Hero

by Lean, Sarah

  “Aw, Dad. You don’t have to tell everyone. I mean, it was nothing.”

  “Don’t have to tell everyone! You think I’d want to keep something like this to myself?”

  Then Dad bear-hugged me. He was proud as anything, he said. I grinned. Finally, I’d done something great. Me!

  Jack Pepper yipped and wagged and jumped and tried to get on my lap. Kirsty rolled her eyes, but I could see the corners of her mouth turning up. She was enjoying the moment too. It was good. But it wasn’t true.

  Dad smiled. It was like the sun beamed out of him even through the grey gloom of winter.

  “I’ll have a chat with Mum later,” he said. “Money’s very tight but we’ll have a think about a new bike for you as a reward for being so brave.” He winked.

  And then it was easy to bury the things that I didn’t want to think about. Like a dog’s forgotten bone.

  Jack Pepper wriggled to greet Grizzly when I took him home.

  Grizzly checked him over. Jack’s leg seemed better already and he was hopping only every other step and too full of something else brighter to care about his injury.

  “Causing mischief, were you, my boy? Trouble and worry, running out the door,” Grizzly said, even though there was nothing going on but delight at having that dog back. “Lucky Leo found you, eh, Jack?”

  Jack Pepper didn’t care what had happened. I wasn’t going to say anything about Warren and his mates, what they did. And I guessed they wouldn’t dare either. Nobody needed to know and nobody would get in trouble.

  “Want to walk Jack again today?” Grizzly said. His eyes twinkled under his cap. “He’s really taken a shine to you, son.”

  Jack was waiting by my feet as if he’d already decided we were going out together again. Maybe there were new battles he wanted to fight with me, but taking him out now wasn’t really going to be a good idea. I kind of needed to get away from him for a bit. Besides, what would I say if I bumped into Warren? And what would he do? It was going to be easier to avoid him and his mates.

  “No, you’re all right, Grizzly,” I said.

  “Sorry, Jack,” he said. “I expect Leo’s off to see George. He won’t want a mischief-maker hanging around, what with him being a hero and all that.”

  I’d lied, but I hadn’t lost that feeling that people were proud of me.

  “Another time,” I said and was about to go. Only for some reason I didn’t feel like going to see George either.

  “I was a bit of a hero in my day too,” Grizzly suddenly said. “You know why they call me Grizzly?”

  I didn’t, although I guessed it had something to do with the fact that he was the size of a great bear.

  “Because you’re big and hairy?” I said.

  He laughed, like a pirate. “Used to be a boxer, many years ago.”

  Grizzly stepped one leg back and rested his weight on bent knees. Joints popped and clicked as he stumbled, growled and steadied himself. His fists closed, elbows high, big powerful arms protecting his head. He punched the air, showed me his moves.

  “In 1968, I took out Nicky Sullivan. Boof! Just like that. Didn’t see me coming.”

  An old match played in his memory. He commentated, ducked and cuffed the air. I got in there in the dream and the ring with him, with Nicky Sullivan the champion boxer.

  “Go on, Grizzly!” I cheered under the spotlights and between the ropes. I laughed because I thought that maybe Grizzly might know what it was like when I was in Clarendon Road with my gladiator helmet on while he sparred with his imaginary gloves. He talked of punches and blows and moves, defence and attack, his feet shuffling when they should have been bouncing, his shoulders jarring when they should have been flexing.

  “You have to keep your guard up,” he told me, “to protect your head. You need your body fed and fit for fighting, your heart strong for winning, but your head clear for thinking. If you don’t protect your head you can’t think straight, can’t predict the move you need to make.”

  Grizzly towered; his fists recalled a fateful jab. Jack Pepper leaped and barked at the ghost of Nicky Sullivan and Grizzly’s triumph.

  Grizzly’s hip clicked and the fight was soon over. Jack licked his leg again.

  “After that fight they called me ‘The Bear’,” Grizzly said.

  “Did you knock him out? Was he out for the count?”

  Grizzly counted him down, dancing unsteadily around as if Nicky Sullivan lay at his feet.

