Iggy and Me

by Jenny Valentine

  “And the house is not sinking,” she said. “Please tell the girls the house isn’t sinking.”

  Dad said to us, “The house is not sinking,” and he said it in a voice like Iggy’s when she’s been naughty and she has to say sorry. Then he said to Mum, “So why are the clothes forever falling out of the cupboard?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mum. “Maybe because it’s not meant for clothes. And the doctor here isn’t the world’s best at folding.”

  Me and Dad went to my room to read a book. My room is bigger than Iggy’s. I don’t have as many toys and my clothes live in an ordinary chest of drawers. Dad says it doesn’t look like it’s in the same house.

  It was my turn to read a page. That’s what we do at bedtime – we take it in turns to read the book. When it was Dad’s page I couldn’t really listen because I was having an idea. It’s very hard to listen to someone else reading when you are having one of those.

  Dad said, “Are you listening?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “Iggy’s cupboard,” I said.

  Dad said he was only joking about the house sinking.

  “I know,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking her cupboard would make a really good Toy Hospital.”

  On Saturday morning, Mum said she was taking Iggy out to get her some drawers that the clothes didn’t fall out of.

  “What am I doing?” I said.

  “You are going to be busy,” Dad said, and he winked at me.

  Iggy said, “Doing what?”

  “Putting out the rubbish,” Dad said, which is Iggy’s idea of the worst job ever, so she didn’t ask any more.

  “What are we really doing?” I said to Dad when they were gone.

  “I’m really putting out the rubbish,” Dad said. “You’re going to make a Toy Hospital.”

  First, I pulled all the clothes out of Iggy’s cupboard and put them sort of in piles on her bed.

  Then I measured the shelves, which was very tricky because the ruler was too short. I cut out some paper nearly the right size and I drew loads of beds on it, all around the edges, with a pencil. I coloured in all the bedspreads, and I drew pillows and bedside tables and everything.

  It was one of my best drawings ever. I had to do it four times because there were four shelves, and my hand was aching and aching when I finished. Some of the beds had to be much bigger than others because so were some of the sick teddies.

  Then I put the paper in the right place and I picked up all the sick toys, one by one, and put them to bed in the cupboard. And I picked up all the clothes they’d been lying on and made a sort of pile of them on the bed too.

  “So, how are you getting on?” said Dad, coming into the room. I was very busy and concentrating and he made me jump.

  We stepped back and had a look. The cupboard looked like a real hospital. I almost wished it was mine.

  “It’s brilliant,” Dad said. “Well done, Flo.”

  I was really excited for Iggy to get home.

  Dad got the little stepladder from the kitchen so that she would be able to visit the ward on the top floor. “Look!” he said. It sounded really urgent.

  “What?” I said.

  He was standing in the middle of Iggy’s room, looking down.

  “You can see the floor,” he said. “It’s a miracle!”

  When Iggy came back with Mum and a chest of drawers, I was waiting with her doctor’s coat, all ready at the bottom of the stairs. I wanted her to put it on before she went up to her room.

  “What happened?” she said. “Who got sick?”

  “Nobody,” Dad said. “You just got a huge amount of funding.”

  “What’s that mean?” Iggy said

  We waited for Iggy and Mum to go upstairs and see before we answered.

  “Flo built you a hospital,” Dad said, and he mussed up my hair while he was saying it.

  Iggy’s eyes went all round and her mouth was round too, and she said, “That. Is. The. Best. Hospital. Ever.”

  “It’s multi-storey,” I said.

  “Look at the beds!” she said. “They look real.”

  “I did those,” I said.

  Iggy climbed the stepladder and inspected her new hospital. She was smiling and I think she really liked it.

  But then she said, “Uh-oh.”

  And I said, “What’s wrong?” I couldn’t think of anything I’d left out.

  Iggy looked at each floor of the hospital one more time. “The beds are all full,” she said.

  Dad said, “Is that a problem?”

  Iggy looked at Mum, and Mum looked at me and Dad. Then Iggy held out her hand and Mum gave her a plastic bag.

  “Well,” Iggy said, “there was a table with some teddies on it.”

  “Oh no!” Dad said.

  Iggy tipped the bag out on to the floor. Three toys fell out—a bald seahorse, a cat with no nose and a snake whose tongue was hanging off in one long thread.

  “Oh no!” he said again.

  “It’s OK,” Iggy said, choosing three T-shirts from the pile on the bed. “I can start again on the floor.”

  Goodnight, Iggy

  The other night, because supper wasn’t ready yet and we had run out of other things to do, Mum said we could watch a film. She sent us into the telly room to choose. This can be very hard because Iggy and me don’t always agree. Sometimes choosing the same DVD to watch takes nearly as long as watching it.

  “I want to watch this one,” Iggy said. It had a picture of a cowboy on it. He looked uncomfortable.

  “That’s an 18,” I said. “We can’t watch that.”

  “Why not?” Iggy said.

  “Because we are not eighteen”, I told her.

  “Nor is Dad,” she said. “He watches it.”

