Iggy and Me on Holiday

“Hurry up,” she said to me and to Mum. “There’s only one day left, and it’s now.”

Her extra fast walking made her whole body wiggle and she looked very funny from behind. It made us laugh. But Iggy wasn’t laughing. She turned to us and pointed. Iggy only points when she is cross.

“Hurry,” she said, pointing, “Up.”

So we did.

We got to school very early. I took Iggy to her classroom. We were the first people there apart from Rwaida, her teacher. Rwaida was sharpening pencils.

“Did you know?” Iggy said, “That this was the last day of school?”

“Yes I did,” Rwaida said and she looked happy about it until she saw Iggy’s face.

“What will we do for forty-two days and six weeks?” Iggy said.

Rwaida smiled. “We’ll think of something,” she said, and she dropped the sharpened pencils into a cup with a clatter.

“I hope so,” Iggy said. “I hope we do.”

It was a good last day of school. We had lessons in the morning like normal. At lunchtime we had foods of the world. We ate things from India and Morocco and France and Somalia and Poland and Bosnia. Most of them were very tasty.

Then we had Golden Time, which is the same as extra play but with a special name. We could choose football, or aerobics, or making things. I chose making things and so did Iggy. There were jigsaw puzzles and arts and crafts and decorating biscuits. Iggy decorated biscuits. I made a picture for Mum and Dad. I made a beach with blue sea and blue sky, and real sand poured onto glue, and the four of us cut out and stuck there, on holiday.

While I was drawing and cutting and sticking, Iggy came to see what I had made. She had biscuit dust all round her mouth and icing on the ends of her fingers.

“What are you doing?” she said, spraying biscuit dust around.

“I’m making a holiday picture.”

“Who’s that?” she said, and she wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

“That’s you and me and Mum and Dad,” I said. “Being on holiday at the seaside.”

“What, swimming in the sea and getting shells and making sandcastles?” she said.

“Yep.”

“Ooh, I think I like doing that,” Iggy said.

“Me too,” I said, and we looked at the picture together for a bit longer.

I said, “I’ll draw some shells and sandcastles in a minute.”

“And starfish,” Iggy said. “Draw some starfish and a mermaid.”

Mermaids are Iggy’s favourite thing to draw and make up stories about. Sometimes Iggy wishes very hard that she was a mermaid. Sometimes she is quite disappointed to have legs.

“Maybe, this holiday,” I said, “we could go to the seaside, you and me and Mum and Dad, just like in the picture. It’s ages since we’ve been to the sea.”

Iggy tightened her mouth and shook her head. She looked very serious and solemn.

“I’m not really having a holiday,” she said in a whisper, like when she tells a secret.

“Why not?”

“Rwaida says she has an important job for me to do.”

“What sort of job?”

“I told you,” she said. “An important one.”

“I know, but what kind?”

She shrugged. “Rwaida says it is for the whole summer.”

“Oh.”

Iggy was still looking at my picture. She said, “I think I’m going to be a bit busy for the seaside.”

I thought about what Iggy’s job could be.

“Is it the Guinea pigs?” I said.

Iggy shook her head. “Josh Green’s having those.”

“Is it the hamster?”

“Nope,” Iggy said. “It’s not Gruffles.”

“Who else?” I said.

“It’s not the fish,’ she said, “because they get to stay at school and the cleaning lady feeds them.”

“Then what can it be?”

Iggy shrugged again and her eyebrows went as high as they could go.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I think it must be very important.”

At the end of the day I waited for Iggy and Mum in the playground. We had to take all of our work home with us, all our books and pictures in a special folder. I had my folder under my arm. It was quite heavy. When Iggy came out of her classroom she had her folder and a little suitcase. She was having trouble carrying it all so I went to help her. I took Iggy’s folder and I put it with mine.

“What’s in the suitcase?” I said.

Iggy was bursting to tell me.

“It’s my job,” she said. “Do you want to see?”

We stopped in the playground and I put the folders down. Iggy put the little suitcase on the floor and she fiddled with the clips until it popped open.