We Can Be Heroes (2 page)

And then, suddenly, the wheelie girl stops, tips back on her heels, hands on hips, and stares up at the window where I'm sitting. Stares right at me. And waves.

* * *

Five minutes later, the wheelie girl is standing on my grandparents' doorstep, resting back on her wheelie heels in a way that makes her whole body tilt slightly backwards. She's checking me out.

‘I'm Priti,' she says, looking at my granny and deliberately ignoring me. ‘Although my big sister says I'm not. Pretty that is. She reckons we should swap names, but she's dead vain and totally into herself, so she would say that, wouldn't she? Anyway, my mum says I should ask your boy if he wants to hang out.'

I don't say anything.

Granny smiles. ‘Well, I think you are
very
pretty,' she says. ‘And very kind to ask Ben to play. What do you think, Ben?'

I should say that I'm tired (because wheelie girl is obviously way younger than me – and a girl) but I don't. Instead, I go really red and suddenly can't say anything at all.

‘Can't he talk?' Priti asks, giving me a funny look. She clearly thinks I'm some sort of weirdo.

‘He's just had a difficult day,' says Granny gently.
‘What do you say, Ben? Do you want to “hang out” with Priti?'

I shrug my shoulders. (I can feel my face turning the colour of a pickled beetroot now.)

‘Well, that looks like a yes to me, Priti,' says Granny brightly.

My heart sinks. I know she's trying to help, but this was not the answer I wanted.

Priti grins from ear to ear.

I imagine doodling a Cheshire cat with a face like Priti and giant bunches for ears. Wearing pink wheelie shoes.

Priti whizzes off down Granny's path, leaving me to follow behind.

‘So what do you want to do then?' she says, when I finally catch up with her.

I shrug.

We both look around the cul-de-sac. Little Stevie's fallen off her pink bike and is crying. I wonder if we ought to go over and help her, but her mum leans out of the window and screams at her to shut up and get inside right now. Stevie gets up and hobbles back
in, leaving the pink bike abandoned on the pavement. She has blood coming out of her knee and her face is streaked with tears. Once she's gone, there's not much else to see.

Priti turns and looks at me with her nose screwed up and says, ‘You
can
talk, can't you?'

‘Yeah!' I say, my face getting hot again. ‘I'm not stupid.'

‘Good, I was beginning to worry. You talk funny though. Where you from anyway?'

‘Somerset,' I say.

‘Never heard of it. That's the country, right?'

I nod.

‘That explains why you talk funny.'

‘Except I don't,' I say.

‘Yes you do. You say “oi” instead of I.'

‘I do not!'

‘You just did. You sound like a farmer.'

I want to tell her that she speaks through her nose only she doesn't give me the chance.

‘Why you here then?'

‘I'm staying with my grandparents.'

‘Yeah, I got that. But why?'

‘Does there have to be a reason?'

‘No, but there is, isn't there? I can tell.'

I just shrug because I don't want to talk about it, but Priti isn't taking the hint. ‘What is it? Did your mum and dad get divorced? Or is it swine flu? Or foot and mouth or whatever it is you have in the country?'

‘No, it's nothing like that.'

‘So there is something!' she says. ‘I knew it. You can always tell.'

‘How's that exactly?' I say.

I imagine doodling a giant cartoon piano descending from the sky and landing on her head.

Crash! Tinkle! Tinkle!

‘You've got the look of one of those dog-is-for-life-not-just-for-Christmas mutts,' she says.

‘At least I don't have hair like a poodle,' I mutter. She ignores me.

‘You've got OK clothes,' she says, then adds, ‘although they don't really suit you.'

‘Thanks a lot,' I say, trying to sound sarcastic, but not really succeeding.

She's probably right though. Most of my clothes are hand-me-downs from my too-cool-for-school cousin Jed. His mum always passes things on to my mum. Or at least she used to, until last year. And Jed mostly wears labels and I'm not exactly a label person. Which Priti can obviously tell.

‘Does your mum buy stuff for you?' she asks.

‘No!' I say quickly.

‘Mine tries to, but I don't let her,' she says. ‘She's an academic so she's got no sense of style. Obviously.'

