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Iggy and Me and the Happy Birthday
Jenny Valentine
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My name is Flo and I have a little sister called Iggy.
Iggy was learning to swim. Dad said she was taking her time about it. This was because Iggy pretended to swim by walking about in the shallow end and doing all the right things with her arms.
“The top half has got it,” said Dad, “but somebody forgot to tell the legs.”
Iggy didn’t think her legs needed to be told.
“Look,” she said. “Swimming is easy.” And she hopped from one foot to the other and flapped her arms about.
Dad said she looked like a duck coming in to land.
Mum said, “Iggy, that isn’t swimming.”
“Yes it is,” Iggy said.
I was keeping out of it.
On the way home on the bus, Iggy was falling asleep. Dad said she was tired from all her underwater running.
“I’m not tired,” Iggy said, opening one eye and then closing it again. “And I wasn’t running.”
“What are we going to do with you?” said Mum. “How are we going to teach you to swim?”
“I can swim,” Iggy said.
“Half of you can,” Dad said. Iggy folded her arms and turned away.
“How did I learn to swim?” I said.
“We dropped you in the water when you were a baby,” Dad said.
Iggy sniggered and then pretended it was a snore.
“Dad!” I said. “That’s not very nice!”
“We didn’t drop you,” Mum said, elbowing Dad. “We were in the pool with you and we let you go.”
“Is that allowed?” I said.
Mum said, “We went to special classes. We didn’t just throw you in.”
Dad said that all babies knew how to swim if you just dunked them in and helped them to remember.
Mum said, “Babies are surrounded by water when they’re in the womb.”
I looked at Mum’s tummy. Iggy opened her eyes again.
“Why didn’t you do that to Iggy?” I said.
“We tried,” said Mum. “But she didn’t like it.”
“You didn’t like it,” said Dad.
“She was crying,” Mum said.
“Screaming,” said Dad.
“Iggy didn’t take to it like you, Flo,” said Mum. “You were a little fish.”
Iggy sat up straight on the bus seat. She said, “I don’t want to be a fish. Who’d want to be a fish?”
“Exactly,” said Dad. “Who wants to be a fish when they can be a piglet?” And he tickled her until she snorted.
Later that week, Iggy had her first swimming lesson. I went with Mum to watch while Dad was at work.
It was in a secret, special pool that was hidden from all the other pools. You wouldn’t know it was there. It was small and there was no deep end – you could stand anywhere in it. And the water was warm, nearly hot, like a bath.
There were four other people in Iggy’s class:
a boy with Spider-man goggles and Incredible Hulk trunks;
a girl with orange hair and an orange bikini, who cried and wouldn’t look at the water;
a girl with a special float-suit on that meant she couldn’t sink, and which was probably cheating;
and a boy from school called James, who was wearing pink armbands and looked even crosser than Iggy.
“I want to go home,” Iggy said. “I don’t like swimming lessons.”
“You’ve never had one before,” Mum said. “You might like it.”
Iggy frowned and put her towel over her head. “I don’t want one,” she said.
“Too late,” said Mum. “I just paid for six.”
It was really hot in there with all our clothes on, and a bit funny-smelling, of pool water and other things. I took my coat off. The floor was wet so I had to keep it on my knee which was just as hot as wearing it. Everyone’s mums and dads and brothers
