Picture Perfect (16 page)

With a world population of 7.046 billion, that means that approximately 19,304,109 people are having birthdays today. All over the world, they’re celebrating.

In Russia and Hungary, they’re having their ears pulled.

In North Germany, flour is being poured on top of their heads.

In Canada, they’re having their noses greased with butter.

In Venezuela, faces are being plunged into cakes.

In Scotland, they’re being repeatedly smacked on the bottom.

And I’d still choose
any
of those nineteen million vaguely violent birthdays over spending the day sitting in my bedroom with a governess who makes me feel like an idiot on the wrong side of the world.

Doing
algebra
.

As quietly as I can, I let myself out of the house and walk swiftly to the train station with my chest aching.

I can’t think about it now. I only have five and a half hours of sixteenth birthday left.

I have to focus on making them special.

Greenway Station isn’t what I was expecting. I’m used to a big brick building, lots of people in suits and a deep, electrocuted track you have to stand really far away from or somebody in a uniform shouts at you.

Here, there’s a tiny wooden hut next to two single metal tracks you can walk across. There’s just a bench, a ticket machine and a plastic timetable stuck to a pin-board.

And it’s totally empty.

I sit down, breathe as slowly as I can and adjust my dress so my new adultness doesn’t get all creased.

Then I wait.

And wait.

Finally, a tinny bell starts ringing and the wooden barriers start closing. A black car rolls to a stop behind them. An enormous silver double-decker train starts approaching from the distance, like something out of an old Western.

The average heart beats 100,000 times a day, and mine suddenly decides to get today’s all out of the way at once. My chest is hammering so fast it feels like one really long beat.

With infinite slowness, the train stops and the doors open.

I stand up, clutching my hands tightly together.

A little old lady climbs off the train, adjusts her skirt and starts walking towards the exit.

Then the doors shut and the train starts moving off.

With a blank brain, I grab my phone out of my satchel. It says 7.02pm. Then it rings.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Nick says as I spin around looking for him. “Are you hiding? I’ve checked the stairs leading up to the shopping mall but you don’t appear to be there.”

“Stairs?” My ears suddenly go numb. “Shopping mall?”

“Yeah, I can see some kind of coffee place. Are you in there buying doughnuts? I told you I’d bring cake.”

I look up and down the empty platform. The barriers are back up and the car is driving slowly away.

“Nick, there’s no shopping mall in Greenway.”

“What are you talking about?” he laughs. “It’s right by the sign with the …” Then he stops. “Did you say Green
way
?”

My entire stomach flips over. “Greenway. Greenway Station.”

“Green
way
Station?” There’s a pause, and then Nick says: “Harriet, I’m at Green
ways
Station.”

No.

No. No no no no
NO
.

This can’t be happening.

“There’s no
s
,” I say in a tiny voice that feels very far away.

“It really sounded like there was an
s
.”

“But …” My brain is spinning silently, like a scratched CD.
Click. Click. Click
. “Nick, I don’t understand. I emailed you a map. And directions. And a train timetable. I emailed you a detailed history of the entire local area. You had
everything
you needed to get here.”

“I …” There’s a long pause. “I didn’t have time to look at them, Harriet. I was rushing in and out of jobs and I thought I knew where I was going. I’m so sorry.”

I close my eyes and manage, “So where
are
you?”

“Hang on. Just checking the map.” There’s a silence, and then he makes an
eeeeurgh
sound. “I’m two and a half hours in the wrong direction. I
thought
the train journey was taking too long.”

Two and a half hours in the wrong direction. Which means four hours from me, not including transfer times.

I can feel myself starting to panic. “But …” I swallow. “Maybe you could get on another train? Maybe if you leave now, you can get here before midnight and then we can—”

“Harriet,” Nick says gently. “The trains stop at eleven-thirty and I have another fitting at 7am tomorrow.”

“But it’s my birthday.”

I know it sounds pathetic, but it’s the only fact I have left to cling on to.

“I know.” He sounds devastated. “I can’t believe I screwed up this badly.”

“
It’s my BIRTHDAY
.”

My voice is getting higher and louder. A stray dog at the other end of the platform turns to look at me anxiously before scampering off.

“Harriet, I
know
. I’m standing in the middle of nowhere, two and a half hours from New York, with sixteen purple balloons I blew up on the train and then could only just get out of the door, and sixteen cupcakes. Trust me, I want to be there. I’m one strong puff of wind from being blown away like Mary Poppins.”

I look down at my stupid heart dress through my stupid mascara-d eyelashes. I look at my stupid hairless legs, and my stupid purple flip-flops. Then I put my hand up and touch my stupid hair, tied up in its stupid top-knot.

