Iggy and Me Page 3

  And then Mum said, “Let’s play ‘I Went on Holiday and in My Suitcase I put…’”

  “What’s it called?” I said.

  “I Went on Holiday and in My Suitcase I put…”

  “Wow,” I said. “That sounds complicated.”

  “It’s fun,” Mum said, and she told us how. It’s a game with the longest name in the world probably and it’s really good. And we got a big surprise when we played it.

  Mum started off and she said, “I went on holiday and in my suitcase I put some pyjamas.”

  And the next person (which was me) had to say, “I went on holiday and in my suitcase I put some pyjamas…and a book.”

  And then the next person, who was Iggy, had to remember the pyjamas and the book and added a sunhat.

  And then the next person, who was Dad, had to remember the pyjamas and the book and the sunhat and then said, “A loo brush.” Which was very silly.

  The game went on and on, and the list got longer, and the suitcase got bigger and fuller, and we had to think really hard to remember all the stuff we’d packed in just the right order. I think I remembered about eight or twelve things, and then I got a bit tied up in knots and my brain ached and I had to stop.

  I don’t know how many things Iggy remembered. I lost count. She was sitting next to me in her booster seat with way more than half the covers on her.

  She said, “I went on holiday and in my suitcase I put some pyjamas, a book, a sunhat, a loo brush, some sandals, some sun cream, my teddy, an armadillo, my alarm clock, my camera, a mobile phone, some eggs, a map, some sunglasses, a pencil case, some kippers and…a bikini.”

  “That’s seventeen,” Mum said to Dad. “That’s amazing.” We all had our mouths open at how good Iggy was at the game.

  Dad said to Iggy, “You have a remarkable memory.”

  “What does that mean?” said Iggy.

  “I can’t remember,” said Dad.

  “It means very, very good indeed,” said Mum.

  “What about me?” I said.

  “Yours is very good too, sieve brain,” said Dad. (I know he was only joking because he winked at me in his special mirror.)

  “Can we play again?” Iggy said.

  So we did. Three more times. Iggy’s memory was remarkable every time.

  We played it all the way until we arrived in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly there we were, in no time at all, and our friends were running down the path to meet us and show us the swing in their garden and where we were all sleeping.

  “Hello,” we all said to each other, apart from Iggy.

  Iggy wasn’t getting out of the car, which was strange, because she loves swings in gardens, and she especially loves our friends and she’d been excited about visiting for ages.

  “Come on, Iggy,” said Dad. “Out you get.”

  “What’s the matter, Iggy?” Mum said.

  “Can you only play it in a car?” Iggy said.

  “Play what?” we said.

  “I went on holiday and in my suitcase I put…” Iggy said.

  Mum and Dad laughed.

  “No, Iggy,” I said, and I held out my hand so she could hold it. “You can play it in gardens and on swings and in other people’s houses and anywhere in the whole world you feel like playing it.”

  “Good,” Iggy said. “Let’s go and teach the others.”

  Iggy and the babysitter

  Mum and Dad were going out and we needed a babysitter.

  “What’s a babysitter?” Iggy said.

  “It’s a person who squashes naughty children,” said Dad, and Mum told him off.

  “No it’s not,” she said. “It’s a person who looks after you when we go out.”

  “Go out where?” Iggy said.

  “Exactly,” Dad said. “When do we ever go out?”

  “Next Friday,” Mum said. “We’re going to the theatre, remember? It’s been booked for ages. And for supper at the French place.”

  “What supper do you get there?” Iggy said, like she wanted to go with them.

  “Snails,” Dad said, pulling a face, and Iggy stopped wanting straightaway.

  “What about Granny and Grandpa?” I said. “They’re good at looking after us.” Granny and Grandpa are Mum’s Mum and Dad. Sometimes we go and stay with them on our own. They live very far away and they have two cats and a big tin that’s only for chocolate.

  “They’re on holiday,” Mum said.

  “Get Rwaida,” Iggy said. Rwaida is Iggy’s teacher at school.

