worst day

WORST DAY - BEST DAY





It was a bright, sunny afternoon in April and Robert Andrews was dashing home from school heading an imaginary football as he practised for the five-a-side game he and his mates were going to have that evening at the leisure centre. Robert was football mad. Every available free minute he had, he spent kicking an old, leather football around the back garden and as a result his Dad’s lawn was worn and bald instead of green and lush.

As he turned into Benson Street, he saw a battered old van parked beside a telegraph pole and a man up at the top of a ladder hammering a nail into a piece of hardboard on to which was pasted a poster. Robert slid to a halt at the foot of the ladder and stared intently at the man. “Hey, mister,” he shouted at the top of his voice, “what’re you up to?” The man, who hadn’t spotted Robert until then, almost jumped out of his skin and nearly fell off the ladder. “Don’t you know better than to startle som...