Ambrosia had, somewhere along the line, become Pepe’s guardian angel.

Aaaargh had always been her lead pilot, but he had become tired, and overwhelmed and needed to get back to his little family of Silvergulls.

Pepe had really only just begun to realise the little voice inside his head was not only a voice of reason, but also the voice of the tiny ladybird who sat on his shoulder most days when she didn’t need to fly off to look after other things, and check on other creatures’ adventures.

‘Well, Pepe,’ she said in a very reasonable tone that reminded him of his mum when he hadn’t been able to go to sleep at night as a baby bird. ‘You have been a most magical, kind-hearted and giving human bean when you’re not a bird. You have not let down your side once and, because you’re bigger and stronger, you’ve been able to keep the wind off Aaaargh most days, and you know what? Sometimes I don’t think he even noticed.’

‘He noticed,’ said Pepe.’ But it’s what I’m supposed to do. Aaaargh is the lead pilot, and I am supposed to protect him.’

‘But who looks after you,’ Ambrosia asked ( – for if you remember, Pepe had grown up never really knowing who or what he was. He was not quite a silvergull, he was bigger than most, AND he was not quite sure what his father had been AND, unlike most silvergulls, he did not like being called by his shortened name, because Pepe’s real name was Pepe Louis O’Patrick, and when that was shorted it turned into PLOP, and Pepe’s reaction to being called PLOP had always been a very obvious physical discomfort that no one talked about, at least if he had anything to do with it).

‘I do, when I’m here. You do, I suppose, and my real mum does when I’m at home…. And all the rest of my family, but sometimes they’re a long long way away, and I feel very lonely,’ said Pepe.

‘You know,’ Ambrosia said so very, very softly he could hardly hear her voice. ‘It’s okay to be lonely, and it’s okay to be sad. I’m not very good at saying how I feel sometimes either, just in case you didn’t know. Sometimes I get really mad.’

‘I noticed.’ Pepe began to smile. ‘I get mad too, but I might not be quite so expressive about it. I’m not allowed to be. Sometimes I have to simply content myself with kicking tyres and telling everyone I’m fine, when I’m not.’ He stretched one wing and then the other. ‘This whole year has been a total waste of time!’

‘Has it though?’ Ambrosia found her special crash-helmet sunhat and strapped it onto her head.

‘Yes it has!’

‘I don’t think it has. Not really. You’ve learnt a lot. You’ve learnt how to become a team player, properly this time, and what all that means, even if it does mean someone else is going to win the races. Sometimes, that’s what team players need to do, because they’ve been told to do it, or because they’re the youngest, or the biggest, or the more strategic, and the more careful. You’ve shown a lot of personal strengths, and that is something to be incredibly proud of.’

This didn’t make Pepe feel much better. Not really.

‘Can I tell you something,’ he whispered very quietly to Ambrosia.

‘Of course you can,’ she said.

‘Sometimes, I want to win too. Just one time. Just to prove that I can. Just once.’

‘Well, I believe you will,’ she said. ‘If you know you can, as much as I know you can, then I believe you will. Do you know you can?’

‘I know I can,’ Pepe said fiercely.

‘Then you will.’

 Ambrosia patted him on his feathery shoulder with one tiny little ladybird leg and Pepe lifted his wings and began to run along the tarmac.

‘Then I will,’ he said, and off they flew.

P.S. Behind them flew a loveliness of ladybirds on all sorts of other birds, because Ambrosia Honeybun Polka Dot planned on heading home, and she was taking all her children with her.

(You see, when in the rhymes, they tell the ladybird to fly away home, they had NOT realised she had all her kids with her, and her house had not been set on fire either. All it meant was that no one really knew what Ladybirds do to keep people safe. Perhaps that is the moral of the story :) ) –Kate Capewell.