Iggy Is Better Than Ever Read online

  LOOK FOR IGGY’S OTHER TRIUMPHS

  The Best of Iggy

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  Text copyright © 2020 by Annie Barrows

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Sam Ricks

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Barrows, Annie, author. | Ricks, Sam, illustrator.

  Title: Iggy is better than ever / Annie Barrows; illustrated by Sam Ricks.

  Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2020] | Series: Iggy; [2] |

  Summary: Fourth grader Iggy Frangi and his friends, afraid the principal saw them pulling a big prank, vow to be so good they are invisible, but learn that being too good causes trouble too.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020002311 (print) | LCCN 2020002312 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984813336 | ISBN 9781984813343 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Behavior—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.B27576 Igg 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.B27576 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020002311

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020002312

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 2020 by Sam Ricks

  Cover design by Marikka Tamura

  pid_prh_5.6.0_c0_r0

  For the real Miss Hackerman, with sincere apologies

  —A.B.

  For Ruby Hill: wrecker of bicycles, purveyor of fond memories

  —S.R.

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1: WHAT THIS BOOK ISN’T ABOUT

  CHAPTER 2: MONDAY

  CHAPTER 3: A SHORT CHAPTER ABOUT A SHORT PERSON

  CHAPTER 4: LATER, YOU ASK YOURSELF WHY

  CHAPTER 5: SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE MORE FUN THAN YOU EXPECT

  CHAPTER 6: THE TWELFTH CAR

  CHAPTER 7: THE WANDERING THOUGHTS OF IGGY AND ARCH

  CHAPTER 7½: HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON, PART ONE

  CHAPTER 8: IGGY THE INVISIBLE

  CHAPTER 9: GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT. BUT THEN AGAIN, SO DO BAD THINGS

  CHAPTER 10: DEATH AND BASKETBALLS

  CHAPTER 10½: HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON, PART TWO

  CHAPTER 11: THERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS YOU SHOULDN’T ANSWER

  CHAPTER 12: DAD IS GRUMPY

  CHAPTER 13: OR SOMETHING

  CHAPTER 14: GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

  CHAPTER 15: NOW THAT BLOOD IS POURING FROM HIS MOUTH, IGGY STOPS TO THINK

  CHAPTER 15½: HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON, PART THREE

  CHAPTER 16: IGGY LEARNS HIS LESSON

  CHAPTER 17: IGGY PLANTS FLOWERS BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

  CHAPTER 18: BETTER NOT

  CHAPTER 1

  WHAT THIS BOOK ISN’T ABOUT

  You know those books where the main kid becomes a better person at the end? You should. You’ve read about a million of them.

  For example, the main kid excludes another kid, and then the other kid wins some big thing like a race and becomes really popular, and then the main kid feels left out, and from this, he learns to be nice and not to exclude anyone ever again. The end.

  Sometimes, the main kid is already okay at the beginning of the book, but he gets even better by the end. Say, the main kid kills at basketball, but by the end of the book, he learns that people who play the flute are just as good as people who kill at basketball. The end.

  The main kid can also learn a rule, like Don’t Light Stuff on Fire. Or he can learn to keep on trying even when the going gets tough. It can be anything. The point is for the main kid to be better at the end than he was at the beginning.

  Would you like to know why there are so many books about becoming a better person?

  Because grown-ups like it when kids get better. They think it’s nice.

  And they’re right. It is nice.

  Unfortunately, in this book, nobody gets any better.

  Sorry.

  Nobody gets any worse, though!

  So that’s good.

  Iggy (that’s the main kid, also known as the hero, of this book) stays pretty much the same all the way through. He learns a few things, but they aren’t things that make him better. They are things about gardening supplies.

  But mostly, Iggy gets in trouble. He does Thing 1, and then Thing 2 happens, and then, unfortunately, Thing 3 happens too. Does he learn from the bad things he does? Does he say to himself, Whew, that was really bad. I have learned my lesson. I’m going to stop doing that bad thing and become a better person!

  No. He doesn’t.

  Some people think that kids will learn their lesson if they experience a terrible consequence when they do something wrong. For example, if you’re not supposed to climb on the roof, but you do it anyway and then fall off and break your leg, this will teach you never to climb on the roof again. This is the whole idea behind punishments. Punishments were invented for the times when you climb on the roof, but you don’t end up with a broken leg. Grown-ups worry that you won’t learn your lesson if there’s no terrible consequence, so they make one up. That’s what a punishment is.

  Does Iggy get punished for doing his bad things?

  He sure does!

  Do his punishments make him wish he hadn’t done them?

  Not exactly.

  To tell the truth, Iggy would do them all over again in a second.

