Geek Girl and Model Misfit
“My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a geek.”The first two hilarious novels in the award-winning GEEK GIRL series – now available as a 2-book collection.Geek Girl:Harriet Manners knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a “jiffy” lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. She knows that bats always turn left when exiting a cave and that peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.But she doesn’t know why nobody at school seems to like her.So when Harriet is spotted by a top model agent, she grabs the chance to reinvent herself…Model Misfit:Harriet Manners knows that humans have 70,000 thoughts per day.She also knows that Geek + Model = a whole new set of graffiti on your belongings.And that the average person eats a ton of food a year, though her pregnant stepmother is doing her best to beat this.But Harriet doesn’t know where she’s going to fit in once the new baby arrives. And with her summer plans ruined, modelling in Japan seems the perfect chance to get away…Will geek girl find her place on the other side of the world?The award-winning debut GEEK GIRL and sequel MODEL MISFIT by bestselling author Holly Smale.
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For my grandad. My favourite geek.
Contents
geek/gi:k/h noun informal, chiefly N. Amer.
1 an unfashionable or socially inept person.
2 an obsessive enthusiast.
3 a person who feels the need to look up the word âgeekâ in the dictionary.
DERIVATIVES geeky adjective.
ORIGIN from the related English dialect word geck âfoolâ.
I know Iâm a geek because Iâve just looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. I drew a little tick next to all the symptoms I recognise, and I appear to have them all. Which â and I should be perfectly honest here â hasnât come as an enormous surprise. The fact that I have an Oxford English Dictionary on my bedside table anyway should have been one clue. That I keep a Natural History Museum pencil and ruler next to it so that I can neatly underline interesting entries should have been another.
Oh, and then thereâs the word GEEK, drawn in red marker pen on the outside pocket of my school satchel. That was done yesterday.
I didnât do it, obviously. If I did decide to deface my own property, Iâd choose a poignant line from a really good book, or an interesting fact not many people know. And I definitely wouldnât do it in red. Iâd do it in black, or blue, or perhaps green. Iâm not a big fan of the colour red, even if it is the longest wavelength of light discernible by the human eye.
To be absolutely candid with you, I donât actually know who decided to write on my bag â although I have my suspicions â but I can tell you that their writing is almost illegible. They clearly werenât listening during our English lesson last week when we were told that handwriting is a very important Expression of the Self. Which is quite lucky because if I can just find a similar shade of pen, I might be able to slip in the letter R in between G and E. I can pretend that itâs a reference to my interest in ancient history and feta cheese.
I prefer Cheddar, but nobody has to know that.
Anyway, the point is: as my satchel, the anonymous vandal and the Oxford English Dictionary appear to agree with each other, I can only conclude that I am, in fact, a geek.
Did you know that in the old days the word âgeekâ was used to describe a carnival performer who bit the head off a live chicken or snake or bat as part of their stage act?
Exactly. Only a geek would know a thing like that.
I think itâs what they call ironic.
So.
Itâs currently December, Iâm in bed â tucked under about fourteen covers â and Iâm not doing anything at all apart from getting warmer by the second. In fact, I donât want to alarm you or anything, but I think I might be really sick. My hands are clammy, my stomachâs churning and Iâm significantly paler than I was ten minutes ago. Plus, thereâs what can only be described as a sort of⦠rash on my face. Little red spots scattered at totally random and not at all symmetrical points on my cheeks and forehead. With a big one on my chin. And one just next to my left ear.
I take another look in the little hand-held mirror on my bedside table, and then sigh as loudly as I can. Thereâs no doubt about it: Iâm clearly very ill. It would be wrong to risk spreading this dangerous infection to other, possibly less hardy, immune systems. I shall just have to battle through this illness alone.
All day. Without going anywhere at all.
Sniffling, I shuffle under my duvets a little further and look at my clock on the opposite wall (itâs very clever: all the numbers are painted at the bottom as if theyâve just fallen down, although this does mean that when Iâm in a hurry, I have to sort of guess what the time is). Then I close my eyes and mentally count:
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2â¦
At which point, absolutely on cue as always, the door opens and the room explodes: hair and handbag and coat and arms everywhere. Like a sort of girl bomb. And there, as if by very punctual magic, is Nat.
