Читать книгу Geek Girl - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 17

try to blame Nat’s coat dangling on the floor, but Hat Lady is having none of it. There is a lot of squeaking: mine, mostly, followed by hers. And then the crowd gets suddenly bigger.

Apparently I haven’t just knocked over the hat table. Her stall has dominoed into the stall next to it, which has dominoed into the stall next to that, and before I know what’s happening there are six stalls, strewn creatively over the floor, with me lying in a heap in the middle. It’s the fault of those silly fake partitions, in my opinion. They just aren’t stable enough.

Clearly, neither am I.

“This is why I didn’t want you to touch the hats,” Hat Lady is screaming at me as I struggle to get up. Every time I put my hand down, something crunches. And not in a good-crunch kind of way. In a hand-through-hat kind of way. “You’ve ruined everything!”

From my position on the floor I can see that the tables have crushed at least seven hats, and another three have been hit by the jug of water on one of the now tipped-over chairs. Along with the sign. Another four hats have shoe-shaped dents in them and footprints on the brim. I’m sitting on at least three.

OK, she has a point.

“I’m sorry,” I’m saying over and over again (crunch, crunch, crunch). Everywhere I look are the faces of people who don’t seem to like me very much. “I’m really sorry. I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay for all of it.”

I have no idea how, but I suspect it’s going to involve a lot of car washing and about six hundred years’ worth of groundings.

“It’s not enough,” the woman yells. “This is my biggest sale day of the year! I need to attract a client base!”

I look around briefly. From the size of the crowd, she’s definitely attracted something.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, with my face flaming – because I really, truly, honestly am – and I’m just about to burst into guilty tears when a man wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket and a jaunty black hat leans forward and grabs hold of my hand.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me,” he says firmly. Then he looks at Hat Lady. “Don’t worry, Sugar,” he adds. “She’s going to pay for the hats. I’ll make sure of it personally.” And he starts leading me away from the carnage.

I gape at him, totally speechless.

So far today, I have nearly died of my own fake illness, fallen over – three times – been shouted at, humiliated, vomited on, abandoned and I’ve managed to trash an entire section of an indoor market. And now, just at the point where I thought it was impossible for things to get worse…

I’ve just been arrested.