Billy cut in. "Ah, that’s nothing," he said. "I’ve had bigger dogs than that."

Rob, who lived only a few doors away from Billy gave him a sour look.

"The only dog I’ve ever seen in your garden is that black terrier."

Billy tossed his head and strode on ahead of the others. He wanted to be first in his classroom. As he ran ahead he called over his shoulder, "I have had a bigger dog than that. I had it when we lived in London."

All through Art class, Billy bragged about how he was going to do the best drawing AND finish before anyone else. He was called out twice for talking in class.

Miss Angel, the class teacher, heard him bragging.

"Billy, bragging is something I do not admire. Now do get on with your drawing and try not to break all your pencils this time."

Billy hung his head, feeling the tears spring to his eyes. More than anything in the world, he wanted to please Miss Angel.

Ten minutes after Miss Angel had spoken to him, he had finished his drawing. All the other children were still colouring and shading theirs.

He put up his hand, waving impatiently. "Miss Angel! Miss Angel! Look, I’ve finished my drawing. Will you pin it up on the wall, please?"

Miss Angel took the drawing and held it up to the light. "What is it? Is it a camel riding across the dessert? What’s all that brown across the bottom? That must be sand, I think. And is the blue at the top sky?"

"I haven’t drawn any old camel," Billy said, feeling put out because his teacher didn’t understand his drawing.

"What is it then?" Miss Angel turned the drawing upside down. "Perhaps I have it the wrong way up?"

"The brown isn’t sand. It’s the pond in my garden. And the camel is a frog jumping out of the pond."

"I see. Did you mean to make the frog almost as big as the pond?"

Billy frowned. "Well, that’s the way it came out."

"And the blue. That must be the sky, surely?"

"It’s the blue blanket my mother lays on the grass when she goes outside to read. My mother isn’t in the picture because she hasn’t come out yet."

"Ah, now I see it." Miss Angel nodded."Good try Billy."

Billy gazed up into his teacher’s face. "Miss, can it go up on the wall?"

"Do you really want it to?"

Billy thought hard for a moment. "Well, it isn’t my absolute best one. I’ll do another one." Snatching up his pencil, he grabbed a new sheet of paper and began to draw a big red barn.

Miss Angel clapped. "Now class, who has finished?"

Several hands went up.

"Collect up all the drawings, Rick. I’ll look through them while you’re at break and the best ones will go up on the wall."

Rick, who everyone knew was teachers pet, went round collecting the drawings. When he got to Billy’s desk, he stared at the picture of the pond and the frog and put it with the others. Billy could hear him giggling all the way down the aisle. He had a feeling his picture was not going up on the wall.

When breaktime arrived, he decided to forget about drawing and have some fun. Rob and Dave were tossing a ball back and forth. He called out to them.

"Hey, you two. Can I join in? Throw it to me, Rob!"

"Get lost!" Rob said. "Go and bother somebody else."

Billy saw Michael and Tim playing marbles near the wall at the corner of the playground.

"I’m good at marbles," he told Michael. "Let me have a go. I haven’t got any marbles but I could get some. How about I borrow yours today?"

"Go away," Michael said. "We don’t want anybody else joining in. This game’s only good for two people."

Fat Albert stood by himself watching everybody. Billy knew Albert would be pleased to play with him. Nobody played with Albert because he was so fat he couldn’t run.

"Hi, Albert. "Do you want to see my football cards," he said starting to pull them from his pocket. "I’ve got loads. I know you’ve got some. Can we trade?"

"I’m busy," Albert said.

"How can you be busy? You’re not doing anything."

"I’m thinking."

"What you thinking about?"

"I’m thinking I wish you’d go away so I can get some peace and quiet. I’m working out a plan to build a multi-storey car park with my new set of lego."

Billy began to jump around. "Can I come round to your house and help?"

"No, you can’t." Albert walked away. Billy, disappointed, saw a small stone and began kicking it around the playground.

Seems everybody’s got something interesting to do except me, he thought. I suppose I could play with the girls but then the boys would laugh at me and I hate to be laughed at.

When school came to an end, he was glad to get on the bus and go home.

"How was your day?" his mother asked when he got home.

"Rotten." he said. "It was the rottenest day I’ve ever had."

"Dear me. Well never mind. We’ve got a lovely tea waiting. Hot dogs and cheese sandwiches and ice cream. Maybe afterwards you can go round to Rob’s house and play on his Play Station. I met his mother at the shops today and she told me he’s got a new game."

"Huh! " Billy said. "Not much chance of that."

"Well, perhaps…"

"Perhaps what?" Billy stopped in his tracks and stared up at his mother.

"Perhaps we should have tea," she said.

The next day, Billy was surprised to see a new boy in his class. He hadn’t been on the bus that morning. At lunchtime, the new boy sat next to him.

"I didn’t see you on the bus this morning," Billy said. "What's your name?"

"Pete. You know how it is. First day, my dad brought me and dropped me off. I’ll be on the bus tonight. It’s just that Dad had to talk to the Principal. You know, about my records and things from my last school."

"You’ll like it here. It’s a nice school. We’re going to have a Junior football team this year. I expect I’ll be on it. You might be lucky and get on it too if you’re any good. I’m a good kicker. You any good?"

"I guess I'm okay. I do my best. Dad says that’s all you can do."

Pete said he was disappointed at having to leave his old school and his old friends but his dad had a new job working in the new computer company.

The Sports Master, Mr Dickson came into the cafeterier and reminded all the boys that he was putting together a Junior football team.

