Читать книгу Ollie and the Golden Stripe - Alison Knowles - Страница 11

Adam nearly fell over – he never got picked for anything! The reason Adam never got picked for anything was because he was a bit clumsy, always dropping things or knocking things over. Poor Adam was a lot bigger than other children his age, and being bigger and being clumsy meant he got laughed at a lot by the other boys and girls.

“Sir – NO!” yelled the kids. “He’s no good! Pick someone else. He will make us lose!”

At this, Adam’s eyes began to fill with tears, and he looked very upset.

“Please, Sir, not Adam. We will lose. Please don’t choose him!” taunted the other children.

“I will pick who I want,” said the teacher, “and I will not have this behaviour – you will all apologise to Adam at once!” The boys and girls muttered sorry under their breaths.

“Now, Adam, put this shirt on and I want the team I just picked to have a five-minute knock-around against the rest of you, so we get used to one another for Saturday.”

All the children picked for the team kept protesting.

Adam stood alone and started to put his shirt on.

Suddenly all the boys and girls started laughing at Adam. The shirt was too small, and he couldn’t get it on. As he struggled, he began to cry, and then tried to run off embarrassed and upset, but he tripped over the bag the shirts had been in and fell in the mud.

The children stood around Adam, laughing. All, except Ollie.

Ollie thought it was very funny too, but he found that as much as he wanted to laugh he couldn’t – Sadness had appeared on his shoulder.

“Oh, go away,” said Ollie, “I want to laugh. This is funny. He is too big for the shirt!”

But Sadness just got bigger.

Then the Captain appeared. “Ollie, this is not a time to laugh. Can’t you see how upset Adam is?”

“But it’s funny,” said Ollie, but try as he might, he couldn’t laugh.