Izzy's River by Holly Webb Page A

mentioned the area under the bridge.”
    “Oh! Do you have a bench you want to get rid of?” Izzy asked him hopefully. No one had turned up offering one yet, but then it had been a long shot.
    “No, I’m afraid not. I’ve come with an idea, instead. I’m an artist, you see. I wondered if we could paint it. The underside of the bridge.”
    Izzy blinked. “Wow. I suppose we could. Would anyone mind, do you think? What sort of things were you thinking of painting?”
    “I’m not sure yet. But I doubt anyone would mind.” He smiled. “I’ve done the same sort of thing before – the council have commissioned me to paint murals in the past – they’ll be pleased to get one free, I should think.”
    Poppy looked at him hopefully. “Would you beable to paint birds, and butterflies, and that sort of thing? This used to be a nature reserve. Look, just wait a minute.” She dashed off, but she was back a minute later with a wooden board with a sheet of plastic over it, very torn and scrappy, and faded by the sun so that most of the pictures on it were a sort of worn-out coffee-brown colour. “You see? It’s the old guide to what sort of animals and birds you might see. Herons, look. And water rats. That could be a kingfisher, do you think, Izzy? Your dad said he’d seen one here once, didn’t he?”
    Izzy nodded. “But what’s that got to do with the bridge?”
    The old man was nodding excitedly. “You want to do a life-size version!”
    “Yes!” Poppy was practically dancing up and down, she was so excited. “It would be brilliant. And I bet there are loads of people here we could ask. People who remember what it used to be like. They could tell us what to paint. Um, that is if you wanted any help?” she added shyly.
    “Your idea.” The old man nodded at her. “You definitely help. We might not finish it all today, though, if we’re doing something complicated like that.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t mind. Mum would bring me down after school, I bet she would. Or Alex could come and practise canoeing, and bring me with him. That’s my brother.” She nodded at Alex, who was helping the man with the dinghy heave something disgusting-looking out of the river.
    “Right. Well, we need a layer of masonry paint on there first, as a primer.” The old man looked suddenly business-like, and somehow much younger. “I brought some, I’ll just go and fetch it out of the car. And my acrylics, for the actual painting.” He frowned. “Actually, give me quarter of an hour. I’m going to nip to the library, get a few reference books out.”
    Poppy nodded blissfully, and Izzy laughed. This looked like Poppy’s dream come true. As the old man hurried away up the bank, Poppy turned back to Izzy, her eyes sparkling. “This is so cool! This was the best idea ever, Izzy!” She threw her arms round Izzy and gave her a huge hug. “You totally got your own back on Ali yesterday, even if it was by accident. You still told her off, and it was brilliant, and now I get to do some painting with a real artist.”
    Izzy nodded happily. Poppy was right. And three weeks ago, she thought that Poppy and the otherswouldn’t want to hang around with her any more. It just showed how wrong you could be.

    “Izzy, look!” Poppy was pointing down the river with a paintbrush. She had smears of paint on her nose, and down her jeans, and even in her hair, but Izzy thought she’d never looked happier.
    “What is it?” Izzy stood up slowly. Her back was starting to hurt from so much bending over picking up grot, and she was really tired.
    “A boat! A beautiful narrowboat, look.” Poppy spun her round to see.
    “Oh!” Izzy peered down the river. They hadn’t seen any boats in the whole weekend, and she certainly hadn’t expected to see one. The river had been so full of stuff, a boat as big as that would probably end up with half a washing machine stuck to it somewhere. “Are they stopping?”
    “Looks like it to me. Yes, look, that