Geek Girl (Geek Girl, #1)(69)

t’s not hard to see where my family is, even in dim lighting.

Dad’s doing his dance again. Toby’s bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet and Nat’s standing on a chair and clapping. Even Annabel’s nodding her head to what looks suspiciously like an internal beat. Wilbur is sitting on the edge of a box with his head in his hands and his hat off.

“Whoop!” Nat shouts across the room.

“Whoop,” agrees Toby gravely. “And again, what Nat said: whoop.”

“My daughter!” Dad cries as soon as I get close. He punches the air, scruffs my hair up and then folds me into a bear hug in one seamless movement. “Feminist, pioneer, trailblazer, general bottom kicker.”

Annabel nods. “Harriet Quimby would be proud,” she says approvingly, leaning forward and touching my face.

“As would Harriet the tortoise,” Dad adds, nodding up and down. Annabel rolls her eyes. “What, Annabel? She would.”

“I’m glad you guys liked it,” I say, my face going pink with pleasure. “I think that might be it for my modelling career, though. I’m so sorry, Wilbur. I let you down.”

Wilbur looks up with a pale face. “No, you didn’t,” he says in a quiet voice. “That was really brave, Harriet. Don’t worry about Yuka. I’ll deal with her.”

“Nobody deals with Yuka,” a sharp voice says from behind us and we all spin round. Yuka Ito is standing in the middle of yet another spotlight, totally in black lace, but this time with bright red lips.

OK, does she just carry the spotlight around with her or does she just stop when she gets to one?

Yuka looks straight at me. “I do not appreciate being sat on, Harriet. Don’t do it again.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “This time I’m definitely fired, right?”

“Why would you be fired? If I had known you would say that, I wouldn’t have given you an earpiece in the first place.”

My mouth falls open. “But wasn’t it just a PR…”

“Of course not. If I believed that fashion was about being the same as everyone else, would I dress like a negative of Miss Havisham every single day for thirty years?”

“I guess not.”

“Then this conversation is over. You’ll sign your next contract with me tomorrow morning.”

Yuka turns around and starts walking back towards the door.

“On one condition,” I hear myself say in a clear voice. She stops and turns slowly back around to face me. “I’m not missing any more school. If you want me, you’ll have to do evenings, mornings and weekends. Like a…” I think about it briefly. “A paper round.”

Yuka narrows her eyes. “Did you just compare working for me to doing a paper round?”

I nod. “Yes.”

She shuts her eyes for a few seconds and then opens them again. The corner of her mouth twitches. “Condition accepted. I’m hiring you for another season so you keep me on my toes. After that, I’ll probably ditch you for somebody younger.” She glances in the air. “Nick?”

Nick steps out of the dark where he’s been standing, unseen. My whole stomach squeezes shut. “Yes, Aunty Yuka?” he says with a cheeky grin.

“Call me that again and you can collect your P45.”

“Yes, Aunty Yuka?”

Yuka sighs. “Get your own taxi home, Nicholas. Like your father, you’re far too irritating to sit with.” And she turns around again and abruptly stalks out of the room.

I giggle slightly, feeling about six years old, and then turn back round to introduce Nick to the people I love most in the world. Except I can’t.

Because they’ve all sugar cookied off.





ell,” I say after an embarrassed silence. There’s still a door swinging, and if I listen very hard, I can hear the distant sound of my loved ones betraying me. “Everyone was here a minute ago.” I cough a couple of times.

“I’m still here,” Wilbur points out, standing up slowly and putting his top hat back on. “And wouldn’t you know it, my little Chuckle-bum, Nick is here too. What a coincidence.”

My cheeks are bright pink and when I glance at Nick, I notice with a spark of surprise that his cheeks are starting to… It must be a trick of the light. It’s very dark in here.

“Well,” I say, squeezing out the most unnatural laugh I’ve ever heard. “I guess we do work for the same person.”

“And why is that, do you think?” Wilbur shifts his pose so that his chin’s on his hand, like Rodin’s The Thinker statue. “Nick? Any idea?”

Nick coughs too. “Nope. No idea at all.”

Wilbur gives him a stern look. “So what was the point in doing all that Jane Austen stuff if she doesn’t know about it, Poodle-bottom?”

The blush drains out of my body so quickly my head feels like it might float away. “W-what?” I manage to stammer.

“Nothing.” Nick glares at Wilbur. “Have you been sniffing glitter again?”

“Harriet, my Baby-baby Panda,” Wilbur says, rolling his eyes and sticking his tongue out at Nick. “I didn’t discover you, honey, Nick did. Yuka recruited him to find the female face for the collection and then you fell into that hat stall… And the rest, as they say, is geography.”