Iggy and Me on Holiday
Page 5
“What’s the rush?” said Dad, as Iggy put rice puffs into her mouth, one at a time, as slow and as sleepy as a sloth.
Iggy’s eyes were hardly even open.
“There isn’t one,” I told him.
“Are you tired?” Mum said, and Iggy said nothing.
“Are you feeling all right?” Dad said, and Iggy shrugged.
I said, “You normally like to get to school nice and early.”
“So early that it’s still closed,” Dad said. “So early that there’s nobody there.”
Iggy glared at him over the top of her spoon.
“The teachers are there,” she said. “Teachers are allowed to be at school as early as they want.”
“Lucky them,” Dad said.
Iggy ate one rice puff.
Mum said, “You’re not going to be early if you’re still in your pyjamas.”
Iggy shrugged. “I don’t want to be early. I don’t want to go.”
Mum stopped smiling and Dad stopped stirring his coffee and I stopped buttering my toast.
Iggy had never said she didn’t want to go to school before.
It was a first.
“Say that again,” Dad said.
“I’m not going,” Iggy said, and she put her spoon down and looked at the rice puffs floating in her bowl.
“Well that’s a shame,” said Mum, getting up from the table and opening the fridge. “I was just about to put your favourite yogurt in your packed lunch.”
Iggy looked at the yogurt. She shrugged again. “Not going,” she said.
“Why not, Iggy?” I said.
“I don’t want to.”
I looked at Iggy and Mum looked at Dad and Dad looked at me.
“Oh dear,” Mum said.
“I didn’t know it was that easy,” Dad said.
“What?” Iggy said.
“Not doing things,” he said. “I didn’t know you could just not want to.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
Dad stretched his arms over his head. “I’m not going to work today,” he said.
“Why not?” Mum asked him.
Dad shrugged. “I don’t want to.”
Mum said, “I don’t think I’ll do any work today either. I don’t think I’ll do anything at all. I’m not making anyone any supper.”
“Why not?” Dad said, and Mum smiled. “I don’t want to,” she said.
“What about you, Flo?” Dad said. “What are you not going to do today? Are you not going to say the word banana a hundred times? Are you not going to eat only carrots? Are you not going to hop on one leg and flap your arms instead of walking?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going to do any of those things.”
“Why not,” said Dad. “Don’t you want to?”
Iggy didn’t even smile. She twirled her hair and looked glum.
“Did you know,” Dad said in a quiet and serious voice like he was telling a secret, “that not going to school is against the law?”
“No,” said Iggy.
“Yes it is,” said Dad. “And if you don’t go, they’ll send a policeman round here to arrest your mother.”
Iggy looked at Mum and then at me. She twirled her hair furiously.
“Stop it,” Mum said to Dad.
“I don’t want to,” Dad said, and Mum said, “Stop it,” again.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “That’s not true is it Mum?”
“It’s not true,” Mum said. “So don’t worry. Finish your breakfast.”
I put my plate in the sink and Iggy drank a little sip of her juice and wiped her orange mouth on her sleeve.
“Come on you,” said Mum, holding out her hand to take Iggy upstairs. “Let’s go and see what we can do.”
I brushed my teeth and I put my books and pens in my bag and I got my packed lunch and my drink. Then I waited by the front door. Mum and Iggy were a long time. After a while, I started looking at where my watch would be if I was wearing one.
“Come on,” I said. “Hurry up.”
“I think we’re ready,” Mum said, and she and Iggy came slowly down the stairs.
Iggy looked dressed and brushed and ready but she didn’t look happy.
“Got everything, Iggy?” I said.
Iggy shrugged.
“Let’s go,” I said.
I liked the walk to school because we hadn’t done it in ages. All the things I looked at seemed new, even though we had seen them all before. We walked down our road and round the corner and up the hill and over the railway bridge and then we were nearly there. Lots of other children were walking to school with their mums and dads. Everyone looked neat and tidy and excited for the first day of a new term. Everyone except for Iggy. She scuffed her shoes and dragged her feet and she wouldn’t walk faster than a snail, even though we asked her.
“Come on, Iggy,” Mum said. “You’re going to be late.”
“Catch up, Iggy,” I said. “You’re getting left behind.”
Mum said to Iggy, “Your class will be so excited to see what you and Barnaby have been up to all summer,” and when she said it, Iggy stopped dead in her tracks.
“What?” said Mum.
“Have you got Barnaby?” I said.
Iggy shook her head.
“Did you leave him at home?” I said.
“You didn’t?” Mum said.
Iggy nodded and I said, “She did.”
“And all the photos?” Mum asked. “All your lovely pictures?”
Iggy nodded again.
“Oh dear,” said Mum, and Iggy’s eyes got sadder and her eyebrows got pinker and her chin began to wobble. Iggy’s chin wobbles when she’s trying really hard not to cry.
