model misfit by holly smale extract
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Holly Smale is the author o Geek Girland Model
Misft. Clumsy, a bit geeky and somewhat shy, she spent
the majority o her teenage years hiding in the
changing-room toilets. She was unexpectedly spotted by
a top London modelling agency at the age o teen
and spent the ollowing two years alling over on
catwalks, going bright red and breaking things she
couldnt aord to replace. By the time Holly had
graduated rom Bristol University with a BA in English
Literature and an MA in Shakespeare she had given upmodelling and set hersel on the path to becoming a
writer. Between then and now she also spent two years
living in Japan. Holly is currently writing the third book
in the Geek Girlseries.
Photograp
hGeorginaBoltonKing
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For my sister, Tara.
In calm or stormy weather.
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First published in paperback in Great Britain
by HarperCollins Childrens Books in 2013
HarperCollins Childrens Books is a division o HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
7785 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB.
The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk
1
Copyright Holly Smale 2013
ISBN 978-0-00-748946-6
Holly Smale asserts the moral right to be identied as the author o the work.
All rights reserved.
Typeset in Frutiger Light 11/17.5 pt by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Printed and bound in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Conditions o Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way o trade
or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without
the publishers prior consent in any orm, binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
FSC is a non-profit international organisation established to promotethe responsible management of the worlds forests. Products carrying the
FSC label are independently certified to assure consumers that they comefrom forests that are managed to meet the social, economic andecological needs of present and future generations,
and other controlled sources.
Find out more about HarperCollins and the environment atwww.harpercollins.co.uk/green
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ft adjective
1 Appropriate or suiting
2 Proper
3 Qualied and competent
4 Prepared
5 In good physical condition
NOUN
1 Fashionable clothing
2 An onset or period o emotion
COLLOQUIAL SLANG
1 To be really, really good looking
ORIGIN rom the Old English ftt: confict
or struggle.
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1My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a model.
I know Im a model because:
1. Its Monday morning, and Im wearing a gold
tutu, a gold jacket, gold ballet pumps and
gold earrings. My ace is painted gold, and a
long piece o gold wire has been wrapped
around my head. This is not how I normally
dress on Mondays.
2. I have a bodyguard. The earrings cost so much
Im not allowed to go to the toilet without alarge man checking my earlobes aterwards to
make sure I havent accidentally fushed them.
3. I havent been allowed to smile or two hours.
4. Every time I take a bite o doughnut to keep
my strength up everybody breathes in sharply
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as i Ive just bent down and given the foor
a quick lick.
5. Theres a large camera pointing at my ace, and
the man behind it keeps saying, Oi, model,
and clicking his ngers at me.
There are other clues Im pouting slightly, and making
tiny movements every couple o seconds like a robot
but theyre not necessarily conclusive. Thats exactly
how my ather dances when a car advert comes on TV.
Anyway, the nal reason I know Im a model is:
6. I have become a creature o grace, elegance
and style.
In act, you could say Ive really grown up since you
last saw me.Developed. Blossomed.
Not literally. Im exactly the same size and shape
as I was six months ago, and six months beore that.
As ar as womanly curves go, much like the netball
captain at school, puberty is making no bones aboutpicking me last.
No, Im talking metaphorically. I simply woke up
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one day, and BAM: ashion and I were at one with
each other. Working together, helping each other. Just
like the crocodile and the little Egyptian plover bird
that climbs into its mouth to pick bits o meat out o
its teeth. Except obviously in a much more glamorous
and less unhygienic way.
And Im going to be totally honest with you: its
changed me. The geek is gone, and in her place is
somebody glamorous. Popular. Cool.
A brand-new Harriet Manners.
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2Anyway. The really great thing about being totally
synergised with the ashion world is that it makes
shoots very smooth and ocused.
Right, Aiden the photographer says, what are
we thinking, model?
(You see what I mean? What are we thinking:
ashion and I are basically sharing a brain.)
