by Holly Smale
Haru and Naho are waiting in the corner, where six or seven huge lights have been set up. Everything’s pointing towards a large glass and metal case, with buttons and a silver metal claw hanging from the ceiling. The whole thing has been painted bright pink, like the world’s most girly Tardis. It’s what Dr Who would travel in, if Dr Who was also Barbie.
As I get a little closer I realise with a start that the case is full of hundreds and hundreds of tiny dolls. Every single one has pink hair and freckles. Every single one is wearing a pink lacy dress and pale blue shoes. Every single one has massive, staring green eyes.
It’s intensely creepy.
“Oh,” I laugh nervously, trying not to notice that the eyes of the dolls are following me when I move. “That’s me. In the arcade game. I see what you mean.”
“Do you?” Yuka says. “Excellent. Now get in.”
he word ‘phobia’ is a derivative of the Ancient Greek word phobos, which means fear.
Humans can be scared of literally anything. For instance, fear of dust is called amathophobia. Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth is called arachibutyrophobia. Fear of looking up is anablephobia and fear of space is astrophobia.
And that’s just the As. Go on through the alphabet and there’s even phobophobia, fear of having a phobia. Which I’d imagine then leads to a fear of irony (I’m not sure what that’s called).
I’m not scared of small spaces (claustrophobic) or suffocating (pnigophobic) or glass (crystellophobic). I’m not scared of dolls (pediophobic) or things that look like humans but actually aren’t (automatonophobic). I’m not even scared of sharp, automated metal claws hanging just above your head in a way that could feasibly pierce through your skull and kill you in a matter of seconds.
But put them all together in front of an audience?
Terrified.
I barely fit into the box. Shion, Naho and Haru have to lift me in, shove me from behind and then lock the glass cabinet so I don’t fall back out again. I can still breathe – there are tiny holes punctured into the top – but that’s pretty much it. There’s barely room to move, and certainly not enough to do more than crouch with my knees by my shoulders.
I feel like Alice when she drinks the potion in the White Rabbit’s house. Except that this time there’s no chimney or window to stick an arm or leg out of, no cake to eat that will make me smaller, and no lizards running around, yelling at me.
Actually, I’m quite glad about that last point. I don’t think shouting lizards tend to help situations like this.
I look anxiously at the expressionless dolls, staring at me. Then at an expressionless Yuka, staring at me. I look at my expressionless grandmother, carefully studying a piece of food stuck to the front of her dress.
I take a deep breath.
Then I take an even deeper breath and remind myself that I have to do this. Because if I don’t, I’m going straight home.
And I give it everything I’ve got.
omething I’ve learnt over the last six months must have finally stuck.
My body and my brain are actually working together, instead of reluctantly with open hostility, like two work colleagues who secretly hate each other.
I slouch carefully against the glass sides of the box, tucking my knees in and poking my elbows out. Then I move so that one arm is over my head, pressing against the roof of the box. I draw my feet up so that they’re stretched in the opposite direction and my head is at a right angle. I use the dress and the edges of the glass: leaning and pressing and bending and unwinding and bending again.
At one point, I’m actually almost upside down: legs in the air, feet on the ceiling, head on the floor, doll clutched in my hand. And – throughout – I try to keep my face as still and as wide-eyed and as expressionless as I possibly can.
Every time I move into a new position, my grandmother pays less attention to the food on her collar. Shion starts bobbing around like a happy stripy pigeon and Naho high-fives the hairdresser. Even Haru looks mildly jolly.
“Sugoi, jyan?” he shouts. “Kore wa subarashi desu! Iketeru jyan!”
“Haru says you’re doing brilliantly,” Naho says straight away. “The photos are incredible.”
I flash a quick grin at Naho, and then look at Yuka. With every click of the camera, something is happening to the corners of her mouth: they’re starting to move almost imperceptibly upwards.
Yuka Ito is actually smiling. In a few clicks, the skin around her eyes might even crinkle.
I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally achieved something on my own.
