Holiday (2 page)

The next morning Iris woke up so early that it was still grey outside. She felt incredibly happy and bubbly, but for a second she couldn’t remember why. Then it hit her.

It’s today!
Iris smiled to herself.
We’re
going on holiday, and I didn’t dream it because
there’s my bag – all packed and ready.

She bounced out of bed and pulled on the outfit she had laid out ready the night before. Then she practically skipped down the hallway.

She could already tell it was going to be the most perfect day. She would be doing about a hundred things she’d never done before, starting with getting a taxi to the airport. And she still had ten dollars in her back pocket, left over from her birthday and ready to use for holiday shopping.
Excellent!

‘Iris!’ her mum called. ‘Can you please wake Kick up? He needs breakfast before we go.’

Iris caught a whiff of the bacon and mushrooms her dad was frying up in the kitchen, and her mouth watered as she ran to get her brother. Things kept getting better and better!

After a massive breakfast, where their parents tried to get Iris and Kick to eat practically everything in the fridge, Iris took a box of vegies and the leftover bread and milk next door to Mr Calder. She got back just in time to check that her bag was zipped up properly before the taxi came.

It felt like a dream to be winding her way through the city to the airport at exactly the time Iris and Kick would normally be catching the bus to school. And it was so cool to be having her bags weighed at the airport check-in desk at exactly the same time that she would normally be lining up in the playground for roll call.

At the check-in desk, Iris watched her luggage roll along a conveyer belt and then disappear through a wobbly black rubber curtain.

Then her dad led them through the security check. That meant any luggage they wanted to carry onto the plane with them had to be put through a big X-ray machine, while they had to walk under a special scanner that beeped if they had anything metal in their pockets.

This is so cool
, Iris thought, smiling to herself as she tightly grasped onto her boarding pass (‘Do
not
lose it!’ her mum had warned her).

After the security check, the family headed down the longest corridor Iris had ever seen. It stretched on so far, she couldn’t quite see the end of it. Along the sides were coffee shops and sushi bars, and in between were big lounge areas full of seats and waiting passengers.

‘Our plane’s right down the end,’ Iris’s dad said after he had checked his boarding pass. Iris noticed there were funny flat escalators along the length of the corridor, a bit like conveyer belts for people. She saw adults in business suits walking along them, looking very serious and important.

‘Can we do that?’ she asked her dad.

‘You mean hop on the travelators?’ he replied. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Come on, Kick,’ grinned Iris. ‘Let’s do it!’

She sped ahead of her mum and dad, and power-walked along the travelators with Kick beside her. It was almost like being a superhero, striding along at top speed. She imagined she was rushing off to catch a plane on her own – a star sax player, flying off to a concert on the other side of the world, with hundreds of fans and a limousine waiting for her.

She’d never felt so glamorous in her life!

They got to the end of the corridor, and Iris stepped off the last travelator. She was disappointed for a second at how heavy and ordinary it felt to walk along the carpet. But the disappointment was immediately replaced with excitement when her dad bought her and Kick hot chocolates at the cafe next to their lounge, and Iris saw two pilots walk by in their uniforms.

Then she and Kick stood by the gigantic windows and watched planes taking off and landing, and being loaded and unloaded with bags, until it was time for them to board.

Iris handed the flight attendant her boarding pass, and then followed her mum down a carpeted tunnel. It went around corners and sloped downwards until it reached the plane. Kick and her dad followed behind.

Iris had a little tremor of nerves as she stepped into the plane. A cold breeze was whistling through a gap between the open door of the plane and the tunnel, and she shivered.

I’m really doing this
, she thought suddenly.
I’m really on an aeroplane now!

Iris followed her mum down the narrow aisle of the plane until they got to their seats in row twenty-one. The plane was so crowded! Worse than the school bus, with everyone trying to squeeze past to get to their seats, bumping into each other and saying,‘Sorry! Sorry!’ about a million times.

‘Who’s got the window seat?’ their mum asked.

‘Me!’ said Iris and Kick at exactly the same time.

‘No way! Not you – me!’ Their voices came together in a muddle.

Iris was in front of Kick, so she got to slide right into the window seat.

Kick flopped crossly into the seat next to her. ‘That’s so unfair!’ he grouched.

‘Relax, Kick,’ said their mum. ‘How about if Iris sits there for take-off, and you swap halfway through the flight? That way you can have the window for landing.’

‘Good,’ said Kick sourly, obviously still grumpy.

‘Iris?’ her dad asked.

‘Yeah, OK,’ Iris said easily. She wasn’t about to let a little thing like that get her holiday off to a bad start.

Still
, she thought,
Kick shouldn’t make
such a fuss when he misses out on something he
wants. It wouldn’t kill him to grow up a bit.

Take-off was awesome. The plane moved slowly past the airport until it reached the runway, and then there was a pause while the cabin crew showed the passengers how to put on their life jackets.

Iris’s eyes bulged in alarm and she looked over at her mum.

‘It’s just in case, Iris,’ her mum said quietly. ‘But we’re not going to need them.’

After the crew had sat down, the plane began to move faster. Much faster. The engines screamed louder and louder, and the wheels rumbled like thunder on the runway.

Iris stared out the window at the ground flashing by. The plane bumped and swayed a bit, and then … nothing.

The rumbling and bumping had stopped, and Iris realised that they were above the ground. Actually flying!

Iris watched as the houses and roads shrank down to the size of a model village, and then became even smaller, as if they were part of a satellite photo of the earth. The plane flew so high that she could see whole rivers at once and the hills and valleys looked like wrinkles in a blanket.

Then they went right through the clouds! It was misty and grey for a few moments, and then –
wow!
Iris hadn’t expected anything so beautiful. There was wide blue sky above them, and the clouds beneath were so fat and white and fluffy that Iris wanted to run and bounce on them as though they were a giant jumping castle.