We Can Be Heroes

by Catherine Bruton

  A few moments later, Zara appears, wearing her headphones and shuffling in a huge pair of fluffy slippers, like she’s just come out from her bedroom.

  ‘Hi, Ameenah,’ she says, making her way to the fridge. ‘Don’t let the rug rats pester you. You’ll never escape.’

  She’s dead cool – she doesn’t even look at us. Priti tries not to giggle and Jed pulls kissing faces at her, but she just ignores him. I don’t know where to look: Ameenah is butterfly-in-the-tummy beautiful, but Zara, even in her slippers, is something else – something I don’t have a word for.

  Thankfully, Ameenah doesn’t notice anything. She’s too busy showing us loads of ways to make explosions. Even Jed seems impressed. And when she leaves, Ameenah says that another day she’ll bring us things to make a really big bang.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘That’d be dead interesting.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  * * *

  ‘Thanks, that was soooo interesting!’ says Jed in a soppy voice after she’s gone. ‘Fancy her, did you, Ben?’ And he starts pulling kissy faces again.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’

  ‘You’d better watch out. She’s arranged-marriage-engaged to my brother. Her family will be out to honour-kill you, if you’re not careful,’ says Priti.

  ‘I don’t fancy her!’ I say.

  ‘And she’s a terrorist!’ says Jed.

  ‘She is not!’

  ‘Don’t defend her just because she’s your girlfriend. How else did she know all that stuff about explosives?’

  ‘That was just for fun,’ I say.

  ‘You heard what she said about making a really big bang!’ says Jed.

  ‘I reckon she’s the chemist of the group,’ says Priti. ‘Every terror cell has once. Shakeel makes the detonators. She makes the explosives.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Jed. ‘They’re probably not even engaged. Just pretending so they can work on the terror plot together without anyone getting suspicious.’

  ‘So you might still be in with a chance, Ben!’ says Priti.

  ‘Shut up,’ is all I can think of to say.

  JULY 23RD

  ‘I’ve found this website called Tuesdays’ Children,’ Priti announces after Jed goes off with Granny for one of his top-secret appointments. ‘It’s for 9/11 kids like you.’

  ‘So?’ I say. I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my notebook, doodling pictures of princesses on flying carpets in giant fluffy slippers. I haven’t seen Priti for a couple of days because she’s been off with her mum and Ameenah doing wedding stuff. Even Jed said it’d been a bit boring without her around.

  ‘So there’s loads of interesting stuff on there,’ she says. ‘There’s even a chat room so you could get in touch with the other bereaved kids.’

  ‘Stop calling me that, will you?’

  ‘Fine, I’ll call you a 9/11 orphan.’

  ‘How can I be an orphan? My mum is still alive.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means even Jed talks about his mum more than you do.’

  ‘Just because I don’t talk about her doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist,’ I say, putting down my pencil.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘My mum will be better soon and then she’ll be coming to get me,’ I carry on angrily. ‘So I’m not an orphan.’

  ‘Look, my point is that there are loads of other kids with 9/11 issues just like yours who are gagging to chat to you online.’

  ‘And what if I don’t want to?’ I pick up my pencil and try to keep drawing the princesses, but they don’t seem to work any more.

  ‘Of course you do. That’s just the grief talking,’ says Priti.

  ‘I told you, I’m not grieving!’ I say, doodling rows of triangles.

  ‘Maybe you feel angry or anxious or lacking hope. They are all forms of grief,’ says Priti with a learned expression on her face. I imagine her with a giant pair of glasses and a white doctor’s coat several sizes too big for her.

  ‘Have you been learning the website by heart?’ I draw a big square, then a smaller one inside it, then a smaller one again: boxes within boxes.

  ‘I reckon I could be a counsellor or something. I’m getting you to talk about your unacknowledged grief here.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to, like, respect my privacy or something?’ I say, my boxes getting smaller and smaller.

  ‘If it’s in the patient’s best interests, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.’

  ‘You just made that up,’ I say, abandoning my boxes and trying to doodle Dr Priti.

  ‘Maybe I did, but I still reckon you should be getting in touch with these other kids. They go on camps together and talk about their feelings and build schools for poor kids in Costa Rica and do art therapy and music and meditation and all sorts.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to do any of that, OK?’

