by Holly Smale
She gives me a steady look, and I know she knows.
About everything.
I’ve no idea how – magic, possibly, or hidden cameras – but she’s staring at my face as if everything I have ever thought or will ever think is written there in ink.
I don’t envy her: it can’t be very easy reading.
“Yes,” I nod. “Where is everybody?”
“In the garden, waiting for you.” She pauses for a few seconds. “Harriet, I know about your list.”
Of course she does. “How?”
“You left it open on your laptop just before we left for Morocco. I saw it when I was packing the suitcases.”
I can feel a flush starting on my cheeks.
How embarrassing. It wasn’t even grammatically correct.
“Harriet,” Annabel says, sitting on the bottom stair and patting the bit next to her, “you’re a silly billy, you know that?”
OK: that’s, like, the third time I’ve been called that recently. Do I have another Post-it stuck on my back I’m not aware of? “I do know that, yes,” I say, sitting down. “People keep telling me.”
Annabel laughs.
“Harriet, you go to school even when it’s hard there for you. You model, even though it scares you. Your first thought on making money was not to spend it on yourself, but to help others. You left Nat alone to be with her boyfriend when you needed her, you invited the world and its wife to your party so they didn’t feel left out. You cleaned the house every time your father messed it up so I wouldn’t have to do it, and you didn’t even mention it.”
I open my mouth and then close it again.
Seriously. Somewhere in this house: cameras.
“I didn’t realise until you were too busy today to do it,” Annabel explains with a little smile. “Your father genuinely thinks he’s the eponymous Shoemaker, and elves are coming in through the windows and doing it all for him.”
“Oh.” I shrug. Dad’s mind must be a glorious place to live. “Well, you were tired. It’s no biggy.”
“I was, and it is.” Annabel smiles again. “I’m not finished. You have a little following of fans because you remembered what it was like to be young and new, and you defend people even when they have been unkind to you.”
I open my mouth again.
Oh my God: she’s got them at school too? Is nothing private any more?
“What I’m saying, Harriet, is you are confident. You are brave. You have your own style, and you have always inspired everyone around you. And you know exactly who you are and stick to it when it’s hard.”
I can feel my cheeks getting red. She’s totally memorised every line of my list and watched me working my way through it, badly.
“I do try too hard though. At literally everything.”
“You really do.” Annabel’s mouth twitches. “It’s one of my favourite things about you.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes while I unsuccessfully try to swallow another lump in my throat. It’s kind of annoying, sometimes: having a parent who knows everything about you.
I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Finally, Annabel stands and brushes her pinstripe suit down. “We’ve got a little something waiting for you in the garden. Coming?”
I nod. Then, side by side, my stepmother and I walk down the dark hallway with all the lights switched off, into a dark kitchen with the curtains inexplicably closed.
I’m just about to ask why the house has turned into the set of a horror film when my phone beeps.
I grin with happiness and put my phone back in my cardi pocket. Then – with a sudden wave of gratitude so strong I nearly have to sit back down again – I impulsively grab my stepmother’s hand.
“Thank you, Annabel. For being so kind to me.”
She shakes her head.
“If people are kind to you, Harriet, it’s because you’re kind to them. If people are there for you, it’s because you are there for them.” She opens the kitchen door and points into the dark. “And if you don’t need a list to make you a star, it’s because you’ve always been one.”
utside are little patches of light.
They’re waving around in the air with loud crackling sounds, spelling out huge letters with trailing lines of glitter.
From the glow of the sparklers, I can see five of the people I love best, lit up and laughing.
Along with my number one dog.
“Toby,” Nat snaps irritably, waving her firework in the air ferociously, “you’re supposed to be making an A, you idiot. Not another T.”
“Oh.” Toby frowns. “So who’s making the T?”
“Who is making the tea?” Dad asks. “I’ll have one. Four sugars, just a drop of milk.” I can’t help noticing he has a big black moustache stuck on and is wearing a chef’s hat.