‘What's an academic?' I say, glancing at what Priti is wearing.

‘A professor thingy. She works at the university and thinks fashion is a feminist issue.'

‘Right,' I say, even though I've got no idea what she's talking about.

‘So this is about your mum then,' she says.

‘What is?'

‘The “Ben's had a difficult day” bit. The reason you're here. I'm right, aren't I?'

‘My mum's sick, OK? She had to go to hospital. Happy now?'

‘Happy would be weird,' says Priti solemnly. Then she grins. ‘But it's always nice to be right!' She tips back on her wheelie shoes. ‘We could take turns on my skateboard if you like?'

As Priti prepares for launch, I fish my notebook out of my pocket and doodle a superheroine with bunches somersaulting through the air on giant wheelie shoes surrounded by a swirl of exclamation marks and asterisks.

Then Priti takes off and suddenly she's in the air for real. Then she lands bum down on the tarmac.

For a moment, I think she's going to cry, but instead she starts laughing. ‘Too many wheels,' she says, kicking off her shoes and going at it again with just her socks on. This time she clears the ramp and lands easily.

‘I'm eleven and a quarter,' she says as she lands. ‘How old are you?'

‘Twelve,' I say, ‘and eight months.'

‘You're pretty short for your age,' she says, standing in front of me in her white socks on the hot, dirty
tarmac. ‘Bet I'm nearly as tall as you.'

‘Only cos you're standing on your tiptoes.'

She glances down at her feet – she doesn't seem that bothered about the state of her socks – and shrugs.

‘What're you drawing?' she asks, staring down at my notepad.

‘You,' I say.

‘Oh.' She twists herself to take a look. ‘Cool! I look like a midget Lara Croft.'

‘With a tutu and bunches,' I say.

‘You're well good.'

‘Thanks.'

‘My mum would say that drawing cartoons offers you an escape from your troubled existence.'

‘I don't have a troubled existence.'

‘If you say so.' She shrugs again. ‘Your turn,' she says, handing me the skateboard. ‘You can do it, can't you?'

‘Course I can,' I say, taking the board from her. She raises one eyebrow (which I know from trying it is harder than it looks) and folds her arms. I can tell she's waiting for me to mess up.

Luckily, I actually can skateboard, though not as
well as Priti. I clear the ramp and land a little awkwardly on the other side.

‘Not bad,' she says as I hand back the skateboard. ‘And I've just figured out why you're here.'

‘I told you why.'

‘Yeah, but then I thought, if his mum's so ill, why isn't he with his dad? And I figured that your dad could be an international spy or an Arctic explorer or a contestant on a reality TV programme, or maybe just divorced or in a coma or something boring like that. But then I remembered.'

I look down, knowing what's coming.

‘I remembered that my brother said that he heard my mum say to my dad that the pink bike kid's mum said to her that your gran's boy was killed on September 11th,' she says, without taking a breath. ‘And that must be your dad, right?'

I nod.

She pauses for the briefest of seconds. ‘So what does that mean anyway?'

I look up. ‘Have you never heard of September 11th?' I ask.

‘Nope!' She shakes her head and her bunches flap around like giant dog's ears.

‘But everyone's heard of September 11th!' I say, trying to work out if she's lying. ‘Don't they do it in your school?'

‘Is it a “racially sensitive” topic?' asks Priti, picking sticky tarmac off the bottom of her sock.

‘I guess,' I say.

‘Cos our teachers generally steer clear of those.'

‘Why?'

‘High ratio of Asian pupils of immigrant backgrounds to white teachers of newly qualified teacher status,' she says quickly, sounding like she's quoting something she read in a newspaper. ‘My mum reckons all our teachers are “white and green” – that means newly qualified, not really green, like aliens. That would be cool too, but you probably couldn't mess them around so much. Anyway, Mum reckons they're all frightened of saying something racially offensive. That's why they keep things pretty much uncontroversial. Personally, I think it's a shame because informed discussion is a valuable
educational tool, but what can you do?'

‘I see,' I say.

‘So are you going to tell me what's so special about this September 11th thing or not?' says Priti, still picking at her socks.

