Lulu and the Duck in the Park (2 page)

Sam was now snuffling like a vacuum cleaner at the guinea pig cage. His snuffling made the guinea pig squeak and charge around, spilling wood shavings out through the bars.

“Woof!” said Sam, loudly and happily.

“Lulu!” said Mrs. Holiday, handing Lulu a jump rope that she had cleverly knotted to make a collar and leash.

“Please take that very nice dog away AT ONCE and ask the janitor to keep him until it’s time to go home.”

“Now?” asked Lulu.

“This instant!” said Mrs. Holiday. “And while you are there, please borrow a dustpan and brush!”

So Lulu very slowly led Sam away, and when she came back the guinea pig was a lot calmer, and so was Mrs. Holiday. Until Lulu, busily sweeping, remarked, “I think the poor guinea pig needs a friend. I have some black-and- white mice. If you like I could bring them in to visit him. And I bet lots of the others have pets they could bring in too.”

She was right. They did. They all offered at once to bring friends for the guinea pig. Class Three bounced in their seats in their eagerness to describe the friendliness of rats and lizards, cats and fish, turtles and tame(ish) beetles.

“No, no, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Holiday, and called an emergency meeting for Class Three. And at the meeting she explained to everyone very carefully and plainly that if the Class Three guinea pig ever had a single friend brought in to visit... any sort of friend, a snaily friend or a whiskery friend, a very large friend like Sammy, or a very small friend, like a black-and-white mouse, then the Class Three guinea pig would unfortunately have to leave Class Three forever.

“But where would he go?” asked Lulu.

“
We would swap him for the Class Two stick insects!”
said Mrs. Holiday. “Class Two would be very pleased to swap,” she continued, ignoring the howls and groans all around her, “and I would not mind a bit. I much prefer quiet unsmelly stick insects to squeaky rowdy guinea pigs. So. You have been warned!”

Class Three was silent with shock.

They all gazed at the guinea pig and thought how gloomy things would be without him. No more cheerful noisy interruptions of squeaks in quiet lessons. No more guinea-pig food to chew in hungry moments. No more useful sausage-shaped guinea-pig poops to flick around the classroom.

At the end of the afternoon everyone grumbled at Lulu for making Mrs. Holiday think of such an awful idea.

They grumbled a lot, and the one who grumbled most of all was Mellie.

“Mrs. Holiday really meant it,” said Mellie as she and Lulu swung in the little park together on their way home from school that day. “She would swap, I’m sure she would. And just looking at those stick insects makes me feel itchy all over. I think I may be allergic to them actually. So...”

There was a very long, swinging Mellie-style silence.

“I suppose I’d have to change schools,” said Mellie.

“Oh,” shouted Lulu. “Don’t be silly!” And she swallowed the last of the apple she was eating, stuffed the stem and seeds in her pocket, jumped at the highest point of the swing, and after a wonderful, but very brief, time flying through the air, landed with a
smash.

Then she gathered up Sam’s jump rope leash and hobbled away.

So Mellie, who was to have dinner with Lulu that day, stopped her swing by scraping her toes on the ground, and ran after her (leaving her sweater hanging forgotten on the jungle gym).

They walked back to Lulu’s house, arguing.

Lulu said it was not fair that the poor guinea pig had to live all alone with no friendly visitors.

Mellie said it was not fair if Lulu made Mrs. Holiday so angry that he had to be swapped for the Class Two stick insects.

Lulu made a list of all the quiet, peaceful animals she could bring to school that Mrs. Holiday would never notice. Mellie got angrier and angrier. The animals on the list got bigger and less quiet, just to annoy Mellie.

They did annoy Mellie.

“You just dare!” she said, when Lulu said rabbits in a backpack would never be noticed.

“Anyway, it would be cruel to the rabbits,” said Mellie.

“Not at all,” said Lulu. “They could wear sweaters and bounce around the play—”

“
Lulu
!” wailed Mellie.

“What?”

“Where’s my sweater? My sweater’s gone! Didn’t I have it when I came out of school? Didn’t I? I did! I know I did!”

“You must have left it by the swings,” said Lulu, and they ran back together to see.

It was gone.

Mellie’s things were always gone. Mellie tipped her school bag upside down on the pavement to see if her sweater could possibly, magically, be at the bottom. Pencils and pens rolled everywhere and disappeared. A quarter spun neatly on its edge for a moment and vanished down a drain. Mellie sat down in the middle of the muddle and wailed, “It’s all your fault, Lulu!”

She hated losing things.

Lulu collected books and pencils, hairclips, water bottles, homework sheets, and crumbled cookies. Sam licked Mellie’s face, enjoying the taste of tears.

“I wouldn’t have lost it if I hadn’t been worrying about stick insects,” said Mellie, sniffing and feeding Sam cookie crumbs while Lulu repacked her bag for her. “I just DON’T like stick insects!”

“Well, we won’t have stick insects!” said Lulu kindly. “You can stop worrying. I won’t bring visitors for the guinea pig, and Mrs. Holiday won’t get mad and...
I know what will cheer you up!”

Lulu scrambled out of her sweater, chewed off the name tag with her teeth, shook it out, and pulled it over Mellie’s head.

“I’ve got another one at home,” she said.

Tuesday was Class Three’s favorite day at school.

This was because Tuesday was swimming day.

The big swimming pool in the center of town was so close to school that Class Three did not have to take a bus to get there like other schools did. They could get there in a few minutes by walking.

First thing every Tuesday morning, Class Three walked down the hill from school, around the narrow cobbled streets by the church, and across the town park to the pool.

The town park was wonderful. Twenty times bigger than the little playing-field park where Mellie and Lulu swung after school.

It had huge trees and grassy slopes and twisting paths.

It had a climbing wall and a giant slide.

It had a candy shop and a life-size pirate ship becalmed in a sea of bark.

It had a lake with two little islands and a hundred noisy ducks.

Getting Class Three past the climbing wall without anyone climbing, and the candy shop without anyone darting in, and the lake without anyone getting wet, was the hardest part of Mrs. Holiday’s week.

Getting them back to school again, wet- haired, starving, and weighed down by soggy swimming bags, was nearly impossible.

Mrs. Holiday didn’t even try.