Billy and Sam

They had grown up on opposite sides of the street.

Billy was a tough kid; always bruised or bleeding; forever up a tree or down a manhole. He couldn't walk to school without some adventure befalling him on the way. He was never on time, always dishevelled and permanently cheerful.

Sam was quiet. He wore glasses, always fastened the top button of his shirt, stopped and knelt in the street to straighten his socks. He didn't have many friends, spent most of his time inside and his favourite location was up to his eyebrows in a book, preferably an encyclopaedia.

No-one would have dreamed they'd become friends. But they did. In the most surprising of ways.

Billy was surrounded. The boys encircling him were big, mean, angry. Whatever it was he had done to upset them he was not about to get away with.

As Sam approached, his legs jelly and his heart pounding - threatening to burst out of his chest - pushing his specs up his nose; they had started to laugh. Sam had gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. With steely gaze and gritty determination, he had walked straight past them and around the side of Billy's house. The sniggering petered out to be replaced by noises of confusion and disbelief, and then more snorting and giggling.

Suddenly, with a war-cry nobody could fathom, Sam careered round the corner, garden hose in hand, shooting a violent jet of water into the midst of the throng. They had never moved so fast and in minutes the gang had dispersed, leaving only a very sodden Billy curled up on the floor in fits of hysterical belly laughter.

Sam never walked home alone again. And Billy was (generally) on time. A mis-matched pair if ever there was one; their friendship was cement.