Sunny Side Up

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Acknowledgements

Read on to see Harriet through Nick’s eyes – the very first time they met …

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About the Publisher

Light (noun, adjective, verb)

/1ʌɪt/

1 To make things visible or afford illumination

2 To set on fire

3 Pale or not deep in colour

4 Without weight

ORIGIN From the Old English leoht – light, shining or bright

(#uecc7ea8e-9f18-59c3-8daf-299c34f15baa)

y name is Harriet Manners and I am hyper.

Genki is a Japanese word that means high energy, full of beans or peppy, and I know it fits me perfectly because I haven’t slept properly in six whole days.

Frankly, I haven’t needed to.

I’m so super-charged, I’m basically a worker ant: grabbing hundreds of tiny minute-long power naps just to keep me performing as normal.

Trust me: I’ve got the data.

Thanks to the awesome new Sleep App on my phone, I’ve been able to track my nocturnal activities in detail. Statistically the average teenager needs 8.5 hours of decent rest per night, but – according to my sleep graphs – my deep sleep states have been dropping steadily for the last 144.3 hours.

Last night, in fact, I officially got no hours of proper sleep at all.

Not a single wink, let alone forty.

So it’s pretty lucky that today I am firing on all cylinders. Giraffes can go weeks without napping, and I can only assume that I must be able to do the same now too.

Seriously: I am buzzing.

“And,” I continue, stabbing a finger at the magazine in front of me, “it says here that the tunnel includes six thousand tonnes of railway tracks, which is the same weight as two thousand elephants!Isn’t that cool?”

I blink at buildings rushing past the window.

“At its deepest point, it runs seventy-five metres below sea level, which is the same as 107 baguettes on top of each other! Crazy, huh?”

Frowning, I click my biro rapidly in and out again with tiny snaps and make a little note next to this fact. “How many fish could you get into that space, do you think? Should I try and calculate it?”

“Oooh!” I add before anyone can answer, pointing at a squat bird on a wire. “French pigeon!”

It’s been a pretty exciting journey already.

Eleven in the morning, having departed London just two hours ago, and I’ve already completed three Sudoku puzzles, learnt three new foreign phrases and filled out my entire crossword book in pen. I didn’t even bother pencilling it in first: that’s how fired-up I’m feeling.

“Plus,” I say, my jiggling leg bumping up and down repeatedly, “did you know that the Channel Tunnel is the longest under-sea tunnel in the world? Doesn’t that just completely blow your—”