LITMIR.BIZ

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her and staring out of the window in huffy silence.

      “Tell your stepmother you don’t mind being named after a tortoise,” Dad immediately demands, still staring out of the window. “Tell her, Harriet. She won’t talk to me.”

      I sigh. Today is really going downhill. And given the start, I wasn’t sure that was possible. “I suppose I should just be grateful you weren’t browsing the FBI’s Most Wanted lists as well as scanning the Guinness Book of Records, Dad.”

      “Tortoises are incredible creatures,” Dad says earnestly. “What they lack in elegance and beauty they more than make up for in the ability to curl up and defend themselves from predators.”

      “What, like me?”

      “That’s not what I was saying, Harriet.”

      “Then what are you saying?”

      “No,” Annabel snaps suddenly, lifting her head.

      Dad remains nonplussed. “They do, Annabel. I saw a documentary about it on telly.”

      Annabel whips round and her face is suddenly the colour of the paper she’s still gripping in her hands. “Why you felt the need to tell her about that bloody tortoise I have no idea. What’s wrong with you?” Dad looks at me for help, but I’m not going to drag him out of this one. “And,” she continues, turning to look at me, “I mean no; you’re not modelling. Not now, not next year, not ever. Full stop, the end, finis, whatever you want to put at the end of the sentence that makes it finite.”

      “Now hang on a second,” Dad says. “I get a say in this too.”

      “No, you don’t. Not if it’s a stupid say. It’s not happening, Richard. Harriet has a brilliant future in front of her and I’m not going to have it ruined by this nonsense.”

      “Who says it’s brilliant?” I ask, but they both ignore me.

      “Have you been listening to a single word that crazy man has been saying, Richard?”

      “You just want her to be a lawyer, don’t you, Annabel!” Dad shouts.

      “And what if I did? What’s wrong with being a lawyer?”

      “Don’t get me started on what’s wrong with lawyers!”

      They’re both standing a metre away from each other, ready for battle.

      “Do I get a say in this?” I ask, standing up.

      “No,” they both snap without taking their eyes off each other.

      “Right,” I say, sitting down again. “Good to know.”

      Annabel puts her handbag over her shoulder, quivering all over. “I said I would think about it and I have. I’ve even made notes and I have seen nothing that convinces me that this is right for Harriet. In fact, I’ve only seen things that convince me of exactly the opposite: that this is a stupid, sick, damaging environment for a young girl, it was a terrible idea and it needs to stop now before it goes any further.”

      “But—”

      “This conversation is over. Do you understand? Over. Harriet is going to go to school like a normal fifteen-year-old and she is going to do her exams like a normal fifteen-year-old and have a normal, fifteen-year-old life so that she can have a brilliant, successful, stable adult one. Do I make myself clear?”

      I could point out that it’s irrelevant – seeing as I’ve just blown any chance I have – but Annabel looks so scary and we can both see so far up her nostrils that Dad and I both duck our heads and mutter, “OK.”

      “Now, when you’re ready, I’ll be outside,” Annabel continues from between her teeth. “Away from all this rubbish.”

      And Dad and I continue to stare at the table until we hear the front door close, with Annabel safely on the other side of it.

      e continue to stare at the table for quite some time: me absorbed in thought and Dad possibly just really interested in the table.

      You know, the human brain never stops surprising me. It’s always evolving: not just through the centuries, but from day to day, and minute to minute. Always in a constant state of flux. Forty-eight hours ago, I would have laughed if somebody had told me I couldn’t be a model or perhaps stared at them as if they were strange alien beings with feet coming out of their heads. I’ve always wanted to be a palaeontologist, or maybe a physicist. But… I don’t want to go back to my life the way it was.

      Not now I’ve imagined an alternative.

      I look at Dad and realise he’s studying my face. “What do you want, Harriet?” he says gently. “Never mind Annabel, I think it must be her time of the month. You know, when she turns into a werewolf. What is it you want to do?”

      I think about Nat and how devastated she would be if this went any further. I think about Annabel and her fury, and then I think about Yuka Ito and her open contempt.

      “It doesn’t matter,” I say in a small voice. “It’s not going to happen anyway.”

      At which point Wilbur bursts back into the room and flings himself dramatically into the chair that Annabel just vacated. He doesn’t seem to realise that anyone’s missing.

      “You got the job,” he says abruptly, flinging his arms out in a wide motion. “She loves you.”

      I stare at him in silence. “B-b-but – no, she doesn’t, she hates me,” I finally manage to stammer. “She turned the light off on me and everything.”

      “Hates you?” Wilbur tinkles with laughter. “Golly-knickers. Did you see what she did to the other girls? Well, no, obviously not. We’d have all sorts of tribunals on our hands if anyone did. She does not hate you, my little Goldfish. She didn’t even turn the light on for most of the other candidates.”

      “What’s going on?” Dad is still saying. At least, I think he is. My brain is making that high-pitched TV noise again. “What job?”

      “The job of the century, my little Crumpet of Loveliness; the position of the millennium. The employment opportunity to end all employment opportunities.”

      “Which is?” Dad snaps crossly. “Drop the jazz, Wilbur, and just tell us.”

      Wilbur grins. “Gotcha. Yuka Ito wants Harriet to be the new face of Baylee. We’re on a deadline, so we start shooting tomorrow. In Moscow. For a twenty-four-hour whirlwind of fashion.”

      I feel like I’m in an elevator, dropping thirty storeys in three seconds. My stomach doesn’t even feel remotely attached to my abdomen.

      Dad opens and shuts his mouth a few times.

      “For real?” he says eventually, and even in my catatonic state I cringe. I wish Dad would stop trying to be ‘street’.

      “So real it could have its own TV show,” Wilbur confirms seriously. “We’ve been looking for the right person for ages. The advertising spaces are already booked and the crew is on standby. Now we’ve found her, it’s lift-off.”

      “Gosh,” Dad says and he suddenly looks strangely calm. I thought he’d be up and dancing around the room, but he looks very composed and very – you know – fatherly. “Right,” he says in a faraway voice. “Wow.” He looks at me again. “So it’s actually happening then. Who’d have thought it?”

      The white noise in my head is getting louder and louder. “Dad?” I manage to squeak. “What do I do?”

      Dad clears his throat, leans toward me and puts his hand on

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