He lay in the road and squinted up at the sun. The tar surface was hot and soft to the touch, and he liked the smell of it. There were no cars on the road. Only three people in the whole street owned a car, and they were away somewhere, probably at work, he supposed. He closed his eyes, and the world became orange. He thought of his dog, Bonzo, who was orange and white. The dog had a way of trotting at an angle, which the boy admired very much. Sometimes he tried to walk like that himself.

The boy opened his eyes just as a red and black butterfly flitted across the road. The boy, whose name was Sam, let his thoughts float after it. He thought about the Raymond gang, which had a membership of four; Raymond Chine, Stuart, Sam himself, and his brother Keith. The two boys were very comfortable with each other, although in fact they were not really brothers, or even related. They were, however, equally stubborn. When Gill bought them a cricket set, consisting of two bats, some stumps and a ball, the boys took it all down to Valentine