Poor Iggy. All holiday she had remembered Barnaby. She had kept him safe in the van and dry at the beach and she had brought Gloria and Mumble and Polly and Ranger along to keep him company. She had shown him the sea, and built him a castle and let him touch an ice cream, and every day she had taken pictures of him to show her class. She hadn’t forgotten him once.
Until today.
I felt very sorry for her.
“What shall we do?” I said. “Can we go back and get him?”
Mum looked at her watch. “I don’t think we’ve got time,” she said.
“What if we run?” I said.
“We might make it,” Mum said. “If we hurry.”
“I’m not going,” Iggy said, and her voice was all husky.
“Not going where?” I said. “Not going to get Barnaby or not going to school?”
“Not doing either,” Iggy said.
“You have to,” Mum said.
Iggy shook her head and planted her feet.
“I’m not going,” she said. “I’m staying here.”
“Why?” I said. Iggy shrugged.
Mum took a deep breath in.
“Iggy, you can’t do that,” she said.
Iggy kept her feet planted and she stuck out her chin and closed her eyes. Sometimes when you say something to Iggy that she doesn’t want to hear, she closes her eyes and pretends you’re not there. Mum doesn’t like that.
“Iggy,” said Mum. “I’m warning you.”
Iggy closed her eyes even harder.
“I’m going to count to five,” Mum said.
I hate it when Mum counts to five. I had to think of something, quick.
“I know,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”
Mum stopped counting and Iggy stopped closing her eyes, and they both looked at me.
I said, “If we have Barnaby at home for one more day we can have a special goodbye party for him.”
Iggy looked at her feet.
“Good idea,” said Mum. “Keep talking.”
“Well,” I said. “We could make a banner and have a cake and we could say goodbye properly to Barnaby. He’s been with us all summer. I know Gloria and Mumble and Polly and Ranger are going to miss him.”
Iggy said, “I’m going to miss him
too.”
Her eyes were sad circles and her mouth was a thin white line.
And then I knew why Iggy didn’t want to come to school. And I knew why she had left Barnaby behind, too.
Iggy hadn’t forgotten about him, of course she hadn’t.
Iggy hadn’t forgotten about Barnaby all summer. She just didn’t want to give him back.
She didn’t want to say goodbye.
“It’ll be all right, Iggy.” I said. “We can have a nice party for him. And you’ll see him at school.”
Iggy’s feet came unstuck from the pavement. She sniffed and she smiled a bit and she shuffled slowly towards us.
“Can we have a party?” she said, and Mum gave her a hug and said, “Yes.”
We carried on walking behind Iggy to school. Mum took my hand and whispered, “Nice one, Flo.”
Mum explained to Rwaida, Iggy’s teacher, that Barnaby was not quite ready to leave yet, but that he and his holiday pictures would be there in the morning.
“That’s fine,” Rwaida said and Iggy smiled with relief. “He’s probably just sleeping off his busy summer.”
“Yes,” Iggy said. “He is.”
That afternoon when we got home from school, we made a GOODBYE BARNABY banner. We stuck bits of paper together with sticky tape until they were long enough to fit all the words and we put it on the wall in the kitchen.
Mum found some paper party plates and cups and napkins in the cupboard, left over from Iggy’s birthday. We had sandwiches and biscuits and glasses of milk. Iggy made a space for Gloria and Mumble and Polly and Ranger at the table. And she made a special seat for Barnaby by piling all our cushions onto a chair so he could reach.
When Dad came home from work he said, “Is it somebody’s birthday? Have I forgotten somebody’s birthday?”
“No,” I said, and Iggy told him it was just Barnaby’s goodbye day.
“Ah,” Dad said, stroking Barnaby’s ear and kissing Iggy on the top of the head.
“Goodbye, Barnaby.”
“Goodbye, Dad,” Iggy said in her gruff little bear’s voice. “Goodbye, everyone.”
About the author
Jenny Valentine moved house every two years when she was growing up. She worked in a wholefood shop in Primrose Hill for fifteen years where she met many extraordinary people and sold more organic loaves than there are words in her first novel, Finding Violet Park, which won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. The Iggy and Me books are her first titles for younger readers.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by Jenny Valentine
Iggy and Me
Iggy and Me Iggy and Me and the Happy Birthday
About the illustrator
Joe Berger grew up in Bristol, where he did an Art Foundation Course before moving to London in 1991. He works as a freelance illustrator and animator, and also co-writes and illustrates a weekly comic strip in the Guardian. His first picture book, Bridget Fidget, was nominated for the Booktrust Early Years Award.
More stories about Iggy and me:
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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Text copyright © Jenny Valentine 2010
Jenny Valentine and Joe Berger assert the moral right to be identified as the author and the illustrator of this work.
ISBN: 978-0-00-728365-1
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EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-42036-0
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