Lucy the Good Read online

  Marianne Musgrove

  illustrated by

  Cheryl Orsini

  Henry Holt and Company New York

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  GLOSSARY OF DUTCH WORDS

  SPECULAAS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Publishers since 1866

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, New York 10010

  www.HenryHoltKids.com

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  Text copyright © 2008 by Marianne Musgrove

  Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Cheryl Orsini

  First published in the United States in 2010 by Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Originally published in Australia in 2008 by Random House Australia

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Musgrove, Marianne.

  Lucy the good / Marianne Musgrove; illustrated by Cheryl Orsini. — 1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When Lucy’s great-aunt Bep comes from Holland to Adelaide, Australia, to visit, she is shocked by some of Lucy’s behavior, and Lucy begins to wonder about herself. Includes a glossary of Dutch words and a recipe.

  ISBN 978-0-8050-9051-2

  [1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Self-perception—Fiction. 3. Great-aunts—Fiction.

  4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Family life—Australia—Fiction. 6. Dutch—Australia—

  Fiction. 7. Australia—Fiction.] I. Orsini, Cheryl, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.M9693Lu 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009050766

  First American Edition—2010 / Designed by Véronique Lefèvre Sweet

  Printed in August 2010 in the United States of America by R. R. Donnelly & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  In memory of Dad: the trips to the museum, bush walks in the Gorge, our special rock, the bagatelles and Chocolate Night, Channel Two, the Alhambra and that terry-toweling hat.

  Tantrum, wrote Lucy, sounding out the word in her head so she could spell it right: t–a–n–tr–um.

  I must not throw a temper tantrum in class.

  Unless absolutely necessary, she added to herself. Like today. There had been a perfectly good reason why she had emptied Jacinta’s pencil case all over the floor.

  Lucy was in the Time Out chair now. She was supposed to look straight ahead, but she turned when she heard her teacher talking to Jacinta.

  “And what’s your poem about?” said Ms. Denny.

  “A unicorn,” Jacinta replied.

  “Nice work, Jacinta,” said Ms. Denny. “Good girl.”

  “I wrote it all by myself. Not like some people.” Jacinta looked over at Lucy and smiled a smile that grown-ups think is a friendly smile but kids know really means, “Ha, ha, ha. You’re in the Time Out chair and I’m not.”

  Lucy gave Jacinta her best squinty-eyed look of hate, then turned to face the wall again. She imagined she and Jacinta were on a boat. A storm was coming. Jacinta had fallen overboard and Lucy was the only one who knew she was in the water. She was the only one who could throw her a life jacket.

  “Please, Lucy!” cried Jacinta. “Please throw me a life jacket!”

  “Well, I don’t know . . . ,” said Lucy, imagining herself holding the jacket just out of Jacinta’s reach. “Are you going to tell the truth?”

  “The truth about what?” said Jacinta.

  “The truth about my poem.”

  That morning, Ms. Denny had asked everyone to write a poem about their favorite animal. Lucy had chosen a two-humped camel, the same as her favorite toy, Nathan.

  Writing poems was something Lucy was good at. She had worked hard on her camel poem all morning, doing lots of crossing out and rewriting.

  When she was finished, Ms. Denny asked Lucy to read it out loud in front of the whole class. Lucy did so in her best speaking voice, and everyone clapped at the end. Then Ms. Denny gave her a peppermint from the tin on her desk. Ms. Denny only ever gave out peppermints for the very best poems.

  Later, while their teacher handed out some work sheets, Jacinta leaned over and whispered, “You copied that poem.”

  “What?” said Lucy.

  “I’ve read it before,” said Jacinta. “In a magazine. You didn’t make it up. You copied it.”

  Some of the other kids murmured their disapproval. The back-row boys, Paolo, Blake, and Girang, jeered. Lucy turned around and stuck her tongue out. She had a very long tongue that could touch the tip of her nose. She waggled it in the boys’ direction. Paolo pushed his lips together with his fingers and did his frog face.

