Sunny Side Up

“Harriet?” a loud voice says from some way behind me. “Treacle-top, who the fiddlesticks are you talking to?”

I blink a few times.

Then – with a lurch of surprise – I spin round.

My modelling agent Wilbur is standing at the other end of the packed Eurostar train carriage wearing a fluffy green jumper covered in sequins, a pale lilac scarf covered with pink rabbits and neon-yellow trousers.

In one hand is a tray with two hot drinks on it and in the other is an enormous golden croissant.

Blankly, I turn to the seat next to me.

There’s a large purple suitcase with a bright blue fake-fur coat draped over it and a wide-brimmed, orange-feathered hat perched on top.

Oh my God: you have got to be kidding me.

At what precise point in this conversation did Wilbur get up and go to the buffet car without me?

Exactly how long have I been publicly monologuing at a pile of accessories?

Ugh. Up to now, the jellyfish was the largest animal on the planet without a brain.

I think we have a new winner.

“Umm,” I stammer as the young French couple behind me start quietly giggling. Cover your tracks, Harriet. “Hey there, Wilbur. I was just reading this magazine to the … uh … pigeon outside. He looked … lonely.”

“Well of course he does, darling,” Wilbur agrees chirpily, swinging into the spare seat opposite. “They’re the rats of the sky, and who wants to date that?”

Then he holds out one of the coffees from the tray, pauses slightly and swings it back again. “On second thoughts, poodle, I think you’ve had quite enough caffeine for one morning. You’re starting to look like the victim at the start of a horror movie.”

Typical. First you’re given caffeine for the second time in your entire life, and then you’re suddenly being cut off at the source with no explanation at all.

I might be shaking and sweating slightly from the end of my nose, but I am fine.

Wilbur puts a gentle hand on my still-kicking foot until it stops, calmly takes my still-clicking pen off me and puts the Eurostar magazine away, from where I’m now folding and unfolding the corners repeatedly.

“Breathe, possum,” Wilbur smiles, patting my hand and proffering the golden croissant instead. “You’ve got this, munchkin, and you’re not a baby mouse: there’s no need to take in oxygen that fast.”

I swallow and stare out of the train window as we rush past another French station and one more surge of adrenaline, fear, apprehension and excitement blasts through me. I never said what kind of energy I’ve been packed to the brim with all week, did I?

Nervous, mainly.

Include the significant quantities of central nervous system stimulating methylxanthine alkaloid I’ve imbibed this morning (caffeine), and I’m basically powering off raw natural chemicals like a sleep-deprived rocket.

I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m—

“Mesdames et messieurs,” a calm female voice says as the Eurostar begins to pull into the enormous, cathedral-like Gard du Nord. “Je l’espère vous avez eu un voyage agréable. S’il vous plaît que vous prenez vos bagages avec vous.Bienvenue a Paris.”

And that’s the main reason I haven’t been able to sleep solidly for over a hundred and forty hours.

Why I’ve been lying on my back, staring at the glow-in-the-dark galaxy on my ceiling while my brain spins in tight little circles, like a dying neutron star.

Three little words, three long days, one huge city.

Yup.

I’m doing Paris Fashion Week.

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

ou don’t need to say it, by the way: I know what you’re thinking.

How?

How did Harriet Manners – Destroyer of International Fashion Shows, Knocker-Over of Models, Sitter-Downer on Catwalks and Compiler of Compound Nouns – get selected to participate in Paris Couture Fashion Week: the most prestigious event a young model can possibly attend?

Well, I’m afraid I have no idea either.

Much like life’s other great mysteries – such as how exactly a bicycle works and why yawning is contagious – there appears to be no real scientific answer to that question.

And it’s basically what I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out.

Here are some things I do know:

I definitely checked.

“Darling,” Wilbur laughed when I suggested that my sartorial knowledge might elevate me above the thousands of other models also competing for the same positions, “one of my most well-known models – who shall remain nameless – once put a frozen chicken under the grill. I’m going to pause for a few seconds, to let that sink in.”

There was a long silence while he closed his eyes tightly, bit his bottom lip and grabbed my arm.

“A whole, raw, frozen chicken,” he repeated, slightly more squeakily. “Under the oven grill. And then couldn’t work out why the legs caught fire.”

Another pause.

Then he burst into peals of laughter. “I don’t think intelligence is high on the list of qualities being searched for right now, banana-boo. This is not NASA.”

By this point, Wilbur had been back from New York for just three days and had already swapped me with Stephanie for another one of his models, like Fashion Top Trumps except the opposite.

Let’s just say there wasn’t much of a struggle.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw her punch the air, shout WOOOHOOO then high-five the receptionist on her way out to lunch.

“Are you sure?” I said in dismay. “None of those facts are relevant? Not even the one about how couture seamstresses are called petits mains,which means little hands?”

I’d studied with a very overexcited Nat all night.

The brain only has so much space: I’m positive that at least eight of my most interesting animal facts had been replaced with fashion regulations from the seventeenth century.

“Sure as a seasick sailor on leave,” Wilbur giggled. “Just look angry but polite but distant but vague but smug in an untouchable kind of way and the world of couture is going to love you. Although you might want to switch your brain off for a few hours, pumpkin. Just in case you self-sabotage again like a baby lemming.”