ow, I have many skills.

I can recite the entire Periodic Table and six Shakespearean sonnets by heart. I can tell you every single King and Queen of England since Kenneth the Third in 997, and I can draw an almost perfect circle freehand as long as nobody’s watching.

Of my many useless and untransferable skills, however, accurately interpreting subtle facial expressions is not usually one of them. But I don’t think that’s something I need to worry about today.

Yuka Ito is livid.

“Explain,” she says quietly as we climb down the stairs and push through the stage doors. She looks like the White Witch of Narnia just after she finds the first snowdrop. “Now.”

Every drop of adrenaline evaporates, and I’m suddenly so scared I feel like I’m flashing colours like a human disco ball: white, then red, pink and green, then some kind of petrified purple colour. “I’m s-sorry,” I stammer quickly. “We were trying to … harness the Japanese culture creatively and—”

“I’m not talking about the poses.”

No. Of course she isn’t. “I …” I swallow. “It …”

“Where were you this morning?”

“I was … I set my … at least I thought I set my … my alarms didn’t …” I’m too scared to complete a sentence.

“You were three hours late.” Yuka doesn’t need to shout. Every quiet syllable is a pointed jag of ice. “The driver waited outside your building for two hours. He rang your doorbell thirteen times. Where did you stay last night?”

My eyes widen in surprise. What?

“I was th … I was th …” I was there. I was right there.

“I rang your mobile repeatedly. It went straight to voicemail. You do not turn your phone off while you are working for me.”

“I didn’t—”

“I explained very clearly that you are not here to party.”

My mouth opens in shock. Party? Has Yuka ever met me before?

“I wasn’t—”

“And when you decide to grace us with your presence, you accessorise my outfit with heels of your own. On a sumo stage. A stage reserved for men.”

“But—”

Yuka holds her hand up. “No,” she says. “I don’t want to hear it, Harriet. You have shown rudeness, disobedience and a total lack of respect, and you have done it in front of twenty thousand people.”

I’ve been called a lot of names in my life, but ‘rude’, ‘disobedient’ and ‘disrespectful’ are not three of them. The shock finally knocks the voice back into me. “Yuka, I was at the flat, I set three alarms, I don’t party – ever – I don’t own shoes like that, I wouldn’t even know where to buy any—”

“Do not compound errors with lying,” Yuka interrupts. “And don’t think that completing this shoot exonerates your behaviour. An ability to copy a professional is not what I have flown you halfway around the world for.”

There’s nothing I can say: she’s absolutely right. Without Nick, I would have stood there and quietly drowned in my own panicky mucus.

“I’m so sorry,” I say quietly as my eyes start to go blurry.

“If I hadn’t already invested so much in you, Harriet, you would be going home now.” Every word sounds like it’s been bitten off. “Do not make me regret this decision any more than I do already.” And before I can say anything, Yuka turns and walks out of the building.

I stare after her, open mouthed.

“The mawashi,” Nick says after a few seconds, raking a hand over his head. “It was a joke. I never would have—” but I’ve stopped listening. I’m already pushing through the doors and running back to the edge of the stage.

If I can just find the note – if I can show it to Yuka – maybe she’ll believe me. She’ll see that I do respect her, and that I love Japan. That I know I’m lucky to be here, and I’m trying as hard as I can.

That I’m not the person she thinks I am.

But it doesn’t matter how hard I look.

The note is gone.