  Mum said, “She spends all day looking after you. She’s not going to want to come and do it at night too.”

  “She might,” Iggy said.

  “She’s a qualified teacher,” Mum said. “Qualified teachers don’t do babysitting.”

  I said that Granny was a qualified teacher too, because she used to be, and Grandpa used to know how to fly a real plane, and they both did babysitting.

  Mum said, “That’s not the point, Miss Smartypants. They do it for free.”

  “What about Auntie Kate?” Iggy said.

  “Auntie Kate lives in America,” I told her.

  “So?” Iggy said. “Can’t she come over just for one night?”

  “No,” Mum said.

  “That’s not fair,” Iggy said.

  “Life’s not fair,” Mum said, and Iggy said, “Why not?” and Mum didn’t answer.

  “Can’t we go and stay somewhere?” I said. “We could go to Star’s house.”

  Star is my absolute best friend and she lives over the road from me at number twenty-nine. I’ve stayed there about thirty-three times.

  Iggy’s eyes went all sparkly and excited. “We could have a sleepover,” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” Mum said.

  Iggy’s never stayed at a friend’s house. This is because she is very little and also because sometimes she wets the bed, but I’m not supposed to know because it’s private and a secret.

  “What about Mrs Butler?” I said.

  Mrs Butler lives next door. She wears a purple hat and tights the colour her legs would go if she went on holiday and got a tan. Her face is very pale under her purple hat and her legs are very brown. I don’t know what colour her hair is because I’ve never seen it. She always says, “Hello, girls,” when we see her in the street, and one Saturday she gave me 10p for sweets without me even asking. This is why I thought she might make a good babysitter.

  “I don’t think Mrs Butler will get up these stairs,” Mum said, “let alone chase you two around for hours.”

  “Why will we be running?” Iggy said, with a face that tried to say she never darts about like a squealing mouse, or dances on the table, or jumps up and down on the sofa while people are trying to read.

  “Who, me?” her face said.

  “Yes, you,” said Mum’s face.

  In the end, Mum found a lady called Joanna, who was the daughter of her friend at yoga or something like that. Mum spoke to her on the phone and the week before Mum and Dad were going out, she came round to meet us. She had purple hair. And black painted fingernails. And an earring in her eyebrow. You could see that she was really pretty underneath.

  “Do we have to stay home alone with her?” Iggy said while we stood on the doormat, waiting to meet her.

  “Sssh!” Mum said. “And yes, you do.”

  “Hello,” Joanna said, and I said, “Hello,” but Iggy hid behind my back and wouldn’t come out.

  “She’s shy,” I said, and Dad snorted because shy is about the very last thing that Iggy is. I frowned at him for giving the game away. “She is,” I said.

  “No I’m not,” Iggy said. “I just don’t like purple hair.”

  “Iggy!” Mum said. “That’s very rude.”

  “It’s OK,” Joanna said, and when Iggy peeped out at her she smiled. “You don’t have to like purple hair. I don’t mind.”

  The night that Mum and Dad were going out, Joanna came round to babysit. She was carrying a big bag of some
thing and this time her hair was orange. Iggy’s mouth dropped open like a trapdoor and she hid behind me again. My pyjama top was all squished up in her fists and her nose pressed into my back.

  “Come out, Iggy,” I said, trying to get her off me, but she wouldn’t. I tried to smile at Joanna at the same time, but it was quite hard. It came out more like pulling a face.

  “I like your hair,” Mum said.

  “I thought Iggy might prefer it orange,” Joanna said.

  I could feel Iggy shaking her head against me. I smiled even harder.

  Mum was all dressed up and she looked really different in a good way, and Dad was wearing a suit.

  “My Mum and Dad are going to eat snails,” I said. “Have you eaten a snail?”

  “No,” Joanna said. “I’m a vegan.”

  “What’s that?” I said. I wondered if it had something to do with the colour of her hair.

  Mum said it meant that Joanna didn’t eat any meat or fish or eggs or milk or anything at all that came from animals.