Filled with a bright, hot sense of relief, I’m just shifting my position when something moves.
Something in the box moves.
OK. This is precisely the kind of thing that happens when you’ve watched Toy Story 1, 2 and 3 too many times, and then written a letter to Pixar asking when the fourth one is due.
I crouch between the dolls with my arms out at the side, and stretch my neck upwards. I’m just reaching out a hand to lean carefully against the other side of the box when the doll nearest it does a little jiggle.
I’m going to say that again. The doll does a little jiggle.
I squeak and grab my hand back.
“What’s going on?” Yuka snaps.
“The doll,” I say before I can stop myself. “It jiggled.”
My grandmother looks fascinated. “Did it say anything, sweetie? I make a point of listening to anything inanimate that tries to communicate with me.”
Yuka shoots her a look of death and then turns back to me. “Dolls do not move, Harriet.” The corners of her mouth are back in their normal position. “Get on with it.”
I nod and go back to what I was doing before, except with one small alteration: I’m now numb with fear.
The doll moved. I saw it.
Apparently forty per cent of all British people believe in ghosts, and I think I’m now one of them. What if these are the trapped souls of hundreds of children? What if I’m in a haunted arcade game?
Chilled to the core and filled with visions of hundreds of tiny, cold, grasping fingers, I try to keep my face still and make my arms graceful, my legs less rigid, my movement fluid …
Something starts tickling my ankle.
Dolls don’t jiggle, I start repeating under my breath as Yuka’s eyes narrow until they’re almost shut. Dolls don’t jiggle dolls don’t jiggle dolls don’t jiggle dolls don’t jiggle dolls don’t jiggle.
But the tickling gets more and more pronounced, until I can’t take it any more.
I look down.
A ginormous cockroach is slowly climbing up my bare leg.
Entomophobia = fear of insects.
Herpetophobia = fear of crawling things.
Fear of enormous black beetles the size of your palm creeping up your leg?
That’s just called normal.
I look down, and then up again. “Oh,” I say calmly to nobody in particular. “There appears to be a large semi-tropical insect of the order Blattodea and the subclass Pterygota currently meandering up my tibialis anterior.”
Or – you know:
GETITOFFMEGETITOFFMEGETITOFFME.
In one graceful, seamless movement, I lurch in blind panic straight into the glass side of the box.
And straight out the other side.
here isn’t as much blood as you’d think.
That’s the good news. The bad news is I don’t think there’s as much blood as Yuka would probably like.
I’ve done it again. Again.
There’s smashed glass and dolls everywhere and, in my lunge for freedom, my dress caught on the metal side of the box and ripped all the way down the skirt. My wig has fallen off, my lipstick is smeared, my beaded necklace has snapped and I’ve got a metre-long scratch across my arm and tiny bits of glass lodged in my hands. Shion and Naho quickly pick me off the floor, brush me down and stick a plaster over the worst of it, but there’s still enough damage to ensure I’m n
ever allowed to get in any glass boxes again.
Not that I’d want to. Like Snow White, I think I’ve probably had enough of them for a while.
As soon as it’s been ascertained that I’m not mortally wounded or going to sue anyone, Yuka’s expression shifts from concern to fury. She thinks I’m making up excuses again.
In fact, nobody believes me. Once I’m out of the ruined dress, I clamber around on the floor trying to find evidence, but there’s nothing there. I point out that cockroaches can move up to 80 cms per second and fly, but it’s useless. Unless I can explain how an enormous insect could get into a sealed glass box I’m either:
1. The owner of an exceedingly overactive imagination.
2. Plain old-fashioned bonkers.
Or – worse:
3. Compulsively lying.
Again.
“Atarashi moderu ni kaeruzo!” Haru shouts. “Harriet ga nayamino tane dattandayo.”
I’ve studied enough Japanese since Monday to know that moderu means model, atarashi means new and kaeru means roughly: change right now. I’m very glad my translation skills end there.
“Well,” Bunty says when the team starts packing up again. “It’s certainly never boring with you around, is it, darling?”
