All That Glitters (17 page)

“Umm.” I’ve never had to explain the concept of education before. “Knowledge. Learning. Books and my future and so on.”

“Ri-iiiiight. And that can’t be cancelled?”

I haven’t actually met Stephanie before, but I suddenly remember that Wilbur isn’t exactly a fan, to say the least.

“Not really, because … you know. It’s
school
.”

“That’s terribly inconvenient. Perhaps we should consider phasing it out. You know, gradually doing less of it.” There are a few loud taps on a keyboard. “Yah, no, yah. I’ll work something out. In the meantime, how does first thing tomorrow sound?”

“Sorry, sound for what?”

“Three days in Marrakech. Lovely job for Levaire, just come through today.”

We each blink an average of 6.25 million times a year, but if I’m not careful this phone call is going to use up the rest of my year’s rations and I’ll have to walk round until Christmas with my eyes shut.

“Levaire? As in Jacques Levaire, the jeweller?” Even
I’ve
heard of him. Nat’s unsuccessfully had a Levaire necklace on her Christmas list ever since she realised Santa was actually her mother. “Marrakech as in …
Marrakech
?”

“Yah, darling. Spain, Europe. Vah hot. Sand and so forth.”

“Morocco,” I say automatically. “North Africa.” I’m starting to wonder if Stephanie needs me to send her a world map.

“Exactly, darling. That’s what I said.”

I stare at my phone.

An hour ago, I assumed my fashion career was completely done. Now my face is all over town and I’m being invited to
Africa
to shoot for
Jacques Levaire.

With an abrupt lurch, my heart does a familiar, excited humpback whale leap: into the sky, twisting around.

I’d
love
to go to Morocco.

I know quite a lot about it already: it’s the westernmost country in the Arab world, and some say Hercules himself forced apart Europe and Africa with his bare hands, thus forming the Straits of Gibraltar. It’s also considered by many as one of the most dramatic, exotic and compelling destinations there is, and I’ve studied all the guidebooks already.

Just – you know – in case.

It would mean modelling again, and I’ve actually kind of missed it.

It would be an adventure.

Plus, most importantly, it’ll give me something to do other than sitting on my doorstep, staring at the sky and
waiting.

“I’ll—” I start, then stop.

The whale crashes back into the water again with an enormous splash.

I can’t
keep
using modelling to run away, can I? I have polynomials and factor/remainder theorem to learn at school tomorrow.

My parents will go
mad.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve just discovered I don’t really like seeing my face on posters very much. It gives me anxiety attacks on the floors of shopping malls.

But …
Morocco.

“Stephanie, may I have a couple of minutes to think about it?”

“Absolutely. And Hannah, dahling?”

“It’s Harriet.”

“Yah. This one is fifteen.”

I blink a few more times. Fifteen years? Fifteen carrots? Fifteen bottles, hanging on the wall?

“Pounds?” That’s not a
huge
amount of money, but I’m really not super experienced, I haven’t worked in a month, the flights must cost quite a lot and then there’s hotels to think about and …

“Fifteen grand, darling. Think about it.”

And the phone goes dead.

Stephanie may be gone – although probably not to the Other Side just yet – but I’m still staring at the phone.

Fifteen
thousand
pounds
?
Somebody wants to give me fifteen
thousand
pounds for something I’d happily do for free?

That is an
awful
lot of money.

Not just for a sixteen-year-old, either. It’s three years’ income for a single man in possession of a good fortune, according to
Pride and Prejudice.
It’s 911 times what Jo March sold her hair for in
Little Women
and nearly two months of James Bond’s salary. It’s – perhaps slightly more relevantly – one and a half whole years at Cambridge University.

My head is starting to spin; my hands are shaking.

So I take an enormous breath and decide to ring the only person left in the world who might actually have some answers.

And that is really saying something.

Wilbur.

t takes eighteen attempts to finally reach him, but I just keep staunchly going until I do.

Frankly, I have never played it cool in my entire life.

I don’t think now is the time to start.

“Squirrel-hips!” he squeaks finally. “Hold your Shetland ponies, this boy has written the wrong name on my pumpkin-spiced latte.” Wilbur’s voice gets a little more distant. “It’s with a
bur
, not an
iam
. Yes, like the pig in
Charlotte’s Web
….
Excuse
me?”

“My little sugar-lump,” he says, coming back to the phone. “I don’t care how adorable this American barista is, if he oinks at me again I
will
report him to the RSPCA.”