  Now, you are probably feeling kind of bad yourself because you’re reading a book about a kid who doesn’t get better. You’re probably saying to yourself, Gosh, I wish I were reading a book about a kid who plants flowers by the side of the road instead of this book about Iggy getting in a bunch of trouble! If that’s how you’re feeling, I have some good news for you. Even though Iggy doesn’t get any better during this book, you will. By reading about the bad things Iggy does, you will learn not to do those things, and that will make you a better person. Isn’t that great?

  To help you become a better person, I am going to include special notes after each bad thing Iggy does to remind you that (a) boy, was that bad! and (b) don’t do that! I’ll even put the notes in big type so you can show them to your grown-up and say, “Look! Reading this book is making me a better person!” The big type will also make it easy for you to skip those parts if you don’t want to read them.

  But enough about you! Let’s get to the bad things Iggy does. Like most bad things, it began on a . . .

  CHAPTER 2

  MONDAY

  Here’s Iggy on Monday morning. Yup, that’s him. That’s his bowl of cereal. That’s his dad. That’s his big sister, Maribel. His little sister is still asleep.

  Why is his head on the table?

  Don’t you ever put your head on the table?
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  No?

  Well, aren’t you polite.

  Iggy looks like he’s asleep, but he’s not. He’s thinking. He’s thinking about how much he doesn’t want to go to school.

  “Eat your breakfast, Ig,” says his dad.

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Iggy says. Actually, he yells it.

  But does anyone pay attention? No.

  Maribel says, “I need a new backpack.”

  His mom, who isn’t in this picture because she’s in the next room looking at her computer, says something about how terrible the traffic is.

  Then his dad says something else about how terrible the traffic is.

  (Have you ever noticed how much time grown-ups spend talking about traffic?)

  Iggy moans a little.

  Does anyone feel sorry for him? No.

  “We all have problems, Ig. Stop moaning and eat your breakfast,” says his dad.

  Guess what! You can eat breakfast and moan at the same time!

  “Stop that. You like school,” says Iggy’s dad. “Remember last week you said Ms. Schulberger was your favorite teacher ever.”

  This is totally unfair. Ms. Schulberger is Iggy’s favorite teacher ever, but liking your teacher isn’t the same as liking school. He would probably like Ms. Schulberger even more if he only saw her once a month. Plus, he’s only had four other teachers, so how can he know for sure she’s his favorite? Maybe next year, in fifth grade, he’ll have a teacher he likes better than Ms. Schulberger. He says this.

  “Ha,” says Maribel. She’s eleven, so she’s in middle school, but she used to go to Iggy’s school. “You’ll have either Ms. Keets or Miss Hackerman, and you better hope you get Miss Hackerman, because Ms. Keets will kill you.”

  Iggy frowns. Why would she kill him?

  Maribel leans over her cereal and whispers, “In my year, there was this kid who fell out of his chair by mistake, and Ms. Keets cut his hat.”

  “Whaddaya mean, cut his hat?” whispers Iggy.

  “In the paper cutter,” says Maribel. “He fell out of his chair by mistake. So think what Ms. Keets would do to you.”

  Iggy thinks. He thinks about all the times he’s fallen out of his chair on purpose. Sometimes he yells “Whooo!” when he does it. Sometimes he pretends to trip when he’s going to the whiteboard. Sometimes—hardly ever—he slides under the table and ties other kids’ shoelaces together so they fall over when they stand up.

  Ms. Keets probably would kill him.

  “What about Miss Hackerman?” Hackerman! It sounds like she would kill him too.

  Maribel shrugs. “Miss Hackerman’s nice. She wouldn’t kill you, because she likes everyone. But she’s old. She could be gone by next year. She was sick for something like a month when I had her. And guess who our substitute was.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Wander.” Maribel grins at Iggy and makes a chopping motion across her throat. “Ha-ack!” she chokes.

  Is Maribel choking on her cereal? No. She isn’t. What is she doing, then? And why?

  Let me explain . . .

  CHAPTER 3

  A SHORT CHAPTER ABOUT A SHORT PERSON

  Mrs. Wander is the principal at Iggy’s school. She is very short. She’s so short that most fifth graders and even some fourth graders are taller than she is. There’s nothing wrong with being short. Plenty of people are short and funny. Plenty of people are short and friendly. But Mrs. Wander is not these things.

  Mrs. Wander is short and scary.

  When kids see Mrs. Wander coming, they stand completely still, hoping her eyes will slide over them. Mrs. Wander doesn’t like kids who move. She especially doesn’t like kids who run. Running, she says, is not safe. Mrs. Wander is crazy about safety. She loves it. In Iggy’s opinion, it isn’t very safe to be so scary that you almost make kids pass out when they see you. But nobody’s asked Iggy’s opinion.

  Here’s another thing about Mrs. Wander: She doesn’t like Iggy very much.

  Actually, she doesn’t seem to like him at all.

