010. Heroes are for children

The Year Three syllabus insisted children identify ‘suitable’ and ‘stimulating’ heroes by drawing pictures of them, so in fourth period that’s what they did. Miss Marks wandered around the room and cooed at pictures of Batman and Barbie and President Obama and wandered how strict she should be in upholding the ‘suitable’ and ‘stimulating’ policy. Firemen were fine, as were nurses, cowboys and ethnic minority popstars – but Spongebob Squarepants hardly qualified.

“Do you know who this is?” Annie asked, as her teacher approached. Miss Marks started at the picture and shook her head.

“It’s you, silly,” Annie fluttered her eyelashes in the direction of the gold star drawer. “You’re my hero!”

Miss Marks tried to smile, but it came out all twisted. The lumpy crayon figure was her? It was funny how you didn’t realise you’d piled on the kilos until you saw yourself in a child’s illustration.

And then she saw Sam’s picture. The kid could draw, she’d give him that. But that just made the reality of what he’d put on the page even grimmer. A middle aged man, somewhere between bearded and shaven, with a stomach that sprawled like melting icecream over the top of his too-short shorts and a grin that, even in crayon, looked leery.

“Who’s that, Sam?”

“It’s Max,” Sam said, as he added a cigarette to the portrait’s hand.

“Is it your dad?” Sam shook his head.

“Your granddad?” Another headshake.

“An uncle, then?” Miss Marks was running out of suggestions, but the Children and Self Esteem Course she’d taken said she should try harder to accommodate Sam’s alternative world vision.

“So how do you know Max?” she asked him.

“I don’t,” said Sam, as he added a slice of gouda to the man’s other hand. “He’s my hero because he wraps up cheese.”

Miss Marks looked at the clock and wondered how long it would be until recess. Her blood sugar was low enough to breach the self-esteem guidelines, and she snapped. “He wraps cheese? That doesn’t seem very heroic.”

But at that very moment, a girl in Japan fumbled with a badly wrapped cheese. It slid out of the wrapper, across the floor and under the shoe of a businessman, who slammed into a police officer and sent him sprawling, crushing his mobile phone. As a result, the officer missed the call from his eight-and-a-half-month pregnant wife, and the child was born – abandoned and resentful – without his father there. When the boy grew up, he would become the teen idol for misanthropic youth, inspiring posters, two blockbuster movies and the formation of an underground cult. Twenty-three people would die as sacrifices to their flimsy cause.

Someone – not Max – had wrapped the cheese badly. The wheels of brie had been put in motion, and nothing would ever be the same again.