have the impact I’m hoping for.
“Oh my God,” Nat sighs, putting her hand over her eyes. “How bad? Post-it on the back of T-shirt bad or head-down-the-toilet bad?”
Just once I’d like Nat not to see straight through me.
“The former,” I admit. There was a Post-it saying I AM A KNOW-IT-ALL on my satchel at breaktime. “But don’t worry: it’s just a brief hiccup. I’m sure they’ll forget about it eventually.”
“Of course they will.” Nat puts her arm round me and leans her head against mine. “Lots of people make a slightly bumpy first impression and nobody ever remembers.”
We’re both lying, by the way: scientists have found that first impressions are very difficult to undo and can often be permanent.
“Exactly!” I drop off the machine with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. “And a school year is only 190 days, right? 1,330 hours will be over before I know it.”
There’s a short silence.
“That’s a really long time, Harriet.”
“Actually, it’s only three days on Mercury. Plus I’ve got you and Toby – as soon as his project is over, anyway – so what else does a sensible girl really need?”
“But Harriet, I’m not—”
“So do you want to come to mine tonight? I’ve designed a game of fashion Monopoly for us to play and it has a doll’s house sewing machine you can use as your little placer.”
Let’s just say that last free period was really boring.
There’s another short, uncomfortable silence.
Then Nat frowns and hops off the machine, landing on a half-open detergent box with a little puff of white powder like a dragon.
She stares at the floor for a few seconds.
“I … can’t tonight. I mean, it sounds great. But if you … If we … Some other time?”
“Oh.” I feel slightly popped. “I guess you’re busy with Theo tonight, right?”
“Huh? Oh. Mm-hmm.”
I nod as another memory flashes: a seagull, a swing, a fur hat.
A kiss.
Then I swallow and push it away as fast as I can.
“Excellent!” I try and grin. “Can’t wait to meet him! Have fun!”
Nat gets to the door then bites her lip, runs back and abruptly throws her arms around me so hard she almost knocks me over.
“Don’t give up, Harriet. They’ll love you as much as I do, I promise. Just give them a bit of time, OK?”
She kisses my cheek, hard.
Then my best friend bursts back out of the laundry doors into the dark, leaving a white fog of soap behind her.
wait until Nat has definitely gone.
Then I sit back down in the chair, lean my cheek against the warm tumble dryer and watch the sock going round and round and round in never-ending circles.
Just like my stupid little life.
My phone beeps.
My little chunky-chip! Is this the face that launched a thousand lips?! Sparkle monkey everywhere! Fairy wins again! Gravy
I stare at it for a few seconds, then turn my phone upside down in case it reads better the other way up.
It does not.
It’s midday on a Tuesday in New York right now. My bonkers ex-agent has clearly had way too many cups of coffee.
Although at least Wilbur’s still in contact: we may not be working together any more, but he still talks to me more than my current modelling agent.
The last three times I rang Infinity Models I never even got past the receptionist.
Still bemused, I type:
Wilbur, have you been eating sequins again? xxx
I wait a few minutes – he’s obviously peaked and passed out – pop my phone back in my bag and make a mental note to ring him tomorrow when he’s slept through the caffeine spike.
Then I close my eyes and try not to notice how, despite coming to my happy place, there’s an organ in the middle of my chest that still belongs on Jupiter.
ccording to scientists, it takes sixty-six days to form a new habit.
I’m obviously going to need every single one of them.
As I walk slowly home, every bush is stared at, every flowerpot glanced behind, every tree trunk checked. At one point I find myself making a little detour around a rubbish bin, just in case there’s somebody lurking there. Honestly, I haven’t behaved this weirdly since I went on a rampaging Flower Fairy hunt, aged six.
Or had so little success.
Because it doesn’t matter how hard I look, or how slowly I walk, or how many times I whisper I believe
in you: it’s no good.
There’s nobody following.
Nobody listening, nobody watching.
For the first time in five years, Toby isn’t there.
“Dad?” I say as I push open the front door. “Tabitha? Did you have a nice d—”
I freeze.
