It was a lovely afternoon. The sun was shining, the birds were happily twittering in the trees, and the air was full of the scent of freshly cut grass. It was the perfect day for a walk or a trip to the playground.
Only Maya didn’t find it a very nice day. It got off to a bad start in the morning, when her younger brother Jake knocked over a castle she had just built out of wooden blocks. He didn’t mean to do it, but still, she felt like all her hard work had been for nothing!
Then her granny phoned to say they’d better not stop by her house today after all. She had a fever and didn’t want them to catch anything. Maya’s parents had promised to get her an ice cream during their afternoon walk, to cheer her up. Which they did, but that delicious scoop of strawberry ice cream fell out of the cone right after they left the shop, landing on the pavement with a splat!
That was the last straw for Maya. Full of anger, she threw the empty cone on the ground, stamping on it and screaming. Tears the size of pebbles rolled down her cheeks and there was no way of stopping them. Even though people were staring at her and her parents were offering to buy her another ice cream, Maya didn’t stop. She was so cross, so very very cross. In fact, she was angry at the whole world.
“Fancy making such a horrid fuss!” a woman in the queue commented, shaking her head in disapproval.
“It was only an ice cream, for pity’s sake,” snorted a man behind her.
But Maya couldn’t help it. It had all bubbled up inside her…
