Sola and the Upside-Down Train

Every Saturday morning, the grown-ups at the Kite Hill Community Centre go into a cooking class, and their little kids come to the Playroom next door. The Playroom has a soft green rug, low shelves of toys, a basket of wooden blocks and a big window full of sky. It also has the Sidekicks: a group of older kids, aged eleven to thirteen, who come to play.

Sola has been a Sidekick for two years. She is thirteen, she sits cross-legged better than anyone, and she is the one the new Sidekicks watch.

On her very first Saturday, though, Sola was terrible at it.

A boy called Benji, who was four, had built a wooden train track. He was pushing the train along it upside down, wheels in the air, making a scraping noise.

“It goes the other way up,” Sola said, and turned it over for him.

Benji turned it back.

“Like this, look.” Sola turned it over again and showed him how the wheels rolled. She built him a bridge. She added a station. She explained the signals. It was a brilliant track.

Benji wandered off and sat under the table.

Sola felt hot in the face. She had been so helpful. Why had he left?

The Playroom leader that year was a tall, quiet woman called Mrs Adeyemi. She came and sat on the rug next to Sola. “Whose game was that?” she asked.

“Benji’s,” said Sola. Then she stopped. “It was. Then it was mine.”

Mrs Adeyemi nodded. “Little kids get told how to do things all day long. Here, they get to be the boss. You’re the sidekick.”

Sola thought about that all week.

The next Saturday, Benji was back with the train, upside down again. Sola sat down a little way off and watched. It felt itchy, like wanting to scratch. She sat on her hands.

“Where’s it going?” she asked.

Benji looked at her. “It’s a SNOW train,” he said. “It slides.”

“Oh!” Sola picked up a second train, turned it upside down and slid it along behind his. “Does my snow train go to the mountain too?”

Benji’s whole face changed. He started explaining the mountain, the snow, the bears that lived at the top. They played for twenty minutes. Sola didn’t build a single bridge unless Benji asked for one, and when he did, it was a snow bridge.

That was the day Sola understood the job.

Now, when new Sidekicks arrive, she tells them the same thing Mrs Adeyemi told her. “You’re not here to teach them how to play properly. You’re here to notice what they’re already doing and help their idea grow.”

She teaches them the coach moves: Follow, Wait, Obstacle, Echo, Stretch. Trailby, Tarry, Bumpus, Copley and Leif each have a favourite. She teaches them the quieter skills too, the ones Linden, Lowen, Finley, Hallam and Odessa are good at: noticing first, calming first, ending well, knowing when to fetch a grown-up, and thinking about it afterwards.

And she tells them the most important rule of the Playroom.

“You’re a play partner. You’re not in charge of them growing up. That’s the grown-ups’ job, and they’re right next door. Your job is just to play well.”

Sola still carries a small wooden block in her pocket. When she wants to take over a game, she squeezes it, and remembers the upside-down train.

The little one leads. The sidekick helps.