Read Online The Invisible Hero by Elizabeth Fensham - Free Book Online Page B

Quayle’s eyebrows raise and then he says with a smirk, ‘You’re quite the poet, Dugan.’
    Dill’s head is hanging low, and anyway those dumb blue glasses stop you from seeing the expression in his eyes – but his jaw is twitching.
    â€˜Come on now, you deserve a bit of positive attention,’ smiles Quayle. ‘Look at this! Beautiful like a Madonna painting, green eyes, milky skin. ’
    Of course, all heads turn to the snooty Raphaela. She’s looking as horrified as a princess might be who’s been proposedto by a toad. So she’s the hero that our Dill has chosen. But before we can comment on that, Quayle starts reading Dill’s book again, ‘What’s this? A deep pool of... ’
    But we never hear the rest. Dill has rushed up to Quayle, wrenched the book out of his hands and stormed out of the class. Now that’s a first for Dugan the Dill. And what’s more, he kept on marching right out of the school and, we’ve heard on the grapevine, all one-and-a-half hours by foot to his Nanna’s warm embrace at home. He’s in for it now.
    I reckon this counts as SOSE work. I call it research into what other people see as heroes. Poor suckers.
    But according to my mate, Machiavelli, Quayle has made a big mistake. He’s broken one of the golden rules. And that is, most men will put up with the ruler or be reasonably content as long as they don’t have their possessions or their women taken off them. Now as far as I can see the situation with Dill, Quayle has pinched his book and humiliated him in front of his chosen woman. Bad move.
    The general feeling in the class (apart from enjoying the live entertainment we’ve all been treated to) is that Quayle has stepped out of line. Personally, I couldn’t be gladder, but to take a leaf out of my hero’s book, I need to appear to agree with the class. So after class, I go along with the general mood of the kids and we all bag Quayle. I reckon I could rule the world one day.
Raphaela Rosetti: Tuesday
    I feel so bad. Not for doing something bad, but for not doing something right. Nonna used to tell me that you don’t just do bad things, you can be bad by not doing what you should. I can hardly bear to write this down, to admit this even to the paper – but I have to.
    Yesterday, I sat by silently as someone in my class was persecuted. Philip Dugan. As far as I know he’s never done anything mean against a kid in the class. He’s been one of less than a handful of kids to offer me a kind word in this place.
    There was Philip being humiliated by the teacher in front of the class by having his journal read out. Of course I was embarrassed by what he wrote about me – all that stuff about green eyes and milky skin. I wish he hadn’t. In fact, I was repulsed that he might have the hots for me and I just can’t look him in the face now. But it was so wrong of Mr Quayle, smiling away like a kind of groper – his long teeth pointing backwards into his mouth – making public the private thoughts of one of his students.
    But when I saw Philip shrinking into himself as if he’d like to eat himself into oblivion, I saw my own humiliation was not nearly as bad. When Philip asked Mr Quayle, so politely, to stop, I wanted to stand up for him. I looked around the room. Genelle, Amber and Tiffany were smirking. Macca was leaning forward on his desk, chin cupped in his hands, as if he was doing some fascinating scientific study. Macca’s minions, de Grekh and Cheung, leant back on their chairs like Romans out for a day’sentertainment watching Christians being fed to the lions. It was clear just about everyone else was uncomfortable. But we stayed silent. I stayed silent.
    Then comes my second cowardly act. Two in one day. Ruth Stern, the girl some kids call Waterworks, did the brave thing and asked the teacher to stop embarrassing Phil. Big watery blue eyes, scrawny