Ollie and the Golden Stripe. Alison Knowles

Ollie, “but I need Confidence as well, for football practice later.” Ollie knew that his PE teacher was going to be picking the team for a big game against the school in the next town next Saturday.

      “Okey dokey,” said the Captain and turned to all the superpowers he had summoned.

      “Right, you lot – you know what you need to do today – so do your best!”

      “OK!” said all the superpowers and saluted the Captain before disappearing into Ollie.

      “Right, I will be around if you need me,” said the Captain to Ollie “but I think we have the right team for today.”

      He was about to disappear as well, when he noticed Ollie had gone back to sleep.

      “Umm,” said the Captain and clicked his fingers.

      Two new superpowers appeared – one called Motivation and one called Enthusiasm.

      “Right, I think we might need you two to start Ollie’s day!” said the Captain laughing. Then he vanished.

      Motivation and Enthusiasm pulled the duvet off Ollie and dragged him to his feet. “Come on, Ollie. Time for your shower, you need to get ready for school.”

      Ollie did not want to be enthusiastic or motivated and tried climbing back into bed!

      At that, both superpowers began to get bigger, and as they did, Ollie suddenly felt very motivated and enthusiastic and leapt out of bed and out of his bedroom towards the bathroom – so enthusiastic he nearly knocked over his mum!

      Ollie disappoints

       the Captain

      School was OK, and Ollie enjoyed his lessons and found himself putting his hands up and answering questions in class.

      When the bell rang at the end of the day, Ollie ran all the way to the changing rooms in the sports hall to get ready for football practice.

      With Self-confidence and Self-control on his shoulder, the training session went really well. He ran rings around the other boys and girls and scored three goals!

      At the end of the session, the PE teacher called everyone together and said, “Right, time to pick the team for Saturday’s match.”

      All the boys and girls were nervous, as they all wanted to be picked. Ollie wanted to play number 10 like Mr Wilcox used to.

      The teacher called out the names one at a time and gave them each the shirt they would be wearing on Saturday. When it got to number 10, Ollie felt quite nervous despite Calm and Confidence trying to sit on Nervous and stop him being nervous!

      “And number 10 this weekend will be Ollie!”

      Ollie started leaping in the air and shrieked “YES!!!!!”

      Calm grabbed him and made Ollie settle and stand still again.

      “Right,” said the teacher, “and last but not least, our goal keeper this weekend will be Adam Bowler.”

      All the boys and girls gasped and shook their heads.

      Adam nearly fell over – he never got picked for anything! The reason Adam never got picked for anything was because he was a bit clumsy, always dropping things or knocking things over. Poor Adam was a lot bigger than other children his age, and being bigger and being clumsy meant he got laughed at a lot by the other boys and girls.

      “Sir – NO!” yelled the kids. “He’s no good! Pick someone else. He will make us lose!”

      At this, Adam’s eyes began to fill with tears, and he looked very upset.

      “Please, Sir, not Adam. We will lose. Please don’t choose him!” taunted the other children.

      “I will pick who I want,” said the teacher, “and I will not have this behaviour – you will all apologise to Adam at once!” The boys and girls muttered sorry under their breaths.

      “Now, Adam, put this shirt on and I want the team I just picked to have a five-minute knock-around against the rest of you, so we get used to one another for Saturday.”

      All the children picked for the team kept protesting.

      Adam stood alone and started to put his shirt on.

      Suddenly all the boys and girls started laughing at Adam. The shirt was too small, and he couldn’t get it on. As he struggled, he began to cry, and then tried to run off embarrassed and upset, but he tripped over the bag the shirts had been in and fell in the mud.

      The children stood around Adam, laughing. All, except Ollie.

      Ollie thought it was very funny too, but he found that as much as he wanted to laugh he couldn’t – Sadness had appeared on his shoulder.

      “Oh, go away,” said Ollie, “I want to laugh. This is funny. He is too big for the shirt!”

      But Sadness just got bigger.

      Then the Captain appeared. “Ollie, this is not a time to laugh. Can’t you see how upset Adam is?”

      “But it’s funny,” said Ollie, but try as he might, he couldn’t laugh.

      “It’s not funny,” said the Captain. “How do think Adam feels right now with all of you being so cruel?”

      “It’s his fault,” said Ollie. “He is just fat and clumsy.”

      “Ollie,” said the Captain, and Ollie could hear that he was really cross, “I am disappointed in you. You are all bullying Adam. Don’t you remember what it felt like when you were bullied?”

      “Well, yes,” said Ollie, still trying to laugh but feeling sadder and sadder. “But I was bullied because I was smaller than Simon and George – Adam is bigger than all of us!”

      “That’s quite enough, Ollie. It is time you met one of your most important superpowers!”

      At that, a little chap with a long word on his shirt appeared.

       The little chap went over to Adam, and as he approached

       Adam, Adam seemed to go very still and stop crying,

       and then the strangest thing happened: Adam’s football

       boots flew off him and onto Ollie’s feet.

      At that moment, little superpowers began to appear

       around Ollie, and they all looked like Adam.

      There was Embarrassed, and Sad.