by James Roy
“Yeah, sorry,” Danny said. “I had to get here early. Hey, I’ve got something to show you.” He took the medal out of his pocket and handed it to Caleb.
“Where’d you get this?” Caleb asked, admiring it.
“Where do you think? Captain Mack gave it to me.”
“For planning the Great Escape?”
Danny nodded.
Caleb turned the medal over in his hands and stroked the short ribbon. “Pretty impressive,” he said approvingly. “What’s it worth?”
“I don’t know.”
“It might be really rare.”
Danny shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You could sell it.”
Danny took the medal back. “I don’t want to sell it.”
“You might want to if it’s worth heaps.”
Danny returned it to his top pocket and patted it. “I think I might just hang onto it for now.”
Maybe Caleb’s right, Danny thought. Perhaps the medal is a rare and valuable one. William McAuliffe’s reaction when his dad gave it away had been pretty intense.
At recess he hurried to the library and went straight to the long rows of encyclopedias, gold bands on their spines all lined up evenly. After a bit of looking he finally found what he was looking for under Medals, War. He carefully took Captain Mack’s medal out and laid it on the page of black and white photos in the heavy book. It matched the one right at the top, the one labelled The Victoria Cross.
This didn’t mean much to him until he read what was written about it. The text said that the Victoria Cross is only handed out for acts of great bravery, and that such an award is extremely valuable. He was so excited to read this that he didn’t even hear the second bell and had to be reminded by a gruff Mr Whaley, who was lurking in the biology section, to get to his next class. Danny returned the medal to his top pocket and quickly left the library.
At lunchtime Danny and Caleb were sitting in their usual spot under the willow discussing what the library book had said about the medal when Shaun and Grant wandered over.
“Gidday Smell,” Shaun said. “What’s that you’re so interested in?” He tried to get a look at the Cross, which Caleb was holding.
“Nothing you need to know about,” Caleb said, reaching over and dropping the medal into Danny’s shirt pocket.
Shaun’s eyes lit up. “I might not need to know about it, but I’d like to.” He held out his hand and smiled menacingly. “Come on, Smell, cough it up.”
“Get lost,” Caleb said.
“Hey! I’m not talking to you, Farty, so keep your mouth shut,” Shaun snapped at Caleb. “Now, Smell, let’s see it.”
Danny shook his head. “It’s private.”
“Private, eh?” Shaun said, and he glanced at Grant, who stepped forward and grabbed Danny by the shoulders. As he did that, Shaun buried his hand deep in Danny’s pocket and pulled out the Cross. “What’s this?”
“Looks like a medal,” Grant said, letting go of Danny.
“Well done, Genius,” Caleb said. “Can you spell that? It starts with an M, then there’s an E —”
“Shut up, you,” Shaun ordered. “So tell me, Smell, where would you get something like this?”
Danny tried to stay calm. It wouldn’t be wise to get too excited about the medal at this point — not while Shaun was holding it. “It a gift,” he said calmly.
“From who?”
“A friend.”
“Is it worth much?”
“No, not much at all.” For someone not in the habit of lying Danny thought he did a pretty good job.
“It’s completely worthless,” Caleb added. “Not worth a cent.”
Shaun eyed them sideways. “Is that right? In that case I might have to get it valued, mightn’t I? You know, just to find out how worthless it really is.” He shoved it into the pocket of his trousers. “I’ll get back to you,” he said over his shoulder as he began to wander away.
Grant flashed a smug grin at them and trotted off after Shaun.
“So what happens now?” Caleb said.
“I get it back, that’s what,” Danny replied, standing up and striding after the two boys.
“Leave it, man,” Caleb said. “Talk to the teachers about it or something. You’ll get it back eventually.”
“But I want it back now,” Danny said. He could see Captain Mack’s Victoria Cross disappearing forever, lost in a pile of junk in Shaun Gilmore’s bedroom, and it wasn’t a nice thought. But it was as much who had given him the medal that made him do what he did next. He accelerated, running full speed at Shaun, leaping onto his back and riding him to the ground.