Were thinking mysterious, I tell him. Were
thinking enigmatic. Were thinking unathomable.
And why are we thinking that?
Because it says so on the side o the perume box.
Exactly. Im thinking Garbo and Grable, Hepburnand Hayworth, Bacall and Bardot, but it might be best
i you think reality TV show contestant and do the
opposite.
Got it, I say, shiting slightly in my position on
the foor and moving my oot so that the sole is pointingtowards me. Then I lean towards it graceully.Mysterious.
I grab the corner o my jacket and lit it slightly, like a
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butterfy wing, angling my ace downwards. Enigmatic.
Finally, I arch my back and poke out an arm so Im
staring at the crease o my inner elbow. Unathomable.
Got it. Aiden looks up rom the camera. Model,
Yuka Ito was right. These are some very strange shapes
youre pulling, but it works. Very edgy. Very high
ashion.
What did I tell you? Me and ashion: I walk in and
out o its mouth and it doesnt even try to eat me
any more.
Now point your elbow in the other direction or
me. The photographer crouches down, adjusts the
camera shutter and then looks back up again. Towards
the camera.
Sugar cookies.
You know, I say without moving, enigmatic,
mysterious, unathomable. Theyre tautological. Yuka
could save a lot o room on the box by just pickingone.
Just move your arm.
Umm, has she considered bafing? Its rom an
old word used to describe a wind that bueted sailors
rom all directions. Its sort o appropriate or aperume, dont you think?
Aiden pinches the bridge o his nose with his
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ngers. Right. How about you show me the bottom
o the shoe? We should try to get the contrasting
sole in the shot.
I clear my throat, mind starting to race. Erm but
what about Saudi Arabia, China and Thailand? Its
considered culturally impolite to show the bottom o
your eet there I look around the room in a blind
panic. We dont want to risk alienating them, do we?
I sweep my arm out in a wide, persuasive gesture.
And something on my sleeve catches Aidens eye.
Oh no. No no no.
Whats that? he says, standing up and walking
over to where Im now scrabbling to get o the foor
but my eet are caught in the enormous tutu. The
photographer grabs my arm and peels a tiny gold sticker
rom the inside o my jacket elbow. Whats this?
Hmm? I say, swallowing and straining to make
my eyes as round as I physically can.Aiden peers at the sticker. F = M x A? he reads
slowly. Then he pulls three more rom inside the lining o
the jacket. V = I x R? Ek = x M x V2? W = M x G?
Beore I can move he grabs the shoe rom my oot,
turns it over and pulls a sticker rom the heel. Thenhe pulls one rom my inside elbow and our rom the
inside olds o the tutu netting.
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He blinks at the stickers a couple o times while I
stare at the foor and try to look as small as humanly
possible. Harriet, he says in a slow and incredulous
voice. Harriet Manners, are you studying maths in
the middle o my ashion shoot?
I shake my head and look at the air behind the
photographers let ear. You know the crocodile and
the bird? I think one o us is about to get eaten.
No, I answer in my littlest voice. Because a) Its
physics, and b) Ive been doing it all the way through.
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3OK, so I mayhave stretched the truth a tiny bit.
Or you know: a lot.
I havent changed. In act, Im even more o a geek
than I used to be because:
a) the grey matter in my brain is still developing
extra connections on a daily basis
b) I know even more acts than I did beore
c) Im just coming to the end o exams, which
means my short-term cognitive abilities are on
overdrive.
Im also not graceul, elegant or stylish, but I guess
youve already worked that out or yoursel.
Unbelievable, Aiden mutters, clicking through
the images as I slip behind a curtain at the back o
the room to get changed into my school uniorm.Im so sorry, Mr Thomas, I call out. I honestly
didnt mean to disrespect you and the crocodi erm,
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ashion industry. Did you get OK photos?
Thats not the point. Do you know how many
other models wanted this job?
Yes. Last time I was at Innity Models, two o 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.
