My cereal spluttered when I poured the milk on it. My sister said, “Please can I have some?” so I passed her a bowl and a spoon and the box and the milk, and she said “Thank you, Flo.”
I looked behind me, both sides, and I said, “There’s no one called Flo around here.” I was just joking.
Mum and Dad’s mouths opened and laughed, but my sister’s mouth stayed all closed and deadly serious. She was not pleased.
After that we didn’t want her to be cross because when my sister gets cross she can be very boring and we all have to listen. So we played the Iggy game all breakfast to avoid it. We said, “Pass the butter please, Iggy” and “Drink your juice, Iggy” and “Stop kicking me, Iggy” and “Put your chin over the bowl, Iggy” and “Ow, Iggy!” and “Iggy, behave!”
In fact, we played it all day because we thought that maybe if we said Iggy enough she would get tired of it and want to change back. That was the idea anyway.
When we were getting dressed I remembered to call her Iggy.
When she refused to help me tidy up the snowflakes on my bed I called her Iggy, even though she was annoying me and I might easily have forgotten.
When she asked me to do her name in bubble writing on a sign for her door I remembered to write Iggy so I didn’t have to do it again.
Mum and Dad remembered to use her new name too. They said, “Iggy this” and “Iggy that.”
They said, “Iggy, eat your lunch by half past or there’s no pudding.”
They said, “Iggy, don’t cheat at Snap.”
They said, “Iggy, when did you last clean your teeth?”
They said, “Iggy, Flo is trying to read. Stop jumping up and down on the sofa.”
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