I look to the corner of the room, where Yuka is speaking on her phone. I don’t think she’s ordering a takeaway pizza.
A few minutes later, mine starts ringing. It’s Wilbur. Without a second of hesitation, I swallow hard and cancel the call.
Looks like it’s game over.
s soon as I get back into the flat, there’s a flurry of activity. Rin and Poppy see the plasters and bandages and immediately want to know if I’m OK, have I hurt my head, have I seen the video already circulating the internet?
“Harry-chan,” Rin says desperately when I don’t respond to a cup of green tea, a rice biscuit or a ‘Shouting Vase’. (I’m supposed to shout my frustrations into it to make them go away, but it just makes them go all echoey.) “Maybe you will go walk? Walk makes all person feels better.”
“Yes,” Poppy says, looking worried. “My boyfriend says that going outside always puts life in perspective. Especially if it’s raining.”
I flinch and my mood sinks a couple of metres lower.
“Actually,” Bunty says wandering around, casually picking things up and putting them down again, “it’s a medical fact that exercise just pushes sadness around the bloodstream faster.”
That doesn’t sound like a medical fact.
“I’ll go,” I say numbly. Not because I want to walk, but because I don’t know what else to do.
“Super!” Rin cries. She jumps up. “Chotto matteh! I mean – wait!” She runs into the bedroom and comes back carrying a sound-asleep cat. “Maybe you take Kylie with you? Kylie love walk.”
The cat abruptly opens her eyes and gives Rin a look that seriously questions that statement.
I shrug. “Sure.”
“I get Kylie ready for you!” Rin stops and then says, “Are you wearing these clothes for a walk, Harry-chan?” I look down. I’m still in the black trousers, white vest and silver ballet flats from this morning. I nod.
Rin claps her hands, then disappears into the bedroom.
When she returns a few minutes later, Kylie is wearing a black jumpsuit with a white collar and little silver booties. Rin grabs a sparkly pink harness, sequined lead and wrestles her indignant cat into it. “Ready!” she says, handing the animal to me. “Enjoy!”
The cat and I look at each other, faces like thunder. For the first time, we’re in total agreement.
And I slink out of the front door with the cat flopped unhappily in my arms.
There’s an old expression: misery likes company.
There is nothing in the entire world more miserable than a cat being taken for a walk. Kylie’s so wretched with despair and disgust at me and the world and everything in it, I feel slightly chirpier simply by comparison.
A walk with my dog tends to go: “Wait, Hugo. Hang on, Hugo. Stop, Hugo. Don’t sniff that, Hugo. Stop licking that, Hugo. Leave her bottom alone, Hugo. Hugo, that is not your ice cream. HUGO! DOWN! NO! HUGO, COME BACK HERE!”
A walk with a cat goes: “Please get off the floor. Please.”
As soon as I put Kylie Minogue down, she defiantly spreads herself flat out on the pavement, and that’s it: walk over.
I cajole. I plead. I even try a bit of mild bullying and half-hearted insults. Kylie simply glares at me.
When I tug hard on the harness, she allows herself to be dragged along the floor sideways like a wheely suitcase without wheels.
Eventually – when I’ve given up all hope – she stands up and walks three paces. I get over-excited, Kylie sniffs a pebble, promptly decides she’s done and lies back down again.
It’s only when I look up and see an old Japanese lady, dragging a ginger cat along with its eyes narrowed and its legs stiff and its claws outstretched and digging into the pavement that I start to see the funny side.
This is ridiculous. I am ridiculous. My entire life is increasingly ridiculous.
I get my phone out of my pocket.
“Hello. This is a digital recording of the electromagnetic wave of Toby’s voice, which has been encoded on to a binary system of data. Leave your own electromagnetic wave, and I will call you back when I’ve finished playing Plants versus Zombies but that could be a while because frankly it’s almost impossible to get through the iron bucket on their head with a few bits of sweetcorn and a cabbag—”
BEEP.
