Lulu and the Duck in the Park (7 page)
Read Lulu and the Duck in the Park Online
Authors: Hilary McKay
“Weep! Weep!” cried the duckling from the box in Lulu’s hand.
The duck with the white wing paused.
“She’s listening,” whispered Mellie. “Hurry, Lulu!”
So Lulu lifted the duckling from the hat nest and tucked him back under the bushes where he had lived so long as an egg.
He was hardly alone for a moment.
Lulu and Mellie and Mrs. Holiday sighed great sighs of happiness and relief, and went back to school just in time for the bell to go home.
“What a day!” groaned Mrs. Holiday, collapsing like a rag doll in a staff room chair. “What a day, what a day!”
Lulu and Mellie walked home together with Charlie and Henry.
They stopped to swing in the little park, all four in a row, which took up all the swings.
“You missed tons when you disappeared this afternoon,” Charlie told Lulu and
Mellie as they swung. “Mrs. Holiday trying to read
Harry Potter
and then going crazy. Mental math when nobody knew a single answer. The guinea pig escaping out of the window. The secretary and the cookie tin. We ate every single cookie in Mrs. Holiday’s special tin! The secretary made us do who-can-hold-their-breath-the-longest competitions and gave them out as prizes.”
“You missed the park, though,” said Mellie cheerfully, swinging so high and so wildly that hair clips tumbled from her hair and were lost in the grass forever.
“We didn’t. Not really. We were there this morning.”
“This morning,” said Mellie, “was completely different from this afternoon.”
This morning,
remembered Lulu,
I found my egg. I miss my egg.
“Better or worse?” demanded Henry. “Which was this afternoon? Better or worse?”
Although,
thought Lulu,
there are things you can’t do with an egg up your sweater.
“Better or worse?” echoed Charlie.
Lulu waited until her swing reached its farthest point forward, let go, and flew.
“A million times better!” she shouted, and landed in a heap.
“Crazy!” said Mellie, scuffing with her toes to make her own swing stop. “Crazy! nuts! You just shouldn’t do it, Lulu!”
“You say that every time!”
“If you’re going home now, can I come with you to see the animals?”
“You know you can.”
“Can we come too?” asked Charlie.
Lulu nodded.
“The rabbits and the parrot? Snail world and Sam? The hamster and those black-and-white mice? All of them?”
“All of them, except my duckling,” said Lulu. “I keep him in the park!”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Hilary McKay,
Illustrations © 2011 by Priscilla Lamont
978-1-4804-1714-4
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