Newspapers are strewn around the hallway. The sofa has been dismantled; blankets and clothes are scattered down the stairs. One living-room curtain is closed, every drawer is out, every cupboard is open. The rubbish bin is lying on its side: contents splurged all over the floor.
There are approximately 35,000 robberies reported every month in the UK, and it looks like we’ve just become one of them.
“Dad!” I shout in a panic, dropping my satchel. “Tabitha! Are you OK?”
What if they’ve taken my laptop?
Nobody will ever see the presentation I was making about pandas doing handstands.
“Dad!” I yell as I race into the bathroom. The medicine cupboard has been pulled apart. “Dad!” I yell in the kitchen where the fridge door is still open. “Dad!” I shout in the totally ransacked cupboard under the stairs. “Da—”
Dad walks in through the back door with Tabitha, snuggled up in his arms. “Daughter Number One! The conquering heroine returns!”
I fling myself at them so hard I may have crushed my little sister irreversibly. “Oh my goodness, you poor things. Did they hurt you? Did they threaten you? You could have been kidnapped!”
Actually, they may have been kidnapped and then returned. If I was a robber, I’d have brought my dad back pretty quickly too.
“Did the who which what now?”
“The burglars!”
“We’ve been burgled?” Dad says in alarm. “When did that happen? I was only in the garden for thirty seconds. Blimey, they move fast, don’t they?”
I look at him, and then at the chaos around us.
Now I come to think of it, nothing seems to be missing. It just appears to be … heavily rearranged. There isn’t a single cup left in the cupboard: they’re all sitting next to the sink, half full of cold tea. The plates aren’t gone: they’re just randomly distributed around the living room, covered in ketchup.
“You made all this mess?”
“What mess?” Dad glances around. “Looks fine to me. I tell you what, I don’t know what Annabel was going on about. This stay-at-home-parent malarkey is a doddle. I even wrote a poem after lunch. Do you want to hear it?”
“You wrote a poem?”
“I did indeed. I rhymed artisan with marzipan. And Tarzan.” Dad looks at my sister smugly. “We’re just trying to work out how to get partisan in there too, aren’t we, Tabs. I am partisan to a little marzipan while watching Tarzan.” He thinks about it. “If only it was Tarzipan. Such a shame.”
Oh my God. The only thing missing in this house is the thing between my father’s ears.
“But—”
“I feel a bit cooped up now, though,” he continues cheerfully. “I might take Hugo for a walk, stretch the legs, get the air moving around the brain again. You can take care of Tabitha, right?”
He plonks her in my arms before I can tell him there’s clearly enough air moving around his brain already.
“But Dad—”
“Oooh, medicine-man!” he says as he grabs his jacket, whistles at my dog and marches out of the door I left hanging open in panic behind me. Hugo bounds after him, giddy with excitement. “That rhymes too! God, I’m a creative genius. See you in a bit, kiddos!”
And the door swings shut behind them.
My sister and I look at each other in disbelief for a few seconds. Not for the first time, we are entirely on the same page. You think that’s bad? her round blue eyes are saying. I’ve had eleven hours of this and I’m only four months old. I can’t even physically crawl away yet.
I glance at the clock on the kitchen wall.
It’s five-thirty and Annabel will be home from her first day back at work in an hour. Exhausted, drained and desperate to spend time with her tiny baby. I could be wrong, but I don’t think washing up, re-folding towels in a cupboard and reading Dad’s inaccurate attempts to rhyme marzipan are on that list.
Which gives me no other choice.
With a quick sigh, I give my sister a kiss on the cheek and put her back in her little bouncy chair so that she can keep me company.
Then, like all the King’s soldiers and all the King’s men, I roll my sleeves up.
And start putting the house back together again.
ere are my top three days in history:
Suffice to say, today is not on this list.
Frankly, it wouldn’t even make it into the top 5,000.
I had so many brilliant plans for my first day back at school. Facts and stats and equations and carefully controlled explosions; laughter and soul-searching and conversations about life and death and what our favourite trees are (mine – the Socotra dragon blood, followed closely by the rainbow eucalyptus).
I was prepared for everything and anything on my first day as a sixth former.
I just never thought I’d spend quite so much of it cleaning.
