Read Online Model Misfit by Holly Smale - Free Book Online

shall make my dramatic exit. I’ve got this new plate with a face on it and Mum’s made spaghetti so I’m eager to get home while it’s still hot and malleable enough to form realistic hair.”
    Then Toby promptly waves and scoots back out of the door. We all try to pretend that we can’t see him immediately crouch down behind the hedge right outside.
    “I didn’t know you were coming.” I look at my parents with round eyes. Does nobody tell me
anything
these days?
    “Well, if somebody needs to take you abroad it might as well be somebody who spends most of her time there, right?”
    I stare at her, then I stare at my parents, and then I stare at my grandmother again.
What?
    “Apparently Tokyo is the place to be this summer,” she grins. “I think we should check it out, don’t you?”
    I suddenly don’t care that I’ve probably met my nomadic grandmother a handful of times in my entire life. I don’t care that her hair is sort of baby pink, and I don’t care that she currently has what looks like a twig stuck in it.
    I don’t even care that the last time I saw her we had a forty-five-minute conversation about the benefits of wiping your bottom with your hand instead of a piece of toilet paper to ‘save the rainforest’.
    “Oh my God, I
love
you!” I yell, throwing myself around her neck. “Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!”
    “Now,
that’s
the greeting I was looking for.”
    Then I lob myself at Dad, and then – a little bit more carefully, in case I squish my sibling – at Annabel. “Thank you! Thank you thank you! You’ve
saved
my summer! Totally saved it!”
    Dad laughs. “How could we argue with a Powerpoint presentation of such quality, Harriet? We’re not
monsters.
” He puts his hand over his mouth. “
She’s
a monster,” he pretends to whisper, pointing at Annabel. “But
I’m
not.”
    “Go upstairs and get your things packed for tomorrow, Harriet,” Annabel says calmly, ignoring Dad. “I imagine your grandmother will want to help you write a brand-new Summer of Fun Flow Chart.”
    “What’s a flow chart?” my grandmother asks. “Does it rank rivers?”
    Good Lord. I’m going to have to start training her immediately. “We have new plans to make!” I shout, running up the stairs. “Itineraries! Schedules! Lists! Lists and lists and lists and—”
    “Look, Harriet,” my grandmother says as she follows behind me, pointing at the garden. “A squirrel!”
    “Make sure she has everything she needs,” Annabel calls after us.
    “My darling daughter,” Bunty calls down the stairs. “That’s the beauty of foreign travel. You don’t need anything but yourself.”
    “And a passport, Mum,” I hear Annabel say tiredly. “And tickets. And a visa. And clean clothes and quite a few changes of underwear.”
    Uh-huh.
    If you thought you saw a marked family resemblance between my maverick grandmother and my maverick father, you would be wrong.
    Bunty isn’t Dad’s mum.
    She’s Annabel’s.

y entire summer has just turned around.
    And, as I start jubilantly packing all the important things into a suitcase – paper, dictionaries, pens, etc – I suddenly remember that I wrote Nick’s email address on an old bit of paper and tucked it into an ancient copy of
Anne of Green Gables
months and months ago.
Ha.
I am so much more cunning and better organised with contact details than Nat gives me credit for.
    As
if
I’d let go of Nick that easily.
    Mentally high-fiving myself, I think about it carefully and then write the following email on my phone:
    Dear Nick,
    Got your message. Would love to talk. I’ve been thinking about you lots! Of course I have! Am going to Japan for a few weeks for a modelling job but taking my phone with me. Send me another message or ring me? Or ask Wilbur and he can give you my new address?
    I’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH. :)
    Harriet xxxx
    I look at it happily – he
definitely
can’t misread or misinterpret that in any way – and then press