We Can Be Heroes (18 page)

‘You will be!' Uncle Ian says, slapping Jed round the head. And though he says this to both of us, I know it's Jed he's really mad at.

‘You could have been kidnapped by piggin' Muslims for all I knew,' he says.

The bomb-squad man with all the tattoos seems to think this is funny. ‘Some bleedin' white kid nabbed by Mussies!' he laughs. His arms are so thickly covered
with ink that if it weren't for his face, you wouldn't be able to tell what colour his skin was. ‘That'd make a great headline. Really help kick-start the civil war on terror!' He laughs again and I imagine the ink running off his arms and forming black liquid patterns in the air around him.

Then Uncle Ian laughs too. ‘Maybe it's a shame they didn't take you, eh!' he says, grabbing Jed and rubbing his knuckles over his hair even harder than usual. ‘Could have been your contribution to the war effort!'

Jed tries to grin, but I can see he's got tears in his eyes. He turns his head away so Uncle Ian can't see he's upset.

‘Gonna be a soldier like your dad, kid?' asks the younger of Uncle Ian's mates, who's leaning against the battered T-reg Golf. It matches him somehow – flash but slightly dated.

‘You'll need to get rid of that nancy-boy haircut if you want to sign up!' says Tattoo Man, laughing again.

I glance at Jed. He tosses his head slightly as if to show he doesn't care.

‘Nah, he's too much of a mummy's boy for the army, aren't you, son?' says Uncle Ian.

‘No,' says Jed, looking down at his feet. I notice his fists are tightly balled by his sides.

All three men laugh.

‘So who's the play date?' says Tattoo Man, nodding at me.

‘My brother's lad,' says Uncle Ian.

‘The 9/11 kid?' asks T-reg.

Uncle Ian nods.

‘That right?' says Tattoo Man, looking at me properly now. I feel myself redden. ‘What would you do if Osama Bin Laden walked in this car park right now?'

I shrug, more blood rushing to my face.

‘Sure you do. Say I had a gun right here,' says Tattoo Man. ‘What would you do?'

‘Dunno,' I say.

‘Pretend your long-haired sissy cousin is a suicide bomber, explosives strapped to his chest,' says the other man. ‘Watcha gonna do now, huh?'

I stare at Jed. I try to imagine for a moment that
he's a terrorist. The terrorists who killed my dad. I imagine pulling the trigger and sending off a round of gunfire – sending the evil terrorist twitching into the air, blood spurting everywhere. But all I can really see is Jed standing there, covered in dust, with bits of straw in his hair.

‘So you gonna shoot, 9/11 boy?' says Tattoo Man.

I just stand there, no idea what to say, so hot I feel like I'm going to explode. Or wet myself. The silence stretches out, flat and white like the sky. The men are staring at me with sneering looks on their faces. Jed is looking down at his feet.

Eventually, Uncle Ian breaks the silence. ‘You're a gutless wonder. Just like your dad, eh, kid!' Then he cuffs me round the head like he does to Jed. It hurts more than you might think. ‘Probably why he jumped,' he says. ‘Never could face up to stuff.' Then he laughs and tells me and Jed to get into the van.

In my head I pull the trigger and send the three men twitching and screaming into the air.

* * *

On the way home in the van nobody talks much. It seems like Uncle Ian has had too much to drink because he's driving too fast and he keeps swearing at other drivers.

After we've been going for a while, Jed asks if he can do a wee and Uncle Ian says no, he'll have to wait till we get home.

Then he says, ‘Sorry I shouted at you, kid,' although he doesn't sound that sorry.

‘That's OK,' says Jed. ‘I know you were just worried about me.'

Then Uncle Ian says, ‘Your mum's been at it again. It's rattled me.'

‘What did she do now?' Jed asks.

‘She's making you go to see some new shrink on Thursday.'

‘Why?'

‘She reckons I'm brainwashing you or something.'

And I think of what Priti said earlier.

‘What if I don't want to go?' Jed says – too quickly, I think. Maybe he's remembering what Priti said too.

‘Try telling that to your mum!' says Uncle Ian,
which seems a weird thing to say since Jed never gets to talk to his mum. But Jed doesn't reply or say anything more after that and he doesn't even ask about going to the loo again, which is a shame because I really want to go as well, but I'm too scared to ask Uncle Ian.

