Tiger and Action meet each other on their very first day of school. They are both sat at the back of the room and neither of them wants to be there. They would both rather be out doing their own thing that stuck in a classroom. They spend the day talking to each other and laughing about the tasks they are supposed to be doing. By the end of the day they are friends and the teacher has already marked them down as being trouble.
Over the next few weeks they spend the time they are at school drawing on the desks and making paper planes with pages torn from their textbooks. When they are not at school they hang out together most of the time.
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When they have been friends for a few months Tiger goes to Action's apartment to pick him up for school one morning. Normally he waits on the corner of the street but that day it is raining and cold and Action is late. He knows where Action lives because he has walked back to his building with him, but he has never been inside the apartment.
Tiger knocks on the door and after a few minutes Action opens it. He is not ready yet so he invites his friend in. The layout of the apartment is very similar to the one where Tiger lives, they walk down a narrow hall to a door at the end that leads to the kitchen. There is a second door in the kitchen that opens onto the living room.
In the kitchen Action's mother is washing dishes and humming to herself. When they come in she turns, smiling, to greet them. She is a small woman, with long dark hair and a musical voice. She insists that Tiger stays to eat breakfast, before they leave for school. Tiger, who has never known his mother, feels a pang of, not jealousy exactly, but longing. He wonders what it would be like if he had a mother who made breakfast for him every morning.
Tiger thinks of his own family. His mother left him when he was a baby, so he lives with his grandmother, his father's mother. He hardly ever sees his father and would rather not see him at all.
Tiger first realised that his father was bad news when he was very small and has avoided him as much as possible ever since. Every now and again he comes to the apartment to demand money off Tiger's grandmother. The first time this happened Tiger remembers his father banging on the door of the apartment, shouting, and his grandmother telling him to go to his room and stay there. She gave his father the money and he went away again, but since then he comes back every month or so for more.
With only a tiny income things are tough for Tiger and his grandmother and Tiger tries to persuade her not to keep giving his father money, but she always does. She says she has to help him because they are family, however badly he behaves. It is hard for Tiger to understand this. His father has never asked after him when he comes to the apartment and the few times they have met each other he was unpleasant and violent.
In comparison, Action's family looks pretty good to him. It takes a while before Tiger sees that Action has his problems too, just different ones.
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Action is about ten when he first walks in on his mother with one of her boyfriends. He has been out playing with his friends and comes back to the apartment to get a drink. He is just filling a glass of water when he hears a strange noise coming from the living room. The apartment should be empty, his father and older brother are at work and his mother is out visiting a neighbour, so he goes to take a look.
The room looks as it usually does, same faded sofa and peeling paper. Action is about to leave when he sees his mother's shoes on the floor by the sofa. They were the ones she was wearing when she went out.
Quietly he crosses the room and walks around the sofa. His mother is there with a man he doesn't know. She tries to tell him that they are friends and they were just doing grown-up stuff that he wouldn't understand, but Action knows what they are doing. He's seen enough older kids making out to understand. He storms out of the apartment before she can say anything else, slamming the door behind him. There is the satisfying sound of breaking glass from inside, but Action doesn't go back to find out what he smashed.
That evening he stays with Tiger, who lives a few blocks away. He doesn't care if his parents are worried, in fact he hopes his mother will have to explain to his father why he's run off. Tiger's grandmother seems surprised that his parents would let him stay out all night at his age, but she's a kind old lady and believes him when he tells her he asked their permission.
Sat on Tiger's bedroom floor sharing a pizza, Action tells his friend what he saw. Tiger suggest that Action should tell his father about what happened. They are still young enough to feel morally outraged about the fact Action's mother is lying to her family.
The next day, when Action does mention his mother's affair to his father he laughs it off and acts as if nothing is wrong. He insists Action must be mistaken and does nothing about it. That day Action loses the respect he had for his father.
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Sometimes Tiger wishes he had a sibling, somebody younger to keep him company at home. It is cold and wet outside and Tiger is ill after playing basketball in the rain. He is forced to stay in bed with a painful cough and a high temperature. The days are long and boring and he can't wait until he is well enough to go out again.
His grandmother looks in on him every hour, but she fusses and frets over him and sometimes Tiger has to pretend to be asleep, just so she will leave him alone. Every day she brings him more soup and tea than he can drink and stands over him while he finishes it.
Tiger loves his grandmother, he would do anything to protect her, but sometimes he feels like she just doesn't understand him. She can be too clingy and she sometimes treats him like he is still a small child.
Every evening that he is sick, his grandmother comes to sit by Tiger's bed and talk to him while he eats his meal. Unfortunately her idea of an interesting conversation is very different to Tiger's, she talks about knitting, a hobby of hers, and the price of food or she lectures him about not going out in the rain. After just a few days it is driving Tiger insane.