It suddenly feels like there’s a piece of apple lodged in my throat. I hadn’t realised when Wilbur left England for a new fashion job in New York quite how big the hole he’d left in my life would be.

“Wilbur, what outfit are you wearing?” I really need to visualise him. “At this precise moment, what have you got on?”

He takes this very creepy question completely in his stride. “A fake fur panda poncho with sticky-up ears and fluoro pink trousers that just
scream
I’m All That And A Bag of Kale Chips, darling. I look fabulous
.
Everybody wants to be me, or date me, or dehydrate me and keep me
forever.
Like a fig or maybe a raisin
.
”

I smile in satisfaction. I could be in New York right now, trying hard not to cuddle him like a massive rainbow kitten.

“So what’s cookin’, my little pookin’? Did you get my text?”

“Umm. Yes.” I swallow and to my horror, there’s a slight wobble in my voice. “That’s actually why I’m ringing. Wilbur, I don’t understand. What’s happening? Why is my face everywhere? I thought Yuka’s campaign wasn’t going ahead any more.”

Wilbur snorts loudly with laughter.

“Oh,
dilly
-dandelion,” he giggles. “That was
never
going to happen. Yuka obviously took Baylee to court immediately, like the rabid Rottweiler of fashion she is. After she won she decided to go
hugeungous
with her new label to make a point.
Shoe-fungous, moo-gungous, boo-gungous
.”

One day – when we’ve got less to discuss – I’m going to ask Wilbur why he doesn’t just say
big
.

“But why with me?”

“I thought that was obvious, monster-munch. You’ve always been her favourite ginger-frog. So much love in the room.”

Over the course of my modelling career, Yuka Ito has shouted at me, turned lights off and on over my head, locked me in glass boxes, thrown me into cold water, surrounded me with dead things and fired me. She must put models she’s
not
fond of in the oven and then eat them.

“But what about the gold-painted photo?” I ask in confusion. “That was for Baylee, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed it was,” Wilbur laughs. “Yuka poached you off them too: I think this is their way of fighting witch with fire. Oooh, that reminds me. She had a message for you and I’ll remember it just as soon as this caffeine hits my bloodstream. It’s a triple shot so it won’t take long.”

I can hear him blowing on his coffee 3,459 miles away: bright blue sky above him, yellow and orange leafy Central Park behind him, Empire State Building looming over. Brooklyn Bridge is suddenly so close I can almost see it.

I feel a homesick pang in my chest. Which is weird because I’m sitting right next to the house I actually live in.

“Boom,” Wilbur continues jubilantly. “She says:
done
.”

“
Done?
What does that mean?”

“Sugar-munch, if I understood what Yuka Ito was talking about I’d be the only person in the world and would have an entirely different and very lucrative career as a Yuka-whisperer.”

I frown. She probably means
done
, as in
cooked
: marinated and ready for frying, quite possibly.

And then it hits me.

Last December, I stood in Infinity Models with a spotlight over my head and told Yuka I wanted to model so that
things would change.

More specifically: me.

That’s what she’s done: she’s given me exactly what I asked for. It just didn’t happen according to the schedule I originally laid out for it, that’s all.

I’m starting to realise maybe nothing ever does.

“So …” I’m ripping at the skin around my fingernails with my teeth. “What happens next, Wilbur? What do I do?”

“Chipmunk,” he laughs. “I’m your fairy godmother, not your fortune cookie. Tell me, is Stephanie still wearing scrunchies without any kind of irony? She should
not
be allowed in fashion. The woman is single-handedly preventing velvet from coming back in again.”

It’s only now starting to hit me that I’ve never done this before without him and I’m not sure I know how to.

“Wilbur, if I take the job in Morocco, will you come with me? Please?”

“I’d love to, munchkin,” he sighs. “I am so over New York I could hurdle it in eight-inch heels. But fairy godmothers don’t go to the ball, as much as we might want to. We simply get you ready and send you on your way.”

I stare at the pavement, because maybe that’s the problem. “But what if I’m
not
ready?”

“Then don’t go,” Wilbur says more gently. “Fame, fortune, success: you can take them or leave them, baby-baby-panda. We’ve given you the fairytale. What you do with it now is up to you.”

ead still spinning, I say goodbye to Wilbur.

Then, slowly, I open the sweaty, crumpled photo I have scrunched in my hands.

I stare at the glittering girl in the lake.