Geek Girl (Geek Girl, #1)(46)

Apparently I’ve been walking since I was nine months old and hanging on to the bottom of Dad’s jumper, but it has never felt like this before. It’s never felt so difficult, or so surreal. It feels less like I’m moving forward and more like it’s the floor moving backward and I’m just trying to keep up. Like… ice skating. Or walking down the aisle of a moving coach.

And as we know, I’m not so good at that.

I keep my face totally blank and try to focus on the music. All I have to think about is just one foot in front of the other. Looking as bored as I possibly can.

Somewhere near the bottom of the stage, I see Fleur, pausing and looking to the right and the left, just as I’ve been told to. Now that she’s at a distance I can appreciate what she’s wearing: emerald green, covered in little bits of floaty green material like a mermaid. And the biggest silver heels I’ve ever seen in my life. Bigger even than the red ones I had to wear in Red Square. She hasn’t even been given a wheelchair.

Now that’s what I call a model.

Fleur gives a little dignified toss of her head and starts walking back up the centre of the stage towards me, at which point something in my chest abruptly lurches in a panic.

If I believe Shola, I go right. If I don’t believe Shola, I go left. So right or left?

Left or right?

I can trust Shola. I have to believe that human beings are essentially good. That girls don’t destroy each other just because they can. I start veering towards the right. Then Alexa’s face pops into my head. Alexa would send me in the wrong direction. She would want a collision. What if Shola is another Alexa?

So I start moving towards the left. But if I start to believe that everyone is like Alexa, doesn’t it mean she’s won? If I start to lose faith in humanity, isn’t that worse than a million hands in the air? I can’t let that happen.

I start veering towards the right again.

We’re getting closer and closer and I can see a look of sheer panic starting to appear on Fleur’s face.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

Oh, God. Left or right? Right or left?

I’m changing my mind by the millisecond, and as I walk, I’m making almost unnoticeable movements towards each direction. They’re so small, I don’t think the audience can tell. But Fleur can, and the look of panic on her face is getting more and more pronounced. It’s like we’re in a game of chess, trying to second-guess the other’s movements.

We’re almost in the middle now and I still don’t know which way to go. I can feel myself starting to wobble. I’m going to lose my balance and topple, even on these low heels. And then it hits me: that’s what Shola wants. She doesn’t want a collision. She wants me to fall over.

Which means I have to keep going. At which point everything starts happening in slow motion. Fleur starts to wobble too. She sways from side to side like a tree, except that her heels are much, much bigger than mine. And they can’t take it.

Time almost stops.

One of her ankles buckles completely.

And – with the smallest of gasps – Fleur plummets like a stone on to the runway.





’m paralysed with horror. The whole audience has taken one loud, audible breath.

I have just ruined an entire fashion show.

And it’s all my fault.

I stare numbly at Fleur, who is now desperately trying to stand up. Her heels keep slipping, and I can see her eyes filling with tears and her cheeks starting to flame, even under the thick make-up. And with a sick lurch of my stomach, I recognise the humiliation and shame, the disbelief and horror. It’s like looking in a mirror. I’ve just done to Fleur what I promised I would never, ever do to anyone.

I’ve turned her into me.

The entire audience is staring, but the only thing I know now is I have to do something to help her. Anything. Just so Fleur knows she isn’t on her own. So I take a deep breath and sit down on the stage next to her.

There’s a stunned silence. And then, from somewhere at the back, comes the sound of one person clapping as hard as they possibly can.

“Wooooooooo!” Dad shouts at the top of his voice. “That’s my girl! Woooooo!”

The whole audience turns to look at him and Fleur grabs my hand. Slowly, we stand up.

And together we walk off the runway, back behind the curtains.





s soon as I’m backstage, I find the nearest table I can and crawl straight under it.

I don’t know much about fashion shows, but I don’t think that’s how they’re supposed to go. And I have a suspicion I’m about to get into really, really big trouble.

“Harriet?” a voice says after about forty minutes, and a pair of black trainers appears under the tablecloth.

“Monkey-moo?” another voice says and a pair of shiny orange shoes with blue toes appears next to them. There’s a bit of whispering and then I hear Wilbur say: “Is it, like, some kind of fetish? Is it just tables, or all types of furniture?”

“She’s frightened,” Dad explains. “She’s done it ever since she was a baby.” And before I know it he’s crawling under the table next to me. “Harriet, sweetheart,” he says gently. “What you did was very noble. Nobody’s going to shout at you.”

Wilbur sticks his head under the tablecloth. “That’s not necessarily true,” he amends. “Yuka’s on her way backstage now and I’ve never seen her lips so thin. The bottom part of her face looks like an envelope.”