Forever Geek

by Holly Smale

  In fairness, people have been asking me What is wrong with you? my entire life.

  I kind of assumed my best friend already knew.

  “What are you talking about?” I say, feeling hot and cold again. “Do what?”

  “Hurt yourself again!” She takes a step forward until she’s definitely too close to yell but is doing so anyway. “Dammit, it’s like watching a puppy run at the same wall time and time again, and at some point somebody has got to stand in the way.”

  I stare at Nat in amazement. I’m not a puppy.

  And if she would just calm down, I could take her aside and gently explain the situation: about Yuka’s illness, about the overheard phone call, about Nick’s imminent loss.

  But she’s too busy pacing round the table like a strident tiger and I’m a bit scared of touching her arm in case she bites me.

  “Nat,” I say again, “I have a reason to—”

  “Of course you do,” she snaps fiercely, throwing her hands in the air. “You’ll have found some kind of reason, even if it requires a huge leap in logic based on no kind of reality whatsoever. Even if you’ve had to construct an entire narrative round it.”

  My eyes get wider. “My logic isn’t leaping.”

  “Yes, it is, because it always does. It’s what you do. Your brain makes its own weird random pathways, and you’ll have somehow convinced yourself that Nick needs you and that you’re going to be there for him, whatever it takes, as a friend.”

  I open my mouth and shut it again.

  “When it’s not just as a friend,” Nat continues furiously. “You’re still in love with that boy and you’re going to destroy yourself on him all over again. For the third time. Even the Titanic only sank once, Harriet!”

  And a coldness inside me suddenly hits with full iciness.

  Like an unexpected iceberg, appropriately.

  “I am not still in love,” I say frostily. “I’m not going to destroy myself. And you have no idea how serious this situation is or why I need to be there.”

  “Oh my God,” Nat fumes. “Why do you think you were in bed for three whole days after seeing him? Your body was literally closing down.”

  I blink. “I had an unidentified sea flu.”

  “Sea flu, my butt. You had heartbreak. And now you’re just going to go get some more voluntarily?”

  I stare at her in amazement. “You don’t always know everything, Nat. You think you do, but you don’t. This is important. I need to do this.”

  “You don’t,” she snaps, red rash rising. “You need to get on with your own life. You’re not a couple. And Nick doesn’t want you to be there for him or he would have asked.”

  Blankly, I stare back at her.

  She obviously doesn’t know Nick at all. He would never ask for help. He would shut the world out and go through it all on his own.

  I’m starting to wonder if she knows me either.

  “I’m not asking for your permission, Natalie,” I say, lifting my chin with as much strength as I can find. “I’m going and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  “Fine,” she says, standing up and hurling her smoothie into the bush. “Go, then.”

  “I will,” I say with my arms folded.

  “Good,” Nat says, turning to storm back into the house. “But this time it’ll be without me.”

  ’ve always been proud of my door-slamming skills.

  But Nat’s trump mine. As she disappears into the house every single piece of glass looks like it’s about to smash into the garden, along with a bit of rooftop.

  Reeling, I turn to Bunty.

  It feels like the air is still vibrating with Nat’s rage, but my grandmother is lying quietly on her sunlounger.

  I prepare myself for another fight.

  Honestly, I don’t want to fight my grandmother: especially when she’s so sweet and her hair is all fluffy and soft, like a pink kawaii bear, but if I have to in order to get on that bus then that’s what I’m going to—

  “I’ll come with you,” she says, standing up slowly. “My bag’s already packed.”

  I blink at her, astounded. “Really?”

  “My bag’s always packed, darling. It’s good to be prepared for any adventure.”

  “I mean, you’re really coming with me?”

  “Of course. If your heart is telling you that this is what you have to do, then you need to do it. Our hearts have voices and we should always listen to them.”

  Another wave of frustration washes over me.

  “It’s not my heart speaking,” I say tersely. “It’s my …” Which bit of my body is this decision coming from? My lungs? My liver? My kidneys? “It’s my brain. The motor cortex, which controls my voluntary actions.”

