The game counter’s tale

Game counters

The blue game counter was having fun. Leona rushed him round the Snakes and Ladders board. She hoped to get him home first and beat Jake’s counter. Blue Counter felt really happy when she won the game.

But then Leona walked off and left him on the table, and there wasn’t really anything else to do. When no one played games, he didn’t really want to be a game counter!

He sat with the green, yellow and red counters and watched Jake and Leona as they started to play with the farm. “Just look at the fun they’re having,” he said. “I wish we could join in.”

Jake was moving the tractor out of the big barn. “Mind out, Leona!” he called. “Move those sheep out of my way!”

Leona used her sheepdog to move the tiny lambs and their mothers into a pen in the corner of the farmyard. Then Jake drove the tractor backwards out of the barn doors, turned it round and steered it carefully through the gate into the field.

Blue Counter watched as Jake pretended to leave bales of hay in the field for the cows and sheep to eat.

Leona said, “You need some proper bales of hay. Why don’t you look around and find something you could use as hay?”

Jake walked round the playroom. Straightaway, he saw the counters that Leona and he had left on the table. Blue Counter was excited! The counters would make wonderful pretend hay!

Jake must have thought so too, because he grabbed a handful of counters and tipped them into the trailer on the back of his tractor. Then he drove the tractor round the field again and dumped a few counters in each corner.

Leona’s sheepdog then drove the flock of sheep and lambs into the field. “There, everyone is happy now,” she said.

But just then, a large woolly sheep came over and sniffed at the pretend bales of hay. Blue Counter was scared and cried out: “Help! I don’t want to be eaten.”

But Jake didn’t hear him. He’d gone across the playroom. Blue Counter had to sit there as the sheep sniffed around and Leona pretended to make them eat. “I don’t think they like counters instead of real hay,” she said to Jake. “What shall we do now?”

Jake was sitting at the table. He turned the Snakes and Ladders board over to the other side and looked at the Ludo game. He called back: “Come and have a game of Ludo with me. I’ll beat you this time.”

Leona and Jake put the board between them, and Leona started to take blue counters and put them in position. “There are only three!” she cried.  ”Where is the fourth blue counter?”

Jake looked puzzled too. “Three of my green ones are missing!” he said.

Meanwhile, Blue Counter was in the field. A small flock of sheep stood around him, looking hungry. He held his breath. Would Leona and Jake remember where he was?

Suddenly Jake clapped his hands. “I know! We used them as hay bales! They’re in the field.”

He ran over and rescued Blue Counter and his friends from the sheep. By the time Leona and Jake finished their game, Blue Counter was really tired, and ready to go to bed in the black box all the counters lived in. He felt glad he was just a small game counter in a black box!

The moral of the tale is that it’s okay to be what you are. You are special!