By the time I’ve finished vacuuming the hallway, all I want to do is crawl to my bedroom, bury myself under a pile of books like a hedgehog and never come out again. I can be one of those people who says reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body while never moving another muscle.
“Harriet!” Annabel says in surprise, coming in through the front door as I’m halfway up the stairs with Tabby in my arms: she’s earlier than I thought she’d be. “How was school? I thought you might still be at some kind of extra-curriculum or social activity.”
Then she pauses, rubs her eyes and looks round the spotless house. “Crikey,” she adds with a grimace. “Now I feel terrible. I’d assumed your father would spend the day trashing the place and writing terrible poetry. I clearly don’t know my husband at all.”
I really don’t have the heart to break it to her.
“School was great,” I say brightly, clipping a smile on like Lego. “How was work?”
“Amazing. Frankly, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy telling people I’m going to sue them.”
Annabel grins at me – attired once more in her fitted suit and black heels and obviously feeling completely herself again – and I smile back.
Then I pull my phone out of my pocket and stare at the empty screen. “Oooh, six missed phone calls and seven text messages from like-minded people with similar interests who want to spend quality time with me. Better go reply to them all.”
Annabel takes Tabitha off me with a gentle, “I missed you, squirrel.” Then she looks up with dark eyes. “I’m so glad your first day back went well, sweetheart. I was worried it would be tricky to fit back in so late into term.”
I nod. For once, I’m glad my stepmother is too exhausted for her mind-reading superpowers to kick in properly.
“Not at all! It was ace!!!!” Fake quadruple exclamation marks. “I just have a little extra reading to do before tomorrow!! So I shall say goodnight!!!”
There go five more.
Then I do a weird little royal wave all the way up the stairs until I’m locked safely inside my bedroom.
Where I fling myself face down on my bed.
And promptly start to hyperventilate.
Apparently if you hyperventilate before you go underwater, you can hold your breath for much longer because CO2 levels in your bloodstream are lower.
Frankly, I’m breathing so fast now I’m basically a mermaid.
What’s the expression? Be careful what you wish for.
I wished for everything to be different; I thought that way it would change for me too. I’m not sure it was such a smart ambition after all.
Everybody else has moved on already.
Nat has college and Theo. Toby has a brand-new, top-secret project that doesn’t involve me. Annabel has work, Dad has “poetry” and Tabby has the imminent hurdle of s
olid foods to attend to. My grandmother Bunty is painting murals in a beach hut in Rio, Wilbur’s still creating fashion havoc in New York, Rin’s moved to South Japan.
My modelling agency has forgotten who I am.
Nick’s still gone.
Even Alexa and her minions have found something better to do.
And in the meantime, I’m just the same old me, doing the same old things, over and over again. Carrying the past around with me, exactly as I always have.
There’s a humpback whale in the ocean that sings at fifty-two hertz: too low for any other whale to hear. Scientists aren’t sure if it’s a genetic anomaly, or a sole survivor of an extinct species, or just a whale who accidentally learnt the wrong song. They just know that it’s probably the loneliest mammal on earth.
I know exactly how it feels.
As if I’m swimming desperately round and round in repeating circles, singing as hard as I can, but nobody can hear me.
For the first time since I left America, I put my pillow over my head.
And burst straight into tears.
ccording to a recent study, the average teenager cries for two hours and thirteen minutes a week. Thanks to saving it all up, I’m very close to hitting that target in just one session.
I cry until my face hurts and my pillow’s wet.
I cry until my chest aches and there are no tears any more: just an exhausted ng ng ng sound.
Never mind Jupiter: my heart is now on the sun. It’s on a white dwarf. It’s somewhere on a neutron star, weighing millions of tonnes and about to rip a channel to the bottom of my toes.
Because there’s the massive lie I told Nat: one with a gaping, obvious hole in it.
I am not OK at all.
Finally, I stop crying.
I wipe my nose on my duvet and sit up. I grab a piece of paper and a pen from my bedside table.
And I start writing.
uickly, I cram the letter into an envelope.
I scribble an address on the front and stick three rare stamps on it that will carry the letter far, far away: to a strange, foreign place I’ve never been before. Then I shove my trainers on and run down the stairs before pride or shame or hope can stop me.