  “Then you should definitely listen to that.” Bunty smiles, leaning briefly on the table. “I mean, if we didn’t have brains what would we be?”

  “Corals. Or jellyfish. Starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars …”

  “Exactly!” Bunty laughs. “And who wants to be a jellyfish?”

  “Quite a few people, probably,” I admit, starting to calm down again. “A lot of them have bioluminescent organs that glow in the dark and that would be pretty cool.”

  Grinning, my grandmother takes a few steps forward.

  Then she turns to Moonstone. I hadn’t even realised her friend was still here: that’s how dark the tree shadow she’s been sitting in is.

  And how like a shadow she is too.

  “Moonie,” my grandmother says firmly. “My granddaughter and I are going to take a little trip up the coast. If we leave on the night bus, we can arrive in the morning and catch the bus back tomorrow evening. I’ll need you to stay here and look after Natalie for me.”

  Moonstone frowns. “What is Annabel going to say?”

  “Annabel doesn’t need to know,” Bunty says with a sly wink at me. “I mean, if a grandmother can’t run away with her granddaughter now and then, what is the point of any of this?”

  She waves a hand around and there’s silence.

  “Exactly,” Bunty continues in triumph. “So let me go grab my Daisy book and we’ll be back before you know it.”

  Moonstone looks me up and down a few times.

  Something tells me she does not like what she sees, although in fairness I haven’t had a shower or washed my face or brushed my teeth in nearly four days so it’s kind of understandable.

  “Fine,” she says, relenting visibly. “But if you need anything, I can get a flight up there in two hours flat.”

  “We won’t need anything,” my grandmother assures her confidently. “Just a little bit of luck.”

  By that evening, I’m clean and packed and at the Sydney bus station with my brightly twinkling grandmother by my side.

  I didn’t say goodbye to Nat because I didn’t need to.

  Her hot-headed temper tantrums are just one of her little ear-bone tics, and I accept them even if I don’t always agree with them: I need to give her space to calm down again, that’s all.

  Then everything will be fine between us.

  “Well,” Bunty says as an enormous red coach with a blue greyhound painted on its side turns on its engine and we queue up alongside it. “This is exciting. You’re never too old for an adventure, darling-heart.”

  “You’re never too old for anything,” I say as we approach the front and hold out our tickets. “Did you know that Sophocles wrote Oedipus at Colonus when he was eighty-nine, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes started studying Greek at the age of eighty?”

  We take a few steps up on to the bus.

  There’s a long, narrow line of thirty small, vivid blue seats covered with little red and yellow geometric shapes, and – somewhere at the back – a tiny toilet cubicle that already smells of urine.

  OK: maybe there are some things you can be too old for.

  These look like seats built for four-year-olds, and between us my grandmother and I have the combined age of an octogenarian.

/>   Slightly perturbed, I turn to Bunty.

  “Such fun,” she says without a flicker of concern, putting her battered patchwork bag in the overhead hold and settling into one of the seats with a warm blanket. “This reminds me of my teenage years. Nothing like seeing a country from the road, darling!”

  I look dubiously at the tiny, rather sticky seats we’re now crammed into. Because – as my grandmother closes her eyes and settles uncomfortably in for the night – it’s starting to hit me that it’s going to be a very, very long road indeed.

  Thirteen hours and fifty-three minutes long, in fact.

  And I have no idea what’s waiting for us at the other end.

  ere is the official list of the five biggest cities in the world:

  Suffice to say, Byron Bay is not on it.

  It’s a seaside town in Eastern Australia with a population of only 4,959 people and a three-kilometre radius, which means my chances of finding Nick are pretty promising: even in the limited eight hours we have here.

  And as the bus drives down a pretty avenue lined with green trees and parks and cotton-coloured houses, I can feel my optimism rising.

  I mean, he somehow found me in Tokyo: the most populated city on the planet.