As we turn into the cul-de-sac at last (the journey seems much longer on the way back) Jed turns to his dad and says, ‘Those men in the pub – they were the counterterrorism team, weren't they?'

‘Summat like that,' says Uncle Ian.

‘And you told them about Shakeel?'

‘Don't worry, son. He'll get what's coming to him,' says Uncle Ian before pulling up outside the house and turning to both of us. ‘Now no telling your gran what happened today, boys. Just our secret, eh?'

So we have to pretend we've been to the zoo, which Jed thinks is funny, but I don't like it as I'm not a very good liar and I feel bad lying to Granny.

And it's only later, after he's gone, that I realise Uncle Ian hasn't asked Jed one thing about his appointments or how he's feeling.

1. Why doesn't he want Granny to know about the meeting in the pub?

2. Is he really a member of the bomb squad or the counterterrorism intelligence unit or is that just a load of rubbish Jed's come up with as an excuse for all the times his dad lets him down?

3. Why did he bother taking us on a day out if he was just going to leave us hanging around outside all afternoon?

4. Why doesn't he ever ring ahead to tell Granny he's coming?

5. Why did he leave the army? Or is he really undercover now?

6. Did he tell his bomb-squad buddies about Shakeel? (Assuming he even believed us.)

7. Why doesn't he ever say anything nice about my dad?

8. Why does he hate Jed's mum so much?

9. Why does he always seem like he's lying? (Like Priti says, it's all in the eyebrows.)

10. Why does Jed think he's so great?

Little Stevie and her family are back from their holiday. I hadn't even noticed they'd been away, to be honest. We don't have much to do with Stevie because Priti refuses to play with her. But now she's out on her bike again – the pink one with tassels on the handlebars – cycling round her driveway in a little sunhat and shorts, looking nearly as brown as Priti. I once saw a programme about little girls in America who dressed up as beauty queens with lots of make-up and big hair and she reminds me of one of those.

Me and Priti are sitting on the wall outside Priti's house and Jed's gone to see the court psychiatrist (or ‘nutjob doctor' as he calls her – Granny told him off for swearing). I've been telling Priti all about the trip to the pub and the undercover counterterrorist agents.

‘Do you think Jed's dad just fancied a beer?' asks Priti. ‘Cos I can't say I'd blame him if he couldn't face the idea of spending any more time with you two.'

‘He said he had important business,' I say.

‘Yeah, well, you'll believe anything, you,' says Priti. Then she says, ‘I wish baby Barbie would stop staring at us!' I glance over at Stevie, who has stopped cycling round and keeps looking over at us all the time, like she really wants to join in.

‘We could see if she wants to play,' I say.

‘Only little kids play,' says Priti. ‘We are hanging out.'

‘We could see if she wants to hang out then.'

‘I'm not hanging out with someone who still has Disney princesses on her underwear,' says Priti.

‘But you've got a
Princess Diaries
poster on your wall,' I point out.

Priti looks at me and raises her eyebrows. ‘If you don't understand the vast cultural difference between the Disney anti-feminist-merchandising machine crap and an Anne Hathaway classic, you're not going to make it far in the world of animation,' she says.

‘She just looks a bit lonely.'

‘Then she needs to find some friends her own size,' says Priti finally. ‘Now tell me more what happened at the RV.'

‘RV?'

‘You really don't watch any TV, do you? It means rendezvous in undercover speak.'

So I tell her all about it. Well, not quite all. I miss out the stuff Jed told his dad about Shakeel and about how gutted Jed looked when his dad told him to get lost. Priti is still unconvinced. ‘Why would the bomb squad recruit Jed's dad? That's what I don't buy,' she says.

‘Maybe because his brother died in 9/11?' I suggest.

‘That's exactly why they wouldn't though!' says Priti. ‘I've watched enough US cop shows to know that a team member who makes it too personal can jeopardise the whole operation.'

‘Maybe it's different in real life,' I say.

‘Never underestimate the wisdom of TV,' says Priti. ‘I've learned more from watching teen drama than I did in the whole of Key Stage Three. No kidding.'

