Jenny Valentine - Iggy and Me

Even when my sister came down from her room with a box we didn’t say anything. In the box she’d packed all the things she could find with SAM written on them. Socks and pencils and a plastic cup and a key ring and some Post-it notes and a green teddy bear and a purse, and a tiny car licence plate from California that our Auntie Kate had sent her, and a painting that I did when she was born that said her name in my writing before I was very good at doing it. My sister loved that painting.

“This is for Sam,” she said.

Dad said, “Where do you want me to put it, Iggy?”

My sister shrugged, “In the rubbish.”

Mum said, “Don’t you think Sam will come back for it?”

My sister shook her head. “Nuh-uh,” she said. “No way.”

I said, “I thought you liked that painting.”

She said, “I do. Can you do another one for Iggy?” And I said I would.

My mum and dad put the box in the cupboard under the stairs when she wasn’t looking, just in case. And they said, “Goodnight, Iggy.”

And, “Sleep tight, Iggy.”

And, “Mind the bugs don’t bite, Iggy.”

And I said, “See you in the morning, Iggy. We can make more snowflakes.”

We didn’t go wrong at all. We thought we were being so clever. We nudged each other and winked at each other all day long.

When we woke up next morning we said, “Is Sam back yet?”

My sister said, “Nope.”

And the morning after that she said, “Nope.”

And the morning after that she said, “Who’s Sam?”

We soon worked out who was in charge. It was definitely Iggy. Because Iggy’s her name and it’s been her name since the morning she said so. The Iggy game turned into something real and after a while we all got used to it.

Iggy has a new plastic cup and some pencils with her name on, but no key ring yet or Post-its, and definitely no licence plate from California. Mum sewed IGGY on to a teddy and I did a new painting for her which was much, much better than the first one.

I can’t imagine calling her anything else. It’s always Iggy and me now.

Iggy and me started off with exactly the same hair. Mum says when I was born I had hair like fluff, all soft and sort of see-through.

“You mean bald,” Dad says.

“No,” Mum says, “It was lovely.”

Then it grew and grew, and when I was the age that Iggy is now, it was long and fine and blonde. “Never,” says Dad, but it’s true. I’ve seen the pictures.

When Iggy was born, she had see-through fluff too. Then she grew and her hair grew too, long and fine and blonde. My hair isn’t long and fine and blonde any more. My hair is shorter and darker and nothing-er than Iggy’s. And my fringe gets in my eyes and it’s itchy. So I trimmed it.

I did a really good job. I did it with the kitchen scissors, and I put all the hair in my bin and I put the scissors on my bedside table.

When I went down to the kitchen, Dad didn’t even notice. I had to tell him.

“Do you notice anything different about me?” I said.

Dad said, “You’re fluent in Japanese.”

“No.”

“You’ve turned into a sausage dog.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You’re a fully-trained astronaut.”

“No, Dad. I’ve cut my hair.”

Dad was pouring coffee and he stopped moving. Iggy was picking her nose and she stopped moving.

“Where?’ Dad said.

And Iggy said, “On her head, silly.”

“I can’t see it,” he said.

“Well, I have,” I said.

Just then, Mum came down from my room with a handful of my hair. She had found it in the bin. “Have you cut your hair?” she said, and she sounded cross. I suddenly sort of wished I hadn’t.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Mum said in a louder voice than normal. “It’s not allowed.”

Iggy said, “How did you know she did it, Mum? Me and Dad didn’t notice.”

“I noticed because she left the evidence in her room,” Mum said, and showed her the hair from my bin. It was all fluffy and dry in her hands. It didn’t look much like my hair at all, more like a guinea pig’s really.

“Oh,” Iggy said. “Evidence.”

“Still,” Dad said to me, “you did a pretty good job.”

“Don’t do it again,” Mum said, and she glared at him and then at me.

So I didn’t.

But Iggy did.

She found the scissors by my bed. And because she could make snowflakes out of folded bits of old magazine, she thought she could do anything with scissors.

Mum and Dad said it was my fault what happened, and that I shouldn’t cut my own fringe, even just a little bit, and I also shouldn’t leave scissors lying around in places where Iggies can find them.

I say when you’re Iggy’s big sister everything is your fault, even breathing, because even breathing makes Iggy think of something naughty she could do.

It was after lunch and I was doing times tables in my room. I don’t like times tables and because I don’t like them I have to do them more than someone who does, which doesn’t make any sense to me. I have to say them out loud to myself and throw a ball and catch it while I’m saying them. I feel silly doing that all alone in my room, but Mum and Dad say I have to and they test me afterwards, on my tables and on my catching, so I can’t really cheat.

Dad was cutting the grass outside and Mum was working in her room with the sign on the door that says, Be Quiet Your Mother is Thinking . Maybe if the lawnmower hadn’t been on one of us would have noticed how quiet Iggy was being, because Iggy is not normally quiet. As soon as she stops filling the house with noise, you can almost guarantee she is up to no good.

So when Dad finished and I couldn’t hear the mower any more, I couldn’t hear Iggy either and I knew there was going to be trouble. Maybe Mum couldn’t hear her at the same time because she opened her door and said, “Iggy? Where are you?”

And Dad came in from outside and said, “It’s a bit quiet in here.”

When Iggy came out of her room she acted like nothing had happened. She came past my door, quieter than normal, and I stopped throwing the ball and trying to remember what seven times four was before I caught it.

“Iggy,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Walking,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I mean what have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” she said, in her lying voice, which is very easy to recognise because it’s not her real voice at all. It’s what she thinks people who are telling the truth sound like.

“Come here,” I said, and she turned back and put her head in the room.

Her head with practically no hair on it.

“Iggy!” I said. “What have you done?”

“I’ve cut my hair,” she said, smiling.

I put my hand over my mouth like a shocked person on the telly and I said, “Mum and Dad are going to kill you!”

“They’re not allowed,” Iggy said.

“You can’t stick hair back on, you know,” I said.

“I know. I don’t want to.”

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.