  “He is more than eighteen,” I said. “That doesn’t count.”

  “What about this one?” Iggy said. I don’t know why she picked it up. It’s for babies.

  “No way,” I said. “You’ve seen that a hundred times. We’re not watching it again.”

  We rummaged around a bit more. “Here’s one,” I said. “It’s about mermaids. It’s so good.”

  “Boring,” Iggy said.

  I was beginning to lose hope.

  “What’s this?” Iggy said.

  It had a boy on it dressed in black with funny teeth and little glasses. It looked good. It wasn’t an 18. We hadn’t seen it before.

  “OK,” I said. Let’s show Mum.”

  Mum was in the kitchen making steam everywhere. I think we were having pasta. Pasta is Mum’s favourite thing to cook. She is always cooking it.

  “I don’t think you’ll like it,” Mum said, looking at the DVD through a steam cloud.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “You’d be OK with it, Flo,” she said. “I just think it might be too much for Iggy.”

  Iggy didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “Why?” she said.

  “It’s a bit scary,” Mum said.

  “I won’t be scared,” Iggy said.

  “I’m not sure,” Mum said. “I don’t think so.”

  So we went back to try and choose something different. Except Iggy had made her mind up. Every time I showed her a DVD she just shut her eyes and shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “I want this one.” And she didn’t let go of the scary film with the boy on the front.

  In the end, Mum came in to see how we were doing.

  “We can’t find one,” I said. “I think we give up.”

  “Because you won’t let us watch the one we want,” Iggy said.

  Mum said, “Well, I don’t want you to be scared.”

  “Oh, please,” Iggy said. “I won’t be anything, I promise.”

  Mum did some thinking for a bit.

  She said, “OK. Give it a try. But turn it off if you don’t like it.”

  The film was about a boy in a castle. When he was asleep in the mid
dle of the night, another boy flew in through his window. The flying boy was the one with funny teeth. He was a vampire. He was just trying to make friends.

  “I don’t like this film,” Iggy said.

  “I do,” I said.

  “I really don’t,” said Iggy, and she meant it, so we turned it off and played cards instead.

  Iggy was very quiet when we were eating our supper. She was very quiet in the bath, and she was very quiet after Mum and Dad said goodnight and went downstairs. Normally when they go, she starts calling me through the wall, or rings the doorbell that starts in her room and ends in mine, or starts singing loud enough for me to have to ask her to be quiet.

  This time there was nothing. No Iggy noise at all.

  I lay in my bed and I thought about the boy in the castle lying in his. The windows in his room were all noisy and rattly, and the curtains kept moving and there were trees outside knocking like they wanted to come in. My window was quiet and there was a streetlight outside and my curtains were well behaved and still. I was glad I didn’t live in a castle in a film like that.

  The next thing I knew, Iggy woke me up. She was standing by my bed and tapping me.

  “What?” I said.

  “I can’t sleep,” Iggy said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “I’m the only person awake in the whole world.”

  “No you’re not,” I said. “I’m awake too. What’s wrong?”

  Iggy didn’t say anything.

  “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “Of what?”

  “Of the boy who flies into rooms.” Iggy gave herself a hug when she said that, like she was very, very cold.

  “He won’t fly into your room,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s just a film,” I said.

  “I didn’t like it.”

  “But it wasn’t real,” I said. “It was just pretend.”

  Iggy looked at me. “I still didn’t like it,” she said. “And it’s not letting me sleep.”

  She stood at the side of my bed waiting for me to do something. I didn’t know what the thing was.

  “Did you go and see Mum and Dad?” I said. Iggy shook her head. “Why not?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know.”

  I said, “Is it because the film made you scared?”

  Iggy shrugged again. “Don’t know,” she said.

  I said, “Is it because Mum won’t let you watch a film for ages if she finds out?”

  Iggy frowned at me. “Don’t know,” she said. But she did.

  I said, “Do you want to get in with me?”

  She nodded. I moved over in my bed and lifted the covers for her. Iggy’s feet were really cold.

  “Don’t touch me,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Your feet are like ice.”

  Iggy giggled. She put her feet on me again.

  “Don’t, Iggy,” I said. She giggled again. “If you do it again,” I said, “you have to go back to your own bed.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Don’t make me do that. I was just awake in there.”

  “I thought you went to sleep straightaway,” I said. “You were really quiet.”

  “I know,” she said. “I didn’t want the boy to hear me. I had to lie really still and I didn’t even blink or anything.”

  “Did you fall asleep?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I was keeping watch.”

  I made sure the covers were on both of us and I closed my eyes. “I’ll keep watch now,” I said.

  “OK.”

  It was quiet but not for long.

  “Flo,” Iggy said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do they still have castles, in the real world?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  I closed my eyes again.

  “Do people live in them?”

  “I think so. Sometimes.”

  “Who?”

  “Rich people and kings and stuff.”

  “Are the castles just like in the film?” Iggy said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Like what?”

  “Like haunted and candles and scary music,” she said.

  I thought about the castle in the DVD. It was full of dark corridors and gloomy paintings and everything was dusty. There were bound to be bats. And mice. And ghosts.

