Iggy and Me on Holiday

by Jenny Valentine

  “Penguins and polar bears like the sea,” I said.

  “And dogs like the beach,” Iggy added.

  “They won’t like this beach,” Dad said, “because they’re not coming.”

  Iggy’s eyebrows went pink. “We can’t leave them at home,” she said. “Barnaby won’t have any friends on holiday if we do that.”

  “Yes we can,” said Dad, and Iggy’s eyebrows got pinker and pinker.

  “I see,” Mum said.

  “See what?” Dad said.

  “The problem,” Mum said.

  “They want to come too,” Iggy said. “They really want to.”

  “Oh dear,” said Mum.

  “Barnaby gets to come,” Iggy said, “and it’s not fair on the others. And he’ll be lonely.”

  “Never mind,” said Dad.

  “Can’t they fit?” I asked them. “Can’t Gloria and Mumble and Polly and Ranger and Barnaby all squeeze in the car with us?”

  “No,” Dad said. “They’re not invited.”

  “I invited them,” Iggy said. “Please can they come?”

  “Not really,” said Mum.

  “Why not?” Iggy said.

  “They take up too much room,” Dad said.

  “We can move up,” I told him.

  Iggy grinned and nodded and did a little dance with just her hands. “And they can make themselves really small,” she said. “They squashed right up to fit in my rucksack. They didn’t complain.”

  “Here we go,” said Dad.

  “Can they?” Iggy said, and I said, “Go on, let them.”

  I know how much Iggy loves her teddies.

  Dad and Mum looked at each other. Mum smiled and Dad blew the air out of his cheeks like a big balloon.

  “Just them,” Mum said.

  “No-one else,” Dad said.

  “Apart from us,” I said.

  “Good point,” said Dad, and Mum said to Iggy, “Go and take off all that packing and put it in your bag.”

  “OK,” Iggy said, and she ran down the corridor to her room.

  “Why the big hurry?” Mum said.

  “Can’t stop,” Iggy shouted back. “Need a wee.”

  The longest journey ever

  On the day we were leaving for our holiday at the seaside, we put all our suitcases by the front door. Our hallway was piled up with sleeping bags and pillows and teddies and boxes of food. It looked like we were going away for ages.

  Dad said we should wait while he went to get the car.

  “The car’s outside,” I said.

  “Not that car,” he said, and he winked at me. “Our holiday car.”

  “What’s one of those?” Iggy said. “What’s a holiday car?”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a holiday car. I asked Mum.

  She said, “Wait and see.”

  So we did.

  Iggy waited by playing with her teddies and asking Mum a hundred times how long Dad would be.

  I read a chapter of my book, I watched a cartoon on TV and then I watered all the plants so they didn’t get thirsty while we were away.

  And after that, we heard a beeping noise outside. It went “Bibbetybibbetybip.”

  “Is that it?” Iggy said.

  “Yes,” Mum said. “Come and see.”

  We went outside and there was Dad, just parking outside, in our holiday car.

  It was a yellow van with a white roof. It had windows all around and there were curtains in the windows. They were yellow and white checks.

  Iggy did a little dance with just her hands.

  “Wow,” she said. Yellow is her favourite colour.

  Dad’s face was in the first window and was grinning at us. The van made a growling, grumbling, spluttering sort of noise and then it stopped.

  “Wow again,” I said, and Iggy looked at me and we giggled.

  Dad got out and he had to jump down because the van was so high up and then he opened the big door in the side. It slid open with a rolling noise.

  “Wow,” Mum said.

  We couldn’t believe our eyes.

  Inside, where there are normally just seats, there was a proper room.

  From just where we were standing I could see a table and a sofa and some cupboards and a sink.

  I said to Iggy, “Can you see what I see?” and Iggy said, “Do cars have sinks?” and we laughed again.

  We rushed down the path and through the gate for a proper look. A proper look is when you get to touch stuff as well as see it.

  “Look at that,” Mum said. “It’s as neat as a pin.”

  Iggy snorted. She said, “It’s a lot bigger than one of those.”