  They have spent a lot of time together, especially the year Iggy was in second grade. That year, he was sent to her office so many times, he had his own chair. Mrs. Wander even put a sign with his name on it on the chair. Iggy thought that was mean.

  Sometimes people like you more when they get to know you. Not Mrs. Wander. The more she got to know Iggy, the less she liked him. When Mrs. Wander saw Iggy, her eyeballs would bulge with fury, even if he was standing completely still (which, to be honest, he usually wasn’t).

  So what would happen if Mrs. Wander were his teacher?

  Iggy would have to run away to Ketchum, Idaho.

  CHAPTER 4

  LATER, YOU ASK YOURSELF WHY

  As it turned out, school wasn’t as bad as Iggy had thought it was going to be, but still, the best part about it was that it ended.

  After school, Iggy and Diego went to Arch’s house. Iggy, Diego, and Arch had been friends since the second day of kindergarten, when they had made a racetrack out of carpet squares and tore around on it until Arch broke the whiteboard with his head. Kindergarten was fun! Now, in fourth grade, there were no carpet squares, no racetrack, and actually, no Diego, since after kindergarten, the school had made a rule that Diego and Iggy could never be in the same classroom again.

  They could still hang out after school, though.

  Arch had lots of good stuff in his house, including a million computer games and one of those vacuums that rolls around by itself and a wheelchair and the sports channel and this crazy hot room with birds in it. First they played Invisitor until Arch’s guy was buried under a glacier and he quit; then they all got in the wheelchair and zipped around; then they tried to get the vacuum to bang into them (but it wouldn’t); then they went into the crazy hot bird room and meowed like cats until the birds freaked out; and then Arch’s mom made them go outside.

  They stood around in the front yard for a while.

  Then they stood around in the backyard for a while.

  “How much longer do we have to stay out here?” asked Diego.

  Arch said probably something like an hour.

  An hour!

  “Let’s do something,” said Iggy.

  “Like what?” said Arch.

  “Like something fun,” said Iggy. He glanced around Arch’s backyard. “What’s in your shed?”

  Arch shrugged. “I don’t know. Gardening stuff, I guess.”

  “A leaf blower?” asked Diego.

  A leaf blower! You can have tons of fun with a leaf blower!

  They raced for the shed—but there was no leaf blower. There was no weed whacker either. There wasn’t even a lawn mower. There were folding chairs and a Christmas tree holder and some shovels and bags of smelly dirt and a big roll of clear plastic tape.

  “We could stack up the chairs,” suggested Arch.

  Iggy and Diego said that was stupid.

  “We could bury the chairs,” suggested Arch.

  Iggy and Diego said that was stupid.

  “We could bury each other,” suggested Arch.

  “Cool!” said Diego. He picked up a shovel. “Let’s bury Iggy, since he’s the shortest.”

  Iggy thought about being buried. Dirt piling up around him, and then over him, covering his hands, his mouth, his nose . . . “Wait!” he said. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  Arch and Diego looked at him a certain way. This certain way said that they didn’t think he had a better idea, that he was a big chicken, and that they might bury him whether he wanted them to or not.

  “Here!” said Iggy. He grabbed the big roll of clear plastic tape.* (This thing is an asterisk; it means there's a note when you tap it.) “This is going to be hecka funny! We’ll stretch this across your street, Arch, and see what happens when cars drive through it.”


  “Dude. Nothing’s going to happen,” said Diego. “It’ll just break.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Iggy. He yanked out a piece of tape and stretched it a little. “Maybe it’ll be like a big rubber band and shoot them backward. You don’t know.”

  “It’s going to break,” said Arch. “For sure.”

  “I swear we’ll dig you up before you suffocate,” said Diego.

  Dirt closing over his head! “I'll bet you a dollar it won’t break,” said Iggy. “A dollar each.”

  Diego and Arch looked at each other. “Okay,” they said together.

  CHAPTER 5

  SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE MORE FUN THAN YOU EXPECT

  Mostly, you don’t have more fun than you expect. Mostly, you have either just about as much fun as you expect or less fun than you expect. But sometimes, especially when you don’t expect much fun at all, you have a great time.

  This is what happened to Iggy and Diego and Arch that afternoon.

  They started by being lucky. When they got to the front yard, they saw that just up the block from Arch’s house, there were two trees exactly opposite each other on either side of the street. One was between the sidewalk and the street and one was in a front yard, but the important thing was this: They were lined up. Iggy circled the tape around one tree trunk. Then he crossed the street, unwinding the tape as he went, and circled it around the opposite tree trunk. The tape was about three feet off the ground.

  Arch and Diego watched him. “This is boring!” yelled Diego.

  “Wait till a car comes!” yelled Iggy.

  They didn’t have to wait very long, because maybe half a minute later, a little blue car came down the street and drove right into Iggy’s tape.