Lulu and the Dog from the Sea Read Online Free Page B

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.

Chapter Five
Wednesday
    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