I should have just stayed as I was. Fluffy and wearing clothes intended for an eleven-year-old.

At least then I wouldn’t be standing alone on a station platform on my birthday, feeling like a nobody.

I pull my birthday plan out of my pocket. I think it’s safe to say there won’t be any more crossing-off today.

“I have to go,” I say quietly, ripping it in half and dropping it on the floor. The pieces lie there for a few seconds and then blow straight on to the track.

“No, Harriet. Listen, we can do something tomorrow, I’ll get on the right train and—”

“I have to go,” I say again.

And I hang up before Nick can say anything else.

ne of my favourite ever facts is this:

Because of the electromagnetic repulsion between their components, every atom floats an infinitely tiny distance away from the atoms around it.

Which doesn’t sound like much, until you realise that atoms make up
everything
. Which means you’re not really holding a pen: it’s levitating very slightly in your hands. You’re not really sitting in that chair: you’re hovering just a fraction above it.

Frankly, I’m not sure I believe it any more.

As I walk home, my feet are very much touching the ground. I’m not electromagnetically hovering anywhere.

I start walking heavily up the stairs.

“Harriet?” Annabel is standing in the doorway. “Are you OK?”

I turn around slowly.

Dad appears next to her, grinning. “I’m sorry I was such a terrible grump this morning, chickpea. Work is a bit harder than I expected – even for a genius like me. But I went shopping on the way home.
Look
.”

He points proudly at five plastic carrier bags, stuffed with the sort of things dads buy when they go shopping. Multi-packs of biscuits, enormous bottles of cola, unnecessarily large packs of toilet rolls. All Man Size, as if to prove that only girls need things in reasonable quantities.

I look at them, then at him.

“And
look
,” he says, bouncing towards me. “Look what work gave me as a belated welcome gift!” He holds out his wrist. There’s a thick black rubber band circled around it. “It’s a
PowerBand.
” I glance at it. “It shows me how much Power I’m using!” Then he clicks a button on the side. Numbers shine in green. “I’ve used 2,354 Powers today!”

“A Power is not a universally recognised measurement of energy, Richard,” says Annabel. “Unless you’re He-Man.”

“Maybe I am, Bel,” Dad says, wiggling his eyebrows and then kissing his bicep. He waves his arm frantically above his head and then presses the button again. “I’ve used five Powers just waving!”

“Have you, indeed,” Annabel says, rolling her eyes.

“Annabel, are there any household chores I can help with? Ironing?” He makes large ironing motions with his right hand. “Painting fences? Any orchestras you need conducting?”

Annabel sighs. “You could rock Tabitha to sleep. How’s that for hand-based Power consumption?”

“Perfect,” Dad says, starting to push Tabby’s cot so energetically that she immediately starts crying.

I start walking back up the stairs.

“Harriet, what is
wrong
with you?” Annabel says, holding on to the banister. “Did something happen with Miss Hall?”

Slowly, I turn around.

“Dad?” I say. “What else does that thing do?”

“
Well
,” he says, looking at it proudly, “if you click it three times, it’ll tell you how many Hours you’ve Won. Then calories and distance. If you click it five times, it’ll show you the time. Like a proper watch.”

He clicks it five times and holds it out to me.

“Does it show you the date?”

Dad frowns. “I think if you hold the button down … Yup. There you go. It’s the 31st of Aug—”

He goes very quiet.

I look at Annabel. Her entire face has drained of colour.

“
No
.” She steps over to Dad and grabs his wrist hard. “NO.”

“Annabel,” Dad says. “I know you keep the diary around here, but isn’t the 31st Harriet’s …”

“Yes, but it’s the 30th today. Press it again, Richard.
Press it again
.”

“I’m
pressing
it,” Dad says urgently. “Annabel, it’s
still the 31st
of August.”

They both stare at the stupid green digits on the stupid black rubber band and then back at me.

“What a useful gift,” I snap, starting up the stairs again. “I’m glad somebody got one.”

“Oh my God.” Annabel’s hand is over her mouth and she sounds like she’s going to cry. “Harriet. It’s your birthday.”

Dad says a loud word that a tiny baby probably shouldn’t hear.

“Yup,” I snap. “Happy sixteenth birthday to me. Many felicitations, etc., etc. May my day be full of joy and so on. Except it wasn’t.”

“Harriet, listen—”

“
No
,” I say sharply, reaching the top of the stairs and spinning round to face them. My parents are staring up at me from the dark hallway, like two round white pebbles at the bottom of a pond. “You brought me here. You took me away from my entire life, and now I have nothing and nobody. I’m sixteen years old and I don’t have to listen to either of you. Ever again.”

With a final heavy step I walk into my bedroom and slam the door behind me.

And then I lock it.