  Grizzly roared with laughter. “Saw stars he did, oh yes.”

  He lowered his arms, turned kind of thoughtful.

  “It was my daughter Lucy who called me Grizzly, Grizzly Bear, years later when she was a little girl and I told her about Nicky Sullivan. Said that fight made me her hero.”

  I thought that must have been good, having a boxer for a dad, but the way he said it, slowly, softly and almost like he regretted it, made me think Lucy knew something else about Grizzly that we didn’t. I know dogs can’t speak, but I swear Jack Pepper was listening to every word Grizzly said.

  “Just take Jack round the block,” Grizzly said, quick as a punch, smiling at Jack, snapping out of his dream. “He won’t mind.”

  I figured I owed him that much. I looked down at Jack. I saw in his bright eyes that he wanted to come with me.

  “Keep your head down,” Grizzly called from the door. “That meteor’s coming over soon.”

  Jack Pepper didn’t need a lead. He was there beside me, one eye on my legs.

  It was different this time. I thought about how easy it had been to make my family proud, and I hadn’t even really done anything. But I liked it; I liked feeling like another person. And it was all because of Jack. I owed that dog a lot.

  At first the ground wasn’t moving fast enough underneath me. My legs were twitchy and I felt heavy without my bike. The memory of the bump of the curb was still there, the handlebars that fitted in my hands. Then I started running, twisting, turning, stopping, backing up, like I could have done on my bike, and that dog just fell in with me. I could dart sideways or run or slow down and he’d stick right there with me.

  I felt good, like I had a lot of victories under my belt. I thought up a good battle for me and Jack.

  “I’ll be the gladiator,” I told him. “You … you can be a lion this time.”

  Jack Pepper squared himself up, tilted his head to one side.

  “We’re not going to fight each other though. You’re my lion and I’ve raised you from a cub. We’ll do this battle together.”

  Jack’s tail swished and I knew he had my back: we were a pair of gladiators together, a team. The way a dog looks up at you like that, you just know they’re going to stick by you and fight to the end. It was easy to forget what really happened with him at the pond because Jack made me feel like his hero anyway.

  Jack Pepper followed me to the end of Clarendon Road. We turned left.

  “The bear’s come back, Jack! Watch out! Over the other side, look, Jack! The tiger! You can get him, Jack, go on, you can get him!”

  We took them on both at once, circling and dodging. We defeated them with swords and teeth, had them lying obediently at our feet. We were on a roll and there was more to come. Jack Pepper was a mini gladiator, fierce and fearless in a much bigger way than he looked. I didn’t miss my bike, not one bit.

  Send in the gladiator of old! Jupiter roared. We took him on with his net and trident and Jack leaped and barked until we knocked him down and he saw stars, and I put my foot on his chest and punched the air to the roar of the crowd.

  Jupiter spread his arms and clenched his fists and thumped his thumbs to the sky. The charioteer galloped into the arena and circled us, holding wreaths of laurel leaves. He bowed down and put them on our heads to an almighty cheer.

  “We did it! We’re invincible, Jack!”

  Filled with our triumph, we set off to North Road where the shops were. We were still buzzing but there was a kind of dull hum hanging about our town.

 
; Nothing ever happened here. The council built the bike park last year, but then everyone moaned because not many people used it and what a waste of money, and it didn’t even bring more people into the town. So they started a market which was on today and we joined the slow march of people bundled up against the cold while we were warm and fizzing.

  Jack’s just about the friendliest dog ever because loads of people stopped and talked to him. Actually he stopped and talked to them. Not talked exactly, but, you know, like he had something to say. He’d look at them in that kind of bright way and, if he could have talked, he’d probably have told them about the battles we’d just won.

  People checked their shopping bags for a biscuit or a treat.

  “What’s his name?” they asked. “Is he yours?”

  And I said, “He’s called Jack Pepper. He’s Grizzly Allen’s dog – he’s looking after him for his daughter.”

  “Oh, didn’t someone say something about a little dog like this and a boy who rescued him from the pond?”