  “Good,” said Mum, “I’m glad, because it’s where we’re going to be living for the next six nights.”

  Dad helped us up into the van. He held my hand while I took a really big step and he lifted Iggy right in so she didn’t have to climb. Mum and Dad stayed outside and looked in through the open door at us touching everything.

  The sofa was soft and foamy and the table was hard and shiny and the cupboards were dark and roomy and the sink was a real life sink. You made the tap work by pressing a thing on the floor with your foot and when you did it right, real water came out. It wasn’t easy.

  Iggy and I held hands and leaped around with delight. The van rocked like it was a boat on the water.

  “Oooh,” Iggy said, and she stopped moving. “That feels funny.”

  Suddenly we saw Dad’s legs, and then his feet, and then Mum’s face through the back window.

  “Come and see,” Dad called from somewhere high. “We’re up here.”

  I got down from the van and I helped Iggy down too. We both made an “oof” sort of noise when I caught her.

  At the back of the van was a ladder. Mum and Dad had climbed to the top of it and they were looking down at us from the roof.

  “What are you doing?” Iggy said.

  “Enjoying the view,” Mum said.

  “What can you see?”

  Dad said, “Number fifty-two’s grass needs cutting.”

  Mum said, “Somebody in the next street is having a barbecue.”

  “Ooh,” said Iggy. “I love bunbecues. Can we have one?”

  “We can,” Dad said, “when we get there. We can have one on the beach. Let’s go.”

  Iggy ran to get Barnaby and I went with Mum to get my suitcase. Iggy ran back to the van.

  “Come on, Iggy,” Mum said, “Come and get your bag,” and I said, “It’s time to go on holiday!”

  “Just a minute,” Iggy called. She was taking a picture of Barnaby. He was sitting on the table with his suitcase.

  We packed all of our things into the yellow holiday van. It had special compartments for hiding things away so there was room for everything, even the sleeping bags and pillows and boxes of food and Iggy’s teddies and Mum’s big suitcase.

  “What,” said Dad, dragging it down the path, “have you got in here?”

  “The kitchen sink,” Mum said.

  “Why do we need another sink?” Iggy said. “We’ve got one in here.”

  Mum and Dad sat in the front and we sat behind them in special seats. Iggy’s teddies sat with Barnaby around the table like they were having a tea party or waiting for their supper.

  “How long till we get there?” Iggy said.

  Dad turned and looked at her over the top of his glasses.

  “We haven’t even left yet.”

  “But how long?”

  “Three and a half hours,” Mum said. “Maybe four.”

  “Is that really long?” Iggy said.

  Mum said, “It’s quite long,” and Dad said, “If you’re asking already then it’s going to be the longest journey ever.”

  It was funny driving through the streets near our house in a different car. It was like being in disguise. If we had seen someone we knew, they would never have recognised us. Iggy and me wanted to beep and shout and honk and wave because we were
so proud to be going on holiday in a yellow van.

  Iggy wanted to play her special made-up game that says what animals all the cars are. According to Iggy, some cars look like hippos and some look like panda bears and some look like crocodiles and some look like lizards. Our every day car is a cat because it is black and it purrs and it goes quite fast. The van was louder and clunkier and slower than our car.

  I said to Iggy, “If our car is a cat, then what’s this van?”

  “A tortoise,” Dad said, “carrying a bag of spoons.”

  “A kangaroo,” said Mum, “with us in its pouch.”

  “No, a secret castle,” Iggy said, “on the back of a rabbit.”

  Soon we were on the fast roads and all the cars went shooting past us like arrows. I didn’t mind how slow or noisy or clunky the van was. It was like driving with our own house, and we’d never done that before.

  “We’re like a snail,” I said, and Iggy agreed.

  Dad did something to the van that made it grunt and shudder and he said, “Yes Flo, that’s about right.”

  In our high up holiday van we could see right into other people’s cars from above. We saw people eating sandwiches and people reading books and people watching TV and people talking into phones and people picking their noses and people just driving.