  “Iggy’s nearly one of those,” I said. “All she wants to eat is Rice Crispies.”

  When we said goodbye to Mum and Dad, I had to help tickle Iggy to get her to unlock her arms from Mum’s neck. Mum left lots of phone numbers in case of emergency. I wondered what emergencies she was thinking might happen and I was a bit worried about it, but I didn’t have time to ask.

  After they’d gone it was quiet for a minute. Iggy held on to my hand and she wouldn’t let go. Then Joanna said, “OK, who wants to do some art with me?” and she walked into the kitchen with her big bag, like she was expecting us to follow her.

  I looked at Iggy and she looked at me. She pulled this face, with her eyebrows up really high and her bottom lip stuck out really far, and she shrugged her shoulders.

  “What sort of art?” I said. I really like drawing so I was already going to say yes.

  “Really good fun art,’ Joanna said, and she came out of the kitchen with a big roll of paper in her hand.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “It’s wallpaper,” she said. “For drawing on.”

  Iggy said, “We’re not allowed to draw on the walls. We get in very big trouble when we do that.”

  Joanna laughed. She said, “It’s not going on the walls, it’s going on the floor.”

  Iggy shook her head. “We can’t draw on the floor either,” and she rolled her eyes at me as if she was saying, “Doesn’t this babysitter know anything?”

  “Don’t worry,” Joanna said. “We’re not drawing on anything we’re not supposed to. Come in here and lie down.”

  “Lie down?” I said.

  Iggy and me looked at each other again. Iggy said, “I don’t want to.”

  “Come on, Iggy,” I said. “It’ll be fun. Let’s go.”

  Iggy took tiny steps on our way to the kitchen. It took quite a long time to get there.

  “Who wants to go first?” Joanna said, and Iggy pushed me in the back, which was her way of saying that I did.

  “I do,” I said.

  Joanna unrolled the big roll of paper out on the floor and put a book at each end to stop it from curling back up again. “On you get,” she said. “Lie down on that.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yep. That’s it.”

  I lay down on the paper and looked up at her. The floor was cold and bony. If I turned my head to the side I could see loads of fluff under the cooker. Iggy looked really worried again.

  “Are you good at art?” I said to Joanna.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “Now hold still.”

  “What are you going to do?” I said.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” she said. “Iggy is. Come on, Iggy.”

  Iggy was lurking in the doorway with her thumb in her mouth and Joanna held out a pen to her. A big, fat, smelly, red one that made Iggy’s thumb pop out and her feet start moving across the floor. I noticed she didn’t have any slippers on. Mum would’ve had something to say about that, but Joanna didn’t seem to mind.

  “Draw round your sister,” she said.

  “All round?” Iggy said.

  “Yep,” said Joanna. “Just like you draw round your hand on a piece of paper.”

  So Iggy took the lid off the pen and got down really low so her face was really close to mine. “Stay still,” she said, and she started to draw, climbing around me while she did it. The pen made a funny noise through the floor and into my ears while she went round me, now above my head, now round my fingers, now by my knee, now at my feet. When I got up, there I was still lying on the paper, a bit wobbly in places, but the same size as real life. I was quite surprised by how big I am.

  Joanna was pulling things out of her bag—material and paper and glue and pencils and glitter and stuff. “We’ve got to get her dressed now,” she said.

  So we started cutting and sticking, and soon the girl who wasn’t me but was exactly my size, was wearing a skirt and a T-shirt and a cardigan and stripy socks and big glittery shoes.

  After that I drew round Iggy, and then we both drew round Joanna who was nearly as tall as Iggy and me put together.

  When it was time to go to bed, we helped Joanna tidy up, and then she helped us clean our teeth and wash our faces.

  Iggy took the picture of Joanna in her room because she said it would be like having a babysitter there all the time, and she would sleep really well and not get up once.

  “Goodnight,” Joanna said. “Sleep tight.”

  “Goodnight,” I said.

  “Goodnight,” Iggy said.

  And then she said, “Joanna.”

  And Joanna said, “Yes?”

