Forever Geek

Image Missing y name is Harriet Manners, and I am lucky.

I know I’m lucky because:

I’m right next to a window, even though seats are randomly allocated so my chances were only one in four.

My Wi-Fi is working perfectly, which means I can let everyone at home know I’m sitting next to a window.

And send them a list of points detailing how amazingly lucky I am … Much like this one.

I’ve just watched seven documentaries back to back, thus deepening my understanding of aeroplanes, orcas, mating rituals of the flamingo, Russian space stations, the Yucatán Peninsula, parrots and Christian Dior.

I actually enjoyed the last option, even though it was definitely not voluntary.

So far this morning, I have already been to Hong Kong.

Since waking up today, I have ridden a glass cable car across Tung Chung Bay to a giant statue of Buddha, taken photos of the South China Sea and educated tourists in the immediate vicinity about the political tension caused by the Chinese government trying to claim the region for itself.

(A couple of Americans tried to tip me ten dollars for my knowledge, although the official park guides didn’t seem quite as impressed.)

And it gets even better.

In the last twenty-four hours I have crossed thirteen countries and three oceans, travelled 9,865 miles and eaten three and a half doughnuts (two of mine and one and a half of Bunty’s).

With the aid of a map and satellite navigation, I have tried to spot the 960 bridges in Berlin, stared in wonderment at the 62 per cent of Austria covered in the Alps, watched the dark sands of the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan and the shimmering lakes of Sakartvelo (also known as Georgia).

I have identified Clear Air Turbulence over France.

But the main reason I know I’m lucky is because of whose head is currently resting on my shoulder.

I’ll give you a couple of clues: she has dark, wavy hair.

Her eyes are gently closed, and her nose is twitching like an adorable baby rabbit. Her feet are crossed at the ankles, her arms are flopped loosely across her stomach and her mouth is slightly open.

Every now and then our seats jiggle and she mutters, her head moves a bit to the side, her eyes open and –

"Harriet, will you please stop watching me sleep?"

Delighted, I beam at my Best Friend.

Natalie Grey: Sartorial Genius, Temper-Loser, Truth-Sayer and the non-kissing soulmate of my sixteen-year-old life. And – as of yesterday morning – my intimate travel-adventure companion. The Samwise to my Frodo; the Robin to my Batman; like Tom and Jerry, except without all the firecrackers, hammers and attempts to poison each other.

The widely loved salt to my less popular pepper.

Nat! I say happily, handing her the half of doughnut I saved specially. You’re awake!

She blinks, sits up stiffly and gazes blearily around the plane. Harriet, it’s been a twenty-four-hour journey interrupted by an unexplained walk up a mountain to see a big fat stone man, she says, yawning widely and rearranging her ponytail. Honestly, I’m as surprised by this news as you are.

It was Siddhartha Gautama, I inform her. And he was made out of bronze and quite slim compared to some other representations of the father of Buddhism.

Then we both lean forward to look curiously at Bunty, propped up on the seat next to us. My nomadic grandmother has a pale pink velvet cushion wrapped round her neck and a blue silk tasselled scarf tied round her eyes, and she’s snoring so loudly the tiny child in front of us keeps popping up over the seat and asking if she’s broken.

Nat takes the doughnut-half and grins.

So how much longer have we got? she says more perkily, leaning over me to stare at the approaching clouds. Are we nearly there yet? Give me the precise facts, Harriet Manners-style.

The seat-belt light pings and my beam widens.

Twenty-eight minutes, three hundred and one miles, I say, obediently clicking myself into place then pushing rule-breaking Nat back into her seat and doing the same to her. Or twenty-eight thousand feet.

There’s a small plane shudder and my ears pop.

Twenty-seven thousand feet, I amend in excitement, watching the screen in front of me. Twenty-six thousand …

Twenty-five … Nat laughs.

Twenty-four, twenty-three …

Twenty-two.

And – with a squeak – we high-five each other loudly.

Because this is the biggest reason I know I’m lucky.

The word gravity comes from the Latin gravis, which means heavy, and the force of Earth’s gravity on us at all times is a constant 9.80665 m/s2. Gravity holds the universe together: it pulls stars, galaxies, planets and subatomic particles towards each other, anchors us to the floor and keeps us grounded.

But science and the screen in front of me can say what they like: gravity has nothing on me any more.

We may be going Down Under, but I’m on top of the world.

Because as the clouds finally clear and the blue ocean expands beneath us, I look down at the home-made badges pinned to our T-shirts:

OZ – THE LUCKY COUNTRY

This is going to be the holiday of a lifetime.