  Twice.

  This can’t be that difficult, can it?

  “Okeydokey, darling,” Bunty says as we clamber off the bus. She’s been asleep for the last fourteen hours: napping against the vibrating window on her folded headscarf. “I’ve got a couple of friends living just down that road. Why don’t we have a calming cup of camomile together first?”

  I look twitchily around in a circle, fiddling with my planets necklace.

  Because it’s just starting to hit me that any minute now I might see Nick again, and I haven’t decided yet exactly what I’m going to say.

  Or how I’m even going to track him d—

  Oooh.

  “Actually,” I say as a tall, tanned, dark-haired boy skateboards down the road and my stomach flips over. “Can I meet you later, if that’s OK? I’ve just had an idea.”

  Bunty smiles. “Darling, you are full of those, aren’t you?”

  She can say that again. Right now I’m so full of them it feels like my head is going to explode.

  “Mmm,” I twitch.

  “Text if you need me, darling,” my grandmother says, kissing my cheek. “And remember to follow your heart.”

  “It’s my brain I’m following,” I clarify quickly. “My brain.”

  “Of course,” Bunty laughs. “Although I’d suggest you take them both with you anyway, just for good measure.”

  As soon as my grandmother has gone, I get the Brick out of my satchel. This is going to cost an absolute fortune, but where there’s a will there’s a way.

  And there’s definitely a will.

  I can feel it pounding in the centre of my chest, making me feel queasy and light-headed. An octopus has three hearts, and from the way mine has started hammering I think mine may have tripled too.

  Swallowing, I switch the phone on.

  Then I quickly scan through the flurry of text messages suddenly popping up after four whole days of being switched off.

  Hey! Did you get my last message? Jx

  You OK? Jx

  Is something going on? Jx

  Harriet, your grandmother says you’re sick. Do you need to come home? Can change flights. Annabel

  I’M not worried. I bet you’ve eaten too many jam doughnuts. LIKE FATHER LIKE DAUGHTER AMIRITE? LOL Dad. xxx

  Grimacing, I close the messages. I’ll deal with them later.

  Then I scroll impatiently through my contacts.

  I’m about to thrust myself into the life of somebody who isn’t expecting me. I’m about to try to find someone who hasn’t made their whereabouts known: to be there for somebody, despite not being asked to. And there’s one person in my life who knows how to do that, better than anyone else.

  Consistently, with five years of practice.

  The phone rings and then there’s a click.

  With a sudden rush I’m crouched inside the bush outside my house again: freezing cold and lit by a green, wise light.

  “Greetings, earthling. This is Toby Pilgrim.”

  “Toby, it’s Harriet. I need you to teach me how to stalk.”

  K, stalk is the wrong word.

  I’m merely … geographically locating somebody without their knowledge. After all, I only need to find Nick and explain why I’m there and then I’m no longer a stalker: I’m a concerned old friend who is worried about his wellbeing.

  Which is much less socially inappropriate and/or illegal.

  “Hold on just a tickety,” Toby says cheerfully. “I’ll put you on speakerphone.” Then there’s the long, loud sound of somebody blowing their nose into a Batman hankie.

  And before you ask, I know it’s a Batman hankie because Toby showed it to me before I left.

  Even though I absolutely begged him not to.

  “Right,” he continues, sniffling a bit and (probably) sticking it back up his jumper sleeve. “Rin and I are all ears.”

  “Hello, Harry-chan!” she calls sweetly. “Are we all ears? I have two, Toby-kun. You have just two. Where are others?”

  “It’s an expression from the English idioms book I got you,” he says affectionately. “Remember?”

  “Ah, like stealing the Mickey Mouse. Or itching your feet. Popping one’s clogs together.”

  “Close enough.”

  “I’m in Byron Bay,” I say quickly, because I’d love to chat but this call is costing me approximately seven hundred pounds a minute and I’ve only got one day to find him. “And I just need a few … uh.” How do I put this tactfully? “Tracking pointers.”

