​

 Everyone was so busy at his house that sometimes he felt totally alone…it was even worse when he’d done something wrong or got blamed for something and he had to go and sit on the bottom stair… ‘time out’ it was called which was meant to help him calm down but it just made him feel worse. He could hear everyone talking still, usually about what had happened and he just felt so alone …  he’d have to try and be good. He wished he could work out what that meant…so often he did something before he realised what he was doing it just sort of happened. He didn’t mean to shout and scream when things went wrong… it just happened and when his mum shouted back well that just made it a whole lot worse!

‘Sorry’ lived with his mum, dad, his 2 brothers and 1 sister... he was the youngest and the most difficult he’d heard them say!

His grandad Henry and grandma lived nearby which was great because he could go around to their house on his bike now, he was getting older. He’d just had his 10th birthday. Grandma made such scrummy scones and if she knew he was coming she always made some. When he walked into the kitchen, he could smell them, and his mouth began to water… he could almost taste them before he actually got to eat one. Everyone else liked them with butter on but he didn’t he just liked to sink his teeth and savour every mouthful of ‘scrumminess’! He would find somewhere quiet and nibble away…

One day he was feeling particularly out of sorts. He had been in trouble again but this time it wasn’t for something that he had done it was for doing nothing!! His mum had sent him upstairs to tidy his room which he thought was o.k but she said it was an awful mess. He didn’t know where to start. He knew what he wanted it to look like when it was finished but he wasn’t sure how to go about it. No sooner had he started to tidy up than he noticed a comic on the floor that looked really interesting so he began to look at it and it reminded him of a toy that he’d not seen for ages so he started to hunt for that when he found a great big bag of dinosaurs .. so he tipped them all out and began to look carefully at each one remembering their names and the games he used to play with them… which reminded him of his book about dinosaurs that used to be in the bottom of the cupboard… so he began to pull everything out of the cupboard to look for it…It was at this point that his mum came into the room and said “ why can’t you just do what I ask you to do like your brothers and sister. When will you grow up and act your age?” Well, he could feel his heart beating faster and faster, his cheeks were burning, and it was like a volcano erupting as he shouted, “I don’t love you either! I’m going to grandma’s” he shot past her and ran down the stairs, out of the door, grabbed his bike and off he went.

When he got there, he dropped his bike on the ground and opened the back door. To his surprise there was Uncle Marmaduke with a great big smile on his face and a scrummy scone in his hand. ‘Well hello Sydney, how lovely to see you. Hope you don’t mind me eating one of grandma’s scones. There’s another here for you too. I know how much you like them, Grandma’s told me!’

 Uncle Marmaduke and Sydney took their scones and went out into the garden where there was a garden swing for two and they sat there eating scones. Uncle Marmaduke told Sydney about his adventures, the exciting bits and the times when things went wrong or were scarey and Sydney told Uncle Marmaduke…. I wonder what. Well perhaps it was … All about dinosaurs and always being in trouble. His nickname of ‘Sorry’ and how he felt so alone at times especially sitting on the stairs and how the carpet scratched his legs and how no one understood or listened to him…and how the others in the family were so busy …and Uncle Marmaduke listened. Grandma brought them more scones and gave them both a great big hug as she said, ‘you two are like peas in a pod, love you both to peices’.