Lulu Bell and the Moon Dragon Read online

  About the Book

  Meet Lulu Bell. Where there’s Lulu, there’s family, friends, animals and adventures galore!

  Lulu’s best friend, Molly, is preparing for the Moon Festival. But there’s so much to do! There are dragon costumes and paper lanterns to make, and yummy mooncakes to bake, too.

  Lulu and her mum offer to help out, and soon everyone gets involved. This will be a Moon Festival to remember!

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: The Moon Festival

  Chapter 2: The Excursion

  Chapter 3: The Whales

  Chapter 4: A Plan

  Chapter 5: Dragon Suit

  Chapter 6: Four Eyes

  Chapter 7: Star Lanterns

  Chapter 8: The Fairy and the Dragon

  Chapter 9: Mooncakes

  Chapter 10: The Moon Festival

  Chapter 11: Lanterns and Moonlight

  Lulu Bell and the Cubby Fort

  Read all the Lulu Bell books

  Copyright Notice

  Loved the book?

  For sharing my first Autumn Moon Festival

  with me – Rob, Nick, Emily and Lachie.

  And for our fellow Vietnam adventurers,

  Fi, Tim, Hamish and Charlie.

  Chapter 1

  The Moon Festival

  It was Wednesday lunchtime. Lulu and her best friend Molly were sitting on a bench under a huge old tree in the school playground. All around them, kids were yelling and laughing and playing.

  ‘Molly,’ Lulu said, ‘do you want to come over this afternoon to do some drawing?’

  Molly looked excited, but then she frowned. She shook her head.

  ‘Sorry, Lulu, I can’t,’ said Molly. ‘Sam and I promised Mum we’d help her get ready for the Vietnamese Moon Festival. It’s next Monday.’

  Sam was Molly’s younger brother.

  ‘The Moon Festival?’ asked Lulu. ‘What’s that?’

  Molly opened her lunchbox and pulled out her container of noodle salad.

  ‘When my mum was a little girl in Vietnam, the villagers would have a big Moon Festival every year. It was held to celebrate the end of the rice harvest,’ explained Molly. ‘It’s a time for parents to have fun with their children.’

  Molly stirred her noodles with her fork, mixing the vegetables through. Lulu took a big bite of her apple.

  ‘It’s always held in the middle of autumn, at the time of the eighth full moon,’ said Molly. ‘For Vietnamese children, it’s the most exciting time of the year. It’s like Christmas and Easter and Halloween all rolled into one!’

  ‘That sounds fantastic,’ said Lulu. ‘But where will it be?’ She took another bite of her apple.

  ‘Mum thought we could have our own festival at home. We’ve never done it before,’ said Molly. ‘Usually children dress up as dragons, lions and fairy spirits. They parade through the streets, dancing and playing music. Afterwards they have a huge feast.’

  Lulu smiled and her brown eyes sparkled. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘I’d love to see that.’

  ‘Why don’t you come over to my place this afternoon? You can help us get ready,’ suggested Molly. ‘Mum wants to start making the costumes. Then we’ll make masks and paper lanterns. There’s a lot to do.’

  Lulu nodded and flicked one of her honey-blonde plaits over her shoulder. ‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Mum after school.’

  Chapter 2

  The Excursion

  After lunch, the girls went back into class and sat at their desks. Their teacher Miss Baxter was wearing a wide straw hat. Lulu wondered why she had a hat on in class.

  ‘Good afternoon, 3B,’ said the teacher.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Baxter,’ chorused the students.

  ‘Today we have a very special treat for you,’ said Miss Baxter. She smiled around at the class. ‘We have just had a call from one of the parents. She said there are two humpback whales swimming near Shelly Beach. So we are going on an excursion to visit them.’

  There was a buzz of excited chatter among the children. Shelly Beach School was just a block from the ocean. The students often went on excursions to explore the rock pools, play games on the beach or build sand sculptures. But this was the first time they had been out to visit whales in the wild.

  ‘We are going to take one of the kindy classes with us,’ added Miss Baxter.

