by Holly Smale
“And any sign of …” I say to Wilbur, lifting my eyebrows. I can totally do code too. Ha.
“What?”
“You know.”
“No, what?”
For God’s sake. How come when I try to be all mysterious, nobody understands what I’m talking about?
I blush. “Poppy or Rin,” I whisper under my breath. “Any sign of them?”
“None,” Wilbur whispers back. “Your grandmother’s still guarding the flat like a gloriously sparkly Pyrenean Mountain Dog. She texted me to say she’s got them baking wasabi cookies. It’s going to be fine this time, my little Human-firework. We’ve made absolutely sure of it.”
My shoulders relax, but only slightly.
Over the last ten years, Alexa and her minions have shown me so many shades of hatred I could draw you an Unpopularity Rainbow.
I know the shade of hatred you get when you tell people they’ve used the wrong word in a sentence; the shade when you’ve just had a six-page spread in Harper’s Bazaar; the shade when you’ve accidentally tripped in the school canteen and thrown baked beans and chicken Kiev all over the back of the person in front of you.
I even know the shade of hatred that comes from telling people about shades of hatred, and offering to draw them an Unpopularity Rainbow.
But I’m not sure anyone has ever hated me enough before to change my alarms, wear out my phone battery, plant a pair of culturally offensive shoes on me and manhandle a cockroach, all to try and get me fired when I’m 6,000 miles from home.
Not even Alexa.
’ve had a picture of Japan in my head for more than a decade. Skyscrapers, flashing lights, crowds, technology, sushi, girls in cute outfits and dogs in clothes and a random mountain floating in the air somewhere behind it.
In other words: Tokyo.
As we drive away from Shin-Fuji train station, I suddenly realise there’s an entire country that I had ignored completely.
Huge green fields full of tiny purple flowers, dense thickets of gnarly woods with tiny roads winding through them. Huge bright blue skies, silence and rustling and birds; little restaurants with wooden chairs and paper lanterns hanging from the ceilings; regal red temples built into rocks. In between the trees and the flowers are enormous shining lakes: sometimes seasoned with tiny boats and fishermen, sometimes with windsurfers, sometimes completely empty.
And – looming behind it all, reflected perfectly – Mount Fuji.
Proud and completely alone.
The only thing that could possibly make the journey more amazing would be not being squidged against the van door, curled into a stiff, semi-fetal position. I’m squashed next to Nick in the front, and every time we go round a corner, his left knee brushes against my right knee, or his left elbow brushes against my right elbow, and I spring a little further into the door as if I’ve just been electrocuted.
And there appear to be a lot of corners.
Wilbur’s not helping. In fact, he seems to be going out of his way to make it worse. “Nick, Sugar-pot, tell Harriet where we are now.”
“This is Fuji Five Lakes.”
Three minutes later: “Nick, Monkey-bum, tell Harriet where the name Fuji comes from.”
“I think it translates to without equal.”
One minute: “Nick, Orange-pip, tell Harriet what those flowers are called.”
Cue laughter. “How would I know, Wil? Purple ones?”
I’m not a naturally violent person, but after three-quarters of an hour of this I am seconds away from smacking Wilbur’s head against the seat in front to get him to shut up. Just so that I can stop blushing scarlet and avoiding eye contact and trying to hide my sweaty palms by cramming them between my legs. Just so I can stop saying ‘ah’ and trying to sound all mature and indifferent.
Just so I can stop pretending I can’t feel Nick’s shoulder knocking sporadically against mine or his foot three centimetres from mine or that it’s slightly killing me.
Finally, we pull into an enormous, muddy car park. I’m out before the engine’s switched off. Next time, I am so sitting in the back.
I hop straight into a puddle.
Nick laughs and carefully climbs over it. “That was pretty selfless of you, Manners, protecting my jeans like that. You’re like some kind of girl knight.”
I blush and shake the muddy water from my leggings.
