Holiday (3 page)

She gazed out the window dreamily. It didn’t seem nearly long enough before Kick jabbed her with his elbow and said, ‘Time’s up! My turn for the window.’

After playing three games of spit with her mum, and eating a tray of the tiniest, cutest sandwiches ever, Iris’s ears began to feel stuffy and blocked.

Her stomach swooped a little, like she was on a swing, and her dad said, ‘We’ve started to descend. We’ll be landing soon.’ His voice sounded like it was coming from miles away.

‘What?’Iris said.

Her dad smiled.‘Yawn as big as you can. It will help pop your ears. Or hold your nose while you blow. That works, too.’

Iris tried it. It was seriously weird! She blew her nose and held it at the same time, like her head was a balloon that she was blowing up from the inside, and then,
pop!
She could hear again.

Her stomach swooped again as the plane dropped lower, and she bit her lip. She couldn’t tell if she was excited or scared, so she decided that landing was full of scary excitement!

Iris thought taking off would make her nervous, but it was landing that got to her. But she soon learnt to ignore the screaming sound of the engines.

And it’s OK once you accept the fact that your big-headed brother won’t lean back so you
can see out the window as well
, she thought.

After they’d all gotten their bags off the luggage carousel, Iris’s dad took a taxi to his meeting while everyone else headed to the hotel.

And what a hotel! Iris gaped. There was a man in a lovely deep green uniform standing by the front doors, waiting to carry their bags. Inside, the lobby was like something from one of those travel shows on TV. There were giant vases of flowers everywhere, coffee tables and leather furniture by the windows, and sparkling gift stores by the lifts. It was all so hushed and calm and
elegant.

Iris stood up very straight, and tried to tiptoe across the shiny floor as they walked to the reception desk. Beside her, Kick dragged his feet and said loudly, ‘Mum, I really,
really
need the toilet.’

Iris couldn’t believe it. ‘Kick!’ she hissed. ‘Shh!’

‘What?’ said Kick, even louder. ‘I’m just saying, I’m really, really desperate for a –’

‘Be quiet!’ Iris glared at him. She was whispering so low Kick would have to lip-read. ‘You don’t have to be so noisy all the time.’

Kick just rolled his eyes at her.

‘All right, guys,’ said their mum, turning away from the reception desk. ‘We’ve got our room key. Let’s go!’

Iris gave Kick one last scowl, and then smiled brilliantly at her mum. ‘Cool. I can’t wait.’

‘Neither can I,’ said Kick. ‘And I mean, I
really
can’t wait.’

Iris tried to ignore him.
What a pain!

The hotel room was brilliant! Iris had thought a hotel room would be exactly what it sounded like – one room. But they had something that looked more like a whole apartment. They had a little kitchen with a dishwasher and a microwave, and a sitting room with a TV, two sofas
and
a balcony. And there was one bedroom for her mum and dad, and one for her and Kick.

Iris remembered what Zoe had said about hotels, and went to check out their bathroom while Kick was on the balcony. She wanted to poke around a bit without him following her.

The bathroom was at the end of the corridor, and when Iris opened the door all she could say was, ‘Wow.’

‘Hey! What?’ Kick had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Iris ground her teeth in frustration. For a deaf kid, he was pretty hard to sneak off from.

Still, it was actually good to be able to share her excitement with him.‘Look,’ she said, pointing. There on the shelf by the mirror were almost a dozen tiny bottles. They went closer to read the labels.

‘Shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser,’ Iris said out loud. ‘Oh, look – you can choose between pine needles and sea salt for boys, or apricot blossom and vanilla for girls.’

‘And matching soap!’ said Kick. ‘Little bars, all in wrappers.’

‘Ooh, and look at the towels!’ Iris added.

The railing by the bath was heaped with huge, fluffy white towels. There was a stack of smaller ones for drying your hands or wrapping your wet hair in.

‘You know, with this many towels you wouldn’t need to wrap yourself in one towel like a normal person,’ said Iris. ‘You could just make a huge pile on the floor and then
roll
in them.’

‘Well, don’t get used to it,’ their mum laughed as she stood in the doorway. ‘This is only for one night. Tomorrow we check out and go to stay with Nan and Pa.’

‘Nan and Pa!’ yelped Iris. ‘They said to call and let them know when we’d arrived at the hotel! Can I phone them?’

‘Definitely,’ said her mum. ‘And when you’ve done that, you can come downstairs with me and find a newspaper. Dad won’t be back till late this afternoon, so the three of us are going to find a movie to see.’

Iris felt as though she could float away like a balloon with all the happiness inside her. Could this holiday get any better?

Downstairs in the lobby, Iris, her mum and Kick looked around for a newspaper.

‘There,’ whispered Iris, pointing to a coffee table surrounded by windows and fat leather armchairs. The table was full of different newspapers, all folded and neatly set out.

Their mum led the way. Iris tried to follow with a particularly grown-up walk, not making any sound with her feet. Kick, of course, clumped over noisily as though he spent his whole life wandering around hotels.

Iris sat next to her mum, sinking deeply into the soft, warm leather of the sofa. She never knew just
sitting
could be so nice.

‘All right,’ said her mum, rustling through the paper to the back pages. ‘Here are the movie ads. Let’s see …’

Iris and Kick grinned at each other. They hardly ever went to the movies at home. Usually they waited until the movies came out on DVD, and then they watched them on the weekend. Seeing a movie at the cinema was a real treat.

Their mum looked at her watch. ‘If we leave right now, we can walk into town and be at the cinema in twenty minutes. And the next movie sessions start in half an hour. You guys up for it?’

‘Absolutely!’ Iris said.

But Kick groaned, ‘Do we
have
to walk? Can’t we get another taxi?’

Iris pulled a face.
How spoilt is he?
Was he really
complaining?

But their mum didn’t seem annoyed. ‘The walk will do us good,’ she said as she got to her feet. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

Iris, Kick and their mum walked along the very busy and colourful city streets. There was so much to see.

Even Kick stopped dragging his feet and was quiet for once as he took in the new sights.