  I imagined Dad in the café, and Grizzly hanging over his wall, stopping anyone who passed to tell them the tale. The story bubbled through the market.

  “You’re Ben’s boy, aren’t you, little Leo Biggs?”

  Everyone knew my dad; everyone liked him as soon as they met him. Some of us have to pretend to rescue a dog from a pond first.

  My face flushed. I grinned. It wasn’t just my family and Grizzly who knew. Everyone did! I started to walk like Jack Pepper. My feet bounced off the pavement because it felt good walking with that little white dog in his ginger mask. I couldn’t help it: I just let them tell me what a hero I was. It was the best feeling in the world. Being noticed for something like this. Being famous for saving a dog.

  “I remember you from a few years ago,” the fruit and veg man said. “Always down Clarendon Road on your bike.”

  I had history now: they remembered things about me, linked me to their past, so glad they knew me. It seemed like it made them better, made them happy, just by knowing me and Jack.

  Jack was interested in everybody and he spread a smile from one person to another. It was magical, the way he’d nudge someone’s leg, wag his tail and they’d light up at him and our story.

  I filled in details about what had happened, things that made the story of rescuing Jack Pepper even bigger.

  “He was terrified and I just had to help him,” I said.

  “So what was it that scared Jack Pepper?” someone asked.

  “Uh, maybe a cat. I saw Mrs Pardoe’s cat earlier, you know that big ginger one? There was a fight; the cat chased Jack and he was so scared he jumped in the pond.”

  “And you jumped in after him?”

  “Yep, sure did.”

  “Marvellous.”

  “What a hero.”

  “What a brave thing to do.”

  “Could have been dangerous,” someone gloomy said.

  “Nah,” I said, brushing away the doubt. “I knew I could do it.”

  Soon I had this extra story changing bit by bit to suit anyone who asked. I basked in the glow of all the praise.

  “Lost my bike though. Had to leave it there and it’s probably been stolen by now,” I said, feeling the sympathy brewing around me.

  “No! What a shame.”

  “I’ll have to go without one for a while. Dad says things are a bit tight, but anyway, he’s going to have a think about a new one, you know, maybe.” It was hard to look disappointed, but I did my best.

  The lady from the pet-food stall gave Jack a rawhide bone to chew.

  “Hey, Bill! Sheila!” she called to the other stallholders. “Perhaps we could have a whip round; poor lad’s lost his bike and his family can’t afford a new one.”

  I went up to the window of TrailBlaze and looked at the bike that I wished for. I stood so my reflection and Jack’s was right by that shiny new bike.

  “See that?” I said to Jack. “Suits me, don’t you think? And I reckon it won’t be long before it’s mine.”

  Everything was different now. Once you’ve tasted fame, like dad’s chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce, you’ll make room for some more even when you’re full. Which is why, on the way back home, Jack and I took on two more gladiators at once. And Jupiter kneeled before us.

  I didn’t want to take my gladiator lion back to Grizzly just yet. Holding on to Jack Pepper, having him with me, made the whole feeling of being a hero more real.

  Our five o’clock visitors were at our house when I got home with Jack. George and his mum. I hadn’t exactly been avoiding George, but I hadn’t thought about him much.

  “Do you want Coke or Fanta, Leo?” Kirsty said when I came in the back door to the kitchen. “No, wait, there’s no Fanta left. George had the last bit.”

  “Coke then,” I said.

  I watched George through the crack of the kitchen door, perched tidily on the sofa in his tidy clothes with his tidy hair. He had a book on his lap. I didn’t know why, but suddenly he didn’t seem to fit in very well with how things were now.

  “Unless you want two straws to share with George?” Kirsty laughed, but I rolled my eyes.

  “Is Jack Pepper allowed Coke?” Milly said, even though she’d already poured some in a saucer on the floor.

  “I don’t think he should—” I said, but Milly wasn’t listening.

  “Oh, it’s okay, he likes it,” she said.

  “Leo, is that you?” Mum called. “Come on in. George is here.”