  “Lucy,” said Ms. Denny, “face the front, please. No bad behavior.”

  Jacinta waited till Ms. Denny was farther away, then whispered, “Everyone knows you’re a copier, so why don’t you just admit it?”

  “I am not!” hissed Lucy. “Take it back.”

  She pushed her peppermint to the corner of her desk. She didn’t feel like eating it now. She wouldn’t enjoy it properly.

  “Copier,” repeated Jacinta.

  Lucy turned to her best friend, Harriet, for support. As usual, Harriet was sucking her long blond braid. Lucy couldn’t suck her hair because it was too short. She wore it in little pigtails that stuck out on either side of her head like faucets squirting water.

  “Lucy never copied,” said Harriet, taking her braid out of her mouth. “So why don’t you be quiet, Jacinta.”

  Jacinta pretended not to notice her. She doodled on her pencil case and sang softly to herself, “Lucy copied her poem. Lucy copied her poem.”

  “I did not,” said Lucy.

  “Lucy copied her poem. Lucy copied her poem,” said Jacinta a little more loudly.

  A couple of the other kids joined in.

  “Lucy copied her poem. Lucy copied her poem.”

  “Settle down, class,” said Ms. Denny.

  The rest of the children stopped singing but not Jacinta. She looked Lucy straight in the eye and mouthed the song without making any noise. “Lucy copied her poem. Lucy copied her poem.”

  “I did not,” said Lucy.

  “Lucy copied her poem. Lucy copied her poem.”

  “I—did—not!”

  “Lucy,” warned Ms. Denny.

  Jacinta smiled, still mouthing the words. Red-hot feelings rumbled inside Lucy. It was coming. Lucy knew it. Anger was pressing against her skin from the inside.

  “Lucy copied her poem. Lucy copied her—Hey!”

  Jacinta said the “Hey!” out loud because Lucy had gotten to her feet and grabbed Jacinta’s pencil case. She tipped it upside down so that pencils decorated with tiny unicorns fell on the floor. Unicorn-shaped erasers fell out too. And unicorn stickers. They scattered all over the floor in a big mess. Lucy shook the pencil case one last time and a unicorn stamp dropped out. Lucy kicked it so hard that it skidded under desks and chairs and hit the wall. Lucy hoped it got wrecked.

  “Lucy van Loon!” said Ms. Denny. “Time Out chair! Now!”

  One of the worst things about sitting in the Time Out chair was having to st
are at Ms. Denny’s Good Attitude Chart. It listed the names of all the students in the class. Next to each name was a space for stars. Students who had a good attitude got lots of stars. If they had a bad attitude, they didn’t get any.

  Lucy didn’t like the word attitude. Her dad used it sometimes when he was mad at her. “You need to change that attitude of yours, Lucy,” he would say, or, “Lucy, we don’t need any of that bad attitude.”

  That’s what he’d said that morning when he’d reminded Lucy that her great-aunt was coming to visit.

  “Tante Bep’s plane gets in this afternoon,” he said, “and I’d like you to be on your best behavior. Do you promise to be a good girl?”

  Lucy couldn’t understand why Dad needed to ask. He should know she was a good girl. And anyway, Lucy and Tante Bep were going to have the best time sharing Lucy’s room and staying up late. Lucy was going to show Tante Bep all her things, and Tante Bep was going to tell Lucy stories about what it was like to live in Holland. She was even going to give Lucy a pair of Dutch wooden shoes called clogs. What was Dad worrying about?

  The Good Attitude Chart had lots of names on it. Lucy’s eyes rested on Jacinta’s. She snorted. Eight stars already. She looked farther down the list. Harriet—five stars. Well, that made sense. Harriet always seemed to know what the school rules were. Even the secret ones Lucy had never heard of, such as that you shouldn’t sit under the tree in the playground because that was where the tough kids played.