  To get to where we were going we had to stay on the fast road for a long time. We went right out of the city until everything was just fields. We went over a huge white bridge that looked like a beautiful big ship. Under the bridge we saw where the river turns into the sea. We saw sheep and cows and horses and mountains.

  After a while, Iggy started fidgeting.

  Her legs twitched, her arms jiggled, her tummy squirmed, her bottom shifted. Even her face didn’t want to stay still.

  “Ohhhhh,” Iggy said.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mum.

  “I’m all wriggly,” Iggy said.

  “Do you need the loo?” Mum said.

  “I don’t know,” Iggy said. “Maybe.”

  “Are you hungry?” Mum said.

  “Not sure,” Iggy said. “Could be.”

  “Do you want to stop and stretch your legs?” Mum said.

  “Yes,” Iggy said, looking down at her knees. “That’s what I want to do.”

  So we stopped in a place for stopping. Dad opened the big sliding door and Iggy jumped out to stretch her legs. She took her teddies with her just in case they wanted to stretch theirs too. We all did a bit of stretching. Then we sat around the table to eat our sandwiches, except for Iggy, who ate hers on the grass with all her toys.

  “Isn’t this fun,” Mum said, and Iggy shouted, “Yes it is!” from where she was sitting.

  After we had eaten and stretched and been to the loo, we all got back in the yellow holiday van. Iggy made her teddies lie down on the sofa for a rest.

  “Sleep now, Gloria,” she said. “Stop moving about, Mumble. Night, night, Polly. Sweet dreams, Ranger. Stop talking please, Barnaby.”

  “Hurry up, Iggy,” said Dad.

  I did up my seat belt and Mum did up Iggy’s. The van growled and clunked and grumbled into life. We looked out of the windows at all the new things we could see. The roads were getting smaller and bendier and the hedges were getting higher and higher.

  “Won’t be long now girls,” Dad said.

  Mum said, “We’re nearly there.”

  I said, “Let’s see who’s the first to see the sea,” and Iggy giggled because it sounded like a tongue twister. Iggy loves tongue twisters.

  We came over the top of a hill, and I was the first to see the sea, all blue and stretching away forever.

  “Look, Iggy!” I said. “There it is!”

  “Where?” she said, sitting up as high as she could. “Oooh! There.”

  “THE SEA!! THE SEA!!” we shouted together.

  When we arrived at the camp site it was almost bedtime. Dad parked in our special spot where we would be staying. We had a good look around, and then Iggy and I put on our pyjamas and went to clean our teeth (outside, in the fresh air, with cups).

  When we got back to the van, Iggy stopped suddenly. Her mouth was open in an “Oh!” and her eyes were wide and astonished.

  While we had been gone, the van had turned into a bedroom. One big bed had appeared where the sofa and table used to be, and another big bed had appeared in the ceiling. The roof had popped up like a jack-in-the-box, all stripy and crumpled. It was amazing. Mum and Dad were sitting on the bottom bed and they were smiling.

  “What happened?” said Iggy, and her voice was small with wonder.

  “It’s bedtime,” Mum said.

  “How did it know?” Iggy asked.

  “How did what know?” said Dad.

  “How did the van know it was bedtime?” Iggy said. “How did it change?”

  Mum blew the hair out of her eyes and laughed, and Dad winked at me. He made his voice small with wonder too.

  “We don’t know,” he said. “It just happened. It’s a miracle.”

  “A miracle,” Iggy agreed.

  “Flo,” she said, and she put her hand in mine. “I think our yellow holiday van might be magic.”

  Mum and Dad slept upstairs, in the ceiling, and we slept underneath.

  “We’re sleeping in a magic van,” Iggy kept saying, and her legs wriggled and her hands danced with excitement.

  “No, we’re not,” said Dad. “We’re not sleeping at all.”

  “Dad,” Iggy said, and Dad said, “Yes?”

  “You were right,” she said. “That was the longest journey ever.”

  “I agree,” said Dad.

  “But it was worth it,” Iggy said, and Dad turned over in his ceiling bed and said, “Good.”

  “Magic,” Iggy whispered, and then we didn’t hear another peep until the morning.

