model misfit by holly smale extract

7/29/2019 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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1

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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2

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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4

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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5

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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6

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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11

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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13

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.

model misfit by holly smale extract

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