Anyway,” I add as firmly as I can, “you should know I’m only fifteen.” Too young to go to jail, I want to add, but I don’t want to give him any ideas.
“Fifteen? Perfectomondo, my little Sugar-kitten. So much potential for free publicity.”
The blood drains from my cheeks. Free publicity? Oh, God, he’s going to use me as a warning to other underage wannabe hat vandals.
“Before you take me anywhere,” I say quickly, “I need to find my best friend. She’s not going to know where I’ve gone.”
He stops walking and swivels round with his spare hand on his hip.
“Mini-treetop, once I have a photo of you, you can go wherever the tiddlywinks you like.” And then he tinkles with laughter.
I freeze. “A photo?”
“Well, yes, my little Peach-melba. I could draw a picture, but Head Office thought that was ever so unfunny last time.” He giggles and pushes me away with a limp wrist. “Oh,” he adds casually. “I’m Wilbur, by the way. That’s bur not iam. From Infinity Models.”
My knees abruptly buckle, but Wilbur-not-iam keeps tugging as if I’m on wheels. Suddenly I know how Toby feels when he tries to do the high jump.
Infinity Models?
No.
No, no, no, no.
No no no no no no NONONONONO.
“Oh, it has just been a mare this morning,” Wilbur continues as if he’s not dragging me bodily across the floor.
“But w-w-why?” I finally managed to stutter.
“Oh, you know, total chaos. The Birmingham Clothes Show: highlight of the fashion year etcetera etcetera. Well, apart from London Fashion Week, obviously. And Milan. And New York. And Paris. Actually, it’s quite far down the list, but hey, it’s still a blast.”
I can’t really feel my mouth. “N-n-not why is it busy. Why would you want my photo?”
“Oh, Baby-baby Panda,” he says over his shoulder. “You’re, like, so tomorrow you’re next Wednesday. No, you’re the Thursday after. Do you know what I mean?”
I stare at him with my mouth slightly open. I think it’s safe to say that the answer to that question is no. “But—”
“And I am loving this look,” he interrupts, pointing at the football kit. “So new. So fresh. So unusual. Inspired.”
“My jeans had sick on them,” I blurt out in disbelief.
“My Jeans Had Sick On Them. I love it. Such an imagination! Darling-foot—” and here Wilbur pauses so that he can pull me through a particularly dense crowd of really angry-looking girls – “I think you might be about to make my career, my little Pot of Tigers.”
One of the girls behind me mutters in confusion: “Hey, she’s ginger.”
(She’s wrong, by the way: I’m not. I am strawberry blonde.)
“I don’t underst—”
“All will become clear shortly,” Wilbur reassures me. “Maybe. Maybe not, actually, but hey, clarity is so overrated.” He pushes me against the wall. “Now stand there and look gorgeous.”
What? I don’t even know how to start attempting that.
“But—” I say again.
Wilbur takes a Polaroid picture, shakes it and puts it on the table. “Now turn to the side?”
I stare at him, still frozen in shock. None of this is making sense. He tuts and gently pushes my shoulders round so I’m facing the other wall, and then takes another photo.
“Wilbur—” I turn to frantically search the crowd for Nat’s dark head, but I can’t see anything.
“Baby-pudding,” Wilbur interrupts, “you know you look just like a treefrog? Darling, you could climb up a tree with no help at all and I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest.”
I pause and stare at him with my mouth open. Did he just say I look like something with suckers on its feet? Then my mind clears. Focus, Harriet. For God’s sake, focus.
“I have to go,” I explain urgently as Wilbur twists me round and takes a final photo. “I have to get out of here. I have to—”
But I can see Nat heading straight towards us. And I know two things for certain:
First of all, because Wilbur knows I’m here. He just saw me drop to my knees and crawl away. Second, because the table cloth doesn’t quite reach the floor. And third, because there’s already somebody else under here.
“Hi,” the person under the table says, and then he offers me a piece of chewing gum.
There are times in my life when the synapses in my brain move quite fast. For example, during English exams I’ve normally completed the essay with plenty of time to doodle little relevant pictures in the margin in the hope that it gets me extra points. However, there are other times when those synapses don’t do anything at all. They just sit there in confused silence, shrugging at me.
This is one of them.
I stare at the chewing gum in shock and then blink at the boy who’s holding it. He’s so good-looking, it feels like my brain has collapsed and my skull is about to fold in on itself. Which is actually not as unpleasant a sensation as you might think.
“Well?” the boy says, leaning back against the wall and looking at me with his eyelids lowered. “Do you want the gum or not?”
He’s about my age and he looks like a dark lion. He has large black curls that point in every direction and slanted eyes and a wide mouth that curves up at the edges. He’s so beautiful that all I can hear in my head is a high-pitched white noise like a recently switched-off television.
It takes an interaction of seventy-two different muscles to produce human speech, and right now not a single one of them is working. I open and shut my mouth a few times, like a goldfish.
“I can see,” he continues in a lazy accent that doesn’t seem to be English, “that it’s an extremely important decision and you need to think about it carefully. So I’ll give you a few more seconds to weigh up the pros and cons.”
He has really sharp canine teeth, and when he says Fs, they catch on his bottom lip. There’s a mole
