All That Glitters (47 page)

I swallow a lump – even though I’m not entirely sure they’re using the word
fact
accurately and we may have to discuss it. Then I pick up a photo Annabel has propped against a mug on my desk.

It’s of a little brown monkey, sitting on the stump of a tree with the Atlas Mountains behind him.

Because here’s the final fact of my own that I didn’t tell you:

Fact 4

The last thing Annabel and I did before we left Morocco was ask Ali to take Richard (monkey, not Dad) to a monkey sanctuary a hundred miles away.

We bought him and set him free.

Then we paid for the snakes and did the same to them.

“Harriet?” Annabel calls up the stairs. “Are you coming down? The pizza’s getting cold.”

I nod and put the photo down. “One minute!”

There’s just one thing left I have to do.

I make a space in between all the books on my bed.

Then I sit down and pull the box out of my bag.

Tokyo – June (4 months ago)

“You could stay, you know. There are multiple octopuses in Tokyo who haven’t attacked you yet, Manners. You’re taking so much away from so many.”

I laughed. “Did you know that an anxious octopus will sometimes literally
eat
itself, Nick? I don’t think it’s fair to upset any more of them: it could get messy.”

Then I glanced over his shoulder at Narita airport.

Bunty was doing some kind of juggling act for a security guard, but his patience was clearly running thin and the last call for our flight back to London had already been made.

“I have to go,” I said, wrapping my arms round his waist and looking up. “I’m sorry.”

Nick looked down with his shortened hair all ruffled and his brown eyes narrowed.

“OK. Hold out your hand.” I obediently held it out, and he slotted his fingers between mine. “What kind of table joint is this, again?”

With a flash, I suddenly remembered the first time we ever met. I was so anxious: hiding under a table at The Clothes Show, trying – as always – to escape from the real world.

Nick had been so kind. So calm.

He had understood me from the beginning.

I was just looking for unusual table joints. I thought this particular table looked very … solid. In terms of construction. And I thought I’d have a closer look. You know. From … underneath.

I looked up at my boy on the Tokyo pavement and tried to memorise every detail before I left. Every black eyelash, every dark curl: the little line in the corner of his mouth, the tiny mole on his cheek, the sharpness of his teeth.

I tried to tuck away every single piece of him somewhere safe, where I could never lose it.

“Finger joints?” I asked with a small smile.

“They’re dovetail,” Nick said: just like the first time. He curled his fingers round mine until they were locked together and grinned the smile that went all the way round and split me and my entire world in half. “Goodbye, Harriet Manners.”

Then he leant down and kissed me until it felt like we were touching in space.

Welded permanently.

I wait for a few seconds with my eyes shut and my hand on the box, and I watch Nick’s beautiful face flicker, like a bright light on a wall. It flickers and flickers, fading a little every time.

When I finally open my eyes, it’s gone.

“Goodbye, Nicholas Hidaka,” I say gently.

Then I smile and put the box on the floor.

I take a deep breath.

And – with all the strength I have left – I push the past under my bed.

low-worms aren’t worms, they’re beetles.

Koala bears aren’t bears – they’re marsupials – and Bombay duck is made out of dry fish. Black-eyed peas are beans, Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea.

What I’m trying to say is: things aren’t always what you think they are. You can look at something for a long, long time and still not see it properly at all.

I guess that includes me.

“Harriet?” Annabel says as I get to the bottom of the stairs. The living room has abruptly emptied, and the lights in the house have all gone off. “Did you do everything you needed to do?”

She gives me a steady look, and I know she knows.

About everything.

I’ve no idea
how
– magic, possibly, or hidden cameras – but she’s staring at my face as if everything I have ever thought or will ever think is written there in ink.

I don’t envy her: it can’t be very easy reading.

“Yes,” I nod. “Where is everybody?”

“In the garden, waiting for you.” She pauses for a few seconds. “Harriet, I know about your list.”

Of course she does. “How?”

“You left it open on your laptop just before we left for Morocco. I saw it when I was packing the suitcases.”

I can feel a flush starting on my cheeks.

How embarrassing. It wasn’t even grammatically
correct
.

“Harriet,” Annabel says, sitting on the bottom stair and patting the bit next to her, “you’re a silly billy, you know that?”

OK: that’s, like, the third time I’ve been called that recently. Do I have another Post-it stuck on my back I’m not aware of? “I do know that, yes,” I say, sitting down. “People keep telling me.”

Annabel laughs.

“Harriet, you go to school even when it’s hard there for you. You model, even though it scares you. Your first thought on making money was not to spend it on yourself, but to help others. You left Nat alone to be with her boyfriend when you needed her, you invited the world and its wife to your party so they didn’t feel left out. You cleaned the house every time your father messed it up so I wouldn’t have to do it, and you didn’t even mention it.”

I open my mouth and then close it again.

Seriously. Somewhere in this house: cameras.

“I didn’t realise until you were too busy today to do it,” Annabel explains with a little smile. “Your father genuinely thinks he’s the eponymous Shoemaker, and elves are coming in through the windows and doing it all for him.”

“Oh.” I shrug. Dad’s mind must be a glorious place to live. “Well, you were tired. It’s no biggy.”

“I was, and it is.” Annabel smiles again. “I’m not finished. You have a little following of fans because you remembered what it was like to be young and new, and you defend people even when they have been unkind to you.”

I open my mouth again.

Oh my God: she’s got them at school
too
? Is
nothing
private any more?

“What I’m saying, Harriet, is you
are
confident. You
are
brave. You have your own style, and you have always inspired everyone around you. And you know exactly who you are and stick to it when it’s hard.”

I can feel my cheeks getting red. She’s totally memorised every line of my list and watched me working my way through it, badly.

“I do try too hard though. At literally everything.”

“You really do.” Annabel’s mouth twitches. “It’s one of my favourite things about you.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes while I unsuccessfully try to swallow another lump in my throat. It’s kind of annoying, sometimes: having a parent who knows everything about you.

I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Finally, Annabel stands and brushes her pinstripe suit down. “We’ve got a little something waiting for you in the garden. Coming?”

I nod. Then, side by side, my stepmother and I walk down the dark hallway with all the lights switched off, into a dark kitchen with the curtains inexplicably closed.

I’m just about to ask why the house has turned into the set of a horror film when my phone beeps.

I grin with happiness and put my phone back in my cardi pocket. Then – with a sudden wave of gratitude so strong I nearly have to sit back down again – I impulsively grab my stepmother’s hand.

“Thank you, Annabel. For being so kind to me.”

She shakes her head.

“If people are kind to you, Harriet, it’s because you’re kind to them. If people are there for you, it’s because you are there for them.” She opens the kitchen door and points into the dark. “And if you don’t need a list to make you a star, it’s because you’ve always been one.”

utside are little patches of light.

They’re waving around in the air with loud crackling sounds, spelling out huge letters with trailing lines of glitter.