They fell heavily, and Danny managed to turn him over and sit on his chest. For once Shaun looked surprised. “Give it back,” Danny demanded as he pinned Shaun’s arms to the ground with his knees and grabbed the front of his blazer with both hands.
Shaun’s look of amazement had been disturbingly brief. Almost instantly he seemed perfectly calm again. “Make me,” he sneered.
Danny knew that this might present a problem. Wrestling Shaun Gilmore into the dirt was one thing, but once you had him there, what did you do next?
He didn’t have to decide, because Grant grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him off Shaun and onto the ground. He held Danny so tightly that there was nothing to be done but watch as Shaun got slowly to his feet and stood above him.
“Leave him alone!” Caleb shouted.
“Bug off, Farty.” Shaun grimaced and twisted his neck around a bit, playing up to the small crowd of boys forming around them. Then he reached into his pocket and held the medal out at arm’s length, so it was hanging by its stumpy ribbon. “You want this, Smell?” he asked menacingly. “You really want this? Then have it.” He slowly drew his arm back, preparing to throw it as hard as he could, right at Danny’s face.
“Hey hey hey, hang on a minute there!” said a man’s voice, and Mr Cullen pushed through the group. “Hang about, lads! Shaun, what’s going on here?”
“Nothing, sir,” Shaun said, lowering his arm and putting his right hand back into his pocket.
Mr Cullen frowned. “It certainly doesn’t look like nothing. Let Daniel up thanks, Grant,” he ordered. “Now, who’s going to start explaining?” he asked as Grant and Danny brushed themselves off.
No one said anything. Instead they all looked at the ground. The watching group murmured.
“Danny, let’s start with you,” Mr Cullen said.
“It’s nothing, sir. Just an argument.”
Mr Cullen gave a tight-lipped smile and shook his head. “Sorry, Daniel, but I don’t believe that it was nothing.” He held out one hand towards Shaun. “Let’s see it.”
“See what, sir?” Shaun asked with a straight face.
Mr Cullen made a beckoning motion with his hand, and Shaun reluctantly took out the medal and handed it over.
“So this is yours, Daniel?” Mr Cullen asked.
“Yes sir. It’s a war medal. I think it might be a Victoria Cross.”
Shaun laughed. “A war medal? Yeah, as if.” He grinned at Grant, who smirked in reply.
“A Victoria Cross?” Mr Cullen said, raising his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
“Well, no, I’m not really sure,” Danny said. “But it looked a lot like the picture in the encyclopedia.”
Mr Cullen turned slightly so he could examine it in full sunlight.
“It’s not a Victoria Cross, is it, sir?” Shaun said, the hint of a laugh in his voice. “Smell’s just being a show-off, isn’t he? He’s a lying show-off.”
Mr Cullen didn’t answer him. Instead he turned back slowly until he was facing Danny, although he was still peering closely at the medal. Then he raised his eyes. “Where did you get this?” he asked solemnly.
“He stole it,” Shaun said. “He must have.”
“Shh.” Mr Cullen’s eyes hadn’t moved from Danny’s face. “Daniel?”
“A friend gave it to me,” Danny replied.
“Your Scottish friend?”
“His what?” Shaun said. Grant snickered.
Mr Cullen turned and glared at them. “Boys, I hope you realise that what Daniel has here is the real thing. It’s the genuine article, lads — a Victoria Cross. At least, I’m pretty sure it is, and if so it’s worth a great deal. And I think you probably also owe him an apology.”
“What for, sir? He attacked me,” Shaun said, his eyes wide.
Mr Cullen bit the side of his bottom lip as he thought. “It’s hard to imagine why he’d want to launch an unprovoked attack on you, Shaun.”
Shaun screwed up his face. “Huh?”
“What I mean, Shaun, is that I think you’re a bully. Teachers do talk in the staff room, despite what you might think, and far too often I hear stories about you niggling away, trying to start these types of things. Young man, if anything develops out of this I’m going to fall on you from a remarkable height. I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Shaun muttered.
“And you, Grant?”
