Chapter 9: My Hero

Thursday 19-Apr 2007

Chris figured that getting Shahia's confidence would be a lot like herding a cow into a pen. Not completely like it, of course, there were obvious and important differences. But there were enough similarities that Chris planned his approach with this in mind.

Herding cattle on foot was a mind game, a game he'd learnt on the farm. You didn't want to come on too strong to them, confronting them directly; it would scare them, and they'd act unpredictably, maybe even get hurt, or hurt you. Instead, you had to manage them: communicate with them through their wariness, walking close to them on oblique angles, making it clear that the path of least pain and fear was the path that you wanted them to take, and just when the time was right, to smoothly and confidently close the gate on them. Done well, the cow wouldn't even get a little upset. And, of course, there was the most important lesson: Never, ever, get between a cow and her calf.

Every morning, he'd given Shahia a bright and cheerful hello when she came in the morning. The first two mornings she'd simply looked away, but on the Wednesday morning, she'd looked at him just a little oddly before sitting down.

On Thursday morning, she arrived at her normal time, and when Chris gave her his cheery welcome, she'd actually smiled just a little, and said a timid hello. Progress! And time to change the angle of approach. And most unexpectedly, Mr Hanson himself gave Chris the perfect opportunity.

At the start of English period, Mr Hanson stood out the front. "Chris Mackenzie, it's your turn for an impromptu talk. Your subject is heroes, and you'll be coming up to the front of the class shortly."

Heroes! What a gift, with Anzac Day around the corner!

April 25^th was Anzac Day, a national holiday in remembrance of a set of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand who'd launched a desperate attack, a marine landing against the Turks at some place called Gallipoli Beach in 1915. They hadn't known, of course, that they were doomed to lose, and they'd fought heroically against unbelievable odds for several weeks longer than was believed possible before being thrown off by the Turks. Anzac day had become the national remembrance day for all those who served at war, both the dead and the living. If that wasn't enough, he'd watched a documentary about the invasion with Jay the night before, helping his brother with an assignment on it, since he was the parent for the week.

And what a gift, with his ongoing campaign with Shahia in mind. Chris was so surprised by his good fortune that he totally forgot to be nervous, totally forgot that he wasn't good at this stuff. He was still trying to assemble his thoughts when Mr Hanson called him up to the front of the class.

Heroes.

The essence of a hero is someone who puts their own interests aside to serve the interests of others. Sometimes it's easy to think of heroes as people who do something dangerous, and these people really are heroes. Perhaps the best example of this is Private John Simpson, who served as a medic in the Gallipoli campaign.

Chris recounted the story of this famous soldier, perhaps the best known hero of all in Australia, known as the "Man with the Donk". He'd been second onto the beach, and then later he'd used a donkey to take injured soldiers from the front line down to the beach where they could get medical care. For weeks, he'd made trip after trip, in spite of the fact that he had no cover on the route, and he knew that the Turks were trying to shoot him. He'd laughed at the danger, ignoring even direct commands to stop because of the danger. Eventually they'd got him, shot him in the back with a sniper, but he'd saved the lives of many soldiers before that happened.

Finally he was buried under a simple wooden cross, with the words 'He gave his life that others may live'. And you know what? He was never even decorated for his bravery.

So in six days time we will have a minute's silence to remember all our war dead, many of them heroes, even though we don't know about them all.

And we don't need to know about it for someone to be a hero. In fact, you don't even need to do something dangerous. You just have to put your own interests aside for someone else. It can be done quietly, but it has to be real.

I know someone like this. In the hour of need, they gave up their own hopes and dreams, put them aside to become what their family needed, to save their family, to keep them together. I suppose it must hurt, what they've lost, but I don't think that they'll ever complain: they're just doing what has to be done.

And to me, that's a true hero.

Chris walked back to his seat. He had to be careful; he might've pushed a little bit close there. Now he had to be very disciplined and not spook Shahia. He was acutely aware of her eyes boring into him as he sat down, and he resisted the temptation to look back at her.

Mr Hanson stood up. "Well Chris, that was excellent!" He turned to the class. "Chris spoke with passion, arousing strong emotions in the audience. It was well organised, with a strong start and finish, and his content was excellent. Definitely an A. I think we might've discovered a new talent of yours, Chris."

Huh. It still wasn't a patch on what Shahia had said — that had been life changing — but that was par for the course for Mr Hanson. "Thank you, sir." Actually, Chris was surprised to get such approval from Mr Hanson, he'd completely given up on him, and it was a real pleasant experience.

Shahia was still staring at him when the period finished. Chris had maintained his discipline, knowing how important the oblique angle was. Now was no time for a confrontation, and he slipped out before Shahia could talk to him. He could positively hear her thoughts: Was that me? How much does he know?

Being a solo parent was a lot tougher than he'd thought. He felt as though he was starting to get on top of the housework part of it, though it was tiring. It just never stopped! But it was Jay and Bec who were making his life hard. He supposed that early in the week they'd been so intrigued with the novelty of the situation that they'd given him an easy ride. But not anymore.

The night before, Jay had thrown a hissy fit because he hadn't done his Anzac assignment, didn't know what to say. Chris had gone to his mum for advice, and she'd just said he had to deal with it. When he pointed out that he wasn't good at schoolwork, she'd shrugged and told him welcome to being a parent, that he'd just have to do his best. He'd been caught by surprise, actually, by the notion that parents didn't always know what they were doing. So he'd sat Bec down with her homework and Jay and he had run out on their bikes to the video store to get something on the Anzacs, and he'd only got to his own homework at ten o'clock.

Chris's cooking was not up to par with his mum's, but still, he could cook a bit - he was proud of that. So he'd actually been quite hurt last night when Bec had complained bitterly about what he had made. Didn't she understand that he'd put a heap of work into it?