Iggy and Me
Jenny Valentine

Illustrated by Joe Berger

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Iggy and me

Iggy’s hair

Iggy’s world

And in my suitcase I put…

Iggy and the babysitter

Doctor Iggy

Goodnight, Iggy

A New House

About the author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Iggy and me

My name is Flo and I have a little sister. When she was even smaller than she is now, my little sister changed her name. One morning she woke up and she just wasn’t called it anymore.

It was very confusing.

We were sitting up in my bed making snowflakes. She woke me up early to make them. My sister often comes into my bed in the mornings, before I am quite ready for good news or making things. There were tiny bits of paper all over the sheets and the floor. That’s how she got me to sit up, by sprinkling them on my face.

My sister had only just got good with scissors and she found it very exciting.

We were supposed to make snowflakes out of old magazines because we’re not allowed to use new paper for stuff unless we have a very good reason, like a birthday or a sorry or a thank you letter. Snowflakes were not a very good reason andeven though I told my sister that more than twice, she was using new paper because she so wanted them to be pure, bright white with no writing on them.

“Look at mine,” she said, holding up snowflake number twenty-seven.

“Very good,” I said. “Can I have the scissors now?”

“I’m using them,” she said.

“You’re not.”

“I am in a minute.”

“Sam,” I said, because that was my sister’s name. “You have to share.”

“My name’s not Sam,” she said.

I didn’t say anything, because I thought it was just her annoying way of not sharing. I didn’t realise she was serious. And I had to wait ages for the scissors.

Later, we were all in the kitchen in our pyjamas. On not-school days we always eat breakfast with pyjamas on, sometimes even lunch. Mum and Dad look funny in their pyjamas in the mornings, all creased and sort of puffy. Mum’s hair was wild and frizzy, and Dad’s stuck out more on one side than the other. And they had no slippers on even though they are always telling us to wear ours.

My sister had stuck all her white snowflakes on to the fridge until it looked like it was wearing a wedding dress. Every time you opened the fridge door, the snowflakes fluttered in the breeze like lace.

I said, “The fridge is getting married.”

My sister said, “To who? To Daddy?” and laughed at her own joke like crazy. She loves her own jokes.

“Sam,” Mum said. “Toast or cereal?” My sister didn’t answer.

“Sam,” Mum said. “Hello? Earth calling Sam?”

She still didn’t answer. She turned her face away and her forehead went all smooth like it does when she’s pretending not to hear you.

“Sam,” Mum said again. “What do you want for breakfast?”

Nothing. Not a peep.

“Sammy,” said Dad, putting his arm round the fridge and kissing it. “Mum is talking to you.”

“No she’s not,” said my sister, and then she pointed at him and laughed. “Mr and Mrs Fridge.”

“She is,” Dad said. “You heard her. We all did.”

“She’s not talking to me,” my sister said. “She’s talking to Sam.”

Nobody said anything for a minute. It was very quiet in the kitchen. I could hear the kettle bubbling and my cereal landing on itself in my bowl. I looked at Mum, and Mum looked at Dad, and we all looked at my sister. She still looked like Sam to me, twiddling her hair and wearing her pyjamas with the fairies on.

“We thought you were Sam,” said Mum.

My sister looked behind her, both sides, as if Mum was talking to someone there. “Who, me?” she said, “Who, ME?” Like we were the dumbest people on Earth.

“Yes, you,” Mum said.

“I’m not Sam,” my sister said all matter-of-factly. “There’s no one here called that name at all.”

Dad started looking under the table and in the cereal boxes and in the bin. “There’s a Sam around here somewhere,” he said. “I know she was here a minute ago.” He made a big show of it, checking in his armpits, looking in her hair like a monkey at the zoo, calling, “Sa-am, Sa-am!”

My sister giggled. “She’s not here,” she said. “Sam’s not here.”

Mum said that there used to be a little girl in the family called Sam. She said, “I’ll be a little tiny bit annoyed if somebody has gone and lost Sam because I was starting to quite like her, thank you very much.”

