Unexpected Hero Read online

  “Most people, Benji, think the time of adventure died back in the thirties. You know, ‘the golden age of adventure’ and all that. They think there are no more discoveries to be made and no more blank spots left on the map—that there aren’t any more true adventures out there.

  “This man, Baker,” he tapped the book’s cover, “proved them all wrong. Culture, exploration, danger—I think you’ll love it. Now go, your mom will have a fit if you keep her waiting in the parking lot forever.”

  “I can’t wait to get into it. Thanks, Mr. Edwards,” he said, laying the book on top of his textbook and binder. “See ya.”

  “Have a great evening, Benji. Oh, and enjoy your break. And don't go getting yourself in trouble, now.”

  If one thing was for sure, it was that Benji never went looking for trouble.

  It always seemed to find him.

  3.

  Stairway showdown

  Benji left the classroom in raised spirits, excited to escape into another adventure book. There was nothing like taking a break from his boring existence and jumping into the life of someone more interesting than him. He went along with them climbing mountains, racing rapids, and chopping through jungle brush with a razor-sharp machete in search of the lost city of gold. The book sat on the pile in his arms, begging to be opened.

  The hallways were nearly empty and Benji’s footsteps echoed as he walked. The other students had run all the way to the exits without looking back, eager to start their fall break. Alone, Benji pushed the heavy stairwell door open.

  He stepped inside and heard the mocking voice.

  “Hey little girl! What's the big rush?” Trent stood on the landing below him. Benji turned back just in time to see Aaron Bergens, one of Trent's followers, walk in, blocking his way out. The door slammed shut behind them.

  Trapped.

  The taller, more muscular upperclassman took his time walking up, one slow step at a time. “You know, you should show me a bit more respect. I’m kind of a big deal around here.” A cocky grin stretched across his face. “And you aren’t. You’re a waste of space underclasswoman. I’m a junior—you should be worshiping the ground I walk on, not ratting me out. I might miss a game because of you, wimp.”

  Benji’s legs turned to rubber and a heavy weight filled his belly. He wanted to run away.

  He knew what was coming.

  Aaron blocked any retreat and Trent was only four steps below him. The star pitcher stared at Benji like a lion stalking his prey.

  “You’re below me, Stone. I’m getting ready to climb into my Land Rover to head home and your mommy picks you up in a—what is it? Oh yeah, some cheap, junker Ford.”

  Aaron laughed behind him and, before he knew it, Benji opened his big mouth. “Everyone knows your daddy bought that for you, Trent. Bought it with dirty money. Blood diamonds, right? He’s evil.”

  Benji snapped his mouth shut.

  Oops.

  His eyes got wide and his legs started to shake. He felt like throwing up.

  Trent’s face twisted in anger. He reached the top landing and stood over Benji, his hands clenched into hard, white fists. He leaned in close enough for Benji to feel Trent’s hot breath on his face. “At least I have a father.”

  Trent slammed his fist onto Benji’s pile of books, knocking them to the floor.

  While Benji hated violence, he didn't like the idea of getting pushed down over and over again and just taking it his whole life. He believed that sometimes people needed to stand up and fight. And he definitely believed everyone had the fundamental right to defend themselves.

  He braced his feet and suddenly whipped his head forward and up as fast as he could, using his legs, back, and neck to propel himself.

  His forehead smashed into Trent's face, snapping the upperclassman's head back. Benji lost his balance and toppled forward, knocking Trent to the floor and landing on top of him. Quickly remembering Aaron behind him, Benji grabbed his history textbook and scrambled to his feet.

  The smaller boy pivoted on his feet and swung the book like a baseball bat. It hit Aaron's face head-on. The force of the impact drove him back into the wall and he fell, his nose already gushing blood.

  Benji scooped up his stuff and jumped over Aaron to rush through the door.

  Maybe I can get back to Mr. Edwards and explain—

  He swung the door wide and ran through, nearly hitting Ms. Mathis, the ninth grade English teacher.

  "Benjamin Stone! You need to be more careful, young man! You could've—what happened here?"

  She stared past Benji at the two boys on the floor. Trent sat up with murder in his eyes. Blood trickled from one nostril and the side of his face was starting to swell.

  "Benjamin," Ms. Mathis scolded, "march yourself to Mr. Andrews' office right this minute. You two boys will come with me to the nurse's office and then you'll join him there."

  4.

  An injustice

  “One week of in-school suspension, Benjamin, effective beginning the first day back from fall break. Trent—I expect you to be more respectful in class.”

  “What?” Benji shouted. His voice cracked, filling the assistant principal’s office. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He was going to attack me! He cornered me in the stairwell and—”

  Mr. Andrews, the assistant principal, held up a hand. “I will not have a student raise their voice at me in my own office, Benjamin.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Benji said, looking at the floor, “but it didn’t happen like Trent said. Really. I didn’t sneak up on them, I swear. He and Aaron cornered me in the stairwell and were going to beat me up. I was just defending myself.”

  “Ha.” Trent’s father snorted through his pig nose. “Do you really think, assistant principal Andrews, that this weakling could knock my son down without sneaking up on him?” Mr. Micah Ironside gestured a fat hand in Trent’s direction, who sat scowling with a tissue shoved up one nostril and an icepack on his bruised eye.

  “You heard what Trent said. He admitted to making comments to this boy during a lesson. That was all. Then Benjamin retaliated by attacking Trent in the stairwell. Unprovoked! In addition, my son’s best friend is on his way to the hospital right now. The poor kid probably has a broken nose.”

