by Holly Smale
Visibly relieved, Jasper stands up, gives Toby an encouraging pat on the shoulder and bolts out of the front door.
Then he crouches down next to me.
“Bloody hell, Harriet,” he says. “That took you long enough.”
’m not going to go into detail.
I think we should respect Toby and Rin’s privacy enough to let them have their special romantic moment in the cafe alone without spoiling it by telling you everything.
I’m sure you can imagine it.
Suffice to say, Rin’s face has never lit up harder and Toby has never been more awkward, more charming or more completely random.
There’s a quick discussion about where Paddington got his hat from (his uncle Pastuzo).
Then one about how Care Bears are having a resurgence in Japan despite becoming less cool here twenty years ago.
It takes Toby a really long time to remember that one of the tables is supposed to be on fire.
And by the time he tentatively says “I’m going to hold your hand now, Rin; it’s only fair I warn you,” and Rin responds with a delighted “Thank you very much, Toby, I will be super chuffed,” I think we’re all done here.
It’s over to them.
Triumphantly, Jasper and I flop back on the pavement and lean against the wall.
I don’t know how Jane Austen’s Emma did it: I am completely exhausted.
“Well,” I laugh, rubbing my eyes, “who saw that coming?”
“Everyone,” Jasper says lightly. “Literally everyone. There are people living on the outer reaches of this Universe who saw that coming, Harriet.”
Oh. Guess it was just me, then.
“MACS0647-JD, by the way,” I sigh. “That’s the furthest galaxy they’ve found from us.”
“Indeed,” Jasper says, leaning his head back. “And on MACS0647-JD they’re all holding banners that say Work It Out Already, Harriet.”
“You didn’t exactly help, King,” I chide him. “Why couldn’t you have just told me?”
“And watch you do to them what you tried to do to me and Rin?” he laughs. “No, thanks. I decided to take the fall on that one so you wouldn’t scare them both off.”
“Huh. OK, that’s quite smart actually.” I think about it. “But that still doesn’t explain why Rin was being kind of weird to me about you.”
“You know what?” he says after a short pause. “I’m going to let you work that one out for yourself, Harriet.”
We sit in silence for a few seconds.
“Is … she scared of me?” I say uncertainly.
“Nobody’s scared of you, Harriet-uccino. You drink hot chocolate and pretend it’s coffee. You eat the biscuits sane people throw away. You try to pet an octopus and get covered in blue ink. You’re literally the most unscary and colourful person I know.”
Huh. What is that supposed to m—
I feel myself suddenly blush bright red.
Hang on. Did Rin think Jasper was meant for me?
But why would she possibly …
And – out of nowhere – recent memories suddenly start flashing in front of me in sharp, vivid flashes: except now they look a little different.
Jasper searched for hours for Dunky because I told him it was lost. He took me to the gallery and helped me to believe in myself through the power of pictures. He gave me the confidence I needed, after India refused to. He looked after Rin, because he knew it would make me happy.
The biscuits … He burns biscuits on purpose because he knows they’re my favourite. (Nobody on the planet is that bad at baking.)
He defends me if anybody makes me cry.
He never, ever cancels on me until he knows the plan’s already over.
And suddenly it’s as if there’s a rainbow of new memories, flashing in front of my eyes.
Jasper once told me that people with tetrachromacy can see a hundred million different shades, and that all it takes is one extra cell to see the world differently: in all its colours.
I think that one cell is what he is for me.
“There you go,” Jasper says finally, watching my face light up with his bright blue and brown eyes. “Crikey, it’s like watching paint dry.”
I stare in wonder at this whole other Jasper: who I’ve never seen before but who’s been here this whole time.
“But … but I irritate you,” I say blankly, brain still whizzing and spinning. “I’m controlling and supercilious and demanding and bossy and I never listen to what other people want. I-I annoy the hell out of you, don’t I?”
“Totally,” Jasper says. “Because you never, ever see what’s directly in front of your face, Harriet. And that includes me.”
n 1977, Earth received a signal from deep space that lasted 72 seconds. We still don’t know what or where it came from.
That’s exactly how I feel.
As if something really big has just happened and I had no idea it was coming and I have no clue what to do now it’s here.
I’m just staring into dark, infinite space studded with untold galaxies as if I’m seeing it all for the first time.
With my eyes wide open.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Jasper says, clearing his throat. “We can still be friends, either way.”
I blink at him.
His eyes are as bright as ever, and the little freckles scattered across his cheek look like stars. His blue hoody is pulled up, a tiny muscle is jumping at the base of his jaw and under the glow of the candlelit cafe his hair is a mixture of golds: of bronze, of mahogany and copper and rust.
My stomach’s starting to flip, and – if I’m truthful – it’s not for the first time. I think maybe the cafe is my new happy place because it always has Jasper in it.
But –
“I can’t …” I say slowly. “I don’t …” Panic’s rising and there’s a loud rattling inside my head. “Please, it’s not that I …”
“Look.” Jasper scratches his head. “I get it. Nat explained it to me. And I get that you had your heart broken badly and all this obsession with control is just a way of making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
I blink at him in amazement.
