Model Misfit Read Online Free PDF Page A

starts to age too much. All I’m going to say is: they obviously haven’t met my dad yet.
    Let’s just see how long
he
sticks around.
    Throwing my satchel into the corner of the hallway, I start a slow, stompy climb up the stairs. Six months ago they were pretty, white-painted wood; they are now covered in horrible beige, hard-wearing carpet with fiddly stair gates at either end. There used to be a space under the banister where the cat would climb the stairs and headbutt me from eye-level, as a kind of greeting. It’s been blocked up.
    There are also fake plug-coverings in all of the plug sockets and padding around the edges of the tables and more gates in doorways, just in case we need to be herded safely from room to room like cattle.
    I reach the newly safe and sanitised landing and stare at my parents. “What are you
doing
?”
    “Hello, Harriet.” Annabel is wearing an enormous, elasticated, pin-stripe suit, and is calmly wiping one of my fossils with a cloth. “Sweetheart, why is your face gold? And what on earth happened to your jumper?” She looks down. “I know I’m full of pregnancy hormones, but I’m certain you were wearing two socks this morning.”
    “Oh
amazeballs
!” Dad cries from the study. “You coloured yourself gold! To win an exam! That is creative
genius
!”
    I think my head is about to explode. “I’m serious, what are you
doing
? You can’t
clean fossils,
Annabel. You are literally wiping away 230 million years of history!”
    “I think this is a coating of dead skin cells and dust mites, actually. When was the last time you dusted these, Harriet?”
    I grab the fossil from her. “This is an Asistoharpes! This is 395
million years old
! Why don’t you just stick it in the washing machine while you’re at it?”
    My stepmother raises her eyebrows in silence.
    “I think if it’s survived that long it can handle a bit of wet cloth, don’t you?”
    I ignore her and turn to Dad, who is standing on the office chair, trying to get down my collection of books about the Tudors. Every time he reaches for one he swivels slightly and has to hang on to the shelf for balance. “What are
you
doing?”
    “There’s a whole load of stuff here that’s yours, Harriet,” he explains, reaching for a biography of Anne Boleyn and swivelling again. “So we’ve built some more shelves in your bedroom. This is going to be the baby’s room.”
    I grab a few of my books off the bed from where they’ve just been thrown, willy-nilly. “This room is called the
study
, Dad. If this was a room for a baby, it would be called something else!”
    “It is, Harriet,” Dad says, laughing. “We just renamed it.”
    I can feel every single cell in my body fizzing and bursting like those crackly sweets that pop on your tongue. First Alexa, then Nat, now this. Today isn’t even making an
effort
to go to plan
any more.
    “There isn’t
room
in my bedroom for all my stuff!”
    “Then throw some of it away,” Annabel suggests with a tiny smile. She’s cleaning another fossil. “Or we can put it in the attic. Or maybe in the garden. I imagine these rocks would probably be very happy there.”
    My throat is getting tighter and tighter. “What do you mean
throw it away
?
You can’t just throw preserved evidence of natural evolution in the bin!”
    Annabel puts her hand gently on her enormous straining belly. “Harriet, what’s going on, sweetheart? Did your last exam go badly? What’s the matter with you?”
    “Me? What’s the matter with both of
you
? Baby, baby, baby! It’s all baby, baby, baby!”
    “Are you about to start singing Justin Bieber?” Dad asks. Annabel snorts with laughter and then puts her hand guiltily over her mouth.
    My head pops.
    “
Oh my GOD
!” I yell. “I hate you, I hate this house and
THIS IS GOING TO BE THE WORST SUMMER EVER
!”
    And with one grand gesture, I burst into tears, sweep every single fossil I can into my arms and storm into my bedroom.
    Leaving every