My sister shrugged. She said, “I don’t know where she is.”

“So who are you?” Dad said.

And I said, “What’s your name?”

She looked at us and smiled, like it was about time somebody asked.

“My name’s called Iggy,” she said. She looked so proud of herself that she made me think of a peacock with its tail all fanned out behind.

Mum laughed and my little sister told her not to, so she pretended to drink her tea instead, but I could see she was still smiling. Dad said Iggy sounded like a piglet, or a puppet of a piglet, or a knitted egg-cup with a piglet’s nose.

“Or a girl,” my sister said, and she frowned at him. “Because it’s my name and I am one.”

“What, a piglet?” said Dad.

“No, silly, a girl.”

“It doesn’t sound like the one we bought,” Mum said. “The little girl we bought was definitely a Sam.”

My sister shook her head and pointed at herself and said, “Well, this one is defilately an Iggy.”

“I like it,” I said. “It suits you.”

My sister said, “Good,” and then, “Of course it suits me, it’s my name.” Then she said, “You didn’t buy me really, anyway, did you?”

My cereal spluttered when I poured the milk on it. My sister said, “Please can I have some?” so I passed her a bowl and a spoon and the box and the milk, and she said “Thank you, Flo.”

I looked behind me, both sides, and I said, “There’s no one called Flo around here.” I was just joking.

Mum and Dad’s mouths opened and laughed, but my sister’s mouth stayed all closed and deadly serious. She was not pleased.

After that we didn’t want her to be cross because when my sister gets cross she can be very boring and we all have to listen. So we played the Iggy game all breakfast to avoid it. We said, “Pass the butter please, Iggy” and “Drink your juice, Iggy” and “Stop kicking me, Iggy” and “Put your chin over the bowl, Iggy” and “Ow, Iggy!” and “Iggy, behave!”

In fact, we played it all day because we thought that maybe if we said Iggy enough she would get tired of it and want to change back. That was the idea anyway.

When we were getting dressed I remembered to call her Iggy.

When she refused to help me tidy up the snowflakes on my bed I called her Iggy, even though she was annoying me and I might easily have forgotten.

When she asked me to do her name in bubble writing on a sign for her door I remembered to write Iggy so I didn’t have to do it again.

Mum and Dad remembered to use her new name too. They said, “Iggy this” and “Iggy that.”

They said, “Iggy, eat your lunch by half past or there’s no pudding.”

They said, “Iggy, don’t cheat at Snap.”

They said, “Iggy, when did you last clean your teeth?”

They said, “Iggy, Flo is trying to read. Stop jumping up and down on the sofa.”

Even when my sister came down from her room with a box we didn’t say anything. In the box she’d packed all the things she could find with SAM written on them. Socks and pencils and a plastic cup and a key ring and some Post-it notes and a green teddy bear and a purse, and a tiny car licence plate from California that our Auntie Kate had sent her, and a painting that I did when she was born that said her name in my writing before I was very good at doing it. My sister loved that painting.

“This is for Sam,” she said.

Dad said, “Where do you want me to put it, Iggy?”

My sister shrugged, “In the rubbish.”

Mum said, “Don’t you think Sam will come back for it?”

My sister shook her head. “Nuh-uh,” she said. “No way.”

I said, “I thought you liked that painting.”

She said, “I do. Can you do another one for Iggy?” And I said I would.

My mum and dad put the box in the cupboard under the stairs when she wasn’t looking, just in case. And they said, “Goodnight, Iggy.”

And, “Sleep tight, Iggy.”

And, “Mind the bugs don’t bite, Iggy.”

And I said, “See you in the morning, Iggy. We can make more snowflakes.”

We didn’t go wrong at all. We thought we were being so clever. We nudged each other and winked at each other all day long.

When we woke up next morning we said, “Is Sam back yet?”

My sister said, “Nope.”

And the morning after that she said, “Nope.”

And the morning after that she said, “Who’s Sam?”