Firstly, has Nat also guessed Jasper likes me? What other wise knowledge has my best friend been hiding? Is she turning into Gandalf as well?
And secondly: Jasper’s kind of right, it is.
But that’s not all of it.
Because it’s not the walking away from love that’s the hard part: it’s the falling in.
It’s losing yourself to it and not knowing who you are without it. It’s needing somebody else more than you need yourself. It’s being happier with them than you are on your own.
And I’ve only just got to a point where I can stand completely alone again.
Where I’m master of myself.
“I …” The panic’s still rising and the box is shaking harder. “Jasper, I’m sorry, I don’t think I …”
Something else is hitting me now too.
This is the first time in my entire life that I’ve ever had more than one friend; the first time it wasn’t just Nat, who’s basically my spirit-twin. And I think I got overexcited and this is how I’ve tried to hold on to my friends: with lists and charts and schedules.
I’m so desperate to make sure things don’t go wrong – that I don’t screw it up and end up without anyone – I don’t know how to just let things be.
I’m so scared of being on the outside again that I force myself into the middle, at any cost.
And that’s why I lost India.
The box is rattling so hard I’m worried Jasper can physically hear it too. I’m leaning all the weight I have on it: desperately trying to keep it shut.
“Harriet,” Jasper says as I start anxiously ripping my fingernails apart with my teeth, “you don’t need to make a decision now. I didn’t even know you back when it all happened and I never met …”
For the first time in six months, I don’t need to change the subj
ect or pretend I can’t hear my friends talking.
He stops himself for me.
“… But I do know that life isn’t tidy. You can’t just neatly lock your heart away so it never gets ripped or crumpled again. Sometimes you need to let yourself get a bit … messy.”
I swallow and squeeze my eyes tightly shut.
The big box rattles again.
And again.
And suddenly I can’t hold on any more: I don’t want to.
It rattles one more time, and – with an enormous bang – there’s an explosion of colour: of bright, beautiful reds and blues and greens and yellows and pinks, purples and oranges and golds, until it feels like this time I’m coated in them from the inside out.
I don’t want to live without colour.
I don’t want to live without love, without joy, without adventure, without excitement, without surprises.
Without everything that makes life bright.
I don’t want to lock it all away inside me; to control everything so it’s all in order. I don’t want the people around me to do what I say, when I say it: to always be and feel what I’m expecting them to.
I don’t want to keep pencilling in the lines of my life before it’s even happened.
To give it an outline to follow.
I want to colour it in with mess, with beauty, with brightness. With a hundred million shades that exist if I can just relax enough to see them.
If I can just finally let go.
With my eyes still closed, I take a deep breath.
Gently, I touch the box in my head: the box stuffed full of everything that has ever hurt me.
Of everything that might.
The box that isn’t actually real, and can’t open or shut or explode or rattle or lock or do anything other than sit there inanimately in my head, like the extended metaphor it is.
But that I keep relying on so heavily anyway.
And I make my final decision.
Swallowing, I wait patiently until it stops shaking.
I say thank you for being there when I was so sad and lonely.
For giving me the strength I needed.
Then I pick the box up with both hands.
And push it out of my head forever.
“So …” I say, finally opening my eyes again. “Jasper King.” I can feel myself starting to glow. “Are you saying that you are or could be one of the many boys who may have recently smacked their head on the floor next to my cloak?”
His nose twitches. “Harriet …”
“Are you saying – I don’t know – that you think I’m actually hilarious and adorable as a can of tomato soup?”
“Of course not,” he says with questionable conviction.
“And I just want to check: can I confirm that you have been totally and utterly overwhelmed by my seductive strategies?”
He smiles. “Shut up, Harriet.”
“OK,” I agree, laughing. “I’m shutting up now.”
And I lean forward and kiss him.
ere’s a list of Things I Was Not Expecting Today:
But you know what?
It feels kind of nice, not knowing what’s going to happen for once. Not being in control. Not feeling so sure how the story is going to end.
In fact, I think I’m really going to embrace this spontaneity thing. From now on, I am a chilled-out creature of impulse; an airy nomad of spur-of-the-moment decision-making.
Floating like a feather, drifting like a bird.
Maintaining flight without flapping my wings: using hot-air currents with my specially locked tendons, like an albatross, or a pelican, or the red-billed …
“Do you think Rin and Toby are going to be all right?” I blurt, stopping on the pavement. “What if something goes wrong? What if they don’t blow all the candles out? What if they lock themselves in? Or out? Maybe we should go back and …”
Jasper lifts his eyebrows at me.
“… is something somebody else might say,” I finish smoothly. “Not me. I, the new improved anti-control-freak Harriet Manners, would say hey, why don’t they just spontaneously melt the whole place to the ground? Just for fun?”
Maybe I’ll send Toby a text.
“Speaking of melting,” Jasper says as we carry on walking towards my house, hand in hand, “what happened to that Icarus statue I made you last year? I don’t think I ever saw it again.”