“Hi, Toby.” I frown. I’m starting to get a little bit concerned. I know it’s the middle of the night in England but why isn’t he answering? “It’s Harriet. Are you OK? I was just ringing to … umm … find out whether we need to purchase our own Bunsen burners for Chemistry A Level. Let me know. Bye.”
I hang up, bite my lip and immediately try Nat’s number but that goes straight to voicemail too.
“Hi,” I say, desperately attempting breeziness. “It’s me. Again. I just wanted to … umm … tell you that I read somewhere that cows can be identified by their nose prints. Can you have a look for me and see if you can tell a difference between them?” I pause and breathe heavily down the phone while I search for another way to say I need you. “Hope you’re having an OK time. Speak soon. Bye.”
I’m trying to ignore the deep ache at the base of my throat. It feels as if I’m trying to swallow a whole apple without biting into it first.
Despite the fact that Kylie and I have got no further than three metres from the flat, I decide that this ‘walk’ is over.
I tie Kylie to a lamp-post and climb up on to the top of a high wall. Then I ignore the sullen meowing below – obviously now she’s keen to get going – and close my eyes.
The lump in my throat is getting bigger and bigger, and there’s something niggling at me; something at the base of my brain, chewing away like a mouse at a piece of cheese.
I can hear Tokyo in distant beeps and peeps, the indecipherable chatter of my next-door neighbours, an aeroplane lowering itself into Narita airport. It’s still hot, but I’m getting used to the smell and the density of the city air: the flowers and the traffic fumes and the incense and the breaded pork and the slightly soapy scent coming from the laundry hanging two floors above my head.
I take a deep breath. That bit reminds me of home.
Home.
The big lump moves down to the middle of my chest. Suddenly none of this feels exciting any more.
When I was really little, Dad would tuck me into bed and turn off my bedroom light, and everything would suddenly change. Teddy bears and ornaments and books that made me happy and content during the day would abruptly become strange, unfamiliar and scary. The room and everything in it was the same, but the darkness made me different.
That’s how it feels now. As if Tokyo is exactly as it was when I got here, but I’m suddenly less capable of knowing what to do with it. Because now it’s just m
e.
I’m in one of the most populated cities in the entire world, and I have never, ever felt more alone in my life.
“My little Owl,” a kind voice says. “Look at you, perched up there, just like Humpty Dumpty.”
I keep my eyes tightly shut. Yuka was right: my imagination really does have a life of its own. Oh my God. Is this the start of madness? Is this the beginning of a downward spiral into seeing vague, shadowy shapes in the wallpaper and having my food mashed up for me before I eat it?
“Are you meditating, Baby-baby Panda?” the voice says. “I’ve tried to do that ever since I heard Gary Barlow was into it, but I did three sessions and didn’t see him. Not even once. Such a waste of twenty-five pounds.”
I open my eyes. “W-w-what are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Wilbur says, smiling. “I’m like all the Queen’s horses and all the Queen’s men, my little Sugar-puff. I’ve come to put you back together again.”
At which point I promptly throw myself off the wall, fling my arms around Wilbur’s neck and burst straight into tears.
ilbur takes charge immediately.
“My little Butter-crumpet,” he says gently after a few minutes of relieved sobbing (mine, not his). “It’s lovely to be appreciated, Mini-chickpea. But you’re getting salty water all over my Hermès silk scarf.”
“I can’t believe you’ve come all this way for me,” I say, ignoring his warning and weeping happily into his shoulder.
“Of course I did, my little Pineapple-chunk.” Wilbur pats me on the head, the way you comfort a puppy on firework night. “Fourteen hours squished next to a woman with body odour and wandering feet. Most Fairy Godmothers can just appear, so if that’s not commitment to a cause I don’t know what is. Let me have a look at you.”
Wilbur holds me at arm’s length.
“Twinkle-monkey, now I know something’s wrong. What’s with the yawn-o-gear? Where has my little Munchkin gone?”
I look down at my outfit, and suddenly I feel like somebody’s drained the Harriet Manners out of me.