We soon worked out who was in charge. It was definitely Iggy. Because Iggy’s her name and it’s been her name since the morning she said so. The Iggy game turned into something real and after a while we all got used to it.

Iggy has a new plastic cup and some pencils with her name on, but no key ring yet or Post-its, and definitely no licence plate from California. Mum sewed IGGY on to a teddy and I did a new painting for her which was much, much better than the first one.

I can’t imagine calling her anything else. It’s always Iggy and me now.

Iggy’s hair

Iggy and me started off with exactly the same hair. Mum says when I was born I had hair like fluff, all soft and sort of see-through.

“You mean bald,” Dad says.

“No,” Mum says, “It was lovely.”

Then it grew and grew, and when I was the age that Iggy is now, it was long and fine and blonde. “Never,” says Dad, but it’s true. I’ve seen the pictures.

When Iggy was born, she had see-through fluff too. Then she grew and her hair grew too, long and fine and blonde. My hair isn’t long and fine and blonde any more. My hair is shorter and darker and nothing-er than Iggy’s. And my fringe gets in my eyes and it’s itchy. So I trimmed it.

I did a really good job. I did it with the kitchen scissors, and I put all the hair in my bin and I put the scissors on my bedside table.

When I went down to the kitchen, Dad didn’t even notice. I had to tell him.

“Do you notice anything different about me?” I said.

Dad said, “You’re fluent in Japanese.”

“No.”

“You’ve turned into a sausage dog.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You’re a fully-trained astronaut.”

“No, Dad. I’ve cut my hair.”

Dad was pouring coffee and he stopped moving. Iggy was picking her nose and she stopped moving.

“Where?’ Dad said.

And Iggy said, “On her head, silly.”

“I can’t see it,” he said.

“Well, I have,” I said.

Just then, Mum came down from my room with a handful of my hair. She had found it in the bin. “Have you cut your hair?” she said, and she sounded cross. I suddenly sort of wished I hadn’t.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Mum said in a louder voice than normal. “It’s not allowed.”

Iggy said, “How did you know she did it, Mum? Me and Dad didn’t notice.”

“I noticed because she left the evidence in her room,” Mum said, and showed her the hair from my bin. It was all fluffy and dry in her hands. It didn’t look much like my hair at all, more like a guinea pig’s really.

“Oh,” Iggy said. “Evidence.”

“Still,” Dad said to me, “you did a pretty good job.”

“Don’t do it again,” Mum said, and she glared at him and then at me.

So I didn’t.

But Iggy did.

She found the scissors by my bed. And because she could make snowflakes out of folded bits of old magazine, she thought she could do anything with scissors.

Mum and Dad said it was my fault what happened, and that I shouldn’t cut my own fringe, even just a little bit, and I also shouldn’t leave scissors lying around in places where Iggies can find them.

I say when you’re Iggy’s big sister everything is your fault, even breathing, because even breathing makes Iggy think of something naughty she could do.

It was after lunch and I was doing times tables in my room. I don’t like times tables and because I don’t like them I have to do them more than someone who does, which doesn’t make any sense to me. I have to say them out loud to myself and throw a ball and catch it while I’m saying them. I feel silly doing that all alone in my room, but Mum and Dad say I have to and they test me afterwards, on my tables and on my catching, so I can’t really cheat.

Dad was cutting the grass outside and Mum was working in her room with the sign on the door that says, Be Quiet Your Mother is Thinking. Maybe if the lawnmower hadn’t been on one of us would have noticed how quiet Iggy was being, because Iggy is not normally quiet. As soon as she stops filling the house with noise, you can almost guarantee she is up to no good.

So when Dad finished and I couldn’t hear the mower any more, I couldn’t hear Iggy either and I knew there was going to be trouble. Maybe Mum couldn’t hear her at the same time because she opened her door and said, “Iggy? Where are you?”

And Dad came in from outside and said, “It’s a bit quiet in here.”