  ‘All right! All right! Keep your hair on. There are other things we can do.’

  ‘Like what exactly?’

  ‘Like we make a big poster of your dad and everyone has to write down their memories of him on it and we put it up somewhere everyone can see it. We could do that.’

  I look up from my drawing. ‘You didn’t even know him,’ I point out.

  ‘I could pretend I did. I expect he was just like you only grown up and better-looking and a bit less miserable.’

  ‘You can’t pretend you knew a dead person if you didn’t,’ I say, trying to do another Dr Priti, this time with massive glasses perched on the end of a giant Mr Nosey nose.

  ‘Well, you could tell me some of your memories and I could pretend they were mine,’ she suggests.

  ‘I don’t have many memories of my own,’ I say, staring crossly at the cartoon, which looks nothing like Priti. ‘I can hardly remember what he looked like.’

  But Priti doesn’t seem to worry too much about this. ‘Well, your granny and grandad must have loads. And Jed says he remembers him and we can ask your uncle Ian. And your mum,’ she says pointedly. ‘When she gets back again.’

  ‘Granny gets all upset and cries whenever anyone mentions Dad,’ I say.

  ‘And your mum?’

  I have an image of my mum, lying in a hospital bed.

  ‘She says it’s no one else’s business,’ I say quickly.

  ‘Fine. What about you make a shrine, with his picture and some of his stuff, and you can light a candle there?’

  ‘Granny won’t have candles in the house. She reckons they’ll set fire to the net curtains and bring down the house on our heads or something.’ I draw a little picture of a house with flames coming out of the roof.

  ‘Well, you could have a torch or one of them flameless candles that squirts air-freshener like my mum’s got. I’m sure I could nick one.’

  But I obviously don’t look convinced because then she says, ‘Or you can just make a memory box with some of his things and people’s memories in it.’

  ‘I really don’t want to make a shrine to my dad or a memory box or whatever.’

  ‘Well, we’re going to do something and if you don’t decide what then I’ll decide for you.’

  ‘Priti, please.’ I wish she’d just drop it.

  ‘It’s for your own good. You can’t just sit around doodling cartoons all day. Hey, is that supposed to be me?’

  ‘No,’ I mutter as she makes a grab for my notebook. ‘Some doctor you are!’ I scribble over the half-finished Dr Priti faces and shove the book under my legs so she can’t get it. ‘I thought you were supposed to make me feel better, but the thought of doing all this is making me lots worse!’

  Priti grins at me. ‘See, there you go! You’re expressing your emotions at last!’

  Eventually, I agree to make a memory box and this shuts Priti up for a bit, mainly because we don’t have a box, which means we can’t start it today. Priti says she’s going to ask her mum for one and meanwhile, I have to start getting stuff together to g
o in it.

  ‘Don’t disappoint me!’ she says.

  ‘You sound like someone’s mum.’

  ‘I’m going to make a great mum one day,’ she says.

  ‘Your kids will never get a word in edgeways.’

  ‘At least I’ll be cool. You’ll be one of those sad, embarrassing dads. The one who comes to pick the kid up and everyone thinks he’s a paedophile.’

  ‘Who says I even want to have kids?’ I say.

  ‘Everyone has to. It’s punishment for giving your own parents hell, I reckon.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’ Without a pencil, I don’t know what to do with my hands.

  Priti stares at me then says, ‘What? You don’t want kids or you’re one of those freaky kids who don’t give their parents a hard time?’

  ‘No,’ I say quickly, not sure which bit of the question I’m answering. ‘Yes, I mean . . . maybe.’

  ‘I get it,’ says Priti. ‘I guess with your mum being ill and all you’ve been forced to grow up before your time.’

  ‘She’s nearly better,’ I say.

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘Sort of.’ I look down at my hands.

  ‘Why can’t you visit her?’

  ‘Too far away,’ I say.

  ‘What’s wrong with her anyway?’

  I stare at Priti.

  ‘Hey, I figure if you’re actually talking about her, I get to ask all the questions I want.’

  ‘She kind of stopped eating,’ I say, looking down again.