  At the Seaside

  In the morning, Dad woke us up very early.

  I was extremely surprised.

  Dad usually likes to stay in bed as long as possible when he is not getting up early for work.

  I said, “Why are you up?”

  Iggy rubbed her eyes with her fists and said, “I’m still sleeping. I’m not finished.”

  But when she remembered where we were, she was suddenly wide-awake.

  It was warm and cosy inside the van. The sun was shining through the curtains, making everything look yellow, even our faces and hands.

  “Oooh,” said Iggy, blinking and looking around, “I forgot. We’re here.”

  “Exactly,” said Dad. “Come and see.”

  He opened the big sliding door and the air rushed in.

  “Brrrrr,” Iggy said, “that’s cold.”

  “Put a jumper on,” Dad said. “Come and get your feet wet in the grass.”

  The sky was blue and the wet grass was cold and tickly. We could hear the sea shushing and cows mooing and seagulls squawking. We could hear other families waking up at the camp site.

  Mum was up already too. She was outside in her nightie and her wellies. She was putting a tiny kettle onto a tiny cooker.

  Iggy looked at her and then at me.

  “Mum looks funny,” she whispered. She put her hand over her mouth and had a secret giggle.

  “Good morning,” Mum said. “Did you sleep well?”

  Iggy kept her hand over her giggle and nodded. I nodded too.

  “Yes we did,” I said. “Like logs.”

  “Like dead logs,” Iggy said.

  We were standing on wet grass in our bare feet and Dad was up early, and Mum was making breakfast in her nightie.

  “Aren’t holidays fun?” I said to Iggy, “Isn’t camping strange?” and she grinned at me and said, “Yes.”

  We ate cereal and bananas for breakfast and we ate it on a rug, like a picnic. When we climbed back into the van to get dressed, the downstairs bedroom had been put away again. The sofa and the table were back.

  “There it goes again,” Iggy said. “The magic van. It knew we were u
p.”

  “How does it do that?” said Dad, and he winked at me again.

  “I’ve no idea,” Iggy said, and her voice was high with surprise. “I haven’t got a clue.”

  We put our swimsuits on and Mum sprayed us with sun cream. It was cold where she sprayed it on and it made us gasp and squirm. It smelled like sweets. Then we got dressed and found our towels and our sun hats. And then we waited for Mum and Dad to be ready. They took ages.

  Mum made sandwiches. I helped her wrap them up and put them in a box. Iggy helped too. She counted out four apples, four packets of crisps and five chocolate biscuits.

  “Why five?” Mum said.

  “Because somebody might want extra,” Iggy said.

  “Put it back, somebody,” said Mum.

  Dad couldn’t find his trunks again.

  “I don’t want to swim in my knickers,” he said, and we screamed with laughter because dads don’t have knickers and even if they did they are certainly not allowed to swim in them.

  Iggy laughed so much her tummy hurt. And when she stopped laughing she said “knickers” and laughed all over again. She lay back on the grass outside the van and she kicked her legs and rolled over onto her tummy.

  “Got them,” Dad said, and he held up his swimming trunks.

  “What a relief,” said Mum.

  “Phew,” I said.

  “Knickers,” said Iggy, like it was the funniest word ever invented.

  We had to walk down a very big hill to the beach. From up at the top we could see the waves coming in and going out. The sand was pale yellow and brown and the sea was blue and grey and white. There were big cliffs all around, and clumps of rocks, and piles of sand as big as hills.

  “Dunes,” Mum said.

  “Like in the desert,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Mum.

  We were carrying our towels and our books and our buckets and spades and Iggy was carrying Barnaby and his camera. It took us a long time to make it to the bottom. Iggy’s legs went a bit weak and feeble.

  “Are you pooped?” said Dad, and Iggy’s legs went even weaker and feebler with laughter.

  “Wait till we have to go back up,” said Dad, pointing to the top.

  “Then I’ll be super pooped,” Iggy said, and she laughed like crazy at her own rhyme.

  The sea was still a long way away. Mum said the tide was out.