When Iggy came out of her room she acted like nothing had happened. She came past my door, quieter than normal, and I stopped throwing the ball and trying to remember what seven times four was before I caught it.

“Iggy,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Walking,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I mean what have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” she said, in her lying voice, which is very easy to recognise because it’s not her real voice at all. It’s what she thinks people who are telling the truth sound like.

“Come here,” I said, and she turned back and put her head in the room.

Her head with practically no hair on it.

“Iggy!” I said. “What have you done?”

“I’ve cut my hair,” she said, smiling.

I put my hand over my mouth like a shocked person on the telly and I said, “Mum and Dad are going to kill you!”

“They’re not allowed,” Iggy said.

“You can’t stick hair back on, you know,” I said.

“I know. I don’t want to.”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I said, “They are going to be so cross!”

“No, they’re not,” Iggy said. “They’re not going to notice.” And before I could argue or stop her, she smiled and went downstairs. So I followed her. The back of her head was all different patches, like where Mum fixes the holes in my jeans.

When Iggy walked into Mum’s room I counted to two and then I heard Mum shriek like there was a spider down her shirt or a mouse in the fridge or something.

“What’s happened?” Dad said. He ran past me in the hall and went into the room with Mum and Iggy in it. I counted to two again and then Dad made a noise that was more of a bellow than a shriek. He sounded like a balloon popping in slow motion.

“What did I say?” Mum said. “What did I say this morning about cutting hair?”

“I haven’t cut my hair,” Iggy said.

Mum and Dad said, “What?” at the same time, like they’d heard her wrong.

“I haven’t cut my hair,” she said. “You can look at my room if you like.”

“We’re looking at your head,” Dad said.

“There’s no hair in my bin,” Iggy said.

“There’s no hair on your head either,” Dad said.

“There’s no evidence,” Iggy said. “Go and see.”

Mum wasn’t saying anything. I peeped through the crack in the door and she had her hand over her mouth, just like I’d done, and her eyes were watering like when she peels onions. Dad said he didn’t need to go and see because he could see very well from where he was standing.

“Your beautiful golden hair,” Mum said.

“You didn’t notice Flo’s,” Iggy said.

“It’s not quite the same,” Dad said.

Iggy’s voice began to go all wobbly. Her words were starting to run into each other, into one long word. You could tell she was going to start crying, any minute.

“You found the hair in Flo’s bin,” she said. “But there isn’t any hair in mine so you aren’t supposed to. Thereisn’tanyevidence.”

Mum and Dad smiled at each other over Iggy’s head. But when Iggy looked at them they looked cross again. “Show me where you put it,” Mum said, and she made Iggy go upstairs in front of her.

Dad came too and he winked at me in the hallway. “You’ve got to see this, come on,” he said. We followed the back of her head up the stairs and into her room.

Iggy’s room has floorboards painted white with a little red rug on top. We couldn’t see any hair. It wasn’t in the bin and it wasn’t in her bed or under the pillows.

“Where’s the rest of your hair?” I said.

“It’s not here,” Iggy whispered. But I saw her eyes look down at the red rug and then I knew.

We lifted it up together and, underneath, Iggy’s chopped and golden hair shifted in the breeze like plants at the bottom of the sea, like the very last bit of a princess who was turning invisible. It looked so pretty lying there that Iggy must have missed it because she burst into tears.

Dad said, “it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

Mum said, “When you stop crying I’ve got something to show you.”

I counted in my head to a hundred and Iggy was nearly finished. Her shoulders were still going up and down, but she wasn’t filling the room with noise like before.

“Come with me,” Mum said.

We went back downstairs to Mum’s thinking room and she opened a drawer, looking for something. Iggy was still sniffing. “Here it is,” Mum said, and she pulled out a photo which she gave to Iggy.

“Let’s see,” I said.

It was a little girl about the same age as Iggy.

“That’s me,” Mum said, and Iggy giggled.

“You look funny,” I said.

“I know,” Mum said. “I’d just cut my own hair.”

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