Noodle the Doodle Wins the Day by Jonathan Meres

Author:Jonathan Meres
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barrington Stoke Ltd
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Huh?” said Sol. “What do you mean, where’s the fire? What fire?”

“It’s just an expression,” said Nora. “It means ‘what’s the hurry?’”

Sol looked at Shakira. “Do you really not want to win?” he said.

“Not really,” said Shakira. She turned to Abdul and Josh. “Sorry, you two.”

“That’s OK,” said Abdul. “I don’t mind.”

“Huh?” said Josh. He couldn’t believe what his teammates were saying. What was the point of taking part in something if you didn’t want to win? He wished he were on the same team as Sol! He wished they could swap from one team to another like footballers did!

“Well, I want to win,” said Callum.

The Blue Team were practising throwing the Frisbee as far as they could. Or they were trying to anyway. But Noodle kept whizzing after it like a small furry rocket. Noodle thought it was the best game ever. So Lou, Marty and Callum threw the Frisbee to each other instead. They had to make sure they grabbed it before Noodle did!

“I want to win too, Callum,” said Lou.

“Me too,” said Marty. “I wonder what the prize is!”

“Yeah,” said Callum. “Me too!”

“YELLOW TEAM! YELLOW TEAM!” yelled Sol.

“BLUE TEAM! BLUE TEAM! BLUE TEAM!” sang Callum, Marty and Lou together.

“WOOF!” said Noodle the doodle. “WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”

Noodle whizzed around from one team to another. His tail was wagging like crazy. His tongue was flapping about like a slice of wet ham.

“What’s that, Noodle?” laughed Shakira. “You think everyone needs to chill out and that winning is for losers?”

“That’s not what Noodle’s saying,” said Samir. But he said it so softly that only his two teammates heard him.

“What was that, Samir?” said Josh. “Speak up.”

Everything went quiet in the playground. Noodle had stopped whizzing around. Samir was looking at his feet. He knew that everyone was staring at him. He felt very shy.

Nora looked at Samir and smiled.

“It’s OK, Samir,” she said. “What do you think Noodle was trying to say?”

Samir looked up and spoke. “He says he wants everyone to win. Isn’t that right, Noodle?”

“WOOF!” said Noodle the doodle. “WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!” sang all the other children. Even Shakira.

There was a low, rumbling sound.

“What was that?” said Marty.

“My stomach!” laughed Shakira.

“I think it was thunder,” said Nora.

“Thunder?” said Callum.

“Look,” said Abdul. He was pointing in the direction that the sound had come from.

Everyone looked. The sky was getting darker. The branches of the tree in the playground began to move. It wasn’t as warm as before.

“I think it’s going to rain,” said Lou.

“Oh yeah?” said Shakira. “In that case we’d better get cracking.”

Everyone turned to look at Shakira. She stood up and turned the clothes basket the right way around.

“Well?” Shakira said. “What are we waiting for? It’s Sports Day tomorrow, isn’t it? We need to do some more training!”

Sol and Shakira looked at each other. Sol gave Shakira a thumbs-up. It looked like she did want to win after all.

“WOOF!” said Noodle, whizzing around again. “WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”

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