Читать книгу Geek Girl books 1-3: Geek Girl, Model Misfit and Picture Perfect - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 56

his is a new start, I keep reminding myself as I’m pulled through the crowd of girls. What’s the saying? You’ve got to fake it to make it. It’s time I start pretending to belong and then maybe I will.

This isn’t school after all. I can be someone else here. Someone cool. Someone different. I don’t have to be a geek any more. I look down at my satchel. The red words are still vaguely visible and I hastily put my hand over it. I have got to get a new bag.

“Hello,” I say confidently to the models who have all stopped what they’re doing and are now watching me with their eyes narrowed. “I’m Harriet Manners. It’s nice to meet you.”

It’s totally working. They’ve all stopped talking, and I can tell from the expressions on their faces that any minute now they’re going to stand up, envelop me in a warm group hug and start arguing over who will get to be my Russian penpal. I grin in relief and hold out my hand to an astonishingly beautiful brunette.

“Bite me,” she says in a strong accent, and then she turns round and continues putting on black stockings.

“Black with no sugar. Don’t forget the lemon,” another giggles and she high-fives her friend, who starts muttering darkly in Russian.

“I lost the Baylee campaign to her? Seriously? Has Yuka gone totally insane?”

“She looks like a little boy,” another one says in a perfectly audible whisper.

“Maybe she is. Let’s see what happens when she takes off her skirt.”

“I reckon she doesn’t have anything going on down there. Like Action Man.”

“Have you ever seen freckles like it?”

“Yeah. Definitely. On a, like, egg.”

“Or, like, a Dalmatian.”

I can literally feel my face collapsing. This is exactly like school. Except that they’ve all got a fewer clothes on, which somehow makes it even worse.

I’ve said nine words so far. How can it have gone so badly wrong already? How do they know all the same insults?

“Actually,” I say in the most reprimanding voice I can find, “there are no animals that have no reproductive organs at all. Even hermaphrodites have both sets, for instance the great majority of pulmonate snails, opisthobranch snails and slugs. So that is a physical impossibility.”

There’s a surprised silence and then the room erupts into nasty giggles. It’s probably not going to go down in history as one of my most incisive comebacks.

“And,” I add, looking at the girl with the stockings, “I’d rather not bite you. I don’t know where you’ve been.”

The giggling stops.

That’s better, Harriet. That’s the sort of thing Nat would have said.

The girl blinks at me a few times in shocked silence. “What did she just say to me?” she eventually snaps to the girl next to her and her forehead starts to get all scrunched up in the middle. “I’m the face of Gucci. I’m Shola. People don’t talk to me like that. I won’t be talked to like that.”

“Don’t get worked up, honey,” a blonde with huge blue eyes whispers back. “It’ll just make you ugly and we’re about to go on. Vogue’s out there. Stay pretty for Vogue.”

Shola swallows and concentrates. “Thanks, Rose. I am so not getting wrinkles for her.” She looks back at me and narrows her eyes. “You’re how old?”

“Fifteen and three-twelfths.”

“My God, you still measure your age in fractions. I’m not getting worked up over a child. I’m just not. I am a woman. I am the face of Gucci Woman. It’s right there in the title.”

“It is,” Rose agrees, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s right there on the advert under your face, Shola. Woman.”

“Harriet?” a friendly lady in red says, tapping me on the shoulder just in the nick of time. Models are clearly bonkers. “This is your outfit.” And she unzips a clothes bag.

A general hiss goes round the room as I stare at the contents. It’s a long, silky gold dress with thousands of tiny little gold feathers layered around the bottom. It has thin straps made of sort of gold fish scales and it shimmers when you touch it, like a magic cloak. It’s really, really beautiful: even I can see that. Although it is going to make me look a bit like the toffee finger in a box of Quality Street.

“That’s mine? For me?”

“It is, darling. You’re the Closer.”

Another slightly louder hiss goes round the room. “I’m the what?”

“The Closer. You’re the last girl on the catwalk. All eyes are going to be on you, honey.”

I quickly look into the mirror, and behind me I can feel every single eye in the room glaring at my back.

“You’re the new face of the line,” she continues. “Yuka wants you to be as prominent as possible.”

I can see Shola’s face getting paler under her make-up. She glances quickly at Rose and a look passes between them, but I’ve no idea what it means.

“OK,” I say, trying to ignore the new clenching sensation in my stomach. “But…”And then I take a deep breath. “The… Ummm.” I stop. How can I put this subtly? “The… er.” And then I take in as much oxygen as I can. “What shoes am I wearing?” I finally blurt out.

The lady smiles at me kindly. “These,” she says. And then she holds out a pair of little gold-scaled shoes with one-inch kitten heels. I almost collapse with relief.

“Yuka says she would prefer it if you could stay upright,” she says with a wink. “Now, Miss Manners, let’s get your hair and make-up sorted so we can have a little practice, shall we?”