Fudge nuggets. I was really hoping he’d forgotten about that.
“It’s in the shed,” I admit with an ashamed face. “With a blanket over its head. To –” stop it freaking out my dad – “keep it warm and protected from the elements.”
“Under a blanket?” Jasper winces. “Ouch. Ancient Greek burn. Maybe I’ll just take it back.”
“Please don’t,” I grin. “I really love it. Although in fairness, there was nowhere else to put it. That thing is enormous.”
“Next time I’ll make you a tealight holder.”
I laugh and we turn the corner into my road, still holding hands. This is going to really shock my parents. I told them I was never, ever dating again as long as I lived and I’m pretty sure they believed me.
At least, they definitely said they did.
“You know,” I say as we reach our gate, “the Ancient Greeks wouldn’t eat beans because they thought they had the souls of the dead inside th—”
There’s a pink VW Beetle parked in the driveway, which means Annabel and Bunty must have returned while I was out.
But that’s not why I’ve stopped talking.
On the middle of the doorstep right outside our front door is a very large pair of sparkly orange, yellow and blue striped shoes.
“What …” I say in confusion. “Whose are those? I don’t know anyone who would wear these, apart from …”
The air suddenly shoots out of me.
In 2011, Shogun Rua registered the hardest punch ever recorded with a right fist acceleration of 25mph and 1169lbs of force, and it feels like he just took a shot at my windpipe.
… Apart from Wilbur.
Why would he be here? Unless …
No.
No. No no no no no no no no no.
No no no no no no NONONONO NO NO NO NO.
“What’s going on?” Jasper says as I drop his hand and race towards the house.
There isn’t time to explain.
Because I knew it was all going to come out eventually: that at some point – after the hundreds of lies I’ve told in the last few weeks – I’d get my comeuppance.
I just didn’t realise it would be now.
know I tend to read quite a lot into every situation, and look for a deep, hidden meaning that isn’t always there.
But the front door’s already open.
I am in so much trouble.
“Stop!” I shout, bursting into the kitchen without even pausing to take off my shoes. “Whatever anyone is saying or revealing or about to say or reveal, please just stop!”
Then I pause and frown.
Wilbur’s seated at the kitchen table, wearing a vivid yellow leather jacket, an orange shirt, pink trousers and some kind of red PVC cowboy hat.
Bunty’s sat opposite him, decked out in a faded pink waistcoat covered in bells and a long violet dress with mirrors all over it. Annabel’s between them, looking tanned and much less tired in a black pinstripe suit, and Dad’s opposite her: in a Batman T-shirt and jeans.
Tabby’s squidged on Dad’s lap in the carrot onesie Rin bought her (it’s orange and has little green spikes coming out of the hood).
This is like the weirdest Fellowship of the Rings ever.
“Hello, Harriet,” Annabel says calmly, gesturing at the portentously empty seat next to her. “Why don’t you sit down? And hello to you too, Jasper. Please feel free to join us.”
“Plop yourselves down,” Dad confirms.
“Plant your derrieres,” Wilbur says cheerfully.
“I love your flying squirrel trousers, darling,” Bunty adds warml
y. “I have a pair in blue just like them.”
Why are they being so nice?
What kind of horror are they planning for me that requires easing in?
“I think I’ll stand,” I say carefully. They’re not going to catch me that easily. “There are some things I need to tell you first.”
And then I will prepare to run.
I glance quickly down at my feet. Nat’s wrong: there is a time and a place for rubber shoes, and it’s right now.
“Take a seat, Harriet,” Annabel says again more firmly. “That is not a question.”
Flushing, I give Jasper a quick glance that says I’m sorry you had to see this, please don’t think less of me.
He gives a warm one back that says I’ve got your back.
Then I perch awkwardly on the edge of my seat.
“Right,” I say, taking an enormous breath. “So here’s what happened …”
“You forged a legal contract, faked a sick note, skipped school yet again, took your infant sister on a shoot for Vogue then ran away to India on another one while pretending to be in Norfolk,” Annabel says without batting an eyelid. “Yes, I’ve just heard.”
Sugar cookies.
They’ve obviously sat here, piecing together my horrendous litany of untruths between them.
“Well,” I say, picking at a biscuit, “it doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that.”
There’s a silence.
A silence so long you could put it into a swimming pool and whizz down it, should you be interested in making slides out of silences.
Yup: I’m definitely grounded.
Until I’m seventy, at which point I’ll be locked up in a retirement home to keep future generations safe from my meddling too.
“OK,” I sigh, closing my eyes. “Please let me know – on a scale of one to ten – roughly how bad my punishment’s going to be so I can prepare myself first.”
“Have a cookie,” Annabel says unexpectedly. “I made them myself, fifteen minutes ago.”
I open one eye out of curiosity. Annabel is indeed holding out a plate of somethings that seem to be cookie-shaped.
Some of them are a little bit burnt. After last year’s dinosaur efforts, clearly horrible biscuit-making runs in the family too.