  “I like purple hair really,” said Iggy. “And orange hair too. I like it a lot.”

  Doctor Iggy

  One day, Iggy woke up and decided to be a doctor. Not a doctor for people, but a doctor for toys.

  It started at our school fair. That’s where Iggy got her first sick toy. It was a little elephant that could fit in her hand. It had a squashed trunk and a missing leg. It looked very sorry for itself indeed. Iggy asked me for 5p so she could buy it.

  All the way back she held the elephant in both hands really gently, as if it might break.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Iggy said, not taking her eyes off it. “I haven’t looked yet.”

  “Watch where you’re going,” Mum said to her. “You’ll bump into people.”

  When we got home, Iggy took the sick elephant straight upstairs. She put on a doctor’s coat, which was actually the top half of my judo suit. It’s a bit big even for me and it came all the way down to her ankles. She put on the black plastic glasses that used to have a false nose before she pulled it off. She rushed around upstairs looking for Post-it notes and Sellotape, and in the bathroom she filled a little cup from her teaset with water.

  When she had everything she needed, she looked at the elephant all over with a magnifying glass. She poked it with a cotton bud. She said, “Where does it hurt?” and “You’re being very brave,” and “What a good patient,” just like a real doctor.

  She decided what was wrong with it—a broken leg (obviously) and a very bad cold. Then she cured it with a dab of water and a bandage made of loo roll. She wet the elephant’s trunk and wrapped it up, and she did the same to the place where its leg should be. Then she made a bed for it on the floor, out of a shoebox and a pillow from my doll’s pram.

  Ever since then Iggy has collected toys that have something wrong with them. If she finds a bear with one eye, or a dog with no tail, or a squirrel with a stuffing problem, Iggy has to take it home. If we leave it behind she worries and worries. I think Iggy really cares about sick toys. And Mum says that 20p here and there is worth it for the peace and quiet.

  Iggy’s room has a bed with a table next to it, and a tall cupboard to put all her clothes in. That’s it. Iggy’s room isn’t very big. And because of all the sick toys and the bandages
and everything, Iggy’s room is overcrowded.

  “Just like a real hospital,” Dad said.

  Iggy arranges all her patients in straight rows, like in a ward. She makes beds for them out of all the clothes that should be in her tall cupboard. Sometimes she’s got no clean T-shirts because there’s a bandaged toy on every single one of them. Sometimes you can’t even get to her bed, the floor is so covered with sleeping toys. And if you even just nearly tread on one, you are in trouble with Iggy for days.

  “This healthcare business is getting out of hand,” Dad said, trying to put Iggy to bed with only one foot on the floor.

  “What is?” said Iggy.

  While Dad was balancing, I closed my eyes because I thought he was about to land on a kangaroo with a torn pouch.

  “This hospital,” he said. “It’s everywhere.”

  “I know,” said Iggy.

  “Can’t you move them over a bit?” I said.

  I was only trying to be helpful, but Iggy glared at me. “They’ll get squashed,” she said.

  Dad said that by the look of some of them, “squashed” was what they did for a living.

  “It’s not funny, Daddy,” Iggy said, and you could tell from her frown and her pointing finger that she was deadly serious. “Some of these teddies are very not happy,” she said. “And I am all they’ve got.”

  Just when she said that, a big pile of jumpers fell out of the tall cupboard with a thwump. Dad looked at Iggy, and he looked at the jumpers (which had somehow landed between the doll with one eye and a pair of earless teddies), and then he looked at me. “I think this house is sinking,” he said. “We must be on a slope.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mum said, trying to find somewhere to stand as she came in the room. It was her turn to read to Iggy and my turn to read with Dad.

  “The house is sinking,” I said.

  “Dad wants to shrink my hospital,” Iggy said.

  Mum looked at Dad and he held his hands out, like a teapot with two spouts and no handle. “What?” he said. “It’s a mess in here. You can’t see the floor.”

  Mum pointed her finger at Dad, just like Iggy did, and she said, “Saving lives is a messy business.”

  “True,” Dad said.