True Friends

I made bread yesterday, for the first time ever. It was fun and I will definitely be doing it again. Whilst making the bread I got to thinking about the time I missed out on making bread at school because I was ill. I also missed dissecting a fish that day. I was seven years old.

My best friend at the time was a girl called Sara. We were really close and Sara knew and understood me like no one else, she therefore knew how much I was looking forward to dissecting that fish and how disappointed I was to miss out. Two days later I went for a sleep over at Saras house. She was really excited because she had a suprise for me and I couldn’t wait to find out what it was. We had to hide the suprise from her mother and so went to the bathroom together with the mystery bag holding the treat. I opened the brown paper bag to find a very stiff, slightly crispy and a little whiffy, dead fish! Sara had taken a fish from school that was meant for dissecting and brought it home for me. I was thrilled. Truly, I was so touched that she had done that for me. How kind. Sara had risked the wrath of the teacher by stealing one of the fish for me, then hidden it and kept it a secret until I was able to visit. Even to this day it fills me with warmth that a friend had been so kind. Sara was disappointed that the fish wasn’t in perfect condition but I was over the moon with it. She then helped me to dissect it by showing me what she did during the lesson at school and I was able to participate in what was one of the school highlights for me.

As I have grown older, true friendship has been shown in many different ways but I don’t think there has ever been so selfless an act as that one. I will never forget how much my friend loved me at that time. Nor do I know of anyone who has been so happy to receive a dead and decomposing fish as I was.