Geek Girl (Geek Girl, #1)(65)

“I’m going to need to get out again I’m afraid,” Annabel says from the front. “I need to pee.”

“Again?” Dad sighs. “Honey, do you need a catheter?”

“No, it’s fine, Richard. I’ll just urinate all over this nice man’s seats and then we’ll just walk the rest of the way. Hang on, isn’t this your favourite jumper, darling? Maybe I can use it to mop up the mess.”

Dad’s face goes pale. “Stop the taxi.” He looks at all of us. “Never lend a pregnant woman cashmere.”

“I was going to anyway,” the taxi driver tells us, pressing the little green light so that we can hear him through the speakers. “We’re here.”

The taxi turns a corner and we all fall silent. Partly because it’s a little overwhelming arriving at an international television studio at 6.30am. And partly because Wilbur’s waiting for us. Wearing a bright pink top hat and silver jumpsuit.

“Is it me?” Annabel says as the taxi pulls to a stop and Wilbur takes his hat off and bows. “Or does that man just get weirder and weirder?”

Once we’ve disembarked, Wilbur adjusts the pink hat slightly and then sends everyone to sit in another part of the studio while I go with him to “get beautiful”. He looks at the frizz-ball masquerading as my hair. “Although, Baby-baby Panda,” he adds sadly, “it looks like we’re going to have to start from scratch again, doesn’t it?”

Just in case I was under some illusion that I may have transformed even slightly in the last week, it’s nice to be set straight.

“I can’t control it,” I explain in a small voice as he shepherds me down some skinny corridors towards a closed door.

“I can see that, Apple-blossom,” he sighs, narrowing his eyes at the top of my head. “Any chance that it’s controlling you?” He looks at my outfit. “Glad to see you’re styling it out, though. Are these your pyjamas, Bunny?”

I ignore him. I’m getting quite used to doing that now. They’re not my pyjamas, for the record. It’s a snowman-themed T-shirt and baggy patterned trousers from the Moroccan shop in town. These are the only clean clothes I have left.

“So what do we do first?” I ask nervously. “Do I have any lines to learn?”

“Even better than that, my special Sugar-peanut. I’ve got this.” And he holds out a small piece of plastic.

“A hearing aid?”

“I’m wiring you up, darling. With five million viewers, we reckon you might need some help.”

Five million? The internet lied to me?

I look at the little plastic thing with a mixture of relief and horror. “You’re going to tell me what to say?”

Wilbur throws back his head and laughs. “I’m not, Monkey-tiger. Can you imagine? I just don’t think my vocabulary would fit in your little mouth, darling. No, Yuka Ito is. Word for word.”

Oh, God. She’s here? “And all I have to do is repeat it?”

“And all you have to do is repeat it,” Wilbur confirms. He giggles again. “You see? I should so have been a model.”

I look at the earpiece apprehensively. OK, I can do this. Say whatever it is Yuka wants me to say and then get back to my normal life. School. Trigonometry. History club. Walking to school, instead of getting a taxi via Shepherd’s Bush and five million people.

“Now,” Wilbur says, “let’s get you ready and then we can get you both on to the sofa.”

My brain twangs. Both?

“But if Yuka’s sitting next to me,” I point out, “how can she…”

“Oh, Yuka’s not sitting next to you, Sweet-pudding,” Wilbur laughs, throwing open the closed door. “Nick is.”

My brain is now pinging in frantic little elasticated movements around the inside of my head.

Nick looks up, grins at me and then goes back to doodling on a notepad.

Would people please stop doing this to me?

“Did I forget to mention he was being interviewed too?” Wilbur adds, looking carefully at my face and then winking. “Oops.”





oes anybody – anybody – have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on getting ready to talk in front of five million people with an unexpected Nick sitting a few metres away?

Well, let me tell you: it’s like trying to tune a digital radio while Mount Vesuvius erupts in the background.

“Why is he here?” I whisper under my breath as a nice lady called Jessica does my hair and make-up. I’ve already been put into a blue dress that I would never, ever have picked for myself. Mainly because it doesn’t have cartoon characters on it.

“He’s the male face of Baylee, Plumptious,” Wilbur whispers back as if I didn’t already know this. “Maximum brand exposure.” He looks to the ceiling as if he’s just seen an angel. “Yuka’s a total publicity legend.”

“Hmm.” Nick’s lazing around on the sofa – flicking his pen in the air and catching it again – as if national television is something he does all the time. Which, actually, it might be. Today he is wearing a warm grey jumper and a pair of dark blue jeans. His hair is all sort of quiffed up at the front and now and then he puts his finger in his mouth and bites the—