  ‘I wonder if we will be going with Sam’s class,’ whispered Molly. Molly’s brother Sam was in kindy.

  Lulu shrugged.

  Miss Baxter put a big bottle of sunscreen on her desk. ‘Now, let’s get ready, 3B,’ she said. ‘Everyone needs to put on their hats and some sunscreen.’

  The kids scrambled to slather on sunscreen. They collected their navy blue hats from their hooks in the corridor. Everyone was chattering loudly about the unexpected outing.

  They lined up in a shady spot in the playground. The kindy students came out with their teacher, Miss Stevens. Molly’s little brother Sam was standing on his own. He had spiky black hair that stood up on end, and thick glasses. He looked lost.

  ‘Hi, Sam,’ called Molly and Lulu together.

  Sam smiled and came over.

  ‘Are you having a good day?’ asked Lulu.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Sam.

  ‘I didn’t see you at lunchtime,’ said Molly.

  ‘I was reading in the library,’ Sam explained. ‘It was too hot to play.’

  Molly looked worried. ‘Sam, you can’t spend every lunchtime in the library. You need to get out and have fun with the other kids.’

  Sam looked away. Lulu thought he seemed sad.

  ‘There are lots of lovely kids in kindy,’ said Lulu. ‘You just need to get to know them.’

  Sam smiled up at Lulu. He nodded.

  Lulu and Molly were given the job of looking after Sam and a kindy girl called Hannah. The students lined up two by two to walk to the beach. Lulu walked with Sam, and Molly with Hannah. Miss Baxter and Miss Stevens led the group. Three parents had also volunteered to come along.

  The lines of children headed out the school gate. They snaked down the footpath towards the ocean. Lulu could feel the sea breeze cooling her cheeks. She breathed in deeply.

  The teachers held up the traffic while the students crossed the road. On the other side was a wide park above the beach. Cyclists whizzed past on bikes. Mums pushed babies in prams. Dogs trotted along, dragging their owners for a walk.

  On the other side of the park was the sea.

  The sun danced on the sparkling blue water. Close to the shore, pale green waves rolled and smashed onto the crumbly white sand. The air smelled of salt and seaweed.

  ‘Where are the whales?’ asked Lulu. She shaded her eyes. ‘I can’t see any.’

  Miss Baxter pointed to the right.

  ‘The whales are in the cove further along the foreshore,’ she explained. ‘But we may need to be patient. Did you know that humpback whales can hold their breath underwater for nearly an hour?’

  ‘An hour!’ exclaimed Lulu. ‘I hope we don’t have to wait that long.’

  The students walked along the footpath around the foreshore. After a few minutes, they came to a slight rise. It was fenced off from the rocks below. The children crowded around the fence and looked down at the calm water. Hannah started chatting to one of the other girls in her class.

  A group of kindy boys gathered together. They leaned against the railings, joking and laughing. One of the boys looked over at Sam.

  ‘Do you want to go and join your friends, Sam?’ asked Molly.

  Sam shook his head. ‘No, it’
s okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay here with you.’

  Suddenly Molly pointed and cried out, ‘Look!’

  Lulu gazed out over the sea. A white splash caught her eye.

  ‘Is that a whale?’ asked Lulu.

  Chapter 3

  The Whales

  A huge black-and-white whale leaped from the water. It arced through the air and then smashed down again with a loud splash.

  ‘Wow,’ called Lulu. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ replied Molly.

  A moment later, there were two whales leaping and diving. They whacked their tails and slapped their fins against the water. It was as though the two whales were putting on an acrobatic performance especially for the children.

  ‘They are two young males,’ explained Miss Baxter. ‘The males practise breaching and diving so they can show off to the females.’

  ‘Some human boys are just the same,’ whispered Lulu. ‘They like showing off to the girls too.’

  Lulu and Molly giggled.

  One of the whales shot a spout of water metres into the air.

  ‘Do you see that spout?’ asked Miss Stevens. ‘Whales are mammals, just like humans. They breathe air in through their blowholes. When they breathe out, they force water out in a huge spout.’

