We Can Be Heroes Read online

  After graduating from the University of Oxford, Catherine Bruton began her career as an English teacher and later went on to write feature articles for The Times and other publications. She started writing We Can Be Heroes in 2009, inspired by her research for an article about children whose parents died on 9/11, and by the manga fans in her Year 9 class. We Can Be Heroes is her first novel for Egmont. Catherine lives near Bath with her husband and two small children.

  We Can Be Heroes

  First published in Great Britain 2011

  by Egmont UK Limited

  239 Kensington High Street

  London W8 6SA

  Text copyright © 2011 Catherine Bruton

  Inside illustrations copyright © 2011 David Shephard

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 4052 5652 0

  eISBN 978 1 7803 1068 8

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  www.egmont.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Typeset by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Group

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Few Things You Should Know

  July 13TH

  July 14TH

  July 15TH

  July 16TH

  July 17TH

  July 23RD

  July 24TH

  July 25TH

  July 30TH

  July 31ST

  August 1ST

  August 2ND

  August 4TH

  August 5TH

  August 6TH

  August 7TH

  August 8TH

  August 9TH

  August 10TH

  August 11TH

  August 12TH

  August 13TH

  August 14TH

  August 15TH

  August 16TH

  August 17TH

  Acknowledgements

  For Jonny, Joe-Joe and Elsie Maudie,

  and all our lovely grandparents,

  with love xx

  A FEW THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

  My dad was killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York. I was only two at the time so I don’t really remember him much, although when people ask, I say I do. People ask about my dad a lot. I usually respond with a shrug or by looking at my shoes. But no one seems to mind: it’s OK if I’m rude or even a bit weird at times, because I’m the boy whose dad died on 9/11.

  But the stuff in this book is not about that. It’s about the summer my mum went away; the summer that me and Jed and Priti tried to catch a suicide bomber and prevent an honour killing; the summer that Stevie Sanders disappeared and we caused a race riot. It’s about how we built a tree house and joined the bomb squad; how I found my dad and Jed lost his; and how we both lost our mums then found them again.

  So it’s not really about 9/11, but then again none of those things would have happened if it hadn’t been for that day. So I guess it’s all back to front. Sort of . . .

  JULY 13TH

  THINGS I’D LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY DAD

  1. Who was his favourite Star Wars character? Was he a fan of the Dark Side? Darth Vader or Maul? Young Obi Wan or old?

  2. If he could choose for England to win the World Cup or for Aston Villa to win the treble, which would he go for?

  3. Who did he think was the greatest ever Sports Personality of the Year?

  4. Could he light a fire by rubbing sticks together?

  5. What was his record for keepy-uppies?

  6. Was he a morning person or an evening person?

  7. Would he have been good cop or bad cop? (Mum says she gets tired of trying to be both.)

  8. What did he smell like and what did it feel like to hug him?

  9. What did he think about me?

  10. I can’t think of another one, which is pretty rubbish. You’d think I’d have loads and loads of questions about my dad since I hardly remember him at all and he died in such tragic circumstances, but I can’t even think of ten. What does that say about me exactly?

  This used to be my dad’s room. When he was a kid, he shared it with his brother, Ian. They stuck the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and the Smurf stickers all over the window frame. On the shelf are some trophies my dad won – chess champion, Under 12 Most Improved Player, that sort of thing. And on the wall is a second place pennant he once won in a rowing regatta, covering up a doodle on the wallpaper. So maybe he liked drawing, like me.

  I’m going to be sleeping here, just like last time. And, just like last time, I don’t know how long I’ll be staying, and it’s not worth asking Granny and Grandad because they don’t know either.

  So I’m sitting on the windowsill, drawing cartoons. That’s what I do when stuff like this happens: I draw things. Doodles, mainly, and cartoons, whatever comes into my head. I don’t know why, but it sort of helps. First I doodle the birds on the telephone wires. I draw them with mobile phones held up to their beaks, then I draw phone numbers circling their heads, spinning round them till they go goggle-eyed. Then I start to draw a girl with the phone, but she ends up looking like my mum so I stop because I don’t want to think about my mum.

  I put down my pencil, run my finger over my dad’s faded Smurf stickers and stare out of the window.

  Downstairs I can hear my grandparents talking.

  ‘How was she?’ That’s my granny.

  ‘The same as last time,’ Grandad replies.

  Which doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know.

  I pick up my pencil and look out of the window again for something else to draw.

  The cul-de-sac is empty except for the little chav kid (that’s what my grandad calls her, but I think her real name is Stevie) riding a pink bicycle with tassels on the handlebars round and round her driveway. She’s been there for ages, all on her own. I draw a picture of her – a cartoon girl with big Bambi eyes and a tiny body in outsized shoes. I make it look like she’s riding her bike through a twister in the sky – just like the witch in The Wizard of Oz – then I draw things whirling and twirling around her: a washing machine, a pair of wellies, click-clackety knitting needles, a hula-hooping cow, a fish bowl on a piano.

  I glance over at the house opposite. My grandad says an Asian family have moved in. Most of the neighbours on the cul-de-sac are as old as my grandparents, except the Sanders (Stevie’s family) next door and now the Asian kids in the house opposite.

  I’m just wondering whether any of the kids are my sort of age when the door of the Asian House (Grandad again) opens and out comes the oddest-looking girl I’ve ever seen.

  She’s about ten, I reckon, maybe eleven. Skin the colour of toffee, massive bunches attached to the sides of her head with frilly pink things that make her look like a poodle. She’s wearing her school uniform so I guess her school hasn’t broken up yet either. I suppose I should be pleased that I’m missing the last week of term, but I’m not – not really. On top of her school uniform, the bunchy girl is wearing this red tutu thing, and on her feet she has trainers that, from the way she’s zooming around, I guess must have wheels in them. They’re bright pink and look very new.

  She looks up, sees me in the window and ignores me. Then she wheelies up and down her drive, twirling in neat circles before coming to a stop in front of her doorway with a little flo
urish – like she’s an Olympic gymnast or a figure skater or something. Stevie stops to watch her, but the bunchy girl just ignores her too and keeps on wheelie-ing.

  I draw a cartoon of a wheelie-wearing superheroine – giant bunches flying, the wheels in her heels going at the speed of light, whizzing past Stevie on her flying bike and the hula-hooping cow and the upside-down fish-bowl piano.

  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 AAAAAAAAAAAHs.