Читать книгу Model Misfit - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 19

nyway.

By the time I wake up the next morning – owner of the world’s most sparkly pillow – I feel a bit more hopeful. On the bright side, there is no way my life could get any worse.

Last night, everyone else in my year was getting ready to party. Sneaking out of the house in one outfit so they could change into a smaller one. Discussing in excited whispers who was going to kiss who, and who was going to wish they hadn’t. Giggling and laughing and getting ready to celebrate the end of compulsory education in a way they would never, ever forget.

Meanwhile, I was sitting on my bedroom floor on my own, painted gold, crying, with a shredded school jumper pulled over my head. I think that’s pretty much rock bottom, even by my own socially redundant standards.

Things always look better in the morning, though, and by the time I wake up I’m actually quite entertained to discover that I’ve left a trail of damp gold glitter behind me, like an enormous sparkly fairy.

Hugo’s lying patiently at my feet. I give him a quick cuddle to let him know I’m mentally stable again, then hop out of bed to grab my phone and switch it on. It gets so little activity these days, sometimes I actually forget I have one.

Which is why it’s a bit of a shock when it rings immediately.

“Hello?”

“Ferret-face, is that you?”

I never know what to say to questions like that.

“Hi, Wilbur. It’s Harriet.”

“Oh, thank holy dolphin-cakes,” my agent sighs in relief. “I was starting to think you’d spontaneously combusted. I just read about a man that happened to, Kitten-cheeks. One minute he was washing up and the next minute, POOF. Just a few bubbles and a broken plate.”

I blink a few times. Sometimes talking to Wilbur is like falling out of a big tree: you have to just try and catch a few branches to hang on to on the way down. “Is everything OK?”

“Not enormously, Baby-baby Panda. I’ve left nineteen messages on your answer machine, but you’re a naughty little lamp-post and haven’t answered a single bunny-jumping one of them.”

Sugar cookies. I’d totally forgotten about the mess I made of the shoot yesterday. “Is this about Yuka?”

She’s going to hang-draw-and-quarter me like they did in the sixteenth century. Except she’s going to do it with words instead of a sword and it’s probably going to hurt more.

“It most certainly is, Poodle-bottom. Time is, as they say, of the essential oils. Where have you been?”

I swallow with difficulty. “I-I-I-I’m so sorry, Wilbur.”

“It might be too late now, my little Monkey-moo,” Wilbur sighs. “There are forms to fill in, things to sign, governments to inform.”

They’re going to tell the government? That seems a little bit excessive, even for Baylee. “Please, Wilbur. I won’t do it again.”

“Once is enough, Cupcake-teeth. It normally is.”

I close my eyes and sit heavily on my bed.

I don’t believe this. I actually don’t believe it.

It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning yet; I haven’t even opened the curtains. There’s sleep in my eyes and the imprint of Winnie the Pooh’s nose on my cheek. And it looks like I’ve just been fired.