All That Glitters (27 page)

But I can’t.

Don’t be desperate, Harriet.

“Um.” I sit down as airily as I can. “I was actually in Morocco for a few days, filming a television advertisement for Jacques Levaire.”

Television advertisement?

Why couldn’t I say
TV ad
? I sound like somebody who has never seen a telly before.

A few of my classmates start dragging their seats closer to me. “Morocco?” “You’re really going to be on telly? No way!” “When does it come out?” “Did you get paid loads?” “What was it like?” “I bet you hung out with
loads
of stars, right?”

They’re all talking at once, which makes it really hard to focus. It’s normally me interrogating people relentlessly, not the other way round.

I’m not really trained for this.

“
Loads
of stars,” I agree anxiously. “I’ve actually never seen so many stars in my entire life. Some of them were
huge.
It was pretty cool
.
”

A few more people gravitate towards my desk.

“Which ones were they?” “Would we know them?” “I bet Harry was there, wasn’t he?” “Do you have
lots
of celeb mates?” “Do you know any really hot models?”

As fast as I can, I count them up on my fingers.

Rin, obviously. Poppy from my flatshare in Tokyo. Fleur and Kenderall from New York. Shola and Rose in Moscow. The two girls who locked me in a cupboard last year just before my audition for
Hamlet
. An entire room full of models backstage at a fashion show who said I looked like an egg.

“Maybe eight or nine?” I say, still staring at my hand. “Plus twenty or so Russian supermodels in their underwear.”

“Oh
sweet mother of all that is good and holy
,” Eric whimpers, staring at the sky and putting his hands together. “
Thank you,
Universe.”

“Everybody!” Miss Hammond calls sweetly, clapping her hands. “Everybody! We’re in the middle of taking the register, remember! Let’s do this thing
together
!”

Everybody ignores her and inches a little closer to me instead. I stare at them in amazement.

Is this … Is this
still
working?

“What was Tokyo like?” “Did you really live in a penthouse in
Manhattan
?” “Is it true you were spotted on a school trip?” “Are there
loads
of glam parties?”

I gawp at the chaos.

“There are parties pretty much every night, I reckon,” I tell them. “Poppy went to all of them.”

“
Poppy?
As in Poppy Page? Oh my God – she’s
huge.
” “You are so
lucky
.” “Is there champagne?” “Is it true that Yuka Ito has named a handbag after you?”

“If she has I don’t want to know what it’s called,” I admit doubtfully. “The last word Yuka had for me was
pus-filled.
”

To my total astonishment, there’s a loud burst of laughter.

Real, genuine laughter.

And – with a
whoosh
– a warm rush of happiness spreads over me: from my cheeks down into my chest and straight into my arms until I feel like light is about to shoot out of my fingertips, like Beast just after his enchantment was broken.

I sit for a few blissful seconds, basking in the warm glow of friendly faces. It feels as if I’m bathed in sunshine, steeped in rainbows, cuddled by a billion furry teddies, covered all over in sparkle and—

A copy of
Vogue
is pulled out of a bag and opened on the desk in front of me.

“Do you know
him
? Because if you do, I officially want to climb into your skin so I can be you
forever.
”

And my happiness rushes straight back out again.

he glittering girl in the photo is back again.

Except this time, she’s not sitting in a lake. She’s standing in the middle of a huge sumo stage with a sea of bright lights behind her.

Tiny white lights are flashing from the cameras in the audience, yellow lights are hanging in spots above her head and little cream orbs are reflected from the wooden floor under her bare feet.

Her head is tilted back, her eyes are painted dark and her bright red hair has been pulled into a tight bun. Her dress is long and dark blue, with slits up the sides and little holes cut in the bottom so that the lights shine through like stars.

It’s a different kind of sparkling this time – harder, brighter, angrier – but it’s still there: shot through the photo like fine gold thread woven through dense fabric.