  I began to wish I hadn’t watched the film either. “Go to sleep Iggy,” I said.

  “What if the boy flies in through your window,” she said. “What will we do?”

  “He won’t,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “OK,” she said, and she turned over and took all the covers with her.

  I looked at my window and I thought about the flying boy. He only wanted to make friends. It must be hard having friends when everyone is scared of you.

  “I wonder what happened,” Iggy said.

  “When?”

  “In the film,” she said. “I want to know what happens next.”

  “Me too.”

  “Shall we watch some more?”

  “Mum won’t let you,” I said.

  “Yes she will.”

  “What if it’s even scarier?” I said. “What will you do then?”

  “I’ll come in and look after you,” Iggy said. And she giggled, and put her not-so-cold feet on me again.

  “‘Night, Flo,” she said.

  “Goodnight, Iggy,” I said.

  And soon she was asleep. Iggy snores. She snores like a little hippo.

  I know because I was keeping watch.

  A New House

  Mum and Dad said we had to move house.

  Iggy said, “Where are we going to put it?” And so they had to explain that we weren’t moving our house somewhere else, we were leaving it where it was and moving to a different one.

  Iggy and me didn’t want to. We liked our house a lot. It had a garden with real grass and a blue front door of its own and our bedrooms were full of nice things.

  Mum said, “We have to move. This place is getting too small for us.”

  “It’s not too small,” I said. “It’s cosy.”

  Dad laughed. “Cosy? You can’t swing a cat in here.”

  “So don’t then,” I said. “You shouldn’t anyway.”

  “Why do we have to move?” Iggy said.

  “It’s because of you,” Dad said to us. “You won’t stop growing.”

  He said, “We keep telling you to stop growing, but you don’t listen. It’s very hard work living with people who get bigger all the time.”

  Iggy looked at Dad like she was working out something she didn’t know before. “Aren’t you growing?” she said.

  Dad shook his head. “Not me,” he said “Your Mum and I stopped growing a long time ago.”

  “Then who lets you have new shoes?” she said. “We only get new shoes when we’re growed out of the old ones.”

  “Ah!” Dad said, “Clever,” and he tapped his head with two fingers. Then he said, “When you leave home you get a special note from your mum and dad that says you’re allowed to buy new shoes and books and bicycles and houses and things, as long as you are very sensible.”

  “No you don’t,” I said. “That’s silly.”

  “It’s not silly,” he said. “It’s true.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  “Oh, so you won’t be needing a note when you leave home,” he said.

  “I will,” said Iggy.

  I said to Mum, “Are we buying a new house, really?” and she said we were.

  Iggy and me looked at each other and our mouths dropped open and we didn’t know what to think.

  “It’ll be fun,” Dad said. “Sort of. You wait and see.”

  I didn’t know what sort of was supposed to mean, and I didn’t see how it could be fun
leaving everything behind and going somewhere you hadn’t even seen before. I said so. Mum and Dad said we shouldn’t worry too much and it was all going to be fine, and if we had any questions we should ask.

  So we did.

  We chased them from room to room with questions. Like did we have to move schools? And did we have time to warn our friends? And could we take our stuff with us? And how were we supposed to carry it all? And how would we find our way home when we didn’t know where it was? And what if we left something behind that was hidden and we’d forgotten about it and we only remembered it after we moved? And who was getting our house anyway?

  Dad said we were moving house, not emigrating. I didn’t know what this meant.

  Mum said we could stay at the same school and keep the same friends and take everything we wanted with us, within reason. I didn’t know what that meant either.

  Dad said, “It means moving to the other side of the world. We’re not doing that.”

  Mum said, “It means you can’t take sweet wrappers and odd socks and old half eaten biscuits.”

  “Who would want to?” Iggy said.

  Mum said she had some pictures of the new house that was still somebody else’s old house with all their stuff in it. “That’s your room, Iggy,” she said, and she pointed to a picture with an armchair and a giant pair of curtains.

  Iggy shuddered and put her thumb in her mouth.

  “And that’s yours, Flo,” she said, and she pointed to a different picture with a bed and a scary wardrobe and more giant curtains.

  “Oh,” I said, and Iggy said, “That room looks bigger than mine.”

  “It is bigger,” Mum said.

  “Huh?” said Iggy, which was a quick way of saying, “How come?” and “That’s not fair,” at the same time.

  Mum said that I was the oldest so I was having the big room, end of story.

  Iggy scowled at me and said that when she grew up and got older than me, she was going to have the big room.

  Dad said, “When you’re older than Flo, you can.” And then he winked at me, because Iggy didn’t know she’d never be older than me, but we did.

  After that it was ages before we moved. I kept hoping that Mum and Dad had forgotten about it.

  Once we went to see the new house. It didn’t seem to belong to anybody and it was a bit smelly, and the giant curtains from the photos looked like there were burglars hiding in them. But the garden was nice. Dad said we could have a slide and a sandpit, and then Iggy wasn’t worried about moving any more, it was just me.