Читать книгу Model Misfit - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 9

K, so I may have stretched the truth a tiny bit.

Or – you know: a lot.

I haven’t changed. In fact, I’m even more of a geek than I used to be because:

1 the grey matter in my brain is still developing extra connections on a daily basis

2 I know even more facts than I did before

3 I’m just coming to the end of exams, which means my short-term cognitive abilities are on overdrive.

I’m also not graceful, elegant or stylish, but I guess you’ve already worked that out for yourself.

“Unbelievable,” Aiden mutters, clicking through the images as I slip behind a curtain at the back of the room to get changed into my school uniform.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Thomas,” I call out. “I honestly didn’t mean to disrespect you and the crocodi— erm, fashion industry. Did you get OK photos?”

“That’s not the point. Do you know how many other models wanted this job?”

Yes. Last time I was at Infinity Models, two of them locked me in a cupboard so I missed a really big casting. I had to wait until the cleaner came round to let me out again.

“I’m sorry, it’s just it’s my final GCSE today,” I try to explain as I tug off the massive tutu and smack an elbow painfully against the wall. “At 2pm, the British education system is going to decide whether I have any chance of ever becoming an award-winning physicist. My entire future is going to be shaped by today.”

I pull on my school jumper, which promptly gets caught in the gold wire still wrapped around my head. There’s silence while I hop in and out of the ‘changing room’ with my jumper over my face and my arms waving in the air like manic bunny ears.

“Hmm,” Aiden agrees still clicking through images. “You’re clearly a genius destined for a Nobel Prize.”

“GCSE physics is not about literal spatial awareness,” I puff, clutching blindly at my head and simultaneously smashing my knee against the wall. “It’s conceptual spatial awareness. Two very different things.”

Which is lucky, because the wire on my head now appears to be caught on everything in a two-metre radius. I have a detailed Get To School On Time Plan in my satchel, and nowhere at all does it say: Detach Myself From A Curtain Ring.

“It’s OK, Harriet,” I say, spinning helplessly in little circles. “You still have an hour and eleven minutes to get to school by train. Or an hour and sixteen minutes by taxi. You’ve got ages.”

“Erm … you know the clock on the back wall is slow. Right?”

I abruptly stop circling.

Oh my God. OH MY GOD. I knew there was a reason they made us study karma in religious education.

“No,” I squeak, ripping myself free from the wire at the cost of quite a few hairs, a scratch on my cheek, a curtain ring and half a school uniform. “How slow?”

“An hour,” Aiden says.

And – just like that – both my Get To School On Time Plan and entire life trajectory fly straight out the window.