We Can Be Heroes (13 page)

‘Do you have a picture of him I could have?' I ask suddenly.

‘Of course I do,' she says. ‘Why?'

‘It's just this idea Priti has. About making a memory box.'

I expect her to ask more about it, but she doesn't, for the same reasons I don't ask her about the appointments, I suppose. I sometimes think Granny and I are quite alike.

‘Well, of course I can find you a picture,' she says. ‘And if there's anything else that you need, you just come and ask me.'

‘Thanks, Granny,' I say. ‘I will.'

* * *

‘So how was it?' I ask Jed upstairs in our bedroom after I've unpacked the shopping and Granny has gone for a little sit-down. Jed's lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. He's weirdly still, although his leg is kicking rhythmically as if some part of him has to be moving at all times.

‘Boring,' is his reply. ‘I don't know why Granny makes me go anyway.'

‘I could go with you,' I suggest.

‘I don't think that would quite be the point, would it?'

‘Point of what?'

‘Point of going. Anyway, what have you and your girlfriend been up to while I've been out?'

‘She's not my girlfriend!'

‘All right. Your girl-mate.'

‘She's your mate too.'

‘Only cos of you, so it doesn't really count.'

He keeps kicking his foot as if he's aiming it at an imaginary ball. He's in a funny mood – angry and restless – even more so than usual. I pull out my notepad, perch on my bed and start drawing
pictures of boxes: shoeboxes and hatboxes and matchboxes – all different shapes and sizes.

‘We just hung out. Didn't do much.'

‘Find out any more about the suicide bomber?' he asks.

‘Not really.' I shrug.

‘Some anti-terror squaddie you'll make. When I write a best-seller about shopping the terrorist across the road, I'll be sure to point out how useless you were.'

‘Priti did say there were loads of people coming to her house tonight,' I say, trying to draw an eggbox with a dozen spaces for eggs. ‘Maybe that's something to do with it.'

‘That's brilliant!' Jed sits bolt upright on the bed and grins for the first time all day. ‘Right, we have to take pics for the police to ID,' he says, lurching from vegetable to bouncy Tigger in record time, even for him.

‘How are we going to do that?'

‘On my phone, I reckon,' he says, waving around the state-of-the-art mobile his dad gave him (although he never picks up when Jed rings).

* * *

Granny gets a surprise when Jed agrees to go to bed early – and without arguing. There's normally a good half an hour of negotiation and messing around. As she kisses him goodnight, she says, ‘Perhaps today has been good for you,' but Jed just grunts and squirms away from her. Then she looks from one of us to the other and says, ‘My two boys!' Only I can't tell if she looks happy or sad.

We listen to her go downstairs and into the sitting room. Our door is ajar and we hear her say to Grandad, ‘He's almost like he was before Karen left.'

Jed mutters, ‘Yeah, right!'

And I hear Grandad say, ‘He's better off without that woman.'

‘Yup!' mutters Jed from the bed next to me. I'm not sure if he means me to hear or not.

‘I'm just glad to see him settling down a bit, that's all,' says Granny.

‘God knows he needs to,' says Grandad.

Jed gets up then and closes the door. ‘We don't want anyone eavesdropping on us,' he says. ‘The walls
are like paper in this house!'

Then he climbs up on to the windowsill.

I don't say anything. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pretend I didn't hear anything that's just been said.

‘Come on!' he says impatiently. ‘Have you got the binoculars?'

I get them from under my pillow and clamber up next to him. It's quite late now and visitors are starting to arrive at Priti's house. They're all men, all dressed up in robes, and they are all carrying plastic bags or big packages.

‘Bomb-making stuff probably!' says Jed.

He tries to take pictures with his phone, but they're too far away and the pictures come out all dark and blurry.

‘No one's going to be able to ID them from these,' says Jed, annoyed.

‘Why don't you write down all the car registration numbers?'

‘I suppose so,' he says.

‘And I'll draw some pictures so we can do one of those photofit things later.'

So this is what we do, but Jed keeps saying things like, ‘They all look alike,' and, ‘Why do they all have to have the same colour hair? What's wrong with blond or ginger Muslims? Why don't you ever see any of those?' And it's starting to get dark so after a bit we give up because we can't see properly any more.