Tabby’s in her lobster pot, staring in awe at the lights.
Hugo races towards me: paws in my stomach before I’ve even closed the door.
“No offence, but I am nailing this letter R,” India says coolly. “Seriously. Step your game up, people. It’s blatantly the trickiest one.”
Then I glance behind them.
In the middle of the garden is an enormous, seven-foot sculpture of a white angel with gold wings. I turn in confusion to Annabel and she winks at me knowingly: it was obviously hand-delivered while I was at my so-called party.
OK, maybe she didn’t have cameras at school after all.
Slowly, I walk towards it.
It’s incredibly beautiful. The face is delicately shaped, the plaster is smooth and the enormous wings have been covered in tiny gold-painted feathers and attached to the sculpture with a knot of thick white string over the shoulders.
Stuck to the left wing is a little piece of paper.
It’s not an angel at all, I realise, as I turn the note over.
It’s Icarus.
And I can feel the light starting to shine out of me, brighter than it ever has before.
Because I know a few things about space.
I know it’s big and dark and lonely. I know that all stars are moving away from each other and 99.9999 per cent of the universe is made up of nothing, including us.
But I also know that there are a lot of things about it we still don’t understand.
Scientists discovered very recently that ninety per cent of the universe’s light source is inexplicably missing. They can see it, they can measure it, but they don’t know where it’s coming from.
For just a second, I think maybe I do.
As I watch the people I love, drawing my name in the sky with glitter – as I think about the people I love and miss, all over the world – I wonder briefly if some of that light is coming from us.
If with every act of kindness, we shine a little brighter and the darkness gets a little lighter. With every type of friendship, space gets a little smaller and we get a little closer.
Making our own stars so we’re never really alone.
Because however fast the universe pulls apart – however much distance there is between us – these are the ties that will hold us together.
The connections that will never break.
This is how we shine.
Read more from Geek Girl…
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A Geek Girl novella
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my amazing editor, Ruth Alltimes, for working with me so seamlessly, valiantly and patiently, and for loving Harriet as much as I do. You have been a total champion. Thanks to Kate Shaw: my agent, my friend and my much-needed voice of reason, sense and wisdom at silly-times-o-clock. As always, I couldn’t do it without you.
Thanks to the entire, incredible team at HarperCollins, who continue to work tirelessly and passionately behind the scenes as part of Team Geek: especially to Hannah, Sam, Nicola, Carla, Kate, Elorine, Georgia, Lily, Rachel and Mary. This is such a fun boat to be on, and I couldn’t hope for better shipmates. Thanks also to
Lizzie and Celeste, who have remained stars throughout. Your cuteness and support have been much appreciated.
As always, an infinite, heartfelt chunk of gratitude is owed to my wonderful family. Grandad, Grandma, Dad, Mum, Tig, Dan, Vero, Caro, Louise, Vincent, Judith, Lesley, Ellen, Freya, Rob, Lorraine, Mayne, Chelsea, Dixie and Handsome. It’s been a rocky year, and I am so very lucky to have – and have had – you with me; I know you always will be.
Finally, to every reader who has read Harriet, loved Harriet, cheered for Harriet and worried about Harriet over the last couple of years: you are who I write for.
Thank you. xx
About the Author
Holly Smale is the author of Geek Girl, Model Misfit and Picture Perfect. She was unexpectedly spotted by a top London modelling agency at the age of fifteen and spent the following two years falling over on catwalks, going bright red and breaking things she couldn’t afford to replace. By the time Holly had graduated from Bristol University with a BA in English Literature and an MA in Shakespeare she had given up modelling and set herself on the path to becoming a writer.
Geek Girl was the no. 1 bestselling young adult fiction title in the UK in 2013. It was shortlisted for several major awards including the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Branford Boase Award, nominated for the Queen of Teen Award and and won the Teen and Young Adult category of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the 11-14 category of the Leeds Book Award.
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