Alex goes to school

Alex was getting very excited. He was going to go to proper school with a uniform and everything when the next term started. He only had one worry; he was going to have to learn arithmetic. He went to the bottom of his garden and found his friends near the nut trees.

“Do you know anything about arithmetic?” he asked. The little men shook their heads sadly.

“It’s something to do with sums I believe,” said Hercules after a long think.

“It sounds very difficult,” said Lysander. Hector didn’t say anything, he just shook his head.

Alex walked slowly back to the house. He had hoped that the little men might know what arithmetic was. All his parents would tell him was that it was only a little bit harder than ordinary sums. He didn’t even like ordinary sums so he was starting to feel a little bit frightened by this new subject.

Hercules heaved a big sigh as the little men watched him walk a way.

“Oh dear,” sighed Lysander.

“Oh dear oh dear,” said Hector.

“Such a pity,” said Hercules, “he was a nice little boy, now I suppose we’ll have to find a new home again!”

To Alex nothing seemed to have changed. He played his usual games and had more adventures with the little men in his daddy’s garden.

But all good things have to come to an end and at last the day came when he had to go to his new school.

Alex put on his nice clean school uniform and set off, with mummy driving the car. He was put into a class with lots of children his own age, but some of them had bigger brothers and sisters and to Alex their games seemed a bit rough. He joined in as best as he could and by the afternoon he was running around the playground screaming and shouting and pushing his way through little groups of children with the best of them.

He went home tired out and told his mum and dad what the teachers had taught him during the day.

“But I’ve made lots of new friends,” he said, “can some of them come round to play with me in the garden tomorrow?”

His parents said of course they could providing it didn’t rain during the night and leave the grass soaking wet.

Hercules, Hector, and Lysander had been waiting for him to come and tell them if he’d started to learn about arithmetic, but he hadn’t come out to see them after his first day at the new school.

On the second day the little men gathered together at their usual meeting place near the nut trees. Then the back door opened and a small group of extremely noisy children ran out kicking a football about and shouting at the tops of their voices.

Alex didn’t even look in their direction. The little men looked at each other disappointedly and slowly faded away into the background. Alex didn’t even realise they’d gone!

But when he was eating the nuts from his dad’s trees after his Xmas dinner, something made him wonder how half of the trees didn’t ever seem to grow any nuts at all while the other half had plenty.

But he just asked for the nut crackers and began to worry about his next year’s schooling. “We’re going to start maths next term,” he told his parents, “it sounds ever so hard.