  ‘That happened to my aunt when she had cancer. Has she got cancer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I reckon Jed’s got cancer,’ says Priti.

  ‘What?’ I say, looking up.

  ‘Well, he must have something really serious if he has to go to the hospital every week.’

  ‘Who says he’s even going to hospital?’

  ‘All these appointments. What else can it be?’

  I shrug.

  ‘I’ve been looking at my mum’s medical book and it’s either that or kidney failure.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I asked Ameenah about it and she said kids whose kidneys don’t work have to go for this thing once a week to clean all the wee out of their blood. She reckons they look a bit yellow too, with all the wee. Do you reckon he looks yellow?’

  ‘Not really,’ I say, imagining Jed with a Simpsons yellow face.

  ‘Me neither. So I reckon it must be cancer which means his hair will fall out, only I can’t tell if Jed’s is because he always wears that skanky cap. What’s it like when he goes to bed?’

  ‘His hair is all right,’ I say, thinking of my mum’s beautiful hair starting to fall out.

  ‘It might not happen straight away. If he’s having chemo, it might take a while.’

  ‘You really think he’s sick?’ I ask, imagining Jed with a bald head, all his footballer curls lying scattered on the floor around him.

  ‘Must be. No one has appointments twice in a fortnight if they’re not sick.’

  ‘I suppose so. But do you really think he might be dying?’

  ‘Might be,’ says Priti. ‘Guess we’ll have to wait and see. They sure like their secrets in your family.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a brother who’s a secret terrorist,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, about that, Shakeel was well mad at me for messing around in his room. Wouldn’t let me tidy up though, which I reckon is a bit sus!’

  ‘You’ve also got a sister with a secret boyfriend and another brother who’ll kill her if he finds out, so I reckon your family has as many secrets as mine.’

  ‘True,’ she says. ‘Good job you and me are good at keeping our mouths shut then!’

  THINGS I’D LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY MUM

  1. Why does she have such long hair? None of the other mums I know have hair like hers.

  2. Why does she sometimes let me stay up really late and go to bed when I want and eat pizza and not brush my teeth, but at other times she’s really strict about bedtime, has no-processed-food-products drives and makes sure I brush my teeth for three whole minutes every time?

  3. Why does she always insist on sitting to watch me eat? Just sitting there, watching me, with this weird smile on her face, telling me to tuck in because I’m a growing boy.

  4. Why does she have to volunteer for everything? Why doesn’t she let some other people volunteer sometimes?

  5. Which hospital has she gone to exactly?

  6. Why is my granny cross with her for being ill?

  7. How can it be that she’s so much happier since she’s met Gary, but she still got sick again? I know she’s happy because she’s always singing and dancing and laughing. But she cries more too. And now she’s sick again, which doesn’t make sense.

  8. Why doesn’t she like phones? And couldn’t she make an exception and call me just once?

  9. When is she coming home?

  10. Why can’t I think of another question? Does that mean I’m forgetting her too?

  When Granny and Jed get back from their appointment, Granny seems sad and a bit shaky. She’s carrying two plastic shopping bags and a box from the bakery and she says she thinks we all deserve a cup of tea and a little treat. Jed says he doesn’t want anything. He just goes straight up to his room, but not before I see that he’s wearing a brand-new pair of trainers.

  I offer to take Granny’s shopping for her and she says, ‘Oh, you are a good boy. The arthritis in my fingers is playing up today.’

  As I take the bags from her, I notice that her fingers don’t uncurl when she lets go: they stay tightly balled up for ages afterwards.

  ‘Did it go OK?’ I ask as I take the things out of the bags and put them away in the cupboards: sugar, cereal, milk, jam. Granny is like me; she likes everything to be in its place.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she says sadly. ‘At least I hope Jed enjoyed it.’

  This seems like an odd thing to say about a hospital appointment, but I don’t want Granny to think I’m prying, so I don’t ask her any more about it.

  ‘You and I will have to do something nice together soon,’ she says, smiling at me.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  Then she says, ‘You are just like your father. He always used to help me unpack the shopping.’ I make a mental note to remember this – I suppose it counts as a memory for Priti’s box.

  ‘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!’