We Can Be Heroes (17 page)

‘How do you propose to fight it then?'

‘It's a battle for acceptance, for hearts and minds.'

‘Don't give me that. You dress it up with your fancy words – but in the end you're just a coward.'

‘There are different ways of laying down your life for a cause,' says Shakeel. ‘Sometimes it means doing nothing even if it hurts your pride to do so. But you prefer Tyreese's way of doing things?'

The flame creeps along the fuse, closer and closer to the round, black bomb.

‘You mean, would I beat up my brother to save my own skin?' says Mik. ‘Tempting as the offer is, when I take action, I won't be cowering behind you, saying “He started it!”'

‘Exactly: personal sacrifice; taking responsibility for your own actions. We make our own bed and we have to lie in it – think about that, little brother.'

The trainers take a step or two backwards then Mik says, ‘I can't listen to any more of your bullshit. I'm going out.'

We see Mik's trainers move in our direction and hastily pull in our feet and hold our breath.

‘Mik,' calls Shakeel. ‘Brother, wait!'

‘You're no brother of mine,' says Mik and then we all hold our breath as he storms right past us.

Boom!
The bomb goes off.

* * *

We have to wait ages after he's gone before we can get out because Shakeel just stands there in the kitchen for what seems like an hour, his brown shoes not moving.

‘What's he doing?' I ask.

Priti shrugs.

‘I wish he'd get on with it,' whispers Jed (which can't be easy for someone as loud-mouthed as him). ‘I'm dying for a pee!'

Eventually, Shakeel goes upstairs and we all pile out from under the table. My left leg has got pins and needles from staying in the same position for so long. Priti says she can't feel her bottom. Jed offers to give her a kick to wake it up.

‘Not likely!' says Priti, thumping him.

‘What do you reckon all that was about?' I say quickly.

‘You heard what Shakeel said about not using fists and knives,' says Jed. ‘He's got something bigger in mind!
Boom!
' He mimes an explosion.

‘That's not what hearts and minds means, is it? Blowing their brains out?'

‘Guess it must be,' says Priti, rubbing her bum frantically.

‘Bet he's gone off to fix up his bomb right now,' says Jed.

‘I don't reckon that's what he was saying at all,' I say, unconvinced.

‘He can't just admit it right out, can he? Not even to his own brother,' says Jed. ‘But you heard what he said about personal sacrifice, laying his life down for the cause, making his own bed and lying in it – making his own bomb and dying in it more like!'

‘It's all going to kick off after this,' says Priti, who's still wiggling her bum. ‘When Mik gets angry, there's no telling what he'll do.'

‘I'm telling you, it's Shakeel we need to keep an eye on,' says Jed. ‘If this Said is a friend of theirs, or your cousin or whatever, he's going to want revenge!'

‘And when he finds out that Zara is snogging the bloke who knifed Said then there'll be an explosion, I can tell you!' Priti says, patting her pink, velour-covered behind vigorously to try and get rid of the pins and needles.

‘She must be bricking it!' says Jed.

‘So she should be,' says Priti. ‘I'm so going to enjoy saying I told her so.'

Priti and me found this stuff on the
Newsround
site (which is like the
Ten o'clock News
for kids, so it must be right). It's a survey they did a few years ago, but Priti reckons it's still pretty spot on.

1. Six out of ten of all kids interviewed agreed that life for Muslims had got harder since the 2001 terror attacks on New York. (‘Can't remember what it was like before,' says Priti.)

2. Four out of every ten Muslim children taking part in the
Newsround
survey thought the news showed Islam in a bad way. (‘Too right!' says Priti.)

3. One in three Muslim kids interviewed said they had been bullied, and half of those believed it was because of their religion. (Priti has never been
bullied, but this does not surprise me – who'd take her on?)

4. Seven out of ten Muslim kids identified themselves as Muslim rather than British. (‘I'm my own person,' says Priti. ‘I object to being put in a box and labelled in this way!')

5. Nine out of ten Muslim children think kids generally need to know more about Islam and almost half of all kids interviewed agreed they wanted to know more about Islam. (I'd like to know more about Islam. Jed doesn't. Priti reckons I need to know more about just about
everything
.)