"I want to see you all out on the field after lunch," he said.

Billy was excited and started shouting out. "Mr Dickson. Can I be on the team? I know I’ve got a powerful kick."

"Quiet down, Billy. Everybody will get a turn. Those not chosen for the team will be in the reserves and have a chance to play eventually."

When the boys lined up on the football field, the ball was passed along the line. Everybody had three kicks as a starting point.

"Just try to get it in the net," Mr Dickson said.

It was Billy’s turn. "Watch this!" he said to Pete who was standing next to him. "Bet I get picked."

Billy kicked two balls well clear of the net. The third ball went spinning towards Mr. Dickson and landed at his feet.

" Bad luck, Billy," Mr Dickson said

"Told you!" Billy shouted and began dancing around.

Mr Dickson blew his whistle. "We’ll have none of that," he said, twirling his moustache. "The idea was to put it in the net, Billy. Next, please. That’s the new lad, isn’t it?"

"Yes, sir."

Pete kicked all three balls straight into the net. Billy stared, his mouth hanging open.

Michael came down the line and thumped Pete on the back.

Rob, Dave and Pete were all picked to be on the new team. Billy was shocked that he was left out. But when he thought about it, he had to agree they were all much better at the game than he was.

"The rest of you will be in the reserves," Mr Dickson said.

Suddenly Pete was the school hero. There was always a crowd of boys around him. Rob and Dave fought to sit next to him on the bus. Billy knew it was because Pete was good at football. He began to wish he was good at something. All he could do was to eat more and faster than anyone else, even Albert. That hadn’t made him any friends.

When he got home that night he told his mother about the new boy.

"Mother, what am I good at? Is there anything I can do better than anybody else? It must be nice to be good at something. All I can do is eat more than anybody in my class."

His mother hugged him. "Billy. You know there’s only one way in this world anybody learns to do something really well. That’s by doing it over and over again. You must decide what you want to learn and then practice until you’ve learned to do it well."

"I know I’m too thin and light to make a good footballer. But there is something I’ve always wanted to do."

"Let’s have tea first then you can tell me all about it."

The tea was already set and Mother plugged in the kettle and put a tea bag in the big blue pot.

Billy washed his hands and took off his jacket. "I want to learn to draw better than anybody else in my class. I’m the only one who’s never ever had a drawing pinned up on the wall. Except every Christmas when everyone in school gets their best drawing put up on the wall. Miss Angel chooses the best one from all those we did all year. But that doesn’t count because she has to put one up because all the parents come around to look at them."

"Oh yes, I remember. You drew a farmer wearing a straw hat driving a tractor."

"No, I didn’t. That was a train going along the track. I put in a girl wearing a straw hat and a red blazer because I wanted to use red."

"I see"

"The girl was hanging out of the window which I knew she shouldn’t be doing. But I thought it was a good picture and it was the one Miss Angel chose for the Christmas show after I told her what it was meant to be."

"And you were in the play last Christmas. I thought you were very good in your part."

"I was a sheep. That’s another thing. I’m always something unimportant."

"Sheep are important"

"I wanted to be Joseph or even one of the wise men but Miss Harbottle said I talked too much and Joseph had hardly any lines and the wise men didn’t have much to say either. So she said I would make a good sheep because they bleat all the time. Then she laughed. I don’t know why."

Mother sighed and poured tea into the cups.

"I think she meant I talk too much. Everybody likes Pete, the new boy and he hardly talks at all."

"Then that should tell you that you don’t need to go shouting about all the time to make friends."

"I know I talk a lot but I’m small and people don’t seem to notice me unless I shout. Anyway, that’s what I used to think. Now I think if I could do something really well, people might like me better. They might notice me and want to be friends with me."

Mother passed him the plate of cheese sandwiches. "What would you like to learn to do well?"

"My favourite thing at school is art. On Saturday, could you take me to that new Art shop? Maybe if I got a book about drawing and if I practiced at home, I would get better. Then, maybe I could draw something Miss Angel would pin up on the wall. That’s what I really, really want."

"Then we’ll go into town on Saturday and see what we can find in the Art shop."

The shop was filled with shelves of paints and crayons and sketch books big and small. Big, grown up easels stood in one corner.

"There’s so many things to choose from, Mother. I can’t decide."

"Take your time. Start off with some charcoal and a sketch book."

When he got home and began to study his new book which showed him how to sketch. Billy couldn’t wait to start.

"After supper. Not until we’ve cleared away and washed up," Billy’s mother said. "Then you can sit at the kitchen table and study your book until bedtime."

Billy read every word and copied some of the easier outlines. Then, every evening after his homework was finished, he practiced drawing. He set up arrangements of fruit and flowers and drew those. He found an old trainer and undid the laces. Then he set it up on a table with a tennis ball beside it and drew a new picture with the charcoal stick.

He made Jack, his small terrier sit very still while he took black and white photos of him. Then he copied the photos in charcoal.

When he went to school on Monday, for the first time in his life, he kept his secret to himself. He didn’t say a word to anybody. He had decided not to say anything at all but to wait until the next Art class and surprise Miss Angel. It was the first time in his life he had really tried hard to make a good job of something.

One night he was working on the kitchen table. He was trying to draw a brown horse. Every few minutes he stopped, held up his drawing and studied it.

"Now, Billy. You’ve been working hard for a long time. How about a break? Would you like a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of milk?"

"Not now, Mother. I’ll have some later." Billy turned a page in his sketch book and started to draw a different horse. "I think I’ll make my horse grey," he said.