  Lucy kept looking till she got to her own name. Lucy van Loon—one star. The only person with fewer stars was Blake, and he glued kids’ faces to their desks!

  One of the stars next to Jacinta’s name was peeling off. Surely she can spare one, thought Lucy. She peeked over her shoulder to see what Ms. Denny was doing. She was busy helping Girang.

  Reaching up slowly, Lucy began to peel the star. It came right off on the tip of her index finger. She checked over her shoulder again, then stuck it next to her own name. She pressed down hard with the heel of her hand. There, she thought. I do have a good attitude. The chart says so.

  Still, she had only two stars. Three would be nicer. Lucy jammed her thumbnail under another of Jacinta’s stars and worked away at it. When it finally came off, she pressed it next to her own name. It stuck for a moment, then curled away from the wall. Lucy licked the back of it to try to make it stick. She banged her fist over the top of it.

  Without warning, the smell of peppermint wafted over her.

  “What’s this?” said Ms. Denny, appearing behind her. “Lucy van Loon, what are you doing?”

  Lucy waited at the school gate for Dad. She stood on one leg, like a stork, with her eyes shut. She was trying to see how long she could last before tipping over. In her hand was a letter.

  “Whatcha got there?” said Paolo.

  Lucy wobbled, waved her arms around, then put her foot back down on the ground.

  “You made me lose my balance,” she said, opening her eyes. “I was just about to beat my record.”

  “Yeah, but what’s that?”

  Lucy looked down at the envelope. “To Mr. and Mrs. van Loon,” the writing on the front said. It was a letter from Ms. Denny about her “behavior.” Lucy didn’t see what all the fuss was about. After all, she was only borrowing some of Jacinta’s stars. And anyway, she had a good reason. If Ms. Denny had been fair and given her lots of stars too, she wouldn’t have had to do it.

  “None of your business,” said Lucy, stuffing the letter into her bag. “And anyway,” she added, “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Why not?”

  Lucy turned to him. “ ’Cause you said I copied my poem!”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Paolo.

  “You laughed,” said Lucy, “and that’s just as bad.”

  Paolo sighed. “C’mon, Lucy. We’ve always been friends. We’re next-door neighbors, aren’t we? I know you didn’t copy that poem.”

  Lucy glanced at him skeptically. Paolo reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and pushed it into Lucy’s hand. It was a squashed sandwich cookie. Lucy’s favorite. Lucy knew that if she ate it, it would mean she had forgiven Paolo. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to do that just yet.

  “Everyone knows you’re good at making up poems and stuff,” said Paolo.

  A tiny smile tweaked Lucy’s lips. She twisted the cookie apart and looked at the circle of cream.

  “Why don’t you come over later?” said Paolo.

  “Can’t,” said Lucy, taking a long, slow lick of the cream. “Dad’s taking me to the airport to pick up Mum’s aunt. She’s visiting us from Holland.”

  “Can she speak English?” asked Paolo.

  “She’s been here in Australia for a week, visiting my uncle in Sydney,” said Lucy, “so she should have got in a lot of practice.”

  Paolo watched Lucy as she took another long lick.

  “Here,” said Lucy, handing him the unlicked half. “I’ll come ’round on the weekend.”

  Lucy’s dad pulled up beside her and flung open the car door. “Quick sticks, Lucy! We’re late to the airport!”

  Lucy waved good-bye to Paolo, jumped in, and shut the door. She turned around to say hi to her brother, Calvin, who was in the car seat in the back. Calvin was wearing a banana costume—the costume Lucy had worn to Harriet’s fruit-themed birthday party last year. She frowned at Dad.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Dad said. “I’ve been flat-out cleaning up the place and then, just as we’re about to leave, your brother decides he won’t wear anything unless it’s yellow. And can I find his yellow T-shirt and shorts? No. Will he wear something blue or even orange? No. So as you can see, he’s wearing the only yellow thing I could find. Who knows what Tante Bep will make of us?”