Actually, I'd rather not, but I take a deep breath and do anyway. ‘These men flew their aeroplanes into some tower blocks in America and knocked them over. Loads of people were killed.' Then I add, ‘Including my dad.'

I imagine drawing cartoon aeroplanes flying into cartoon tower blocks. Cartoon flames and speech bubbles filled with
AAAAAAAAAAAH
s.

‘Oh, you mean 9/11,' she says, looking up. ‘You should have said.'

I stare at her. ‘Um, I did.'

‘Yeah, well, everyone's heard of 9/11,' she says. Like I was the one who'd said I didn't know.

‘I told you they had,' I say.

‘And you reckon your dad was one of the ones that died?'

In my head I'm drawing cartoon flames coming
from the tower blocks. Stick men jumping through the air, falling.

‘I don't
reckon
,' I say. ‘He was.'

I grab the skateboard and take off in the direction of the ramp. This time I don't quite make it and my ankle twists painfully as I hit the tarmac. I want to cry out, but I don't.

‘You are so making this up,' I hear Priti saying.

‘You were the one who said your brother heard it from your mum or whoever,' I say, getting up and trying not to show how much my ankle hurts.

‘Yeah, well, your granny must have made it up in that case.'

‘Why would she do that?' I shove the board in her direction.

‘I dunno. To get free meals-on-wheels? To have something to talk about with her pals at bingo? To get herself through to the next round on
The X Factor
? How should I know?'

‘Well, she didn't,' I say.

‘I mean, you don't exactly look like someone whose dad got killed by terrorists, do you?'

‘What am I supposed to look like then?'

‘I dunno – just different.'

I glance down at my shoes. Imagine doodling sad faces on the toe of each one.

‘Would it be better if I had a leg missing or a big sign on my head saying
9/11 Boy
or something?' I say.

‘All right. No need to get upset just cos I don't believe you! Which I don't by the way.'

‘I'm not getting upset,' I say. ‘It's not my fault that you're too young to remember it.'

‘I so am not!' says Priti. One of her bunches has come loose and is hanging much lower than the other so it makes her look lopsided. ‘My dad says I've got a memory like an elephant, and that's pretty big.'

Even though I'm fairly sure that elephants have small memories, I don't argue with her; I just say, ‘I'm going in.'

Most people, when they find out about my dad, are super nice to me in a way that's really creepy. Even my friends go all weird on me every September, like I've got a contagious disease or something. But no one has ever accused me of
making it up before. And it's really annoying.

Priti jumps to her feet. ‘Don't go,' she says. ‘If you go in my mum'll make me do my homework. She's dead hot on that sort of thing.'

Part of me wants to go back inside just to get her in trouble. But then I glance back at my grandparents' house and I can see my grandad sitting in his favourite armchair watching daytime TV and eating ginger biscuits. My granny's probably in the kitchen, fixing tea and worrying. And I realise I don't want to go back inside, not just yet.

‘If you stay, I won't ask you any more about what happened with your mum, or about your dad . . . or your Twin Towers fantasy,' Priti says in this super-nice voice.

I look at her. She looks at me.

‘AND I'll tell you a secret! A BIG one!'

I glance back at the house again. I don't want her to think I'm a pushover.

‘OK,' I say with a shrug.

So she does.

‘My brothers are going to kill my sister,' Priti
whispers, squatting down dead close to me, like she's my girlfriend or something.

I give her a look. ‘That's the secret?'

‘Yup,' she says. ‘Good, innit?'

I stare at her again. ‘Yeah, right!' I say.

‘They are!' she says. ‘It's going to be an honour killing.'

‘What's that anyway?'

‘It's when they kill her because she's got a boyfriend.'

‘My mum's got a boyfriend,' I say. ‘He's called Gary.' An image of my mum laughing with Gary flashes through my mind. I push it to one side. ‘So are they going to kill her too?'

‘Don't be stupid. My sister is, like, sixteen. And anyway, it's a Muslim thing.'

‘Are you a Muslim then?'

In my head I draw Priti in one of those giant burkhas, her wheelie shoes peeping out of the bottom.