Robert's Friend  

One day there was a boy called Robert. He was starting at a new school. On his first day, he met lots of children in his class. At playtime, he went outside with everyone else. Some children played football. Some children played hopscotch. Some children ran around and played tag. Robert wished he could play. He didn’t know anybody yet.

The next day, one of the boys in his class helped Robert find a ruler to use. The boy was called Thomas. Thomas and Robert were on the same table, and they helped each other with their work. At playtime, Thomas said, ‘come and play tag with us.’ Robert was so pleased to have a friend. He played tag with Thomas and the other boys, and they all had lots of fun. 

The next day, Robert wanted to play with Thomas again. He made sure he sat next to him on the carpet, and lined up behind him at assembly time. At playtime, Robert went outside with Thomas. They played tag again, and whenever Robert was ‘it’ he would tag Thomas. Whenever Thomas was ‘it’ Robert tried to get Thomas to tag him. He didn’t want other boys to play with Thomas. When they were tired of tag, Robert took Thomas to play football. He wanted to show him how far he could kick he ball.

On the fourth, day Robert did the same thing. He was so happy to have Thomas to play with, that he played with him all the time. But Thomas wanted to play on the climbing frame with James and Frankie. He was tired of running around, and he wanted to play with other people as well as Robert. Robert didn’t like this. He tried to pull Thomas over to play football with him. Thomas got cross, ‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘I don’t want to play with you. I’m going to climb on the climbing frame with James and Frankie.’ Thomas ran off. Robert was sad. Who would he play with now?

See: "Play with one friend and then play with someone else"