“Owl-cakes,” Wilbur says, clambering out and stretching like an enormous pink sparkly cat. “Can I leave you to entertain yourselves? I’m just going to go pull the brief out of Yuka.”
I glance nervously at Nick and then away again. I’m not entirely sure that entertain is the right word. When a frog vomits, it ejects its entire stomach and uses its forearms to empty out the contents.
There’s a small chance I may be about to do the same thing.
“Sure,” I say.
“Absolutely,” Nick says, and – to my distress – his nonchalance sounds totally genuine. “Take your time.”
“My darlings,” Wilbur sighs. “If time belonged to me I totally would.”
And he skips towards a familiar big black car waiting on the other side of the car park.
tudies have shown it takes exactly four seconds for a silence to become awkward.
I think somebody needs to tell Nick this.
He’s still standing in the car park with his hands slung nonchalantly in his pockets. There isn’t a flutter of discomfort or embarrassment on his handsome face.
Five seconds: nothing. Six seconds: nope. Seven seconds: nada. Eight sec—
“Come with me,” he says abruptly, looking up. I’m forced to quickly pretend I’ve been studying an imaginary pigeon in a tree just behind his head.
“Pardon me?”
He awkwardly scratches his head. “Please? Unless you want to spend the next ten minutes standing in a car park?”
Pretend, Harriet. Pretend as hard as you can.
“Actually,” I say in a desperate attempt to sound like I’m not bothered either way, “white vans are quite interesting. Did you know that you would need 772 of them to move one billion Cheesy Wotsits?”
Yeah. That’ll work.
He’ll either think I’m totally over him or inordinately obsessed with private transport. And cheese-flavoured snacks.
“Of course,” Nick says, nodding seriously. “Everybody knows that. Let’s go.”
He turns and starts striding towards the other side of the trees. I start objecting that Wilbur won’t be able to find us again, that we’ll get into trouble, that we’ll get lost, and then I realise that with every hesitation he’s getting further away. So I set my shoulders into their most cool, unbothered position and saunter casually after him. Then – because he’s so fast – I saunter a little more quickly.
Then I break into a cool, unbothered kind of jog.
I’m just about running – cool and unbothered, and breathing quite heavily through my mouth – when the trees suddenly clear.
In front of us is an enormous, sparkling lake. A few flossy white clouds are hovering in the sky, which is now starting to deepen to a faint lilac colour with a slightly pink horizon. The lake is surrounded by a grey pebble beach and tiny flowers, and directly behind it is Mount Fuji.
We are totally alone.
I suddenly feel uncomfortable. As if I’m doing something very, very wrong.
I turn around and start walking quickly back towards the car park. “Harriet?” Nick says, and I pause then turn to face him. “Are you OK?”
I half nod without saying anything.
“Here.” Nick reaches into his pocket. He walks forward and hands something to me.
“What’s this?” I look at the money he’s just forced into my hand. “What are you paying me for?”
“Hold it up.”
There’s a picture of a man on it with big bouffant hair and a bushy moustache. “Hideyo Noguchi, the famous Japanese bacteriologist?”
Nick frowns then shouts with laughter. “Not
that side. Turn it over.”
On the other side of the note is a little circle: a blue picture of a mountain topped with snow, reflected in the lake below it. I must have used 1,000-yen notes at some stage in the past week but I’ve never noticed it. I look back at the view in front of us. “Is this—”
“Where we are now? Yes. This is the exact spot where that picture was drawn. I wanted you to see it.”
There’s a silence while I try to process this.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Nick says. “I suppose I wanted to give you something this time.”
We both look at the floor while I fiddle with the corner of the note. Then I say quietly, “Poppy’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”
I sort of feel as if I need to put her name out there, like a line in the sand.
Even though it’s not actually sand: it’s pebbles.
But you know what I mean.
Nick glances at me sharply, and a deep line appears between his eyebrows. He pauses, then says, “Yes, she is. But I prefer you.”
The awkwardness in my stomach is getting tighter and tighter, and the urge to run away is unbearable.
