Nory, Who Was Never Bored

Mr Evans always said that every child is special in their own way. In some cases, that way was quite clear: Vanessa from down the road drew beautiful pictures on the pavement in colourful chalk. Anna had the longest hair and Robin rode his bike faster than anyone else.

And Nory? Norbert, whom everyone called Nory, was the most special of all, because he was never bored.

No one knew how it was possible. When it rained all day and they all had to stay indoors, the other children kept on pestering their parents: “Mummyyy, I’m sooo boooored!” and “Daaaad, it’s so dull!” they whinged.

But not Nory. Nory didn’t even notice it was raining, because as soon as he’d got up in the morning he had started building something out of toilet rolls.

When he was out shopping with his mother and little brother and they had to wait in a queue for the checkouts, his brother whined and complained that he was bored. But Nory counted all the packets of chewing gum and sweets in the display next to the checkout and then pointed out to his brother that the till made beeping sounds like a robot, and looked a bit like one too. In the end, their mother had to pull them away after she had finished paying, because they loved listening to the robotic beeping so much.

When Nory and his friends were going on a daytrip to the zoo and they had to wait in the dull station waiting room because the train was late, Nory noticed that the patterns on the floor tiles looked a bit like an obstacle course. So he thought up a game, in which they had to quietly step from one tile to another to …