Anyway, it doesn't really look much like a top-secret meeting of a terror cell to me, or at least if it is, they aren't being very top-secret about it because they're making lots of noise and laughing and there's loud music playing.

The other thing is that Priti's dad seems to be there cos we see him welcoming the guests as they arrive and I don't reckon Shakeel would invite over a load of terrorists while his parents were home. I say this to Jed, but he says that I didn't even notice that Shakeel was a terrorist till he pointed it out, so what do I know about it?

‘Anyway,' he says, ‘maybe Mr Muhammed is in the cell too. Like father like son.'

‘It looks like they're having a party, not planning a bomb attack.'

‘That's what makes them so clever, these people,' says Jed. ‘They make it all look so innocent until suddenly
boom
!' He mimes a bomb explosion. ‘Bang goes the road! Glad I'm not hanging around here for much longer. You'll be the one who gets to do a Ground Zero if your mum doesn't get out of the loony bin soon.'

‘She's not in the loony bin!' I say.

‘Right, and your dad's living in New Mexico with Elvis, right?'

‘They wouldn't blow up the cul-de-sac anyway,' I say.

‘You never know with these people. Unpredictability is the key to their success. Like the police are never going to send out the sniffer dogs to a quiet road like this. That's probably why they moved here.'

‘Shakeel's hardly going to bomb his own house, is he?'

‘What does he care? He'll be living it up in Muslim heaven or whatever with all those virgins. It's not like he's going to miss his widescreen TV.'

‘Virgins?'

‘Don't tell me you don't know what a virgin is?'

‘Course I do,' I say, reddening. ‘Just – what've they got to do with him blowing up his house?'

‘Suicide bombers get given loads of virgins when they go to Muslim heaven. I read it somewhere. Or my dad told me.'

I have an image of loads of bikini babes dancing on a white fluffy cloud.

‘Why?'

‘Why do you think?' Jed snorts, looks at me and then a slow grin appears over his face. ‘You don't know, do you?'

‘Course I do,' I say quickly. ‘I meant, why do they get given them? Is it like a reward or what?'

‘I knew you didn't understand.'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘Do you know anything about sex?'

‘Yes. Lots,' I say, my face burning.

‘Don't worry. My dad'll tell you everything you need to know.'

‘No thanks,' I mutter.

‘What's that supposed to mean?' he says. ‘At least I've got a dad.'

‘Who's always having a go at you and never rings you.'

‘Like your mum never rings you?'

‘That's different.'

‘At least my dad isn't the one who went bungee jumping from the Twin Towers without a cable.'

‘Shut up,' I say.

‘Oops, but we're not allowed to mention that, are we? What
are
we allowed to talk about with you?'

‘Shut up,' I say again.

‘That's your thing, isn't it? Shut up and put up. Maybe that's what drove your mum to the loony bin. She couldn't stand living with Bennie the mute.'

Something in me snaps. ‘She's not in the loony bin!' I shout, launching myself at Jed. We both topple off the windowsill and on to the bed. I'm on top of Jed and I'm punching him. ‘Take that back!' I shout.

‘Get off, you maniac!'

‘Take back what you said about my mum.' I pummel at him with my fists.

Suddenly the door swings opens. ‘What is going on in here?'

We both look up to see Grandad standing in the doorway.

For a moment, neither of us says anything.

‘Nothing,' says Jed.

‘Doesn't sound like nothing to me!' says Grandad. ‘I could hear you over the bloody disco across the road.'

‘We were just playing,' says Jed.

‘Ben?' Grandad looks at me.

I don't say anything.

‘We were only messing around,' Jed says again.

Grandad looks at me again, but when I still say nothing, he says, ‘Well, stop messing around and get to sleep, do you hear?'

‘Yes, Grandad,' we both say.

After he's gone, we both sit totally still for what feels like ages, but is probably only about a minute. ‘Thanks for not dobbing me in,' I say eventually.

‘Sure,' Jed says.

