Читать книгу SuperZero (school edition) - Darrel Bristow-Bovey - Страница 4

Before reading

1.	Why are garages, old loft rooms, and attics often so interesting? What are some of the things that are usually stored there?
2.	Which comic book superhero is your favourite? Which super powers would you like to have?
While reading
3.	Why does Zed enjoy the comics so much?

2. The box of secrets

One afternoon Zed was poking around the garage. In the side where his father’s car used to be parked there was a great clutter of boxes and trunks and plastic packets stuffed with his dad’s old things. Zed liked poking through it, not looking for anything in particular, but because it was nice to go through his dad’s old things.

On this day he pushed aside a pile of yellow plastic packets filled with handkerchiefs and ties, and there against the wall was a large wooden box he’d never seen before.

It was nearly as long as he was, painted pale blue, with rusted metal hinges. The lid creaked and coughed and puffed dust and cobwebs. A curious smell wafted out – a smell of wood and powder and … a dry smell, like sunlight.

Zed peered nervously inside and saw … comics! Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, all jumbled and higgledy-piggledy. They almost filled the box, a sea of comics.

“Wow,” said Zed.

He sat on his haunches and picked one at random. Spiderman. He checked the date on the cover. January, 1978. 1978! That was long before he was born. But who …?

“Zed! Come in! Supper’s ready!”

His mom’s face grew serious when she saw him come in reading Spiderman.

“Oh. So you’ve found them.”

“There’s a whole box of them! It’s sort of pale blue …”

His mother sighed. “Yes, I know,” she said. “Those were your dad’s.”

His mom didn’t talk about his dad very often. He had died when Zed was much younger, and Zed hardly remembered him, just that he was tall, and that he was his dad.

“I always told him he was too old to read comics, and that I was going to throw them away, and he said I couldn’t, because you would need them one day.”

“Me?”

“He said it was very important you had them. That you’d need them. That’s why they’re still there, taking up space. So? Do you want them? Or should I throw them out?”

“Mom!”

“Well, they’ll have to wait. Homework and then bed.”

“But Mom …”

“Homework. Then bed.”

But how could he sleep? He waited in bed for the lights to go out and his mom’s bedroom door to close. He tiptoed through and found the torch and slipped out of the house. The moon was full and silver and the night smelt of flowers. The concrete floor of the garage was warm under his bare feet. He lowered himself into the pale blue box, slipping his legs between the cool covers of the comics, like sliding into cold water.

He propped the torch on the edge of the box and began to read. As the stars turned in the dark sky, his mind began to fill. His head grew heavy and his eyes burnt, but he couldn’t put aside the Silver Surfer and Mr Fantastic and the Atom and the Flash. He imagined his father reading them – these very comics, turning these actual pages, smiling at the same jokes. Which had been his favourite superhero? Captain Marvel? Green Lantern? Batman?

My dad wanted me to have these comics.

The thought made him feel … special.

Zed was still feeling special the next day as he rode his bike to school. Maybe he was feeling too special. Normally when he reached the top of steep Beacon Hill he was smart enough to get off and push his bike all the way down.

Zed peered down over the handlebars. Far below, at the bottom of the hill, there was a rush of traffic. It was so far down the pedestrians looked like ants. A breeze ruffled his hair. Why not? You can do it. Why not? It felt as if a voice was whispering in his ear.

“Yes,” said Zed out loud, talking to no one. “Why not?’

As the bike gathered speed, Zed felt totally calm, as though he wasn’t really there, as though he was watching a movie. He supposed that this was what it felt like to be Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. It felt good.

It didn’t last long. It lasted roughly two seconds until Zed tried the back brakes. Nothing happened. He squeezed again. The bike just gathered more speed. The wind was making his eyes water now. Two lamp posts whipped past, three, four.

Zed pulled hard on the back brake, pulled the lever flat against the handle­­bar. Nothing. The front wheel began to wobble with the speed.

Lamp post five.

Six.

If he pulled the front brakes now, the bike would stop dead and he would fly over the handlebars, miles into the air, straight down Beacon Hill. He could already feel his skin against the road.

Zed was going too fast to be scared now, too fast to think. Someone shouted and the voice vanished behind him. He stopped breathing.

Zed could see nothing but black tarmac rushing by so fast it seemed grey. He was only a lamp post from the bottom, where Beacon Hill ran straight into Bluff Road with its cars and taxis, its hot current of steel. He had to do something before he flew into that stream of roaring metal. He had to …

The bike hit the flat tarmac at the bottom with a jolt that shot up his arms, and flew across the white line, straight into the heart of Bluff Road.

Zed was in the first lane. He felt the car coming from the right, a Toyota, and the air being pushed in front of it. Dotted white lines flashed under his tyres.

Across the centre line just before the Toyota swept past, there were ve­hicles coming from the left. Zed saw a bus. It was already on top of him.

Later, he couldn’t work out exactly how he did it. He leaned over in his saddle until the whole bike was at a crazy angle to the road. Then the wheels slid out and he was sliding across the lane, two sets of flying sparks as the pedal and brake lever scraped the road.

There was a sudden roar and rush and a swirl of wind. It was all black and roaring and orange sparks, then sunlight again and the bike slid off the road onto the grassy verge, Zed still in the saddle.

He lay on the grass, the sun on the side of his face, trying to understand.

He had slid between the wheels, and out the other side!

Zed sat up slowly. It was the kind of move you expect from Batman, or from The Flash, who’s so quick he can run between traffic, or maybe the Atom, who can make himself so small he can be blown like pollen in the swirling air between the cars. Not a normal schoolkid on a bicycle.

Zed went home, his head sore and dizzy. He dropped the bike outside the back door and went through to the garage. He climbed inside the box and closed his eyes. He felt safe there. The comics gave him energy. The comics …

And then his eyes snapped open.

A thought had come to him, from nowhere:

You’re special. That wasn’t an accident.

But how could that be, unless …

No …

No, it couldn’t be … could it?

But what if …

what …

if …

What if he was a superhero?

After reading

4.	The words “used to be parked” and “those were your dad’s” seem to indicate that Zed’s father is dead. Why would Zed enjoy going through his father’s things?
5.	Are the words, “a sea of comics” a good way to describe the hundreds of comics lying there in the blue box? Why?
6.	What does his mother think about adults reading comics?
7. a)	What is the difference between something you “need” and something you “want”?
7. b)	Why did Zed’s father feel that Zed would “need” the comics instead of just “want” them, do you think?
8.	Suggest why Zed sits in the box with the comics all over his legs, instead of taking them out and reading them one at a time?
9.	What does the voice tell him to do? Is this sensible? Why? Why not?
10.	What did Zed do to avoid being hit by the bus? Why does this make him feel like a superhero?