Australia, here we come.

Image Missing o while we get on with the landing preparations – seats forward, tables up and so forth – you’ll probably want to know what’s been going on since you last saw me, right?

That’s what we normally do here.

I update you on the ups and downs of my life, interesting developments, a few particularly fascinating facts that I’ve found out in the interim period (like the fact that anthropologists can track human migration by examining earwax or that Lithuania has an annual crawling race for babies).

And you listen very politely, even though you didn’t actually ask me how I was in the first place.

Well, this time I’m afraid there’s not much to say.

There really isn’t that much that can happen in four days. Especially when a large chunk of that period has been spent sitting on a fuzzy aeroplane seat with inadequate leg room, watching documentaries and devouring guidebooks about Australia before enthusiastically sharing the information.

Apparently there are more stars in the night sky than there are words that have ever been spoken by every human who has ever lived, but after the last few days of sitting next to me I think Bunty, Nat and our exhausted flight attendant would question that statement.

I have certainly narrowed the gap.

What I can tell you, however, is the following:

My maverick father started back at the advertising agency that fired him last year and immediately set about trying to get fired again, and my baby sister Tabby said her very first word (which made me an incredibly proud big sister, even though manana would never be allowed in a game of Scrabble).

Wilbur is back to being Supreme Agent Extraordinaire, and the last time I saw him he was spraying himself all over with rainbow glitter while calling it unicorn deodorant.

Toby is now in an official Romantic Twosome with Rin, who has moved temporarily into my bedroom while she models in London and dresses our cat Victor up like an extravagant Disney princess. (Statistically, cat owners are thirty per cent less likely to suffer a heart attack than those without a pet. Nobody has looked into the statistics vice versa.)

My stepmother, Annabel, spent the entire preparatory period writing down Emergency Numbers, then Back-up Emergency Numbers, then Reserve Back-up Emergency Numbers, then laminating them all in case they get wet in a famously dry country.

Just … she said, thrusting shiny KEEP WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES sheets of A4 into the back pocket of my already stuffed suitcase, make sure you take care of each other, OK?

Bunty and I rolled our eyes at each other from across my bed.

Bels, darling. My grandmother smiled fondly. The universe holds us carefully in its warm, cupped hands, like a small child with a tiny fluffy bunny. You don’t need to worry so much.

Annabel immediately swivelled her eyes towards me.

Sure, I agreed with a shrug, even though I’m sixteen years old and a fully fledged sixth-former: I think I know how to take care of myself.

And last but not least, I said goodbye to Jasper.

My …

Well, I’m not entirely sure what he is, to be honest.

My handsome, sarcastic, More-Than-Friend-But-Not-Quite-Boyfriend of four days: firmly occupying the space where you kiss and hold hands but haven’t signed a formal relationship agreement in pen yet.

Although I’ve drafted one up in pencil, obviously.

It’s important to stay prepared for the next step of romance at all times.

I’ll be ten hours ahead, I explained to him. We were curled up on the sofa, watching a Planet Earth episode about 400-metre-deep caves in Mexico while Annabel, Bunty and Dad talked quietly in the kitchen, presumably about how best to control me abroad.

I know, Harriet.

That means when it’s eight am in England, it’s six pm in Australia. And when it’s midday for you, it’ll be ten pm for me. And when it’s seven pm here it’ll be—

Five am, Jasper said, narrowing one bright blue and one brown eye at the printout I’d just given him. I have basic mathematical skills of my own, but thanks for the calculations.

I fixed him with a stern expression.

"You say that, Jasper King, but accuracy is everything when large distances are involved. So our scheduled phone calls are in blue, webcam calls are in pink, emails are in green and texts are purple. You may want to stick the A2 version on the cafe wall."

His thick eyebrows shot up. Or we could just play it by ear?

"Well, of course, I agreed, rolling my eyes and gesturing at another section. Ad hoc and breezy romance options are in orange: here, here and here."

At which point Jasper shook his head and kissed me.

And that’s about it.

Team JINTH was transformed into Team JRNTH with a quick swipe of a marker pen, exam preparation was packed into my suitcase, and I’ve efficiently put my whole world in order so I can leave it neatly behind for two weeks.

I’m now ready to pioneer the unfamiliar, like Harriet Adams who travelled South America, Asia and the South Pacific in the early 1900s and wrote for National Geographic magazine.

Or Harriet the tortoise, who was transported from England to Australia, where she passed peacefully away.

Which hopefully won’t happen here.

At least … it’ll be mostly unfamiliar, anyway.