  The other male blew another spout even higher.

  Both whales swam closer to the shore. They swam on their sides with their huge mouths open. They looked as though they were laughing. Lulu and Molly laughed too.

  ‘They are like clowns at the circus,’ said Lulu. ‘They seem to like us watching them.’

  ‘Giant clowns,’ agreed Molly.

  ‘Whales spend the summer months down near the Antarctic,’ said Miss Baxter. ‘They eat fish and tiny sea animals called krill. In summer they can eat nearly a thousand kilograms of food in just one day.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Molly.

  ‘No wonder they are so big,’ said Lulu.

  Miss Baxter smiled and said, ‘They can weigh about thirty-six thousand kilograms. They don’t eat that much all year round. In winter they hardly eat at all. That’s when they live off their stored fat.’

  Miss Baxter looked around at all the children. Sam stared at her with big serious eyes.

  The whales breached again and then dived deep under the sea. When they surfaced they were much further from the shore.

  ‘In autumn, the whales migrate up to the warm tropical waters. They have their babies there during winter,’ said Miss Stevens. ‘In spring, they migrate south again. Humpback whales can migrate more than twenty thousand kilometres in a year.’

  ‘That’s a lot of swimming,’ said Molly.

  The whales swam on their sides and waved their flippers. The children waved back. The whales dived again and disappeared.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Lulu. ‘I think they’ve gone.’

  The children waited patiently for a few minutes but the whales were nowhere to be seen. Sam edged closer to the fence to get a better view of the ocean.

  One of the boys bumped against Sam and grinned. Sam’s glasses were knocked sideways. He hurried back towards Lulu and Molly.

  ‘Who was that boy, Sam?’ whispered Lulu.

  Sam shrugged as he straightened his glasses. ‘Oh, just Oliver.’

  ‘Is he one of your friends?’ asked Molly.

  Sam looked away. ‘Not really,’ he said.

  Before Molly or Lulu could say anything else, Miss Baxter clapped her hands. ‘Okay, children,’ she called. ‘Time to go back to school.’

  ‘Ooooh,’ groaned some of the children.

  Lulu didn’t mind. She loved being in Miss Baxter’s class.

  Chapter 4

  A Plan

  After school, Lulu’s mum Chrissie was waiting with Lulu’s younger brother Gus. Gus was wearing his favourite red-and-green superhero outfit. It had a black face mask, bobbly antennae and a green cloak that swirled as Gus ran.

  ‘Hi, Lulu,’ called Gus as he dashed past. He headed straight for the climbing frame. ‘Bug Boy can fly …’

  ‘Hi, Gussie,’ called Lulu. ‘Don’t try to fly off the top!’

  Molly’s mum Tien was standing next to Mum, chatting. Lulu’s younger sister Rosie and Molly’s brother Sam came running up to join their mothers.

  ‘Hi, Sam,’ said Tien. ‘Did you have a lovely day?’

  ‘It was great,’ said Sam. ‘I went to see the whales with Molly and Lulu.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ complained Rosie. ‘We didn’t get to see the whales.’

  Lulu and Molly described their excursion to see the two humpback whales.

  ‘You are so lucky to see whales in the wild,’ said Mum. ‘When I was growing up we never saw whales. They had been hunted nearly to extinction.’

  Lulu felt sad to think that the beautiful whales had nearly been wiped out.

  ‘Now they are protected, we see whales at Shelly Beach quite often,’ said Mum.

  Gus came swooping back, his cloak flying.

  ‘Come on, Molly and Sam,’ said Tien. ‘We’d better get home. We have lots to do today.’

  Molly picked up her schoolbag and swung it over her shoulder. ‘Mum, can Lulu come over this afternoon and help us get ready for the Moon Festival?’ she asked.

  Tien smiled at Molly and Lulu. ‘Of course she can,’ she said. ‘I thought we could start making the dragon costume today.’

  ‘Ooh, that sounds interesting,’ said Mum. ‘What is the Moon Festival?’

  Tien told them all about the traditional Vietnamese event.

