Story
Daniel
Wins the Day
By Mar Duque
Daniel
was gloomy! He was only seven but for such a young boy, he often
felt lonely. He tried to get his family to play with him, but
his mum was so busy working and when she was home, she had the
house to clean and tidy. His elder sister had no time with so
much studying to do for her exams. Even his school friends seemed
to have their weeks full of after-school activities and clubs.
This
particular day, his dad was home, looking after him. "I'd
so like to play with my dad," thought Daniel. But his dad
had a high powered job and was busy working on his speech for
the next day. "Dad, please take me to the park. We can
have such fun flying the new toy pterodactyl you bought me."
"Sorry,
Son," said his dad. "Just paint me something with
the new art set you had last week. Then we'll see."
Mr.
Blue, Daniel's dad, thought that would keep him busy for a few
hours until lunchtime when he could phone up for some take-away
pizza to be delivered. He really had to get this speech just
right.
Daniel
went off and decided to paint the landscape from his bedroom
window.
He finished it quite quickly and took it to show his father.
Mr.
Blue was surprised to see that Daniel had painted the picture
so quickly. He was still working on his speech. Then he noticed
a map of the world in a magazine which was open on the table.
"Look, Daniel. See that map of the world. I'll cut out
the individual countries and you can fit them together like
a puzzle. You will enjoy that and we'll see how good your geography
is."
Daniel
was happy that he was getting some attention from his father
and took all the pieces off to study how to put them together
again.
Fifteen
minutes later he was back again. "Daddy, I thought that
would be impossible. But while I was trying to fit them together,
one piece turned over and I noticed it had half an eye on the
back. So I turned another over and saw part of a mouth. So I
turned them all over and found they made up a child. By getting
the child right, I got the whole world right too."
Mr.
Blue had to laugh. He felt so amused and proud of his son. He
realised it would be a good basis for his own speech the following
day, so he said, "Come on, Daniel. You and I will go to
the park. We can take your new flying toy and feed the ducks
on the pond, too."
Questions:
1. Why was Daniel unhappy?
2. Why do you think Daniel's dad decided to take him to the
park in the end?
3. How did you feel when you heard the story?
4. Did it remind you of anything in your own life?
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