Also, she will only let him eat healthy food, bland vegetables and soup. When Action comes to visit him he hides candy in his pockets and sneaks Tiger, who is supposed to be resting, a comic to read.
By the time he is feeling better again the weather has warmed up and Tiger is very relieved to be able to go outside again. Action is waiting for him at the end of his street and the two of them miss school and spend the day lounging in the park, enjoying the sunshine.
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One day, at school, a boy makes a joke about Action's mother. He refers to the amount of men she sees and implies that maybe that is how they can afford to live, as Action's father has a poorly paid job.
Action flies off the handle and attacks the boy. Whatever he thinks of his mother and the amount of boyfriends he's seen her with, he is not going to let some kid talk about her like that. He punches the boy in the face, breaking his nose, and then throws himself on him, knocking him to the ground. The boy is bigger and stronger than Action, but he doesn't care. He only wants to make him pay for what he said.
Tiger, who has wandered off to talk to a girl in their class, hears the sound of fighting and rushes to see what is going on. When he arrives on the scene Action is kicking the boy who insulted him. From what he is shouting Tiger gets the gist of what has happened fairly quickly.
A ring of spectators has formed by now, kids laughing and cheering on the fighting boys. Tiger has to shove his way through them to try and get to his friend. When he finally makes it past them, he grabs hold of Action's jacket and pulls him back. He tries to reason with Action, but he refuses to listen and tries to pull away from Tiger.
At that point, a teacher arrives on the scene. She sees Tiger wrestling with Action and the boy Action attacked lying on the ground, his nose bleeding, his shirt torn and his left eye swollen shut.
The teacher is furious and both Action and Tiger are dragged to the Principal's office. They are asked what happens, but neither of them will say anything. Tiger refuses to blame his friend for fighting, even if he could explain that he was trying to stop Action, and Action is too angry about what happened to reasonably explain the incident. In the end both Action and Tiger are excluded from school for a week, while the school decides what to do about them.
A few days later they have been expelled from school. Their records showed that their behaviour had always been disruptive and the school decides this is a good way to get rid of them both.
When Action's parents find out they are very angry. His mother slaps him and shouts at him. Action shouts back, telling her what he really thinks of her and storms out of the apartment. He lives with Tiger for a week, before his brother convinces him to come home.
Tiger's grandmother takes the news that he has been expelled badly too. She shuts herself in her bedroom and cries for an hour before coming out and tearfully demanding what she has done to deserve a grandson who gets into fights like that. Tiger can't explain what happened, without his grandmother telling the school, so he makes her a cup of tea and does his best to calm her down. By that time Action arrives, furious and asking if he can stay with them, Tiger's grandmother has stopped crying and has forgiven him.
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When they first meet Riff and Tony, Action and Tiger are about fourteen. It is a hot day and they are lounging on the steps outside Doc's store, drinking soda and throwing pebbles to try and hit the buildings opposite. Action is avoiding his mother, who is at their apartment with one of her boyfriends, and Tiger has agreed to keep him company, because his grandmother wants to invite his father over for dinner to try and build up a relationship between them and he wants to get out of it.
They notice two boys walking along the opposite sidewalk. Action ignores them and keeps tossing stones across the street. As the boys draw level with Doc's store one of Action's pebbles bounces of the brick wall opposite and hits the taller boy, Tony, on the side of the head. He isn't hurt, but is annoyed about the incident and storms across the street, demanding that Action apologises.
Immediately Action jumps to his feet, offended by Tony's attitude. Angry words are exchanged and Tiger has to hold Action back to stop him from hitting the other boy. Tony's friend, Riff, just stands there and laughs.
The next day they see Riff and Tony again. This time Tiger has got into a fight with an older boy who tried to bully him away from the playground. Tiger and the boy are fairly evenly matched, the bully is older, but Tiger is more skilled in a fight. They are exchanging blows, but neither of them is winning. Tiger's eyes is swelling up where he has been punched, but his opponent has a split lip and a bleeding nose. Beside them Action is brawling with the guy's friend.
Out of the corner of his eye Tiger notices two boys watching them with interest. He recognises them as the guys they encountered the day before.
As Tiger is distracted his opponent tries to trip him. He dodges and sends the guy sprawling with a kick to the back of his knee. After that the guy doesn't seem so keen to fight and he and his friends slink away looking defeated.
When Tiger looks round again Riff and Tony are gone.
The third time Action and Tiger meet Riff he asks them to join his gang, the Jets. He says he was impressed by the way they fight and the fact they don't take any crap. The gang is still fairly small, with only Riff, Tony and a guy called Ice, but Riff has big plans to be the best. The way he talks Tiger could almost imagine the Jets are already the best.
They don't need to discuss it, Tiger can tell that Action is as convinced as he is. They agree to meet up with the others for the first time that evening.
As Riff walks away Tiger thinks that maybe now they have finally found a family to be proud of.