  ‘In Vietnamese, we call it Tet Trung Thu,’ said Tien. ‘It was my favourite day of the year when I was growing up.’

  Tien smiled at Molly and Lulu as she explained. ‘Kids dress up as dragons, lions and mischievous fairy spirits and dance around the streets. They bang drums and clash cymbals to frighten away the evil spirits.’

  ‘Oh, could I dress up as a fairy spirit?’ asked Rosie.

  She twirled around on her toes. Rosie’s favourite outfit was her feathery angel wings with her white dress and sparkly thongs. Sometimes she even wore her wings with her school uniform.

  ‘Would you all like to join us for the festival on Monday, Chrissie?’ asked Tien. ‘I thought it would be nice for Molly and Sam to experience a traditional Vietnamese celebration. But it would be more fun with extra children.’

  ‘It sounds like the most wonderful idea,’ agreed Mum. ‘Could we help you prepare for it?’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Tien. ‘It’s Wednesday today and there’s lots to do. On Monday I thought the kids could dress up and parade down our street. Afterwards they could come back to our apartment for some mooncakes.’

  Mum nodded. ‘Or perhaps we could finish down at the beach and have a picnic there?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Tien. ‘Let’s have a feast at the beach.’

  It was agreed that the Bell family would join in. The two families walked home together, chatting about what needed to be done.

  Chapter 5

  Dragon Suit

  Molly lived in a block of apartments. It was right next door to the Shelly Beach Vet Hospital, where Lulu and her family lived. Lulu’s dad Dr Bell was a vet. The family had a wonderful collection of animals and pets.

  The girls were greeted at the door by Molly’s black kitten Ebony-Lou. Molly scooped her up and kissed her nose. Ebony-Lou purred loudly.

  In the lounge room, Tien brought out lots of photos. Some showed children wearing traditional costumes to the festival.

  Some children were dressed up in pairs as a dragon or a lion. One child was the head and the other child was the tail. The costumes were bright and colourful, in red, gold, yellow, white and silver.

  ‘This character is called Ong Dia,’ said Tien. She showed them a picture of a boy with a round, pink, smiling mask and blue robes. ‘Ong Dia means Lord Earth. It is Lord Earth who urges the dragon to fly and dance. I thought we’d make some masks like this.’

  Lulu’s mu
m nodded and said, ‘They should be easy to make with papier-mâché and paint.’ Lulu’s mum was an artist. She had created the most wonderful costumes for Lulu, Rosie and Gus. She had made mermaids, angels, superheroes and even a King Neptune costume for Dad.

  Some of Tien’s photos showed graceful girls. They wore the traditional Vietnamese dress called ao dai. This was a long slim tunic worn over pantaloons. The girls had their faces painted. They carried lanterns shaped like stars, moons, butterflies and fish.

  ‘I want to wear a costume like that,’ said Rosie. ‘It looks so beautiful.’

  ‘You can borrow mine,’ said Molly. ‘My aunts sent me one from Vietnam for my birthday.’

  ‘What will you wear then, Molly?’ asked Lulu.

  ‘I want to dress as a dragon and dance,’ said Molly. ‘I’ve always loved dragons in Vietnamese fairytales.’

  ‘Is it hard to do a dragon dance?’ asked Lulu. ‘Could I be the dragon tail?’

  Molly nodded, her black eyes shining. ‘We can take it in turns to be the head.’

  Everyone set to work. Tien had bought metres of shiny, coloured fabric. She also had silver and gold fringing, and a feathery white boa. Ebony-Lou pounced on the boa and rolled in it. She thought it was alive. In a moment the boa was a tangle of black kitten and white feathers.

  The dragon needed big goggly red eyes, sharp white teeth and a white beard. Tien had already made the cardboard face with a wide pink mouth. Lulu and Molly started gluing on white feathers.

  Tien was making a long red cloak on her sewing machine. This would be attached to the dragon’s head. The cloak would form the body and tail. Then Tien would make two pairs of loose red trousers for the legs. The back and legs would be decorated with strips of gold fringing.