Hero. Sarah Lean

fate. Or not.

      Warren ignored me and George. Everybody usually ignored me and George. Except Beatrix Jones, but then she’s kind of unusual. George and me sat together in class on the far-side desk of the middle row. It’s like a blind spot, which is good for not answering too many questions, but bad if you do want to get noticed. For something. Just once maybe.

      “Anyway, we won’t need any of that,” George said. “You’ve got your helmet and I’ve made this.”

      From under his desk he pulled out a cut-out-and-build-your-own-amphitheatre, made from white card.

      “Nobody else will have anything like this. What do you think?”

      George has a different sort of imagination to me. I didn’t say what I was thinking, that perhaps he should have coloured it in before he built it, or drawn people in it.

      “Impressive,” I said because he isn’t usually good at arty things, and because he’s my best mate. But I had a horrible feeling that nobody was going to be impressed by either of us.

      Not in the real world.

      

      George was off sick from school.

      I was daydreaming out of the window, reliving the battle with the gladiator of Rome and making it turn out differently, with me winning. Then I was thinking about Jack Pepper and that he didn’t know how small he was, when Mr Patterson called my name.

      “George isn’t here,” I said, which I thought was a good enough excuse to get me out of doing the presentation.

      “You can do your part,” Mr Patterson said.

      But I’d left the papers at George’s house, and, for some stupid reason, all I could remember about our presentation was the gladiator’s battle with the tiger, which I’d already sensibly decided I wasn’t going to do in front of our class. Especially Warren Miller.

      So there I was in front of everyone, wearing my helmet, trying to explain about gladiators, but I wasn’t good with words like George.

      “There’s sand on the floor, like a beach, but obviously it’s not a beach, and there’s trap doors. So then the tiger comes out …” I wasn’t sure how to show that so I snarled instead, “Grrrr,” and swung my coat. “This is a net and …” but I couldn’t be the tiger and the gladiator, so I said, “Mr Patterson will you pretend to be the tiger?”

      Mr Patterson nodded and kind of hunched his shoulders and made his hands like claws, frowning like Warren Miller was.

      “And this is supposed to be a sword … or it can be a trident, which is like a garden fork …” I had Mr Patterson’s metre stick and chopped it in the air a few times. I thought about describing the different types of gladiators but it was easier just to make slashing noises and let the class imagine what I was.

      Then, just when I was getting even more anxious about how to end the presentation, I swept the stick around low but hadn’t seen that Mr Patterson was going to pounce and accidentally tripped him over. He fell, sprawling across his desk, knocking books, pens and papers all over the floor.

      Everyone burst out laughing and Warren Miller started chanting, “Le-o! Le-o! Le-o!” Then all his mates joined in. My cheeks burned and I couldn’t say sorry to Mr Patterson because my throat was dry and squashed shut, but he just smiled and said, “That was a very enthusiastic presentation, Leo. Perhaps we’ve learned that gladiator helmets may have restricted their view somewhat.” He told the class to be quiet.

      I’d really let George down but I was hoping I could rescue things.

      “George made an amphitheatre,” I blurted out. I wanted Mr Patterson to know that we’d done some good things for the presentation, I just didn’t have them.

      “I’d like to see that,” Mr Patterson said. “You can sit down now, Leo.”

      He crawled behind his desk to pick up everything and I ducked my head and went back towards the empty space where George should have been. How was I going to tell him later that I’d really messed up?

      “Nice one, Leo,” Warren said from the back of the class. He grinned, showing his sharp crooked tooth. “Who’d have thought, you of all people.”

      “I didn’t mean to do it,” I said.

      “Even better,” Warren laughed.

      I was rigid, humiliated and waiting for more sarcasm.

      “Come and sit with us,” he said. Laughter rippled through the back row. “No, I mean it. Move up, Josh. Come on, Leo. We could do with someone like you. I like your style.”

      He beckoned me over.

      I couldn’t believe what was happening. Not only was it totally unexpected, it was pretty awesome too. I didn’t know what to say or do so I sat next to Warren, and he put his arm across the back of my chair. Warren’s big. Not big and lumpy like Josh, but as if he’s somehow more than a boy. More than me anyway.

      He leaned across and whispered, “See what I can do for you?”

      I think what he meant was that he was like one of those Roman senators who had a say in what happened to you. Thumbs down: nobody cares. Thumbs up: you’re in. So just like that, Warren Miller made me a kind of hero, even if it was only in front of our class.

      “We’ll resume presentations next week,” Mr Patterson said standing up again.

      “I hate presentations,” I whispered to Warren, and that got me a soft punch in my shoulder.

      I was made up. It was like riding high in a golden chariot after beating the gladiator of Rome, and it felt like the whole universe of Roman gods and Jupiter were on my side too, because Mr Patterson said, “I think we’ll call it a day. You can all go home five minutes early.”

      Warren nudged me and was out of his chair.

      “Our next project is about space,” Mr Patterson called after the swarming class. “You’ve all heard about the meteor passing over the town in a few days. Perhaps find some photographs from the internet and some investigation into what’s up there in this universe of ours would be a good place to start.”

      The room clattered with knocked chairs and shunted desks as we rushed past Mr Patterson to leave.

      “Perhaps you could avoid re-enactments of colliding planets or big bangs when we do our space presentation, Leo,” Mr Patterson said.

      “Sorry about tripping you up,” I said.

      It was easy to say now, but I didn’t exactly feel sorry for the effect it had.

      Warren was waiting for me at the bike shed on his bike: all shiny black paint, twenty-one gears and orange reflectors on the spokes. Josh and the swarm gathered around him, chanting, “Le-o! Le-o! Le-o!” again. Waiting for me. Warren flashed his crooked tooth with a half-grin.

      I grinned back.

      He said, “Meet us at the Rec tonight at seven. We could do with a gladiator on our side.”

      

      It wasn’t just people that gladiators had to fight in the amphitheatre. Sometimes there were beasts. These were the ultimate kinds of battles for a gladiator. The thing about battling animals was that they were unpredictable. You couldn’t count on them behaving like men or other gladiators