What the sugar cookies is Nick doing?
I suddenly don’t want him to say anything else. I feel as if I’m about to lose the boy I knew for good. And not to someone else this time: to a different version of himself. One who is a cheat.
Which is so, so much worse.
“I think we should stop talking to each other now,” I say in a brittle voice. “Frankly, I think you’re being awful.”
Nick flinches. “Harriet—”
“There you are, Chuckle-monkeys!” a voice cries behind us, and a hand in a twinkly pink suit lands on my arm. Wilbur beams over my shoulder. “The light’s running out, Pizza-bottom. We need you to get ready now.”
I glance briefly at Nick, but he’s staring at the lake: profile outlined against the sky, face totally unreadable.
Whatever he was going to say has gone.
It feels like it’s not the only thing.
Swallowing hard, I follow Wilbur quietly back across the car park. But not before I’ve folded the note in half.
And dropped it on the floor behind me.
am so ready to be transformed.
I want the full works. I want to be primped and prodded and coloured in and brushed. I want to be preened and polished and glossed and gleamed and sprayed and beautified and augmented until I look like a proper, real model. Like somebody completely different.
Which is why it’s a bit disconcerting when Shion pulls a curtain around me, ties me into a long, floaty white dress with two pockets and a bit of white ribbon round the middle, and then starts walking me back through the car park.
There’s no hairdresser here. No make-up artist. No assistants. Just Shion and me.
“Umm,” I say politely as she gently winds a couple of purple flowers into my hair. She nods in satisfaction then hands me a pair of rubber flip-flops. “Where’s my usual … garnish?”
As if I’m some kind of fashion hamburger.
Shion smiles. “No garnish today. Yuka wants you completely natural. I’m on strict orders not to touch you with a single product.” She grimaces slightly and leans closer to my face. “Although I am so tempted to quickly just touch up those two zits with a bit of concealer but” – she sighs – “we’ll just have to leave them for Photoshop.”
What? They’re sending me out like this? Exactly as I am?
This wasn’t part of the deal.
I don’t even let Nat take photos of me like this.
I’m desperately trying to pinch some colour into my cheeks and lips the way Scarlett O’Hara does in Gone with the Wind when a cold voice behind me says, “Can you swim?”
Yuka’s standing a metre behind me. I have literally no idea how long she’s been there. It’s like having a shower and only seeing the massive black spider in the corner right at the end. “Sorry?”
“Can you swim?”
Fifty-four per cent of the world’s population can’t, but Dad ensured I was in the minority during a particularly traumatic trip to Cornwall. “Yes.”
“Good.” Yuka nods. “This is the most important shoot. It is absolutely pivotal that everything goes to plan. Is that perfectly clear?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“Now, I am going to do something I have never done before in my entire career.”
I look at the lake nervously. “Umm … what?”
“This.”
And in one smooth motion, Yuka turns and walks back to her car, then climbs in and it drives away.
he relief is immediate.
It’s as if the Narnian winter has abruptly thawed, and everyone in a twenty-metre radius can suddenly take off their metaphorical big furry coats. Within seconds, Shion’s humming under her breath; Naho taps out a tune on her notepad; Wilbur takes his sunglasses off and wipes them on his shoulder pads. Even Haru perches on a log and rubs his forehead.
Yuka has obviously realised that the best thing she can do for her own campaign is be nowhere near it.
I follow Shion towards the water and then realise that Naho, Haru and a couple of the assistants are pulling on thermals, huge, waterproof onesies, hats and thigh-high wellies.
I’m going in, aren’t I. I’m actually going into the freezing cold lake. In nothing but a summer dress. And flip-flops.
Of course I am.
I don’t want to point out the obvious, but I’m recently heartbroken. I’m wearing a long white nightie and flowers in my hair. And now I’m being sent into a large body of open water.
Has nobody read Hamlet?