Harriet, Nat says in a low voice as the plane lands with a jolt and Bunty wakes up with a loud snort. Do we need to talk?

I blink at my best friend in surprise. We’ve been doing that for the last forty-eight hours, haven’t we?

She had an airbed on my floor the night before we left: I made the most of the situation.

"You have, Nat laughs. Solidly. But I meant about … you know. Where we are. Or, more specifically – she studies me carefully – who might also be here."

Because there’s a reason why I know all about the gap between England and Australia. I understand how messy conversations can get between two countries because there’s experience behind that knowledge too.

And if I’m keen to stick to a definite schedule of communication, we all know there’s undeniable logic involved.

This is not my first long-distance romance.

Nope, I say firmly, standing up and grabbing my satchel. This is a clean slate, Nat. A brand-new adventure for both of us.

And it starts right now.

Image Missing nyway, here are some great facts about Australia:

You know what all this means?

It means that if you happen to have an Australian ex-boyfriend, and he happens to currently live in Australia, and you happen to also be there for a fortnight, the chances of bumping into him are so small they’re not even worth worrying about.

Especially if he doesn’t know you’re in the same country because you haven’t spoken a word to each other in seven months.

They’re minuscule. Ridiculous. Tiny.

There’s literally three times more chance of being jumped on by one of Australia’s sixty million kangaroos or being bitten by a particularly aggressive sheep.

So I’m not concerned or anxious about my new location in the slightest.

I just wish I could say the same for Nat.

"But, Harriet, she says as we wobble off the plane on aching legs, Bunty yawning and stretching in front of us like a jingling pink cat. Shouldn’t we at least prepare an … Emergency Ex-boyfriend Contingency Plan or something? Make a … pie chart or a … scatter graph? Just in case?"

Those are ridiculous suggestions, frankly.

We’d clearly need a flow chart: the other two options would be absolutely useless for this particular purpose.

"We don’t need anything, I say reassuringly, patting her arm and trying to dredge up my newfound breezy attitude. Life’s more about going with the flow, isn’t it? Embracing wherever fortune leads you. Gracefully gliding over the waves of chance and luck, like a bottlenose dolphin."

Or an alpaca, Bunty says cheerfully from some distance in front of us. "You wouldn’t believe what they can do on a surfboard."

Nat lifts her eyebrows, then looks pointedly at my old, beaten-up school satchel. "OK … Are you telling me you’ve got no plans for the next two weeks? At all?"

I stick my nose in the air. Yup.

"You’re planning on winging it the whole time? Just seeing what happens? Flying by the seat of your pants for fourteen days? Without strategy? Completely plan-less?"

A warm fizz is starting at the bottom of my stomach.

You may remember that last week there was rather a lot of drama caused by my relentless controlling, demanding and organising; by my inability to just let things happen.

And Nat was right at the front of the I Told You So queue.

So I promised her I’d work on being more laid-back and free-flowing moving forward.

Exactly. My nose gets a bit higher. "I have learnt my lesson, Natalie. I understand that life doesn’t always do what I want it to do, when I want it to, and sometimes I have to stop trying to force it. In the last few days I have grown and developed."

Then I try to walk faster so I can catch up with Bunty.

Sure, Nat laughs, keeping pace with me easily on her long legs. "So what’s in your satchel, Harriet? It looks kind of heavy."

Australian dollars, I say, walking a bit faster. Did you know they were the first country to introduce plastic money? Plastic money weighs more than paper, you know.

Can I see it?

What? I speed up a little more. "No. This is my private property."

I mean, Nat grins, "it’s almost as if there’s something in that bag you are hiding from me."

I’m now jogging and my best friend is effortlessly striding next to me, thanks to her natural levels of athleticism and lower body strength and my complete and utter lack of them.

In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a cluster of cells in the premotor cortex: the part responsible for planning movements. They found that the cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but when the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. Then they investigated humans, and found that mirror neurons can include sensation and emotion too.

Which basically means that we are scientifically capable of reading the minds of the people around us.

I really wish Nat would stop doing it right now.

It is super invasive.

Did you know, I say, clutching my bag tightly and dipping to the left, "that Roman legionaries carried satchels called loculi. Isn’t that interesting?"

Random Distraction Facts won’t work on me, Nat laughs, dipping smoothly after me. "I’ve known you way too long."

See what I mean? Meddlesome.

I hop to the right. Why are you so obsessed with me?

Give me your bag.

No.

Give it to me.

NO! I dodge the other way, then take a few steps backwards, stumbling into a disgruntled fellow passenger.

Nat abruptly does a sharp twist on the spot.

