he next seventeen hours can be summarised thus:
And that’s it.
By the time Annabel and Dad have waved goodbye with the happiest facial expressions I’ve ever seen on adults, I’m so desperate to go I don’t even care that they can’t take me to the airport because of a hospital appointment.
Even though we all know that by hospital they mean Harriet leaving and by appointment they mean massive party. And by ‘tidying up’ they mean blowing up balloons and turning my bedroom into an impromptu home cinema.
I promise to ring them as soon as I arrive and then focus on:
a) Studying for the entire car journey.
b) Trying not to get knocked out by Bunty’s pink dream-catcher, swinging merrily from the rear-view mirror.
By the time we reach the airport, I’ve managed to distract myself completely by acquiring a good ten to fifteen Japanese words and working out a detailed itinerary. Shrines I want to light incense at and theatres I want to visit and food I want to eat and parasitological museums I want to take photos of and show to Toby.
So when my grandmother and I walk into the airport departures lounge and there’s a high-pitched squeal, I don’t even turn around. That’s how much I’ve forgotten what it is I’m actually supposed to be doing here.
“Co-eeee, my little Monster Munches!” a voice shouts. A man in a leopard-print onesie and pink wellies starts stomping enthusiastically towards us. “I’ve been waiting for minutes and minutes and I was spectacularly bored so I went to the Duty Free. Smell me! Close your eyes and I’m unwanted Christmas soap!” He wafts in a jutting, pigeon-like circular motion, and then holds his hand out to my grandmother. “Enchanté,” he adds, curtsying deeply. “Which is French for enchanted because they obviously stole it from us, the naughty little Munchkins.”
I stare at Wilbur in bewilderment. “Erm, they didn’t,” I say. “Both enchanté and enchanted come from the Latin verb incantare, which means to cast spells. Hello, Wilbur. Are you coming with us?”
I can’t decide if I’m delighted or not. I love Wilbur, but in combination with my grandmother?
“Wilbur,” he says, pushing me aside and kissing Bunty’s hand. “That’s with a bur, and not with an iam. I’m agent to this little chicken-monkey.” He points at me, just in case anyone gets confused with all the other chicken-monkeys in the immediate vicinity.
“Bunty,” my grandmother smiles, totally unfazed.
He points to my grandmother’s pink floral dress with lace trim, beige, fringed blanket and mirrored waistcoat. “I am loving this. What are we calling it?”
My grandmother’s eyes twinkle. “Spangled Nepalese goat-herder disco-dances by river in moonlight?”
“Oh my holy dolphin-cakes!” Wilbur shouts at the top of his voice. “That is superlatively fantabulazing! Could I borrow the waistcoat one day?”
“You can have it now, if you like,” Bunty says, taking it off and handing it over. “I have dozens.”
“You!” Wilbur squeaks, putting it on over his onesie and spinning around in little circles. “If you were liquid I would just pour you all over ice cream and sprinkle you with hundreds and thousands and gobble you up! You would be hell on my waistline and laden with calories but I just wouldn’t care.”
See what I mean?
“Are you coming with us?” I repeat politely as my grandmother beams and then wanders towards some fluffy key rings in a nearby shop.
“No, my little Turkish delight. I’m just here to prep you.”
I frown. “Wilbur—” How do I put this nicely? “At no stage at any point in my entire modelling career have you ever prepared me for anything. Ever.” I pause. “Like, ever.”
Wilbur’s eyes open wide. “I am hurt,” he says with his hand on his chest. “Nay, wounded. Nay – what’s another word for hurt, my little Carrier-bag?”
“Offended? Stung? Aggrieved?”
“Précisement. How can you say I am ever anything but one hundred per cent professional?”
“For my last photo shoot you sent me to your dentist.”
“They had very similar business cards and I thought I’d just seen Sting walk past and it was all very confusing.” Wilbur tries to look indignant, and then sighs. “OK. I’m a terrible, terrible agent. But this time it’s mahoosive, Sugar-plum. Like, Calvin Klein mahoosive. Like, mamoosive mahoosive. Yuka’s broken away from Baylee to start up her own label. It’s huge, Peach-plum, and I need to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
I suddenly feel a bit sick. You can look at it any way you like, but last time I attempted to model I ended up covered in gold paint and attached to a curtain rod. “She’s launching her new label with me?”
Wilbur starts giggling. “Oh, bunny, you do crack me down the middle. Can you imagine?”
I patiently wait for him to stop being so insulting.
“No: the main” – he pretends to cough – “taller models are being flown out today to China, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea …”
“Mongolia and Taiwan?”
He abruptly stops laughing. “How do you know that?”
“They’re the seven countries in East Asia, excluding North Korea.” Wilbur’s gone a strange, pale shade of mustard. “It was just a guess. Are you OK?”
Wilbur breathes out hard. “This is all top secret, Moo-noo. We need to get the campaign done before Yuka tells Baylee she’s leaving. If I can just organise it” – he leans forward slightly and grabs my shoulders – “Poodle, it might be my way out of here.”
“Yuka won’t let you out of the airport?”
Wilbur starts giggling again. “Out of agenting, my little Nutmeg. She’s finally going to give me a position with her new label.”
I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Adults almost never like doing their jobs from what I can tell.
“I like being an agent, but I’m shockingly bad at it, Muffin-top. Anyway, I didn’t get a degree in fashion so I could sit at a desk, trying to talk to pretty women. If I wanted to do that, I’d have got a job in a normal office.”
Wilbur straightens out the waistcoat. “This is our chance, Bunny. Yours, and mine.” He pauses. “Mostly mine, because let’s be honest: I’m an adult with a proper career and I’d imagine your shelf life as a teen model is almost over.”
For the last twenty-four hours, I’ve thought about a lot of things. I’ve thought about how far away Japan is (5,937 miles), and how bad I am at eating with chopsticks (very) and my chances of dying in an air crash (1 in 10.46 million). I’ve thought about how many Hello Kittys I’m going to buy for Nat (zero: they creep her out) and how many vending machines there are for every person in Japan (23).
But it hadn’t occurred to me that I might actually have to model when I got there. That it would be important to a lot of people. Or that I would be totally out of my depth. Again.
“OK,” I stammer nervously. “I’ll try my very hardest.”
Wilbur sighs. “I know you will, Baby-baby Panda,” he says, pinching my cheek. “And that is exactly what I’m worried about.”