6. Eighteen per cent of the children interviewed said they associated Muslims with religion, eight per cent said clothes and seven per cent said headscarves. (Jed said curry. Priti said stupid rules. I would have said my dad dying, but neither of them asked.)

Today is Saturday, but it doesn't really feel like the weekend because it's holidays and there's no school or anything. After breakfast, Uncle Ian turns up out of the blue (like he does) and offers to take me and Jed out in his van.

I don't really want to, but Granny says, ‘That'll be nice for you all!' And I can see she's tired and probably needs to have a day off from us.

‘Where we going?' says Jed as we get in.

‘It's a surprise,' says Uncle Ian.

So we pile into the van, Jed in the middle, next to his dad, and me squashed up by the window. The window is open which means I can't hear most of what they're saying, so after a while, I just stop listening.

I think a bit about my dad and wonder if this is how it would have been if he'd still been alive – me and him going on adventures together, talking about football. But that makes me sad, so instead, I think about the next episode of my Bomb-busters comic
strip. (Jed reckons it should be called Bonk-busters and have loads of hot chicks in it.)

We're going slower now, so there's less wind, and that's when I realise they're talking about Shakeel. ‘We've been keeping him under surveillance,' says Jed. ‘See what he's up to.'

‘Good lad!' says Uncle Ian.

This jolts me back to attention. Although we always said we'd pass on the intel to Uncle Ian, I never really expected Jed to do it.

‘And you reckon this – whatever his name is – is part of one of these terrorist cells?' says Uncle Ian.

‘Yeah, even Priti thinks he's up to something and she's his sister,' says Jed, his feet up on the dashboard.

‘You have to watch her though,' says Uncle Ian. ‘She could be in on it herself.'

I wait for Jed to say something to defend Priti, but he doesn't.

‘I'm just saying, don't trust all she tells you,' says Uncle Ian.

Then Jed tells him about the boy called Said who was stabbed and how he's related to Priti and Shakeel,
and his dad says that it could be a trigger for Shakeel to strike, so we need to be vigilant.

‘Will you bust him, Dad?' asks Jed.

‘All in good time, son,' says Uncle Ian.

I glance at Uncle Ian to try and work out what he's thinking, but he just stares at the road ahead, one hand on the steering wheel, the other hanging on to the van roof through the open window.

‘But you said he could strike at any minute,' says Jed. ‘Shouldn't you bust him straight away?'

‘Just drop it, OK?' says Uncle Ian sharply, slamming his hand on the top of the roof so that it reverberates above our heads. ‘And get your mucky feet off my dashboard.' Jed jerks his feet down.

He doesn't talk about it any more after that and we drive in silence for the rest of the journey.

We stop at a pub in the middle of nowhere. It's not like the countryside where I come from – all rolling hills and steep climbs. Here the land is so flat it looks like someone's been over it with an iron. It makes the sky seem huge, like it stretches on
forever – a big white tent over our heads.

The pub is what my mum would call ‘run down'. One of the windows is boarded up, the pebble-dash is peeling off the brickwork and there's grass growing through the concrete in the car park, which is empty except for a battered, metallic-blue T-reg Golf convertible and a single motorbike leaning up next to the overflowing wheelie bins.

‘Go and get lost for a bit, you two,' says Uncle Ian, climbing out of the van.

‘Can't we come in with you?' says Jed.

‘You can play in the beer garden,' says Uncle Ian, pointing to a square of unmowed grass at the side of the building, with a single pub bench in the middle of it.

‘But I thought we were supposed to be spending the day together?' says Jed.

‘Yeah? Change of plan. I've got important business to attend to,' says Jed's dad, although he doesn't say what. ‘You can have some crisps and Coke, and then I don't want to see or hear either of you for the next two hours. Get it? Now scoot.'

Conversation over, Uncle Ian goes into the pub, leaving Jed and I standing around by the van, not quite sure what we're supposed to be doing. Neither of us says anything. Jed kicks the ground next to the front tyre with his scruffy Vans. He looks as if he'd like to kick the tyre itself, but doesn't dare.

