Holiday (4 page)

Iris breathed in. The air smelt different here. Fresher or warmer or breezier, or something. Different, anyway.

‘There’s the cinema,’ Kick said, pointing across the road. ‘Can we get a choc-top ice-cream and a super-sized drink?’

Iris gave her brother a dirty look. This was supposed to be the greatest trip ever, but if Kick was going to keep acting spoilt, he could wreck it. Wasn’t it enough for him to finish the school term early, catch a plane, stay in a hotel
and
go out in the middle of the day to see a movie with their mum?

Of course, having a choc-top and fizzy drink would be great, but Iris thought it was far better manners to wait and see if their mum brought up the idea herself.

Well
, Iris decided,
I’m going to show Mum
that at least one of us knows how to behave.

Iris loved going to the movies so much, it almost didn’t matter which movie she saw. It felt exciting just lining up for tickets in the dimly lit foyer and standing on the red carpet with the smell of popcorn in the air.

She looked longingly at posters for the movie about an all-girl rock band, but Kick was acting like the robot movie was a done deal. Iris frowned at him. She didn’t see why Kick should get his own way in everything. It was true, she wanted to behave, but did that
really
mean she had to watch some stupid robot movie?

Her mum whispered in her ear. ‘We’ll let him have his way on this one, OK, sweetie? And I’ll make it up to you later.’

Iris looked up quickly and said, ‘It’s OK. I don’t mind.’

But that was only
half
true. When Iris thought about her mum, of course she didn’t care what movie they saw. When she looked at Kick, though, she felt herself getting angry. He wasn’t even nice about getting his own way. Instead, he was jumping around gleefully.

Sometimes she wished she was an only child. It would be much nicer to have her mum all to herself instead of having to be the big sister
all the time
, letting Kick have his own way
again
.

‘Iris?’ said her mum. ‘Are you sure you’re OK with Kick’s movie?’

Iris realised her face had scrunched up into a scowl again. She took a deep breath and then let it out in a sigh. She looked at her mum.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. Really.’

Maybe she could try to pretend Kick wasn’t there. But that wouldn’t be easy.

‘Hey, Mum,’ Kick yelled, even though he was standing right beside them. ‘Can I have some money? I want to line up for choc-tops. And can we have popcorn too? And that drink?’

If I were the deaf one
, she thought,
I’d take
my hearing aids out now, and switch off Kick’s
voice like a bad song on the radio.

After the movie, Iris was starving. The choc-top hadn’t filled her up for long. Of course Kick was hungry, too, and he was being really loud about it.

‘I want a hamburger,’ he said. ‘I’m so starving, all I can think about is a hamburger. And chips. And a milkshake. Can we get one, mum? Please?’

Iris’s mum bent down and put her hand on Kick’s shoulder. ‘Slow down, Kick. How about Iris gets a turn to choose?’

‘OK,’ Kick shrugged.‘Hey, Iris, choose hamburgers, OK? And hot chips with sauce. That’s the best choice, OK?’

Iris liked hamburgers as much as Kick did, but right then she felt like doing the exact opposite of whatever he wanted just to spite him. What was the opposite of a hamburger?

‘Well, Iris?’ said her mum. ‘What will it be?’

Iris smiled sweetly. She had an idea that would annoy Kick
and
please her mum.

Perfect! ‘I’d
really
love some sushi, actually,’ she said.

‘Great!’ said her mum. ‘Exactly what we need after all that junk food.’

Kick groaned, and Iris smiled again.

Suffer
,
brother!
she thought.

Walking through the city, Iris felt so hungry that she started to worry that cold rice and seaweed wouldn’t be enough to stop her stomach growling. Especially when they kept walking past the delicious smells of hot pizza and kebabs.

But then her mum found a sushi train restaurant.

‘It’s so cute!’ Iris said. She hadn’t seen anything like it before. A miniature train was trundling along around the benches, pulling little carriages of sushi behind it!

‘Right, here’s what we’ll do,’ said her mum as they sat down. ‘One plate at a time off the train, and finish what you’ve got before you take another one.’

The little train rattled past them, and Iris’s mum took a plate of glistening cubes of raw fish.

‘What a good suggestion, Iris,’ she said. ‘This is lovely.’

Kick piped up, ‘I don’t want any of this fancy, spicy stuff. Where are the normal tuna rolls like we get at our sushi place at home?’

Iris’s mum gave Kick some chicken and avocado sushi, but he kept complaining.

‘I’ll eat it,’ he grumbled. ‘But I won’t like it. And I still want a hamburger more than ever.’

‘Tough, Kick,’ Iris snapped. ‘It was my choice, and Mum agreed, so there.’

‘That’s enough,’ her mum said firmly. ‘Just eat. If you can both behave yourselves for two minutes, I’ll order some fat noodles for us all. Will that do?’

‘Hey, yeah, cool!’ said Kick cheerfully.

Iris, though, was amazed.
Both
behave yourselves?
Both
? How unfair was that? It was Kick that was acting all spoilt, not Iris.

It’s Kick’s fault
, she thought, hurt.
There
wouldn’t even have been an argument without
him.

After their fat noodles, their mum took Iris and Kick to the science museum. Normally, Iris would have thought it was fantastic to try out all those machines and gadgets, and Kick seemed to be having a good time, but she was fed up.

It was like there was only room on holiday for one kid. At home, Iris and Kick had worked out how to share things so that it was mostly fair between them. That wasn’t happening here, though. Kick was getting everything his own way, and Iris was left with nothing.

Well, I guess we all know which kid this
holiday is really for
, she thought sulkily.