Model Misfit. Holly Smale

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      at needs somebody’s help, that’s for sure.

      I can barely open the door to her room, and – when I finally do – I realise it’s because every single piece of clothing she owns is on the floor. It looks like our garden after a mole has been through it, except that instead of mounds of soil there are about fifteen hills of shoes and dresses and jumpers and handbags and scarves and vest tops and leggings, erupting from the carpet.

      Nat’s already crouched in the middle of her bed, holding a box of tampons.

      “Hop up here,” she says as I squeeze my way in, pointing at a spot on the bed with her foot.

      I carefully clamber over a pile of skirts. “What on earth are you doing?”

      Nat holds up a tampon with a grim face. “This.” She pulls the cotton wool out of the applicator and rams a pink lipstick in. “I reckon I should be able to get five in a box, and quite a few eyeliners and lipglosses as long as they’re short ones.” Then she holds up a small conditioner bottle. “This is foundation.” She pulls out a tiny tub of moisturiser. “This is cream blush.” Finally, she pulls out a ridiculously thick copy of Harper’s Bazaar. “I need you to cut a hole in the middle of all the pages so I’ve got somewhere to put my eyeshadows and mascara.”

      I stare at her in awe and then take the magazine off her.

      “You could put a pair of strappy high heels inside a tissue box, with tissues on top? And maybe little sachets of perfume inside sanitary towels?”

      Nat grins at me and holds up her hand. “Harriet Manners, what would I do without you?”

      I high-five her. “Be slightly shorter and less fragrant, I’d imagine.” Then I pick up the scissors and start neatly cutting through a few pages of a beautiful model with blonde waves down to her waist.

      After several hours of industrious productivity, during which I tell Nat all about the awesome trip to Japan that I won’t be going on, I say, “Seriously, Nat, what am I going to do without you? At least you’ll be in France. I’m going to be stuck here on my own.”

      “And Toby. Don’t forget Toby.” Nat wrinkles her nose at me so I hit her with the magazine. I said small doses. “I’ve got it worse. I’m staying on a farm. An actual working farm with animals in it and stuff. What’s the prison on that island called?”

      “Alcatraz?”

      “Yeah. I’d rather have been sent there. At least I could have jumped out and swum to the shops in San Francisco. I’m going down in style though.” She holds up a lipstick. “I’m going to look like one of the women who works behind a beauty counter in John Lewis by the time I’m finished.”

      “Are you going to milk cows and make butter and collect eggs?”

      “I most certainly am not.” Nat shudders. “You realise eggs come out of chicken’s butts, right?”

      “They don’t, Nat,” I laugh, cutting through another piece of paper. “They’re actually called cloacas, and all birds and amphibians and reptiles have them. For joint reproductive and digestive purposes.”

      “Ew. That’s actually more gross.” Nat sits on the bed next to me, looking miserable. “Oh, God, Harriet. This summer is a total disaster. I bet there’s going to be some disgusting boy on the farm with a little wispy moustache and a habit of accidentally walking into my bedroom while I’m getting changed.”

      I giggle. “And every time you take a shower he’ll lurk outside so when you come out in a towel he’s right there.”

      “Yeah,” Nat says, starting to laugh. “And he’ll ask for the salt at the dinner table with, like, meaning.”

      “And every ten minutes he’ll offer to give you a massage with olive oil he stole from the kitchen.”

      “I bet he wears shiny green lycra cycling shorts around the house and his T-shirts are too short.” We’re both giggling uncontrollably now, and rolling around on the bed making vomiting sounds.

      “I’m going to have to run away,” Nat says decisively. “I’m going to steal a pig and ride it into Paris.”

      My phone beeps and I grab it out of my pocket. “Pigs can trot at up to eleven miles per hour at top speed,” I say, clicking on a message from an unknown number. “It’s definitely faster than walking.”

      “Or a tractor. I can’t drive but I reckon if you’re in a tractor everything else gets out of the way for you. Do you think a tractor has gears, like a car …”

      Nat continues chattering but I can’t really hear her any more.

      The human brain consists of eighty per cent water, and for the first time in my life that’s exactly what mine feels like: as if it’s swishing and swirling around inside my head. My ears fill with the roaring sound you get when you sit at the bottom of a swimming pool.

      Because I’ve just received this:

       Hope you smashed your final exam. Would love to talk. Thinking of you. Nick x