  The whole family were home and they’d brought the kitchen chairs into the lounge because there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit down otherwise, what with Dad taking up two seats on the sofa. Dad patted the small space beside him for Jack Pepper. He jumped up there, licked Dad’s face and then climbed up and curled over his belly.

  There was excellent food from the café for everyone, of course, and napkins and paper plates to save on washing up. In between laughing at Jack because he had hiccups, we were discussing the meteor.

  “It’ll burn and break up when it reaches our atmosphere,” George said. “By the time it reaches the ground it’ll just be tiny fragments.”

  He held up his book on space and looked as if he was about to say a whole load more about the meteor, so I said, “We get it. It’s going to burn bright and we’re all going to like it.”

  George frowned. I shrugged. I could do nothing wrong.

  “Will it be like a wishing star?” Milly said. “You know, like when we find the brightest star and wish for something?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “All your dreams will come true.”

  “Will they?” Milly said. “Dad, will they?”

  “Nicely said, son,” Dad said. “Something to wish on.” Then he toasted me with a can of shandy.

  While they all shared wishes, George leaned across and said, “Where’ve you been?”

  Just a few days without him and suddenly he looked like a different person to me.

  “School. Home,” I said.

  “Your dad told us about the dog, what you did.”

  For some weird reason, it was harder to talk to George about it than anyone else. I just kind of nodded a bit. Then he whispered, “I’ve got a question though. I thought dogs could swim?”

  Typical George! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Why hadn’t anyone else? How long would it be before somebody did? Why hadn’t anybody else noticed the big hole in my story?

  Then George’s mum said, “He’s a nice little dog. Good job Leo’s helping to walk him.” She smiled at Jack Pepper, stretched out, legs dangling around the curve of Dad’s middle. “Such a shame about poor old Grizzly.”

  “Isn’t it?” Mum said. “He should have had that hip replacement when they offered it to him.”

  “You know Grizzly though,” Dad said. “He’s been on about getting a mobility scooter, but the man’s too proud to be seen in town on one.”

  I didn’t know if I was imagining it or not because I obviously couldn’
t see if my face was as pale as it felt when all the blood drained out. It was like two comets were hurtling across the universe on a collision course, and it was inevitable what would happen when they met. I felt it coming: bad, bad news.

  “People have been wondering where Grizzly’s been, not seen him in town just lately,” George’s mum said. “Turns out he did buy a mobility scooter and somebody stole it.”

  BOOM! The comets collided. The scooter I’d pushed into the pond belonged to Grizzly. But I hadn’t known!

  “When people lose their cats, they make posters and stick them up on lampposts,” George said. “Leo, shall we make a poster for Grizzly’s scooter, just in case someone’s seen it?”

  “Did Grizzly lose his cat?” Milly said. “I didn’t know he had one. Mrs Pardoe’s got one. Is her cat lost?”

  You know that horrible feeling when you wish you could go back and change things? It’s called guilt.

  George screwed up his eyes and stared at me.

  Milly said, “What colour is the cat?”

  Everyone was trying to explain to Milly. It felt like the whole audience of the amphitheatre was there, all talking at once, all booing, hissing, turning down their thumbs. I couldn’t hear myself think.

  “Have you been back to look for your bike, Leo?” Kirsty suddenly said.

  “Did you lose your bike?” George said.

  I wanted them to stop asking questions.

  “He left it at the pond when he rescued Jack Pepper.”

  Jack Pepper sat up and looked at me. I wasn’t sure if it was because someone had mentioned his name or because he was interested to know what I’d say. I swear that dog knew what everyone was talking about.

  “What’s wrong, Leo?” Kirsty eventually said. “You’ve gone really pale.”

  George grabbed my arm, as if he knew I was ready to run, to escape what seemed like a trap closing around me.

  I shook off his arm and headed for the stairs. George and Jack jumped up and followed me.

  I stared out of my bedroom window, breathing fast, shocked by what I’d heard, not sure what to do. Warren had lied about the abandoned scooter and I had lied about rescuing Jack Pepper from the pond. We were both as bad as each other.