Experts say that people with abnormally high IQs often have problems sleeping. Which is no doubt why I’m snoring within thirty-five seconds.

“Harry-chan?”

Something tiny and soft prods my face. I roll over, open my eyes and promptly shoot straight into the wall behind me. It’s almost totally pitch-black, but I can vaguely see the outline of Rin’s face, two centimetres from mine. She leans slightly closer and inexplicably prods me with her finger again. “Harry-chan,” she says. “You are squeaking like tiny mouse. Bad dreaming?”

“Mnnneugh,” I mumble. “Whatimezit?”

“Four am.” Rin says this as it looks: 4am.

“M’so sorry,” I yawn, sitting up straighter. “Did I wake you up?”

“No.” Rin perches on the end of my bed, picks up a still-sleeping Kylie and points to the huge earphones hanging around her neck. “I sleep super soundly. I listen to nandakke … Scotlands. Whales. But battery passes on and man wakes me. For you, boom boom boom at door.”

I sleepily try to rearrange the sentences. “There’s a man at the door for me?”

“Yes. So I came to awaken you up.” Rin beams proudly and prods my face again. “I did good job, ne?”

Blinking, I grab my blue dolphin hoody and press the light on my Winnie-the-Pooh watch. It’s just after 4am. I can’t count out the possibility that I might still be dreaming. Although – if I am – I’ll have to reassess what I eat before bedtime. It’s certainly not one of my better ones.

In a daze I stumble through the corridor, open the front door and stare in bewilderment at the man standing there. He’s wearing white gloves, a black suit and a black hat. I peer down at his little white socks. “Michael Jackson?”

“No. My name is Shinosuke. I am your chauffeur. The car is waiting outside to take you to the first photo shoot. You have five minutes to get ready.”

I look at my watch again. “Now?”

“Not now,” Shinosuke says, frowning. “I just told you. In five minutes.”

OK: are they kidding me? Yuka wants me to do my first shoot at 4am? When I landed in the country nine hours ago? After a fourteen-hour flight? On four hours of sleep? With jetlag and a badly broken heart?

On second thoughts, I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is the heartless world of fashion: I’m actually quite touched Yuka didn’t drag me there straight from the airport by my eyebrows.

I nod briefly, race into the bedroom and grab my suitcase. I still haven’t unpacked, so I drag everything into the bathroom so I don’t wake up Poppy or Rin (she’s already back in her bunk, snoring quietly with Kylie lying across her stomach). I quickly dress in whatever’s at the top of the pile – my black and yellow stripy leggings and my Batman T-shirt – and tie my hair in a ponytail. Then I rally my inner model and glance briefly in the mirror.

Flaky skin, swollen eyes. A red dent from a pillowcase button on my cheek, an ink blob on the end of my nose and two enormous stress spots erupting by my mouth. And I still haven’t cleaned the gravy off my chin.

Yet again, my inner model has clearly decided to stay there.

A couple of seconds later I’m running through the flat while brushing my teeth then out of the front door while cramming a chocolate biscuit into my mouth (I realise I got the biscuit and the toothpaste the wrong way round).

There’s a huge black limousine waiting outside, and as soon as I appear it moves forward ominously by a couple of centimetres and the door swings open.

“Four minutes fifty seconds,” I mumble through my mouthful, looking at my watch and clambering into the back seat. “Totally nailed it!”

“Congratulations,” a cold voice says from a metre away, wiping a spray of chocolate crumbs off her face. “If only we could say the same for your personal hygiene.”

A light switches on over my head.

And there – staring at me – is Yuka Ito.