Holly Smale - Geek Girl and Model Misfit

“No, Harriet,” she finally says firmly. “There’re a couple on your forehead, but I think that’s just teenage acne.”

“Since when is spotted a human adjective?” I snap impatiently. “I’m not a leopard or a stingray. Spotted. Verb, not adjective. Scouted. Picked up. Discovered. Found.” They still look blank, so I continue even more crossly. “By a model agent. By Infinity Models, to be more specific.”

Annabel looks even more confused. “To do what?”

“To pack potatoes.”

“Really?”

“No! To be a model,” I yell in distress. It’s one thing thinking you’re not pretty, but it’s quite another having that confirmed by the only people in the world who are supposed to think otherwise.

Annabel frowns again. When I look at Dad, however, he appears to be shining with the light of a million smug fairies. “They’re my genes, you know,” he says, pointing to me. “Standing right there. That’s my genetics.”

“Yes, dear, they’re your genes,” Annabel repeats as if she’s talking to a child. And then she sits down again and picks up her newspaper.

I look from Annabel to Dad. Is that it? I mean, seriously?

OK, I didn’t expect them to start dancing round the coffee table, waving their Sudoku books in the air like exotic bird feathers, but a bit more enthusiasm would be nice. Fantastic, Harriet, they could say. Maybe you’re not as totally disgusting to look at as we all thought you were. How wonderful for the whole family.

Or something that acknowledges that this would be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to anyone, if I was someone else and this was a totally different family.

Annabel looks up to where I’m still standing, mouth open. “What?” she says. “You can’t do it, Harriet. You’re too young and you’ve got exams coming up.”

“She can’t do it?” Dad repeats in an incredulous tone. “What do you mean she can’t do it?”

Annabel looks at him calmly. “She’s fifteen, Richard. It’s totally inappropriate.”

“It’s Infinity Models, Annabel. Even I’ve heard of them.”

“Hundreds of beautiful women in one place? I bet you have, darling. But the answer’s still no.”

“Oh my God,” Dad yells at the top of his voice. “This is so unfair.”

You see the problem? It’s really hard being a child in my family when that space seems to already be taken.

“I don’t actually want to do it,” I interrupt. “I’m just telling you. But you could say well done or something.”

“You don’t want to do it?” Dad yells at me.

Oh, for God’s sake.

Annabel looks at me. “It’s modelling. Fashion.” She pulls a face. “What’s there to be excited about? Why is everyone getting so worked up?”

I look from her to Dad and then at Hugo. Hugo gets off the chair, tail wagging, and promptly licks me. I think he knows I need it.

“Right,” I say in a slightly deflated voice. “Fine.”

The only remotely exciting thing that has ever happened to me and it’s over already. It lasted about as long as I thought it would. I feel a little bit like sulking. Dad still looks totally shell-shocked.

“Now,” Annabel says, shaking the remote control to get the batteries working and turning the television on. “Who wants to watch a documentary about locusts?”

sulk for about twenty-five minutes and then get bored and spend the rest of Thursday night a) not thinking about Nick and b) getting ready to woo Nat into Best Friendship again. Flowers, cards, poetry: I even bake special, personalised, sugar-free muffins with photos of me and her on top (not edible photos – I didn’t have time – real photos). And then I put them all in my satchel and prepare to take them to school, where I will ambush Nat and convince her of my guilt and/or innocence.

Whatever it takes to make her anger with me disappear.

It’s all a total waste of time and effort and flour. Apparently I don’t need to woo Nat at all. On Friday morning, at precisely 8am, the doorbell rings.

“Nat! You’re here!” I gurgle in surprise, halfway through a jam sandwich. It comes out a sticky, strawberry-flavoured, “Nnnnnaaatcchh uuuhhh hhiiii!”

“For breakfast?” she says, looking pointedly at the other half, which is perched in my left hand.

I stick my nose in the air in my most dignified way. “Jam sandwiches have all the necessary nutrients needed to survive. Sugar, vitamins, carbohydrates. I could live entirely on jam sandwiches and lead a totally normal life.”

“No, you couldn’t,” Nat says, pulling me out of the door. It’s lucky I already have my shoes on or I’d be walking to school in my socks. “You’d be The Girl Who Only Eats Strawberry Jam Sandwiches and that’s not normal.” She looks at me and then coughs. “Can I have the other half, though? I’m totally starving.”

I give her the other half in surprise and then look at her while she eats it. Firstly, Nat never eats food with high sugar content. Ever. Not since that fateful disco, eight years ago. And secondly, is this it then? The big dramatic scene I’ve been dreading all night? I made muffins without sugar especially and now nobody is going to eat them.

“Nat,” I start and at exactly the same moment she says “Harriet?” and then she clears her throat.

“I’m sorry. For getting mad at you and stomping off.”

“Oh.” I blink in shock. “That’s OK. I’m sorry too. For… getting spotted and stuff.”

“The lying was the main problem, Harriet.” Nat twists her mouth up in an awkward half-smile and licks her fingers. “Can we just forget about yesterday?”

“Of course we can,” I beam at her.

A huge wave of relief washes over me: it’s all OK. I was being neurotic and oversensitive as normal.

And then – just like waves – the relief abruptly disappears. Nat clears her throat and I look at her again, but a little more carefully this time. Suddenly I can see what I didn’t notice before: that her neck is tense and her shoulders are all bunched up. Her collarbones have gone red and splotchy. The rims of her eyes are pink. She keeps biting her bottom lip.

“Cool,” Nat says after an infinitely long pause, and then an anxious flush climbs up her cheeks and sits there, staring at me. “So…”And she clears her throat. “Did they…”She swallows. “You know… ring you?” She clears her throat for the third time. “Infinity? Did they ring you?”

She hasn’t forgotten about yesterday at all. Not even a little bit.

“No.” I didn’t give them my number, I add in my head, but somehow I’m not sure saying that out loud is going to help.

“Oh.” Nat’s cheeks get darker. “That’s a shame. I’m sorry. So let’s just put it behind us, right?”

I frown. I thought we’d already done that. “OK.”

“And pretend it never happened,” Nat adds in a tense voice.

“…OK.”

Every time she tells us to put it behind us, it’s becoming more and more clear that Nat hasn’t done that.

“We’ll just carry on as normal,” Nat adds.

“…OK.”

Then there’s a long silence and it’s not comfortable. In ten years, it might be the first uncomfortable silence there has ever been between us. Apart from the time she peed herself on the ballet-room floor and it hit my foot. That was a little bit awkward too.

“Anyway,” Nat says after a couple of minutes, as she pats her hair and straightens her coat and pulls up her school tights with one hand. “So, Harriet.” She looks at the bite of sandwich left in her hand. “Where’s the protein in this thing, huh? I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve done your research properly.”