One of the assistants shyly holds out an extra waterproof costume to Wilbur and is promptly greeted with hysterical laughter. “My little Peanut-butter-spoon,” he finally wheezes at the startled girl. “I’m not wearing that: I’d vomit in my own mouth. Plus, I can’t go in water, Pea-pod. I’m like sugar: I’d dissolve on the spot. I think I’ll just stay here and keep a lookout for danger like a cute little meerkat.”
Then Wilbur puts his mirrored sunglasses back on and gives me a knowing, wry nod.
He really is like a guardian angel.
Albeit one with wings stitched into the back of his suit rather than a functional part of his outfit.
I’m just trying to work out how to get into the water without ruining yet another dress when a hand lands on my elbow. “Do you need help?” Nick’s now dressed entirely in yellow waterproofs, like the world’s most beautiful Paddington Bear. “Because unless you’re Jesus, Manners, you’re going to have to get a bit wet.”
Every cell in my body is now numb, apart from the area directly under Nick’s hand. That’s on fire.
“Actually,” I say, trying to extricate myself, “that’s not true. If I was a water strider with hydrophobic feet, such as a Gigantometra gigas, I would be able to walk on water by shedding vortex filaments into the water and simply propelling myself forward.”
“What’s a Gigantrometra gigas?”
“It’s sort of like a big stick insect.”
“And are you sort of like a big stick insect?”
I look at my non-hydrophobic feet. “No.”
“Then you’re going to get wet.” Nick holds out his arm like a man in a black and white film. “Hold on to this.”
No. Yes. No no no no no no.
“Thank you,” I say with great dignity, taking a step forwards, “but I am perfectly capable of—”
The world suddenly tilts as I plunge down.
Nick grabs me before I hit the water and straightens me back up again. “Please, Harriet. That’s why I’m here. I’ve been paid to make sure you don’t knock yourself out and drown. Will you please let me do my job without fighting me the entire way?”
I open my mouth and then shut it again and nod.
It’s only as we get deeper that I start to notice just how beautiful this dress is. Out of water it’s deceptively simple, but there are
actually dozens of layers, cut at slightly different angles so that they swirl out in huge billows as the water pulls them in different directions. Despite being white, there’s so much material it’s not transparent at all. It’s slightly mermaidy, slightly Lady of Shalott (yet another heartbroken lady who didn’t fare very well in lots of water).
I slip on another rock as we reach the team, and Nick swiftly moves so that his arm is around my shoulder.
“Yoku yatta, Harriet. Kimiwa migotoda,” Haru says in an almost unrecognisable, low, calm voice. “Demo, sono kakkou ha samuku naika?”
Naho smiles at me. “Haru says you’re doing brilliantly, Harriet. He also wants to know if you’re too cold?”
I shake my head. All I can feel is Nick. The rest of me may as well have vanished completely.
“Mizu no nakani suwatte moraukedo, daijyoubu kana?”
“Is it all right if you sit down in the water?”
I try not to notice Nick’s arm move and his hand rest gently on my waist. The world is starting to tilt again, even though this time I’m not actually slipping anywhere.
“Jyaa, sorosoro hajimeyouka?”
“Ready to start?”
Nick’s hand moves and seems to slip slightly under the cloth tied around my middle. It fumbles a bit just at the small of my back and I can feel myself blushing from the roots of my hair all the way down to my toes. Apparently the sun’s core is so hot that a piece of it the size of a pinhead would give off enough heat to kill a person 160 kilometres away.
The way I’m burning right now, I reckon I could obliterate everyone from here to South Korea.
But he’s not mine.
There’s a line between being supportive and being gropey, and he has just totally crossed it. “Nick,” I snap, “what on earth do you think you’re playing at? Get the hell off me.”
“I’m trying to find the button,” he says. “Sorry. I thought it would be easier than this.”
I stare at him. That is so unbelievably rude.
“What?! Is that some kind of horrible metaphor for—”
But I don’t finish, because Nick suddenly beams at me. My stomach promptly stands on its tiptoes then flips over backwards and everything inside me falls apart. “Got it,” he says, leaning forwards.