Stevie is back on her bike again, riding round and round, her circles getting wider and wider, so that with each circuit she cycles closer to where we're sitting.

‘Look at me!' she says as she whizzes past, pigtails
flying, tassels rustling in the breeze. I just wave. Priti doesn't even look up.

‘So d'you reckon your uncle Ian told his bomb-squad buddies about Shakeel?' she says.

‘I'm not sure,' I say. I can feel my cheeks colouring.

‘Cos we'll be in loads of trouble if they find we were making it all up.'

‘Not as much as Shakeel will be in if it's true,' I say. ‘They'll send him to jail.'

‘Or worse,' says Priti.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Haven't you heard about lynchings?'

I shrug.

‘Like in cowboy movies, when people take the law into their own hands and string the baddies up or shoot them through the head and put their heads on sticks.'

I start pretending to doodle a picture of Shakeel dressed as a cowboy.

‘Can I play with you?' We both look up and there is Stevie, right in front of us astride her pink bike, smiling and looking like one of those plastic kids from a breakfast-cereal advert.

‘Can you count up to a hundred?' asks Priti.

‘No,' says Stevie.

‘Can you spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?'

‘Um . . . no.'

‘Can you stand on your head for ten seconds or hold your breath underwater for a minute?'

Stevie looks as if she might be about to cry as she shakes her head.

‘Then you can't play with us,' says Priti. ‘Now go away because we have important business to discuss and a silly baby like you wouldn't understand.'

Priti turns away and studies the chipped varnish on her nails so she doesn't see the tears welling up in Stevie's big blue eyes.

Stevie looks at me. I go bright red and stare at the pavement. After what seems like a very long moment, I see her little feet in a pair of jewel-encrusted pumps pedalling away. I think of Blythe and I feel really mean.

I'm just about to risk making Priti mad by calling Stevie back when Priti says, ‘So, like I was saying, Shakeel could be the victim of a lynching if anyone finds out.'

‘Who exactly is going to lynch him?' I ask, glancing over to the Sanders' weed-ridden driveway, to which Stevie has retreated.

‘I dunno. Irate locals? The bomb squad?' She shrugs then looks at me, suddenly serious. ‘What will they do to him if he gets arrested?'

‘There's no way they're real bomb squad,' I say.

‘I just wish Jed could've kept quiet until we had all the evidence,' Priti goes on. ‘Then we could have confronted Shakeel ourselves and made him change his ways. Now who knows what your uncle Ian will do.'

‘I suppose so,' I say, but I'm still thinking about Stevie.

Just then Stevie's mum comes out and calls her in for her tea. My grandad reckons only common people say tea. Anyone with any upbringing calls it dinner or supper, he says. I don't get the feeling he approves of the Sanders much.

Mrs Sanders is pregnant and she has this huge belly full of baby, but the rest of her is scrawny and her skin is blotchy red and peeling. She stands at the top of the driveway and yells Stevie's name again dead
loud, even though she's only ten metres in front of her (something else my grandad hates). Stevie doesn't much look like she wants to go in. She drags her sparkly shoes along the tarmac as she trails off after her mum and we hear her saying, ‘The big kids won't play with me!'

Mrs Sanders turns and looks over at me and Priti. ‘Why not?' she snaps.

‘That Priti says I'm a silly baby.'

‘Well, that Priti is a mean cow,' Stevie's mum says loudly, looking back in our direction again to check we've heard and giving us a stare that is as sour as lemons. Then she slams the front door behind her.

‘And you wonder why I don't associate with people like that!' says Priti. ‘Come on. Let's go to your house and get on with the project. We don't need that scraggy-armed hippo giving us dirty looks!'

So we go inside and Priti soon cheers up. Today Granny is in charge of us because all of Priti's siblings are busy doing things for Shakeel's wedding and Grandad has taken Jed to see the shrink. And Granny being in charge seems to make Priti behave all prissy
and princessy, like some kid from an advert. ‘Yes, please, Mrs Evans,' and, ‘That's
sooo
kind of you, Mrs Evans.' When I ask her why she's pretending to be so nice, she says, ‘Are you trying to say I'm
not
nice?'

‘No, it's just you're not normally so girlie.'