Iggy and Me and The Happy Birthday. Jenny Valentine

sat and thought for a minute. “If I only put one thing on my list, will I definitely get it?”

      “No,” said Mum and Dad together.

      “What will I get then?” Iggy said.

      I said, “A surprise.”

      “I don’t like surprises,” said Iggy.

      “Why not?”

      “Because I don’t know what they are.”

      Dad laughed.

      “That’s the whole point,” I told her. “That’s what surprises are.”

      Mum said, “Do you remember when you thought we were going to the supermarket and we went to the Safari Park instead? You were really surprised then.”

      “Oh yes,” Iggy said. “I forgot. I do like surprises.”

      “Good,” said Mum.

      “But I like hamsters more,” Iggy said. “Can my surprise be a hamster?”

      “No!” said Mum and Dad.

      Iggy looked at her list of one thing for a long time. Mum did more digging and Dad did more newspaper rustling, and I waited for the birds to come and eat their snacks.

      “What shall number two be?” Iggy said.

      Mum said, “There’s no hurry,” and Dad said, “What about a motorbike?”

      Iggy frowned at him. “I’m not allowed a motorbike. I’m too young for one of those.”

      “You’ll think of something,” said Mum.

      I said, “I bet there are loads of things you want.”

      “Oooh,” said Iggy. “If I write loads of things on my list, will I get them all?”

      “No,” said Mum and Dad.

      “So why am I writing them?”

      “To give us an idea of what you want,” Mum said.

      “A hamster,” Iggy said. “A hamster, a hamster, a hamster!”

      “OK, enough,” said Dad. “This conversation is going round in circles.”

      “Hamsters do that,” Iggy said. “Gruffles, the hamster in our class, is going round in circles all the time.”

      Mum looked very carefully into the hole that she was making and Dad looked very carefully at the news. They didn’t say anything.

      Iggy worked on her list of one thing until lunchtime.

      “Look Flo,” she said.

      Next to 1: A hamster there was a very good picture of a hamster in its cage. It was peeking through the bars with its twitchy nose and its little hands showing.

      Underneath that, Iggy had written 2: ??????

      The question marks were all the colours of the rainbow.

      “I don’t know what else to want,” she said.

      I said I would help her.

      For lunch we had omelettes and tomatoes and lettuce. Normally Iggy is a big fidget and a big chatterbox at the table, and she takes ages to finish. Today she was still and quiet and eating.

      “Are you OK, Iggy?” Dad said. “You are acting very strangely.”

      “No I’m not,” said Iggy. “I’m thinking.”

      “Thinking about what?” Mum said.

      “What I want that isn’t a hamster,” Iggy said.

      Mum and Dad laughed, and she frowned at them. She said, “It’s harder than you think.”

      After lunch we started thinking together.

      “What do other people have that you would like?” I said.

      “Our whole class has a hamster.”

      “Apart from one of those,” I said. “That’s on the list already.”

      “Frankie Day’s got a bike,” Iggy said.

      “What sort of bike?”

      “A brilliant one. It’s got tassels on the handlebars and a bell. It’s got a basket for stuff at the front and a special seat for teddies at the back.”

      “Wow,” I said. “What colour is it?”

      “Pink and purple.”

      “What colour bike would you have if you could?”

      “Pink and purple,” Iggy said. “If I could, I’d have one exactly the same.”

      “So write it down.”

      Next to 2: Iggy put A bike like Frankie’s, and she drew it too, with tassels and a bear all strapped in behind the saddle.

      When she had finished we both looked at it. “I’d really like one of those,’ she said.

      I said, “That’s why it’s number two on your list, because you’d really like it.”

      “So,” Iggy said, “if I didn’t really want something, it would be really later on in the list.”

      “Exactly,” I said. “Like what?”

      “Like poo on a stick, or to have to kiss a frog, or get tickled till I’m sick.”

      “Those could be really low down on your list,” I said. “Or you could just not put them there at all.”

      “What else?” she said. “What else do I want that other people have got?”

      “I don’t know,” I said. I told her about my best friend Star. She’s got a plug-in piano in her bedroom. I’d really like one.

      “Noah Green has got a telly in his bedroom,” Iggy said. “Shall I want one of those?”

      “Don’t bother,” said Dad, walking past with his cup of coffee. “It will never happen.”

      Iggy screwed her face up with more thinking. “I know,” she said. “I like Elsa Russell’s shoes.”

      “What are they like?”

      “They are red trainers with her own name on. She made them on the computer and they arrived in a box.”

      She put 3: Shoes with my name on, and she drew them too. The way Iggy draws shoes is funny. They looked like big boats.

      “What about clothes?” I said. “Would some new clothes be good?”

      Iggy chewed her pencil. She wrote 4: A party dress for my party.

      Then without any help at all, Iggy wrote and drew

      5: A treehouse with curtains

      6: A trampoline

      7: A doll with real hair you can cut and not get told off

      8: A clock like Gabe Turner

      “What sort of clock has Gabe got?” I said.

      “It barks like a dog,” Iggy said. “He brought it in for Show and Tell. It’s funny.”

      “Ooh!” she said, and she wrote 9: Pants with days of the week on.

      “Those,” she said, “are actually quite useful.”

      “Let’s think of one more,” I said. “Then you’ve got ten things. That’s a pretty good list.”

      “Easy,” she said.

      10: A hamster

      “You already wrote that,” I said.

      I