Lulu and the Dog from the Sea (6 page)

He stayed and shared the picnic.

He didn’t come very close. He didn’t quite trust Lulu’s parents not to be secret dogcatchers, but still, he stayed.

If Sam had not been worn out by shopping he would not have let this happen. But shopping had tired Sam completely. He lay down on his beanbag and closed his eyes so that he could not see the dog from the sea, with the frisbee as a plate, eating hot dogs and sandwiches, and drinking water from Lulu’s bucket.

“Now!” said Lulu’s mother, when the picnic was all finished. “You’ll never guess what I bought this morning, Mellie!”

“What?”

“A build-your-own-kite kit just like the one you had!” said Lulu’s mother triumphantly. “So now we have all the pieces
and
new strings with no knots
and
the proper instructions!”

“Oh!” gasped Mellie, hugging her. “Was that what you thought of, Lulu, last night?”

“I told you I’d help!” said Lulu proudly, and her father said, “Come on! Back to the cottage, everyone, for Operation Kite!”

Operation Kite took Lulu’s parents and Mellie all afternoon, and except for the seagull picture on the front, it was a brand-new kite.

“It’s the picture on the front that matters,” said Mellie cheerfully.

Lulu did not help with the kite-making. Instead, she spent the afternoon on the grassy patch outside the house, playing with the dog from the sea.

It was very, very different from playing with Sam. If you threw a ball for Sam to fetch he would try not to look unless you happened to be someone he loved very much. If you were, he would get slowly to his feet. Slowly, slowly he would walk to the ball, pick it up in his teeth as if it tasted nasty, and then slowly bring it back to you, spit it out, and sigh.

The sigh meant, “Please don’t do that again. I will not fetch it twice.”

Very different from the dog from the sea, who hurtled after balls so fast he skidded and rolled in somersaults. Who could catch a frisbee in his teeth. Who understood the game of tag and played it around and around the little white cottage.

Lulu and the dog from the sea played so hard, they didn’t notice the cottage owner coming silently along the path to the cottage.

The cottage owner liked to visit the cottage now and then, to check that her guests were behaving as she thought they should behave.

Just in case they weren’t.

Lulu wasn’t.

Halfway along the path the cottage owner saw Lulu and the dog from the sea.

She paused.

She got off her bike.

She glared.

She puffed with fury.

Then she turned around and rode off again as quickly as she could to call the dogcatchers.

The dogcatchers came quickly with a cage, a long stick with a collar on the end, and a handful of dog biscuits, and the cottage owner following behind.

It took Lulu a little while to understand what was happening. At first she just stood and stared, her hand on the neck of the dog from the sea. Then she saw the van and the collar on a stick and the cottage owner, very eager, rushing up with her bike.

Lulu screamed and clutched the dog from the sea.

“That’s right, hang on to him!” screeched the cottage owner, while from inside the cottage ran Lulu’s parents and Mellie, and Sam barking, “
RUFF! RUFF! RUFF!
”

“Stand still,
please
!” begged one of the two dogcatchers. “Ooooff!”

That was the sound made when Mellie flung herself headfirst into the nearest dogcatcher’s stomach.

“
Mellie!
” exclaimed Lulu’s mother, grabbing her.

“
RUFF! RUFF! RUFF!
” roared Sam at the dogcatchers and the cottage owner and at the dog from the sea, trembling with fear under Lulu’s hand.

“Get that dog!” shouted the wicked witch of a cottage owner. “He’s a thief! He’s a menace! He needs to be locked up!”

“
No!
” shouted Lulu, and she stopped holding on to the dog from the sea. She pushed him away and cried, “Run!”

There had been two friends playing, blue-green grass, and a blue and white sky.

Now there was noise and trouble and anger. And the dog from the sea was gone, running for his life.

That night Lulu waited and waited, but the dog from the sea did not come to visit the cottage.

“Do you think he’s thinking of me like I am thinking of him?” she asked Mellie.

“Yes,” said Mellie.

Much later in the night Mellie said, “I think you should stop climbing in and out of the window.”

“I can’t get to sleep.”

“No one could get to sleep,” said Mellie, “if they kept climbing in and out of a window.”

“Why aren’t you sad?” demanded Lulu.

“I am sad,” said Mellie. “About the poor dog from the sea, I’m sad! About how frightened he was, and how he looked at you to see if it was true, and how he saw that it was true, and ran, I’m sad about that! I helped, didn’t I? I charged that dogcatcher as hard as I could!”

“Yes, you did,” admitted Lulu.

“But I am not completely sad because I can’t help feeling happy about my kite. I thought we’d never fix it, and now we have, and it’s perfect. Don’t you think that’s good?”

“You know I do,” said Lulu. “It was me that thought of the way to fix it.”

“Tomorrow,” said Mellie, “we can fly my kite on the beach. It will show for miles and miles. The dog will see it and come running.”

That was a happy thought.

Lulu fell asleep thinking it.

Early on Thursday morning Mellie woke everyone up, hurried them through breakfast, and chased them out of the house.

“What’s all this pushing and rushing?” demanded Lulu’s father. “It’s the last day of the vacation! Shouldn’t we make the most of it and have a little peace?”

“It’s because it’s the last day!” said Mellie.

“What do you want peace for, anyway?” asked Lulu.

“I still haven’t flown my kite!” said Mellie.

Lulu’s parents looked at each other.

Then out the window.

“Mellie...” began Lulu’s mother, but Mellie would not listen. Over the sand dunes she raced the family and onto the wide sunny beach.

Not a breath of wind was blowing.

Not a breath of wind blew all that day.

They tried the beach and they tried the park and they tried the high place on the cliffs where the fort stood. They discovered that no amount of running and tossing and adjusting and untangling will make a kite fly without any wind.

It was the last day of the vacation, and no kite flew. No dog from the sea saw it and came running. And nothing, not paddling, nor fair rides, nor even takeout food from the Golden Lotus could make Lulu and Mellie happy.

The grown-ups were sad too. They had worked hard to make that kite fly, spent a lot of money, and driven through a great many potholes. They were unhappy about the dog from the sea as well. Secretly, they took turns going to look for him. Lulu’s father went for a long marathon-training run all through the sand dunes with dog biscuits in his pockets. Lulu’s mother walked in the opposite direction with a bucket and a bottle of water. She stopped to talk with the people from the hot dog and ice cream stall and with the lady at the bucket and shovel shop.

Nobody had seen the dog from the sea.

In the evening, promises were made to Mellie. “We have to get an early start in the morning,” Lulu’s mother told her. “I’m sorry, Mellie, but I have to be at work at the hospital by lunchtime...”

Mellie nodded. Lulu’s mother was a nurse, and both Lulu and Mellie understood that nurses have to be at work when they are expected.

“But the first windy day at home that everyone is free we will all stop whatever we’re doing and rush to the park with your kite! We promise! Don’t we, Lulu?”

“Yes,” said Lulu, “but...”

But it won’t be the same
, she nearly said.

“But what?” asked her mother.

“Nothing,” said Lulu, because what was the use of saying what everybody knew.

The bare little cottage was tidied and cleaned. Bags were packed. Sand drifts were swept from the corners of floors. Last of all, Lulu and Mellie and Lulu’s father smuggled the trash can lid rocks back over the sand dunes. With the help of the map they put them back on the beach in their old locations.

“They look like they’ve never been moved!” said Lulu’s father.