“Longevity?”
I stare at Dad with my mouth open. I don’t believe this. Fifteen years of the worst name ever and I can’t even blame my dead mother for it?
“We could try Frankie?” Wilbur suggests helpfully. “I don’t believe there were any famous reptiles, but I’m sure there must have been a cat or two.”
“She stays Harriet,” Annabel says in a strained voice.
“You have to admit it was worth a punt,” Wilbur whispers to me, but I’m too busy giving my father the evil eye to say anything back.
“Now,” Annabel continues. I can see that she has a list in front of her. “Wilbur. You’re aware that Harriet’s still at school?”
“Of course she is, Fluff-pot; the others are decidedly too old.”
Annabel glowers at him. “I see I need to rephrase that. What happens with Harriet’s school work?”
“We work around it. Education is so very important, isn’t it? Especially when you stop being beautiful and perhaps get a little fat.”
Annabel’s eyes narrow a bit more. “How much is this going to cost?”
“Gosh, she’s to the point, isn’t she?” Wilbur says approvingly, winking at Dad. “If it’s a testshot, everyone works for free and it costs nothing. If it’s a job, Harriet gets paid and the agency gets a cut of that. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it? I’m not here just for the free dinners.” Wilbur pauses thoughtfully. “I’m a little bit here for the free dinners,” he corrects. “But not entirely.”
“And who looks after her? She’s only fifteen.”
“You do, poppet. Or Panda Senior over there. At fifteen she has to have a chaperone at all times, and I’m going to suggest that it’s one of you two because the total strangers we drag off the streets just don’t seem to care as much.”
I glance quickly at Dad and note that his excitement levels are getting dangerously high. Annabel scowls at him. “And who was that crying earlier?” she hisses. “Why were they crying?”
Wilbur sighs. “We had to turn a girl away, Darling-cherub. If we made everyone who wanted to be a model a model, we’d just be an agency for human beings, wouldn’t we? Fashion’s exclusive, my little Butternut-squash. That means excluding people.”
“That was a child,” Annabel says in an angry voice.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Wilbur shrugs. “It’s hard to tell: sometimes they just don’t eat very much. Confuses the growth hormones, you know? Either way, we sent them packing.” And then he beams at us all. “I won’t be sending you packing, though, because you’re here by special invitation of moi.” And he throws the Polaroids from The Clothes Show on the table. “Your daughter is adorable. I’ve never seen such an alien duck in my entire life.”
“A what?”
“Frankie here looks just like the ginger child of an alien and duck union, and that is so fresh right now.”
“Her name is not Frankie,” Annabel hisses in barely contained frustration. “It’s Harriet.”
“Could you not at least have smiled, Frankie?” Dad sighs as he studies the photos. “Why do you always sulk?” He looks apologetically at Wilbur. “She ruined eighty per cent of our photos when we were in France last summer.”
“Her name is Harriet!” Annabel almost shrieks at Dad.
“Oh, no,” Wilbur says earnestly. “That works for me. People like their high-fashion models to look as deeply unhappy as physically possible. You can’t have beauty and contentment: it would just be unfair.” He looks at the photos again with a satisfied expression. “Harriet looks thoroughly miserable: she’s perfect. Once we’ve straightened out that lazy eye, obviously.”
“What are you talking about?” Annabel shouts and her voice is getting higher with every sentence, as if she’s singing it. “Harriet does not have a lazy eye.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Wilbur says, waving his hands around in an attempt to calm her down. “What’s a more politically acceptable way of putting it? Directionally challenged?”
Annabel looks like she’s about to bite him.
“Are you sure,” I finally manage to interrupt before Annabel rips the entire room to shreds, “that I’m what you’re looking for? That there isn’t some kind of mistake?”
Because with all of the nerves and the tension and the shouting, I haven’t been able to get a word – or a thought – in edgeways, but some of the things I’ve heard have kind of stuck. Words like: ginger, tortoise, alien, duck, lazy and eye. This isn’t quite the magical metamorphosis moment I was looking for. I don’t feel very beautiful at all. In fact, I think I feel worse than I did before I came in here.
“My little Tortoise,” Wilbur says, reaching out to grab my hand as my squinty, directionally challenged, short-lashed alien eyes start welling up. “Cross-eyed or not, there’s no mistake. You’re perfect just the way you are. And it’s not just me that thinks so.”