I climb back into my bed and he climbs into his. I
stare at the stars on the ceiling. ‘What did you mean when you said you aren't going to be here for much longer?' I ask.

‘What do you think?' he says. ‘I'm heading off soon.'

I want to ask him more, but then Granny puts her head round the door.

‘Everything OK now, boys?'

‘Yes,' says Jed.

I just nod.

‘I suppose all the music is keeping you up. Your grandfather is none too pleased about it either. He's going to have a word with Mr Muhammed.'

Then she hands me an envelope. ‘The picture you asked for,' she says and kisses me lightly on the forehead before saying, ‘Sleep well, my two boys.'

According to Priti, the big ‘terror cell meeting' last night was actually some kind of pre-wedding drinks party.

‘Sorry to disappoint you!' she giggles when she tells us.

The three of us are sitting in the tree house, sharing my dad's binoculars. We're spying on Shakeel again while keeping watch for Zara, but there's not much to see. Shakeel is just sitting at his desk and Zara and Tyreese haven't emerged from the bushes for the last quarter of an hour.

‘Seriously, you two are like Dumb and Dumber.'

‘Who are they?' I ask, but neither of them is listening.

‘Or Scooby-Doo and Shaggy,' Priti goes on. ‘In which case, I'm guessing Ben's the dog since he probably doesn't even know what Shaggy means!'

‘He stands more chance than you do of ever getting one!' Jed retorts quickly.

They glare at each other.

‘How were we supposed to know it was only a drinks party?' I say, trying to change the subject.

‘Yeah, I didn't think you Muslims were even allowed to drink,' says Jed. ‘Wasn't there that bloke in the newspapers who reckoned he was going to drop dead cos he ate a crisp with, like, one milli-molecule of alcohol in it? Grandad reckons your lot will probably go bombing the crisp factory in revenge.'

‘It was a non-alcoholic drinks party,' says Priti. ‘And there weren't any crisps either.'

‘Yeah, well, my dad reckons you can't be too careful with these terrorists. Even if they were only having Sunny D and pork scratchings.'

‘Muslims don't eat pork either!' Priti says.

‘Whatever,' says Jed. ‘Better to be safe than sorry. I mean, look at him!' We all glance in the direction of Shakeel's window, through which we can see him tapping away at the computer keyboard. ‘He could be emailing Al Qaeda as we speak.'

‘Do you reckon Bin Laden has an email account?'
I say, imagining a cartoon Osama with his laptop in a cave in the desert.

‘He's probably got a picture of your dad jumping out of the tower as his screen saver,' says Jed, grinning.

I look at him. He looks at me.

‘All right! Don't go all psycho and start hitting me again,' he says warily.

‘I won't.'

‘Because I won't go so easy on you next time.'

‘Don't then,' I say.

‘So what do you remember about Ben's dad?' Priti asks. I know she's thinking about the memory box.

‘What like?' asks Jed.

‘Like, do you have any particular memories of him?'

‘Not really,' says Jed, who is now staring through the binoculars in the direction of the bushes – probably trying to get a glimpse of what Zara's up to.

‘You must remember something!' says Priti.

‘All right.' He puts down the binoculars. ‘I remember this one time we were playing football:
me, Dad, Uncle Andrew and my mum.' He stops for a moment after he mentions his mum. ‘Anyway, me and Dad were on one team against Uncle Andrew and Mum: she was rubbish and he couldn't run properly because he had you on his shoulders.'

‘Me?'

‘Yeah,' says Jed.

‘Why don't I remember it then?'

‘I dunno. You were only like two or something.'

‘Well, you can't have been much older,' I say.

‘Don't blame me if you've got a rubbish memory.'

‘So what happened?' asks Priti impatiently.

‘Ben was on Uncle Andrew's shoulders so he had to hold on to your feet while he ran and you were bouncing up and down and giggling. It was dead funny. Our team kept scoring and my dad kept going on about how good we were and how crap Mum was, and then your dad scored these two amazing goals and then it was time for tea, so it was a draw, and my dad was dead annoyed.'

‘That's it?' says Priti, who's been taking notes in a little pad like secretaries or reporters have.