The door to the pub is open. Inside, I can see the bar is shabby and virtually empty. Uncle Ian greets the barman, who barely looks up from his paper to acknowledge him, but inclines his head silently in the direction of a pool table at the back. There are a couple of men standing round the table smoking (even though I thought you weren't supposed to smoke in pubs any more) and not looking like they're playing much pool.

I watch as Uncle Ian makes his way over to the pool men and shakes their hands. Both of the men have closely shaved heads, like Uncle Ian. The younger one is dressed a lot like him too, in a crisp shirt and pressed jeans with a shiny belt and shoes. The older man is a bit scruffier: red-faced and unshaven with a pot belly hanging over tightly belted black jeans and a
vest which shows off muscled arms covered in tattoos.

‘It's probably all part of an undercover operation they're doing,' says Jed. I turn and see he's looking in the same direction I am. His face is flecked with red and his jaw is tight.

‘Who?'

‘My dad and his bomb-squad mates in there,' he says, looking down at his feet again. His Vans are covered in dust.

‘I thought you said they weren't bomb squad?' I say, glancing at the men again. They're talking and laughing with Uncle Ian.

‘Whatever,' says Jed, his face still flushed, almost as if his dad had slapped him when he told him to get lost. ‘Bomb squad, counterterrorist unit, it's all the same. Haven't you ever seen any of this stuff on TV?'

‘Um, no,' I reply.

‘Well, if your mum is still making you go to bed after CBeebies then you won't know anything about how counterterrorism operations work, will you?' he says, kicking the bin lamely, sending dust flying. ‘My dad's saving lives. That's why he can't take us
out properly today, even though he wants to.'

‘I never said he didn't,' I say.

‘Yeah, well,' says Jed, reddening again. ‘Don't.'

After a few minutes, Uncle Ian re-emerges with Coke and crisps for us both. ‘Now scram, the pair of you, OK?'

‘Sure, Dad,' says Jed. ‘RV here at fourteen hundred hours.'

Uncle Ian laughs. ‘That's the spirit, son.'

Then he goes back into the pub, swinging the door shut behind him so we can't see what he and his bomb-squad mates are up to.

Me and Jed spend a bit of time jumping off some old barrels in the beer garden, but Jed soon gets bored and starts looking around for something else to do. That's when he suggests we play Bomb-busters.

The pub backs on to some fields, so we pretend it's a war and crawl through the maize, which is nearly as tall as I am, moving along on our bellies, holding imaginary rifles. The aim is not to disturb a stalk and not to be seen while we pretend to kill terrorists.

‘Why did you tell your dad about Shakeel?' I
whisper as we crouch in the long grass, awaiting enemy incursions.

‘Had no choice, did I?' says Jed matter-of-factly, looking around all the time as if the enemy might approach any minute. ‘Can't sit on that kind of information. It's a matter of national security.'

‘Will your dad tell his bomb-squad mates?' I whisper, staring through the maize, imagining cartoon terrorists hidden behind the stalks.

‘Bound to,' says Jed.

I turn to him, still staring intently forward as he's fixed on an invisible target. ‘And what will they do if they find out he really
is
building a bomb?'

‘Kill him,' hisses Jed quickly. Then he raises his imaginary machine gun at an invisible target and lets out a splutter of bullets through his teeth.
T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t!
‘Got him!' he grins.

We must have been in the field for longer than we realised because when we get back, Uncle Ian is well mad at us.

‘Where the hell have you been?' he shouts as we
walk towards him, dusty and covered with bits of straw. ‘I've been doing my nut here!'

‘We were just messing around,' says Jed.

‘I've been trying to ring you on that piggin' phone for about half an hour.'

‘I left it in the van,' said Jed, looking down at his feet.

‘What the –!' Uncle Ian is standing with the two bomb-squad men in the car park. They're both a lot bigger than him. He has a pint of beer in one hand and his face is red. I wonder if he's drunk. ‘Don't know why I even bothered getting you a phone if you're gonna piss around with it.'

‘I'm sorry,' says Jed. And all his cool is gone as he stands in front of his dad, head down, red-faced.