Im sorry, its just its my nal GCSE today, I try to
explain as I tug o the massive tutu and smack an
elbow painully against the wall. At 2pm, the British
education system is going to decide whether I have any
chance o ever becoming an award-winning physicist.
My entire uture 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.
Theres silence while I hop in and out o the changing
room with my jumper over my ace and my arms
waving in the air like manic bunny ears.Hmm, Aiden agrees still clicking through images.
Youre clearly a genius destined or a Nobel Prize.
GCSE physics is not about literalspatial awareness,
I pu, clutching blindly at my head and simultaneously
smashing my knee against the wall. Its conceptualspatial awareness. Two very dierent things.
Which is lucky, because the wire on my head now
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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
Mysel From A Curtain Ring.
Its 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. Youve 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 mysel ree rom the wire
at the cost o quite a ew hairs, a scratch on my
cheek, a curtain ring and hal a school uniorm. How
slow?An hour, Aiden says.
And just like that both my Get To School On
Time Plan and entire lie trajectory fy straight out the
window.
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4This is so incredibly typical.
The one time my dad isnt at the back o a photo
shoot, trying to liven things up a bit by stealing bits
o mannequin and pretending he has three arms and
our legs, is the one time I really need him here.
But Dads at a job interview and I now have less
than ty minutes to get to a destination over an hour
away.
As the taxi driver points out cheerully ater I clamber
into the back and beg him to hurry: I can only go as
ast as the trac, Goldilocks. Im part o it, aint I?
Which I would probably look at as a kind o poignantuniversal truth i I wasnt preoccupied by trying to make
mysel as light as possible, in the hope that the decreased
weight would allow the car to accelerate aster.
And also with correcting his grammar.
Theres nothing else I can do. Thanks to the lawso physics and irony the actors dictating how ast
I get to my exam apparently do not include a) crying,
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b) hyperventilating or c) repeating sugar cookies until
the taxi driver shuts the internal window and ficks
the switch that stops him being able to hear me.
So I may as well use the remaining time constructively
to update you on whats been happening in the past
six months.
Heres a brie synopsis:
1. Ive become even less popular. Geek + Model
= a whole new set o grati on your belongings.
2. Im trying to cry less about it. We each expel
an average o 121 litres o tears in a lietime,
and I cant aord to dry up beore I even hit
sixth orm.
3. My dad is still out o work, and Annabel is
still working as a lawyer. This is worth noting,because my stepmother is now seven months
pregnant, and Dad is denitely not.
4. Apparently the average person eats a ton o
ood a year: the weight o a ully grownelephant. Annabel is doing her best to single-
handedly challenge this statistic. She is huge.
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5. My best riend, Nat, has turned sixteen, and I
have not. This means that Nat can now legally
play pinball in Georgia, USA ater 11pm and
fy a plane solo in the UK, and I cannot.
6. I have modelled twice or Baylee, gone on
a ew go-sees (when not spending time
productively locked in a cleaning cupboard)
and thats it.
7. Ive nally reached the painul conclusion that
my hair is not strawberry blonde.
8. Its ginger.
And thats it. Everything else has stayed exactly the
same.
My stalker, Toby, still orbits me like some kind oslightly snotty moon and my nemesis, Alexa, still
inexplicably hates me.
My agent, Wilbur, still makes up words whenever
he eels like it, and the ashion designer, Yuka Ito, is
still totally terriying.My dog, Hugo, is still ond o sampling anything
sticky he spots on the pavement and I still keep my
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textbooks lined up in alphabetical, chromatic and
subject order.
Because thats how real lie is: people and situations
and dogs dont change that oten, even when you
have written verycareul plans and tried to orce them
to.
And i I could leave my list there, I would. Because
its a nice list, isnt it? A lovely, positive list that looks
orward to an entire summer with Nat, a brand-new
grati-less satchel next term, and quite soon the
legal ability to fy planes on my own whenever I eel
like it.
But I cant leave it there, because one more thing
happened. And or a little while, anyway it made
all the other points seem less important:
9. Lion Boy dumped me.
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