Iggy and Me

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.”