Hero. Sarah Lean

didn’t close the book and I could tell he was still concentrating on finding out more about the meteor that was on the news. So I put on my gladiator helmet (made out of cardboard, by me) and bowed to my imaginary audience. They rumbled and cheered.

      “Jupiter’s coming now. Salute, George, salute!”

       The king of all the Roman gods with arms of steel and chest like hills, rolled into the night stars over Clarendon Road like a tsunami. Jupiter was huge and impressive. He sat at the back of the amphitheatre on his own kind of platform and throne, draped his arm over the statue of his lion and nodded. It was me he’d come to watch.

      I held up my imaginary sword.

      “George!”

      George punched the sky without looking up from his book. He couldn’t see or hear what I could: the whole crowd cheering my name from the thick black dark above.

      Let the games begin! Jupiter boomed.

      The gate opened.

      “Here he comes, George!”

      “Get him, Leo, get him good.”

      The gladiator of Rome came charging up the slope. I twisted and turned on my bike, bumped down off the curb and picked up speed. The crowd were on their feet already and I raised my sword …

      And then George’s mum came round the corner.

      “George! You’re to come in now for your tea,” she said.

      I took off my helmet and put it inside my coat.

      “In a minute!” George said. “I’m busy.”

      “It’s freezing out here,” she said.

      I skidded over on my bike. I whispered, “George! Please stay! It is my birthday. You have to be here, I have to win something today.”

      “I’m fine,” he called to his mum. “I’ve got a hat.”

      “Yes, but you’re not wearing it.” She came over, pressed her hand to George’s forehead. “You’ve got homework and you’re definitely running a temperature.”

      “Gladiators don’t have homework,” I said. George grinned.

      “But George does,” his mum said.

      “Mum!” His shoulders sagged.

      She shook her head. “I think you both ought to be inside. Come on, George, home now.”

      “Sorry, gotta go,” he sighed. He slipped off the wall, pulled at the damp from the frosty wall on the back of his trousers. “I’ll come and watch tomorrow.”

      “Do your coat up,” George’s mum said as they walked away.

      George turned back. “Did you know that Jupiter is just about the closest it ever gets to earth right now?”

      I looked up. Jupiter was here, in the night sky over Clarendon Road.

      “Yeah, I know, George.”

      “I’ll do some research for our Roman presentation.”

      “Yeah, good one, see you tomorrow.”

      “Leo!”

      “What?”

      He saluted.

      I didn’t want to go home yet though. I really wanted something to go right today.

      I bumped the curb on my bike, cruised back into the arena.

       The gladiator of Rome was lurking in the shadows between the parked cars. I could smell his sweaty fighting smell, heard his raspy breath. Just in time I hoisted my sword over my head as he attacked. Steel clashed. I held his weight, heaved, turned, advanced, swung. We smashed our swords together again. I felt his strength and mine.

      The crowd were up: thousands of creatures and men stamped their feet in the amphitheatre of the sky. Their voices roared. Swords locked, I ducked, twisted, to spin his weapon from his hands. I didn’t see the fallen metal dustbin on the pavement. I braked but my front wheel thumped into the side of it. I catapulted over the bin and landed on the pavement.

       The crowd groaned. Jupiter held out his arm, his fist clenched. He punched his thumb to the ground.

      I’d never thought that I could lose in my own imagination. Maybe I wasn’t even that good at imagining. I lay there, closed my eyes, sighed. It warmed the inside of my cardboard helmet but nothing else. Everything was going wrong today.

      I opened my eyes but it wasn’t the gladiator of Rome looking down at me. It was a little white dog.

      

      I didn’t know if dogs had imaginations or if they thought like us at all, but this little dog looked me right in the eye and turned his head to the side as if he was asking the same question that I was: How can you lose when you’re the hero of your own story? Which was a bit strange seeing as nobody can see what’s in your imagination.

      I leaned up on my elbows and stared back. The dog had ginger fur over his ears and eyes, like his own kind of helmet hiding who he really was, and circles like ginger biscuits on his white back.

      “Did you see the size of that gladiator?” I said.

      The little dog looked kind of interested, so I said, “Do you want to be a gladiator too?”

      I think he would have said yes, but just then a great shadow loomed over us.

      “Is that you dreaming again, Leo Biggs?” a voice growled.

      It was old Grizzly Allen. He had one of those deep voices like it came from underground. If you try and talk as deep as him it hurts your throat.

      Grizzly is our neighbour and the most loyal customer at my dad’s café just around the corner on Great Western Road – Ben’s Place. Grizzly was always in there. It was easier and a lot better than cooking for one, he said.

      You might tell a dog what you’re imagining, or your best mate, but you don’t tell everyone because it might make you sound stupid.

      “I didn’t see the bin. I couldn’t stop.”

      Grizzly held out his hand and pulled me up like I was a flea, or something that weighed nothing.

      “No bones broken, eh?” he beamed. “Perhaps just something bruised.”

      I checked over my bike. The chain had come off and the rusted back brake cable was frayed.

      “Aw, man!” I sighed.

      “Bit small for you now,” Grizzly said. “Can’t be easy to ride.”

      “Yeah, I know. I need a new one.” I shrugged, but I didn’t really want to talk about that. I’d had this bike for four years, got it on my seventh birthday; the handlebars had worn in my grip. They were smooth now, like the tyres and the brake pads and the saddle. I didn’t want to say anything about how I’d thought my parents were getting me a new one for my birthday, today. I guessed they didn’t think I deserved it yet. It wasn’t like I’d passed my Grade 6 trumpet exam, like Kirsty had.

      Grizzly picked up my bike as if it was as light as a can opener, leaned it against his wall and lowered himself down, all six feet four of him folded into a crouch.

      “Can’t do anything with this here cable.” He sort of growled in his throat, but I didn’t know if that was because he couldn’t fix it or because he was uncomfortable hunkered down like that.

      The little dog watched Grizzly’s hairy hands feeding