  Tracking pointers. That sounds a lot less creepy.

  “Ah,” Toby says wisely, like the keynote speaker at some kind of Stalking Conference. “Harriet Manners, you are going on a Polar Bear Hunt.”

  “You are going to capture a very big one!” Rin giggles. “Like the nursery rhyme!”

  “Exactly,” Toby agrees. “Although in a thoroughly humane, metaphorical sense only.”

  OK: this conversation is proving to be a lot less constructive than I initially thought.

  Not to mention a lot more expensive.

  “What?” I sigh flatly.

  “We’ve talked about this before, Harriet,” Toby explains patiently. “You need to embrace your inner polar bear. So the first thing you’ve got to do is blend seamlessly into your environment. As you’re in a beach town, do you own anything yellow that might conceivably look like sand?”

  I look down at my red shorts and crossword T-shirt. “No.”

  “That’s a shame. Do you – perchance – have any glue? Because then you could just roll around on the ground for a few minutes and that should do the trick.”

  I am beginning to regret making this call.

  “Let’s say I stay in my own clothes and leave the ground alone like a non-insane person. What else?”

  “A polar bear’s sense of smell is so powerful they can track prey from seventeen kilometres away,” Toby states knowingly. “Does your target have a recognisable scent?”

  Lime-green shower gel and wet grass.

  “I’m not sniffing my way round town, Toby. Next?”

  “Polar bears are invisible to infrared cameras so you’re going to need night-vision goggles. I’d send you mine but they’re quite heavy so they may take some time to get there.”

  I glance up at the glorious Australian sunshine beaming down on me. “It’s daytime, Toby,” I say through gritted teeth. “So I probably don’t need them either.”

  “Got it,” he says, completely unfazed. “In that case, cover your nose with your paw. It’ll help deflect attention and also conserve warmth.”

  I am never asking Toby for advice on anything ever again.

  “Toby, I don’t want to deflect attention. I actually want to be seen or there’s no point in this at all.�
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  “Got it,” he says breezily. “But remember that a hunting polar bear can swim up to seven hundred kilometres, non-stop, for nine whole days. Stalking can sometimes get quite boring so you might need to take a book.”

  “Manga,” Rin agrees sweetly. “I shall send some observations.”

  I’m starting to feel more than slightly impatient.

  I love my friends dearly, but my return bus to Sydney leaves at eight pm tonight: I only have the rest of today to source, save and comfort Nick.

  I really need some actual help.

  “Toby,” I interrupt. “All I need to know is how to find someone. Like, where would they be? What would they be doing? How do I guess?”

  Toby has always seemed to know exactly where I am: what I’m doing, and when I’m likely to be there at any given time.

  And I’ve never understood how.

  “Oh,” he says in surprise. “Well, that’s easy. You just need to think about the person in question and then you’ll know.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “Imagine you’re them, Harriet. Think about what they like and how they feel and what makes them happy. Then go there too. It’s really not that complicated.”

  And suddenly my head is full of the conversation Nick and I had, seven months ago on Brooklyn Bridge.

  I haven’t been home for more than ten days in three years.

  I miss being shouted at by Mum.

  I miss my friends.

  I miss surfing and sunshine and playing the piano and waking up, knowing where I am and who I am.

  I miss being in one place.

  If I was Nicholas Hidaka right now, where would I be?

  “That’s incredibly helpful,” I say with real relief, jumping off the wall. “Thanks so much, guys.”

  “You’re welcome.” Then there’s a short pause while Rin whispers: Ask her, Toby-kun. “Harriet? We won’t tell Jasper where you are or what you’re doing, right?”

  An unexpected wave of shame washes over me.

  It’s so intense I can feel it pulsing through my fingertips, through my shoulders, up my neck, into my cheeks. Because – just like Nat – Toby and Rin know exactly who I’m trying to find without being told.

  And obviously they don’t think I should be doing this either.