  Looking in the rearview mirror at the enormous banana sitting in the backseat, Lucy wondered too. She buckled up her seat belt and said, “Ready.”

  “Then let’s go,” said Dad. “We need all the green traffic lights we can get, so, kids, I need you to think of green things.”

  “I’m going to think of yellow things,” replied Calvin.

  As soon as they found a parking spot at the airport, Dad hurried them out of the car. He opened the trunk and Lucy got out the special sign she had made for Tante Bep. WELCOME TO ADELAIDE, it said. She had written the words with her red glitter glue pen and stuck smiley-face stickers around the edge.

  “I’m going to walk backward the whole way,” announced Calvin.

  Dad watched his son walking backward between the cars. He picked him up and hoisted him over his shoulder.

  “C’mon, Lucy,” he said. “Stay close!”

  Dad called out more instructions while they ran. “Do you remember what we talked about, love?”

  “Yeeeeees,” said Lucy, trying to keep up. “I have to be good while Tante Bep is here.”

  “That’s right,” said Dad. “And not just a little bit good. A lot good, okay? I really need you to try hard for me, love.”

  Lucy frowned. She did try. She tried very hard. Even when Dad wasn’t looking. The problem was, things seemed to go wrong no matter what. Each morning, she would start out being good, then something would happen and the next thing you know, she was getting into trouble. Half the time, she didn’t even know why. Lucy figured it was mostly other people’s fault.

  By the time they reached the arrival gate, most of the people had already gotten off the plane.

  “Where can Tante Bep be?” said Dad, craning his neck. “Can you see any eighty-year-old women around, kids?”

  “I need to do a wee,” said Calvin.

  “Why didn’t you go when we were still at home?” said Dad.

  “I didn’t need to go then,” said Calvin.

  “You’ll just have to hold on,” said Dad. “Until we find Tante Bep, wherever she is. Let’s try the baggage carousel.”

  They went back down the escalator, Calvin still slung over Dad’s shoulder and Lucy close behind.

 
“I really need to do a wee,” said Calvin. “It’s a ’mergency.”

  Dad and Lucy looked at the baggage carousel. Tante Bep was nowhere to be seen.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” said Dad. “We’ll all go to the little boys’ room and then we’ll find your great-aunt.”

  “I’m not going in there,” said Lucy.

  She never went into public bathrooms if she could help it. And especially not the boys’ bathrooms. At school, she held on until she got home.

  “Okay, fine. The bathroom’s just over there, so you stay here and don’t move. We’ll be back soon.”

  Lucy didn’t mind being left alone. This was her favorite part of the airport. There was a hole in the wall covered by heavy plastic flaps. A black conveyor belt came out of the flaps. It was called the carousel. The belt snaked around the room and back into another hole in the wall. It was a bit like a little road. Most of the time, it stood still, like now. Then, all of a sudden, it would start moving. Suitcases would come out of the hole in the wall and people would drag them off the carousel and take them home. Lucy stepped forward to get a better look.

  Imagine going for a ride on it! she thought. It would be like being at the fun fair. She put one knee on the carousel. Then she put her other knee on. Before she knew it, she had crawled right onto it. She sat down cross-legged and laid her welcome sign in front of her. This is fun! she thought. I wish I could go for a real ride.

  Then the carousel started to move, curving around one corner, then another. Woo hoo! thought Lucy.

  “Should that little girl be doing that?” someone asked.

  Lucy looked away. That was when she noticed she was heading toward the other hole in the wall where the bags disappeared. Uh-oh, she thought. What if I go through the hole and get mistaken for a suitcase? I might be put on a plane and sent to another country!

  “Dad!” she said, but he was still in the bathroom with Calvin.

  She was moving quite fast, and the hole was getting closer. Lucy scrambled backward, trying to get away from it. Her WELCOME TO ADELAIDE sign disappeared into the hole.