Free Model Misfit by Holly Smale Page B

than 0.00001 per cent? That means that you’re more likely to be killed by a donkey or to naturally conceive
identical
quadruplets.”
    Bunty pulls a blanket over her knees. “Is that so?”
    “Uh-huh.” The lights of London are starting to melt below us into a large, sparkly neon puddle. “They test plane windscreens by throwing chickens at them at five hundred miles per hour so they know they can resist errant flying birds. Once a chicken went
through
the window and smashed the pilot’s chair in half. They realised afterwards they’d accidentally catapulted a frozen one.”
    Bunty chuckles. “You’re so much like Annabel was at your age, darling. Fascinated by the little things.”
    I immediately look out of the window so Bunty can’t see my expression. “Actually, everyone likes facts. Apparently three million people Google the words ‘interesting facts’ every single month.”
    Bunty looks at me then twists up her nose and closes her eyes. “Funny,” she says. “That’s just what she would have said as well.”
    And before I can respond, my grandmother is fast asleep.
    I fully intend to stay awake for the next fourteen hours. I have a special Flight Bag I put together to keep me entertained: maps to study and crosswords to fill in and quizzes about the flags of Asia (you never know when somebody abroad is going to test you on something like that).
    But I get over-excited about the little butter tubs at dinner, peak early and pass out before we’ve flown over France.
    And the next thing I know…
    I’m in Japan.

P laces I Want to Visit
    Japan
    Burma  Myanmar
    Russia
    ’ve wanted to come here for so long that when I get the list out of my satchel I can see where I struggled to join up the
a
and the
n
and there’s blue glitter in the creases from when Nat threw it over everything for a term at primary school.
    I’m finally here.
    Within minutes of landing, it feels like I have new eyes, new ears, a new nose, a new tongue, new skin. People are talking in a language I don’t understand, making gestures I’ve never seen before and eating food I don’t recognise. There are signs I can’t read, and smells I can’t place, and a hum that sounds entirely different to England. Even the colours look different: there’s a slightly golden glow to everything, instead of the silveriness of a summer in England. I may as well have landed on the moon.
    Apart from the whole gravity element. Or I’d just be floating through the airport and it would be really hard to hang on to my suitcase.
    “Enormous fun, isn’t it?” Bunty says as I stand, blinking, in the middle of a tiny shop. She waves a couple of bright pink snacks with angry cartoon octopuses drawn on them at me. “Have one of these. It will blow your mind.”
    I’ve just seen a sandwich filled with whipped cream and strawberries, a drink called ‘Sweat’ and an entire dried squid vacuum-packed into a bag. The inside of my head has already exploded.
    In a daze, I take the snack from her – it’s like an enormous, fishy Wotsit – and then watch a group of schoolgirls roughly my age, standing in a little huddle in a corner. They’re all wearing
exactly
the same outfit: the same skirts at the same length, the same socks, the same shirts, the same shoes, the same backpacks. They have no make-up on and one of two hairstyles: black, with a fringe in a ponytail, or black, cut short and pushed behind their ears. There’s no cunning personalisation; no fashionable editing or skirt-rolling or high-heel wearing or lipgloss sneaking. It’s stupidly disorientating, considering it’s the precise definition of the word
uniform.
    They’re all studying maps and staring, wide-eyed, around them, so I don’t think they’re from Tokyo. Then they spot me and their eyes get even bigger. A few start squeaking
kawwaaaaiiiiiiii
and giggling. I promptly fall over my suitcase and am met with a collection of even louder giggles, and a few squeaks of
chhhoooo