“Yes, sir,” said Grant.
“Right then.” Mr Cullen returned the medal to Danny. “Take good care of that, Daniel. You don’t want to lose it again.”
As Mr Cullen walked away Shaun leaned close to Danny’s ear and said in a low voice, “Don’t think that this is over, Smell. You might be Teacher’s Pet here, but school finishes at three o’clock, so you’d better watch your blind side.” And as he walked away he bumped his shoulder hard into Danny’s.
It might have been because he could feel Captain Mack’s medal weighing down his shirt pocket, but for some reason Danny didn’t feel the slightest bit scared.
“I’d like to talk about something different today, rather than the Snowy River Scheme,” said Mr Cullen. He smiled. “I know it’s straight after lunch, and if today is anything like every other Tuesday you’ll all be falling asleep anyway, so let’s talk about something interesting instead.” He walked between the desks to where Danny was sitting. He held out his hand. “May I borrow your medal, Daniel?”
Danny took it from his pocket and handed it over, and Mr Cullen held it high.
“Folks, what you see here is a Victoria Cross. It is the greatest military honour in the Commonwealth. There have been very few of these minted, and they are certainly not handed out willy-nilly. They are earned. Anyone fortunate enough to have one of these pinned on their chest has invariably endured a great deal and performed acts of incredible bravery. What Daniel did to win his is an interesting tale, I’m sure, and you’ll each no doubt hear it in time. Another thing of which I am certain is that Daniel was not its original recipient.” He turned the medal over and examined its back closely. “Captain F. G. McAuliffe was awarded this Cross. Daniel, do you know how he came to earn it?”
Danny looked up from the grafitti scratched into his desktop. He could feel the eyes of every boy in the classroom fixed on him, especially Shaun’s.
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Then you should ask him.”
“Yes, I will,” he mumbled.
“Good.” Mr Cullen placed the medal on Danny’s desk. Its weight made a heavy clunk which rang clearly around the room. “When you know, be sure to tell us.”
“OK,” Danny said. He stole a sideways glance across the room and saw Shaun and Grant glaring at him. Suddenly he wasn’t feeling quite so brave any more. I’m dead, he thought. I’m so, so dead.
The last two periods of the day were double woodwork, and Danny got so involved in the sewing box he was making that it wasn’t until he went to get his bag that he remembered Shaun’s threat. Then he felt sick. He wondered when they might do whatever it was they were planning.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out. They were waiting for him in the noise and bustle of the locker hall, and without meaning to, he slowed down when he saw them.
“Here he is,” Grant said.
“About time,” replied Shaun. “What took you so long?”
“What do you want?” Danny asked.
Shaun snorted. “What do you think? That stupid medal thing you’ve been carting around and showing off all day, of course.” He held out his hand. “Well, come on then — don’t waste our time.”
Danny swallowed hard. “You can’t have it,” he said. “It was given to me.”
“Not in the first place,” Shaun said. “It was given to your old Scottish mate, wasn’t it? And what did he do that was so brave?”
“He was a prisoner-of-war,” Danny replied.
“Then he was stupid enough to get caught, wasn’t he?” The two boys laughed. “A stupid old man and his stupid little mate with his precious medal. Anyway, what makes you think you deserve something like that Cross thing — you’ve never done anything all that brave.”
“I knocked you over at lunchtime,” Danny said.
“Yeah, and don’t think I’ve forgotten about it, either.”
“Look, can you get out of my way?” Danny said, pushing between Shaun and Grant to get at his locker. “Please.”
“Not until you give us the medal,” Grant said.
“I don’t think so,” Danny answered.
Shaun glanced around at the other boys collecting their things. “You don’t think we’re dumb enough to fight you for it here, do you?”
“You’ve done it before,” Danny said, pushing the last of his books into his bag and closing his locker.
“Nah, we’ll wait until you’re off school grounds. You’re not worth getting expelled for.”
Caleb arrived then. “What do you two want?” he asked Shaun and Grant.
“Your turn will come,” Shaun said to him.
