Lulu and the Duck in the Park (3 page)

On Tuesday mornings after swimming, Mrs. Holiday marched Class Three to the bandstand by the lake. In the bandstand bags were dropped, boxes were opened, and Class Three ate their shivery bites.

That was what Mrs. Holiday, who had been brought up in Scotland, called the cookie-ish, appley, peanut-butter-sandwichy snack that came after swimming.

A shivery bite.

Mrs. Holiday was quite old. She had taught many, many classes of children. Some of them were grown up now, with families of their own. The things they had learned at school, the Romans and the Vikings, the way a bean grows in a jam jar, how to carry an egg on a spoon, and the names of the planets, had faded from their minds.

But none of them ever forgot their shivery bites.

After the shivery bites were eaten, Lulu and Mellie and the rest of Class Three were allowed ten minutes to climb aboard the pirate ship, or slide down the giant slide, or get stuck on the climbing wall.

Lulu always saved the end of her shivery bite for her favorite duck. It was a brown one, with one white wing.

The white-winged duck had a nest under the bushes on the bank by the path. It was so tame, it let Lulu come right up to visit.

“I would like to have a duck,” Lulu often remarked.

For Class Three, that ten minutes in the town park was the best part of the whole cheerful morning. After it was over they went back to school and were good for a week so that they could do it all again after the next swimming lesson.

That was what usually happened on Tuesdays.

But this Tuesday was different.

This Tuesday—the day after Lulu’s dog Sam trailed Lulu to school and Mellie lost her sweater and Class Three learned the very real danger of their guinea pig being swapped for a box of stick insects— the day after all that happened, things were very different and terrible in the park.

It was early spring. Every tree was exploding like a firework with bright green leaves. Every flower bed blazed with tulips and daffodils. And every one of the hundred ducks that lived by the lake had a nest of eggs, or newly hatched ducklings. The white-winged duck was not the only one to make her nest among the bushes by the path. There was a whole line of them. “Duck Street,” the park keepers called it.

There was a fine view of duck Street from the bandstand.

Class Three had just unpacked their shivery bites when the trouble began. The park was suddenly filled with noise. Shouting and barking and running footsteps. The splashings and quackings of a hundred frightened ducks.

Two enormous dogs came tearing across the park toward Duck Street. Two big black dogs with thick leather collars. They were chasing the ducks, and chasing each other, and snarling and snapping. Flower beds were flattened. Ducks squawked in panic and beat their wings. Ducklings fluttered and cheeped. And all along the duck Street, under the new green bushes, nests were trodden on and scattered and smashed.

“NO!” screeched Lulu, and ran to try and rescue her white-winged duck.

“No!” cried Mrs. Holiday, and grabbed her just in time.

So Lulu had to watch.

For a long, long time no one could catch those terrible dogs. Not their owner with his two empty leashes, nor the park keepers who came running from every direction.

Those dogs were wild. And they ran so fast, and they appeared so suddenly in so many unexpected places, that it seemed like there were far more than two.

“Keep those kids in the bandstand!” a park keeper yelled at Mrs. Holiday, and she did. She stood at the top of the bandstand steps like a soldier on guard.

Class Three was screaming and pointing and shouting, and some of them were crying.

“Class Three, be silent, please!” commanded Mrs. Holiday.

Class Three became silent.

Then Mrs. Holiday took roll call, calling each person’s name in turn, just like she did every morning at school. All through roll call she stood at the top of the steps, guarding the open entrance of the bandstand.

Now the bandstand was the quietest place in the park, but all around still the dogs ran wild.

One of them ran right up the bandstand steps.

“SIT!!!” bellowed Mrs. Holiday in a voice that no one in Class Three ever guessed she possessed.

A miracle happened.

Right in front of Mrs. Holiday, right under her icy-blue glare, the dog sat down.

His owner was there in a moment.

And two seconds later he was back on his leash.

The second dog did not even have to be told. He slunk toward the other dog with his tail between his legs.

Class Three yelled and cheered and clapped their heroic Mrs. Holiday, and as rapidly as they had arrived, the dogs vanished.

But the park was wrecked, and duck Street was tragic.

Terrified ducks, huddled on the islands.

Lost ducklings.

Ruined nests.

Smashed and sticky eggs.

Class Three, walking two-by-two along the path by the lake, stepped carefully to avoid the scattered leaves and feathers of trodden nests. They tried not to look at the broken shells.

Lulu and Mellie were the last to leave the bandstand.

Mellie was still frightened. She looked anxiously behind them all the time, half expecting to see another huge dog exploding from the bushes.

She didn’t see what Lulu saw.

There was not one unhurt nest left in duck Street. The white-winged duck and her neighbors were all gone. But from the place where the white-winged duck had built her nest, something was rolling down the grassy bank.

A last blue egg from the duck Street nests, the only one that hadn’t been broken.

Faster and faster it rolled.

Any moment it would smash on the path.

Before Mellie turned around, before anyone saw, before she even thought what she was doing, Lulu had picked it up and put it in her pocket.

It was still warm.

Lulu’s hand curled around the egg in her fleecy jacket pocket, enjoying its polished roundness. It was not quite perfect, she discovered. There was a faint zigzag crack, so fine her fingers found it and lost it and found it again. There was a rough patch at one end where a fragment of shell was missing.

Well, thought Lulu, it’s had a terrible time, this egg! Of course there are bumps. A few bumps don’t matter. Anyway, now it is safe.

That was what Lulu thought. Nothing sensible, such as, What am I going to do with this egg? Or scary, such as, What am I going to do with this egg if it breaks?

    She just plodded along beside Mellie and thought, Safe.

Mellie was also thinking. Not one thought, like Lulu. Lots of thoughts, barging into her brain from all directions.

I wish I had a tissue, Mellie thought. A handkerchief. A paper towel. Something for my nose. It’s the cold and the swimming-pool water making it run.

Not crying.

Those dogs!

Those dogs should be arrested. Can you arrest dogs? Would they understand? They understood Mrs. Holiday when she said “Sit!”

Mrs. Holiday was... was... was... Titanic! thought Mellie, and skipped to have found the perfect word. She skipped straight into the backs of Charlie and Henry, who were walking in front.

Henry (who always fell over at the smallest push) toppled right under her feet. Mellie tripped and fell on top of him, grabbing Lulu on the way down.

Lulu landed all curled up, wrapped around like a hedgehog with its paws in its pockets.

My egg! My egg! she thought, hardly daring to move for fear of what she might discover.

Mellie and Henry scrambled to their feet, blaming each other.

Charlie began a slow-motion action replay for anyone who had missed seeing the fun the first time around.

Mrs. Holiday came hurrying down the line of children, crying, “Everybody, quiet! Up you get, Lulu! Take my hand!”

Lulu, who was busy uncurling from around the egg, very slowly and carefully said, “Do, no! don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”

“Are you hurt?” asked Mrs. Holiday, astonished at such rudeness.

Lulu didn’t even hear her. Her fingers were exploring her pocket for damage. Was the egg broken? How broken? Fatally broken?

“Come on, Lulu!” said Mellie, tugging her arm impatiently. She looked shocked when Lulu pushed her away.