Lulu and the Dog from the Sea (5 page)

On Monday Lulu’s family spent the day exploring the local fort. It had cannons around the walls and a telescope on top of the battlements. With the telescope you could look right over the sand dunes. Lulu looked for a long time while a fidgety line built up behind her, but she did not see the dog from the sea.

A chilly wind blew over the battlements, straight through their fleeces and cold on their skin.

“Let’s go home and make my kite,” said Mellie.

On the box of Mellie’s kite, under,
Includes everything needed to build this magnificent kite!
it also said,
Not suitable for children under the age of 36 months.
Underneath this Lulu’s father had written:
Or anyone living on a potholey road.

The kite in the kit was plain white plastic. That was so that you could draw your own picture. This was the part that Mellie had looked forward to most. She planned to cover the white plastic with rainbow-colored seagulls.

It was a very big kite. It would take a lot of rainbow seagulls to cover the whole surface.

“Anyone who likes can draw seagulls on my kite,” said Mellie, tipping out felt pens all over the floor.

The problem was, anyone couldn’t.

The pens were all dried up. One after another Mellie pulled off their lids, discovered their ghostly shadows, and flung them away.

“It’s not fair!” she wailed.

Lulu did not think it was fair either. “Brand new pens all dried up!” she exclaimed indignantly.

“I didn’t use them once!” said Mellie sadly. “Well, once, maybe... Or a few times... I’ll never get this kite made. I might as well stop trying.”

Bump, bump, bump went the car through the potholes on an emergency expedition to save Mellie from despair. They bought new pens and cotton candy and a mountain of french fries with chili-cheese sauce. The cotton candy got in their hair and the chili-cheese sauce smelled much nicer than it tasted, but by bedtime a flock of seagulls as bright as flowers blossomed across the kite. And that was another day over.

The dog from the sea did not come creeping like a wolf that night. He came trotting down the garden path like a friend on a visit. He was very pleased indeed with his fries and chili-cheese sauce. He swallowed in big hungry gulps and drank a bucketful of water.

As he drank, Lulu noticed his paper-bag ears. They were all tangled up with bramble stems. The brambles were so knotted into his fur that Lulu could not pull them free.

“I’ll have to get the kite scissors,” she whispered to the dog. She was very surprised a moment later to hear a voice call, “Here!”

“Mellie!”

“I’ve been watching,” said Mellie, passing the scissors out of the window. “Be careful not to make him too tame, Lulu!”

“Why?” asked Lulu, beginning to snip.

“Oh,” said Mellie slowly. “Because it might not be safe to be too tame...”

The bramble strands pulled loose. The dog shook his paper-bag ears back into their proper places.

“...if he doesn’t want to be caught,” said Mellie.

Until that moment the dog had not noticed Mellie.

Suddenly he did. Perhaps because the snipping had stopped. Maybe because his ears were free at last. Whatever the reason, the dog from the sea gave Mellie a swift glance. Sudden alarm seemed to show in his eyes. His body went still.

“Good dog! It’s all right,” Lulu told him. “Good dog!”

The alarm seemed to fade. Very slowly the dog’s tail began swinging again.

“He trusts you,” said Mellie.

He did, but he was still nervous. At the sudden rustle of the French fry bag he backed away. A moment later, when Lulu accidentally rattled the trash can lid, he vanished completely.

“He’ll be back again tomorrow,” said Lulu.

Tuesday was a day of gray skies and sudden showers.

“There’s a cliff-top walk we really should try,” said Lulu’s father, getting out his map.

Sam knew about maps and very long walks and he went and hid behind the sofa.

“I know how he feels,” said Lulu’s mother, but she did not hide behind the sofa. She built a driftwood fire and settled down in front of it with her third vacation book.

Behind the sofa Sam found Mellie’s kite box. A long smooth stick fell out when he pushed it. Sam chewed it to pieces.

The silvery driftwood burned with pale-blue flames, and the room became warm. Lulu and Mellie and Lulu’s father bumped away in the car. Sam thought it might be safe to come out from behind the sofa. He settled down in front of the fire with a second long stick from the box...

“My kite struts!” shrieked Mellie the moment she walked through the door.

When she had calmed down a bit, Lulu’s father explained that nothing in the world was easier to make than kite struts.

And that he would do it in a moment. Beautifully and perfectly. Better than the originals. Out of any old straight piece of washed-up driftwood they could find.

After that the whole family hunted for washed-up driftwood in straight enough pieces to make new struts for a kite. They hunted until it was too dark to see, but they didn’t find any.

And then they went sadly back to the cottage and ate omelettes and chocolate cake to cheer themselves up. It was a rather dismal evening, despite the chocolate cake and the charm of the driftwood fire. Mellie put all her pieces of kite on the table, the seagull picture and the chewed wood and the tangled strings and the plastic loops for threading who-knew-what through (since the instructions had been lost) and she said to Lulu, “You said you’d help.”

“I will help,” said Lulu.

“Well, think of something!”

An idea came to Lulu like a present from the sky. She told her mother and her mother gave her a big happy hug. She told her father, and he said she was a genius. She would have told Mellie, but Mellie covered her ears and said, “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, in case it doesn’t work.”

That night, the dog from the sea was waiting for Lulu. He ate omelette and toast and chocolate cake, a lot of dog food, and a large piece of cheese. More thorns and tangles were snipped from his fur. Once again, Mellie watched from the window, but this time he was much less nervous.

“I think he might like me after all,” whispered Mellie.

“Of course he does,” said Lulu.

They woke up on Wednesday to a day of bright sunshine.

“I am going shopping; I may be a while,” said Lulu’s mother, climbing into the car.

“What kind of shopping?” asked Mellie.

“Secret shopping,” said Lulu’s mother, and to Lulu she whispered, “Operation Kite!”

Then she bumped away down the dusty road with Sam to keep her company.

Lulu and Mellie and Lulu’s father headed for the beach. It was a much easier journey over the sand dunes without Sam and his beanbag. Lulu’s father went swimming, and Lulu and Mellie went to the kiddie pool. However, no one stayed in long because, as Lulu’s father pointed out, the sea was very close to freezing and if it froze over completely they’d be stuck in the ice. Afterward, Lulu and Mellie went off to play, while Lulu’s father did some exercises to get rid of the numbness in his hands and feet.

Lulu and Mellie had not been playing for more than five minutes when a head with paper-bag ears looked over the sand dunes.

The dog from the sea had come to play too.

At first he just played beside them. When Lulu and Mellie raced after the frisbee, the dog from the sea raced after an invisible frisbee of his own. When they peered into rock pools, he peered into rock pools close by. When they paddled in the pools, which were much warmer than the sea, the dog paddled too, sneezing at the splashes. And then they got out two bottles of bubbles.

The dog from the sea could not resist the bubbles. He raced to catch them, snapped at them in the air, and looked astonished when they vanished. He loved when Lulu and Mellie laughed at him. His tail wagged and his paper-bag ears flapped and he bounced like a dog on springs.

When Lulu’s mother arrived with Sam and his beanbag and a thumbs-up sign for Lulu and a hug for Mellie and a picnic and a handful of dripping ice cream, the dog from the sea did not run away.