“What does that mean?” Caleb asked, screwing up his nose. He put on a deep tough voice. “Your turn will come. You guys are so full of it.”
“Come on,” Shaun said to Grant. “We’ll sort this out later.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Danny said, his voice carrying a lot more confidence and bravery than he actually felt.
As he walked out of the school gates Danny could feel that his face was hot and his hands were shaking slightly. He wondered if he’d seemed cool or if Shaun and Grant had seen through his act. Who am I fooling, he thought. Of course they did.
“What do you think they’ll do?” he asked Caleb as they waited on the platform.
“Who? Oh, them? Nothing.”
“They said —”
“I heard what they said, but they don’t want to get expelled, do they? They’re gutless.”
“I wish they would get expelled.” Danny removed his glasses and polished them on his blazer. “It’d save us all a bit of misery.”
“Yeah, well here’s my train, so you’ll have to fantasise on your own,” Caleb said, hoisting his bag onto his back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Danny had just left the station and was walking along a quiet street towards his house when he heard footsteps behind him. He glanced back and was surprised — and shocked — to see Shaun and Grant a short distance behind. Shaun’s face was a mask of cold determination, and Grant was wearing a dumb-looking smirk. Danny felt his stomach drop. So this was it. Suddenly his mouth felt like it was full of flour, and he was conscious of his heart picking up the pace. Even his guts began to panic.
“What do you want?” he said as they caught up with him. The thin weakness of his own voice irritated him. “”You mean you’ve followed me home on the train and everything? I keep telling you —”
“Shut up,” Shaun said, pushing past Danny and turning so their faces were close together. “We’re not in school any more, so there’s no Cullen to protect you. Now give me the medal.”
“I told you —”
“Shut up!” Shaun said again, almost yelling this time, and before Danny had time to react to the sudden blur coming at him from the left, he felt Shaun’s fist crash into the side of his face. He heard his glasses rattle away as he fell to his knees, grabbing his cheek. When he checked his hand it was smudged with red.
“Get up,” Shaun ordered.
Danny wanted to say “I can’t”, but wasn’t sure how brave that would sound, so instead he tried to stand. It wasn’t easy, and he staggered a bit.
“Help him up, Grant,” Shaun said, and Danny felt himself being lifted by the shoulder-straps of his bag. He stood there on the footpath trying not to wobble about.
“Hey, it looks like I’ve knocked one of his eyes crooked,” Shaun crowed, and Grant laughed. Suddenly Shaun’s smile was gone as he hissed through tight lips, “Give me that medal. I don’t want to hit you again.”
Part of Danny wanted to give him the Cross, just hand it over and forget it ever existed. But another part told him that Captain Mack must have done something a million times braver than stand up to Shaun Gilmore to earn it in the first place.
“I told you, you can’t have it,” he said firmly. “It given to me by a war hero.”
“Do I have to hit you again?”
“Maybe,” Danny answered.
This time the punch glanced off his nose, and after the bright flash and the dull crunching sound, the fat pain set in. He was on his hands and knees on the footpath again, the weight of his full school bag pushing against the back of his bowed head. Bravery’s one thing, he thought, as he watched the steady trickle of blood from his nose forming a bright little pool on the cement, but this is getting ridiculous.
He watched Shaun’s scuffed black shoes and Grant’s expensive sneakers move in until they were right next to his face, one pair on each side. Then he felt hands reaching under him to his shirt pocket, feeling for the medal.
Danny fumbled in his blazer pocket and pulled the Cross out, holding it tightly in his hand. “You can’t have it,” he repeated, his voice croaky.
“I think you’re wrong,” Shaun said, stepping on Danny’s wrist and grinding it into the concrete. “Let it go, you little squirt. Let it go or I’ll break your arm.”
Would Captain Mack have let them have it? Would he have just given it up to a pair of cowards who’d stalked someone into an empty street? Of course he wouldn’t. Never, not even under the tropical sun with bleeding fingers and a swollen tongue. Danny’s answer was firm and strong. “Then break my arm, but you’re not getting it,” he said.