And before I can react, she’s tackled me into a firm headlock, undone my satchel and pulled out something heavy and bright.

Ha! she shouts, waving it in the air. Busted!

"Oh, what pretty colours! Bunty says from where she’s been calmly watching us scrummage at the side of the corridor. And what neat calligraphy skills, Harriet, darling! How clever you are."

You know what it is, don’t you?

Of course you do: we haven’t known each other for years for nothing. It’s a rainbow-highlighted folder with HARRIET’S TOP SECRET EPIC AUSTRALIAN FORTNIGHT OF FUN DOWN UNDER PLAN written across it in big purple and pink letters.

With Attached Detailed Strategy written underneath in silver.

And (Don’t Show Nat – I Am Breezy Now) in gold.

Sometimes I really hate having a kindred spirit who knows me inside and out.

There’s just no privacy at all.

Even dolphins need echolocation guidance now and then, I mutter crossly, head still clamped under Nat’s forearm like the ghost of Anne Boleyn. "Waves can be extremely disorientating."

Idiot, Nat laughs, pinching my nose with her fingers.

Then she lets go and starts walking towards baggage reclaim with my no-longer-secret folder held against her stomach.

Natalie! I shout after her. What are you going to do with that?

Honestly, it took me ages. I had to hole-punch and put everything together in the bathroom so Nat wouldn’t see that I’d regressed to being an epic organisational wizard all over again.

We’ve only got two weeks to tick it all off, you total Control Freak, Nat yells over her shoulder. So I reckon we’d better get cracking.

Image Missing re you ready for a particularly awesome new fact?

In the middle of the human ear are three tiny bones, each smaller than a grain of rice. They’re called the ossicular chain, and they’re the only part of the body that never changes as you get older.

That’s what I think true friendship is.

It’s realising that while many parts of you are going to grow and develop over the years, others are going to stay exactly the same and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Accepting that tiny bits of somebody are what make them who they are, and that they’ll always be there: even if they’re inconvenient or unattractive or sometimes extremely irritating.

No matter how deeply they’ve been buried or hidden.

But loving them intensely anyway.

Which is handy, because I really thought Nat would go off the deep end when she realised I’d planned out the entire two-week vacation in close detail.

Then laminated a schedule, in case it got wet.

"Watch La bohème at Sydney Opera House, Nat reads as we stand by the luggage area. Inform Nat that its 15,500 light bulbs are changed every year, then tell her about the chicken."

She glances up at me with a frown.

"In the eighties a live chicken walked off the stage during a performance of Boris Godunov, I say, scanning the bags. And landed on a cellist."

"Oh, I remember that, Bunty laughs, nodding. Feathers everywhere. There’s been a net over the orchestra pit ever since."

Throw axes in St Peters? Nat says, glancing down again.

There’s a warehouse where you can pay fifty dollars to do so, I explain, watching the conveyor belt carefully. I feel like it’s a useful life skill to develop.

Sure, Nat laughs. "If we lived in Game of Thrones."

You can never be too prepared for unexpected dragons, I mutter, still searching for my luggage.

Nat got her black suitcase more than ten minutes ago, Bunty carried her scruffy floral patchwork bag on the plane with her and I’m kind of impatient to get going. There are 4,775 square miles of Sydney and we have just one fortnight to see them all.

That’s 341 square miles a day, or more than fourteen an hour.

According to my calculations, we’ll have to move faster than three Eastern Grey Squirrels.

There’s also Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, I add distractedly. Made out of stone and carved by convicts who—

A loud commotion is coming from the baggage entrance.

Sugar cookies.

It appears that my enormous yellow suitcase has started a pile-up: boxes and bags are wedged behind it and there’s a screeching noise coming from the conveyor-belt wheels.

Blimey, somebody laughs. Anybody missing a dead body or the kitchen sink?

Flushing, I leap forward to free my suitcase.

There are half a million bacteria in every square inch of a kitchen sink, I mumble, grabbing the top handle. I really don’t think they would let one through customs.

Then I put all of my admittedly limited strength into trying to lift the yellow monster off the conveyor belt. Umm, I grunt as it shifts forward and I start being dragged along next to it. Guys?

Still tugging, I’m dragged a few more metres. Guys?

The average fully grown human has approximately 640 muscles, and it’s at moments like this I really wish I’d spent a little more time on those in my arms and a lot less on the ones in my mouth.

Strangers are beginning to dive out of the way as I’m jerked rapidly along the floor like an obsessive dog refusing to let go of its chew-toy.

My cheeks are starting to flame; my eyes to prickle.

Hello, familiar signs of public humiliation.

Guys? I bleat