At the bottom of the page is a glass bottle shaped like a light bulb, lit internally from the bottom, and the large silver word:

And below it are the words

It’s a beautiful photo, a beautiful dress and it’s a two-page spread in
Vogue
. But, frankly, I couldn’t care less.

Because next to the girl is a boy.

He’s tall and dark: all angles and points. Hips, cheekbones, eyes are slanted in parallel directions like identical flicks of the same God-like pen. His hand is resting gently on her waist, his head is lowered, and his nose is centimetres from the nape of her neck. As if nobody else is watching and it’s just the two of them.

As if he’s trying to tell her something.

According to my science books, the atoms that make up human bodies consist of almost entirely empty space. If you took it all out you could compress each of us into a cube 1/500th of a centimetre across.

Staring at the boy in the photo, it suddenly feels like that’s what somebody’s trying to do to me too.

I wasn’t prepared to see him again.

At least, not like this.

Nick.

Tokyo – June (4 months ago)

“Exactly how long do we have?”

“An hour, darling,” Bunty said, inexplicably looking at the sun even though she had a watch on. “Or sixty-five minutes max, if I pack the lining of my clothes with coins and try to break the airport metal detector. Let’s just say it won’t be my first attempt.”

I looked at Nick doubtfully as my maverick grandmother started rummaging through her multicoloured woven handbag.

His skin was darker than normal – deepened by the sun – and his hair was still all ruffled from where we’d kissed each other for twenty straight minutes, sitting on the pavement by an enormous zebra crossing in Shibuya.

“Make that seventy,” Bunty added triumphantly, pulling out a large bottle of shampoo. “Seventy-five minutes if I can sneak in the bottle opener.”

“That still isn’t much time,” I said anxiously, peering into my satchel. “We don’t have a proper map. Or a guide. I’ve lost my guidebook and—”

“It’s long enough,” Lion Boy laughed, putting his arm round me so I was tucked into the ridge of his collarbone. “And you don’t need one any more. You’ve got me.”

A shock of electricity ran all the way from the back of my shoulders up my neck and into my head, as if I’d accidentally covered myself in warm water and stuck my finger in a socket.

Except in a beautiful kind of way.

I did.
I had him.

“So what do you want to do?” he continued, kissing the top of my head. “For the next seventy-five minutes I am utterly at your disposal.”

“Umm.”

I pulled out my To Do list and stared at it blankly, brain now pleasantly fried. What did one do with just seventy-five minutes left in Tokyo?

We could go to the robot restaurant, and watch giant mechazoid robots fight dinosaurs to the bitter death. We could try to find a (very short) tea ceremony, or wander through a Zen garden hand in hand, or visit the Bunny Cafe (like a Cat Cafe but better, because – obviously – no cats).

We could attempt an hour of karaoke, or eat an hour’s worth of sushi, or visit the Shitamachi Museum to look at miniature reconstructions of buildings from the late Meiji period.

There were still so many things left in Tokyo I had always wanted to do. So many things I still wanted to cross off my list.

But – for the first time ever – none of them seemed to matter much any more.

Because it wasn’t just about me.

“You used to live here, right?” I said, looking up at him. “In Tokyo?”

“I did,” Nick grinned. “When I was eleven my parents split up and I came here with my mum and spent three somewhat confusing years not understanding anyone.”

“Then I want to see your favourite bit.” I put my list back in my bag and flicked a switch that magically turned my watch into a stopwatch. “Show me the bit of Tokyo you love the most.”

“Are you sure?” he frowned. “That list isn’t going to tick off itself.”

I loved that Lion Boy knew how much I needed to tick things off, and how important my lists were to me.

But I loved him more than any of them.

“I’m sure,” I said, clicking on the timer button. “You have 4,500 seconds, Nicholas Hidaka. Think you can manage it?”

He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Oh,” he said. “I think I probably can.”

“Ready?”

“Never readier.”

“Steady?”

He laughed. “In my entire life, Harriet Manners, I have literally never been steadier. Especially by comparison.”

“Show-off.” I stuck my tongue out at him: I hadn’t fallen over in
hours.
“Now … GO.”