  “That’s not what happened! He’s lying!”

  “Benji, enough. They make a good case and I have to believe them. It really does look like you started it.”

  “You haven’t given consideration to anything Benji told you,” Benji’s mother, Laura, said in a cool voice. “Why would he pick a fight with two upperclassmen? Does that make sense to you?”

  “Do you actually believe your twig of a child could go toe-to-toe with my boy?” Mr. Ironside turned to Benji’s mom, a sneer on his face. “There’s no way. He attacked him, sucker punched him. Unprovoked. Period.”

  “No, not period.” She pointed at Trent and stood to lean over Mr. Ironside. “Your son is a coward and a bully and someone finally stood up to him. And he lost, going toe-to-toe with a freshman. With my boy.”

  Mr. Ironside jumped from his chair as best as he could manage, his enormous belly jiggling. Laura had to step back to avoid getting knocked over.

  “I will not be talked to like this! Ironside men are not cowards!” He towered over her, his pink face shaking and his eyes wide.

  She stood her ground, brushing her fire-red hair from her eyes with one hand and with the other pointing a finger up in the fat man’s face. “What, you don’t like hearing the truth? We could talk truth all day, Moneybags.”

  “You listen to me, woman. You better-”

  “I better what?” Benji stared at his mom, her eyes burning with anger. She looked ready to go toe to toe with someone. Of average height and having the lean, muscular build of a rock climber, he thought she might actually be able to take on Mr. Ironside.

  “Stop this, now.” Mr. Andrews’ voice carried over the arguing parents. “I’ve made my decision
. Benji started a fight and will deal with the consequences. I have nothing left to say on the subject. We’re finished here. Ms. Stone, Benjamin, you’re welcome to go.”

  “This is wrong and you know it,” Laura said.

  She turned and walked from the office, her son following. Benji paused in the doorway and glanced back. Trent glared at him with hatred in his eyes.

  Well, Benji thought, smiling, Maybe in one eye.

  The star baseball player, Woodward High pitching god, kept the ice pack firmly on his face as Benji shut the door behind him.

  Just before the door clicked shut, he heard Mr. Ironside’s voice.

  “So, Mr. Andrews, has my donation been put to good use yet?”

  The door closed and silence filled the empty hallway. They walked to the front exit without speaking. Laura stopped outside and took a deep breath of the cool October air.

  “I hate that man.”

  “They’re lying Mom, I swear.”

  “I know, sweetie.”

  “It isn’t fair. Mr. Andrews didn’t even listen to me!”

  “Micah Ironside can be very persuasive, especially when money is involved. Making large ‘donations’ can make someone powerful in a small town like this.”

  “You mean bribes.”

  “That’s a good way of summing it up.” Laura looked at him and smiled. “Did you really lay out two junior guys by yourself?”

  Benji blushed and his mom laughed.

  “That’s my boy.” They crossed the parking lot to their car and got in. “You’re being bullied again.” It wasn’t a question.

  Benji’s silence said enough.

  “How bad?”

  “They make fun of everything about me, Mom, especially Trent. They all think that jerk is so cool just because he’s some rich baseball star and that he’s so funny when he calls me a girl or wimp or gay or makes fun of me because I don’t have any friends. It’s all of them. They make me feel like dirt.

  “This time I swear he was going to beat me up—right there in the stairwell. I know it. I’m just so tired of this! You know what? I'm happy he got what was coming to him. He deserved it. I hope he's got a black eye the whole break." Benji sighed. “I bet it'll just get worse now, though. I hate high school so much.”

  “I’m so sorry, Benji,” Laura said, taking his hand. “I didn’t know things were so bad. How about after break I meet with your guidance counselor and try to figure something out? We could at least get you out of any classes with Trent. Do you think that would help?”

  “And what, go to home ec and learn about how to be a lady with all the girls? It sounds like my worst nightmare. Besides, I like Mr. Edwards' class. I don’t think Trent’ll bother me anymore in there, but it’s everywhere else I’m worried about.”

  “Then how can I help? Tell me what you need me to do.”

  Benji laughed. “How about you fly me off to some tropical island far, far away from here so I can forget about all this and enjoy my life?”

  5.

  A dad would be nice

  They walked through the front door and went their separate ways: Laura to her office and Benji to his bedroom where he dropped his backpack, fell onto his bed, buried his face in a pillow, and screamed.

  It's so unfair! Why should I get suspended and not him? He started the stupid fight!

  He rolled over and stared at the stars stuck to his ceiling, his eyes following the constellations that were laid out just right. Draco, Orion, Scorpio. Just a few hops from the cup of the Big Dipper sat Polaris, the north star.

  I could use you to guide me anywhere. Anywhere that isn’t here. I could get a sailboat and head out from Gloucester, sail south to the Bahamas. No one would know me there. I could start over. I could be anyone.

  Benji thought about the look on Trent’s face in that instant just before he wiped off that smirk. Mr. Big Bad Pitcher, getting ready to beat up a freshman to show how tough he was. He’d been so full of himself, but in that fraction of a moment the only thought that could have possibly been going through his head was uh-oh.

  Aaron, though…that kid didn’t know what was coming until it was knocking on his nose. Benji smiled, not because he’d won a fight, but because he’d proved them wrong. Big time.

  Maybe Mr. Edwards was right—I just might be one of those tough, wiry guys.

  A cool teacher was nice, but a dad…if only his dad were here. A dad would be better. A dad would take care of everything. He would never let anyone bully him. He would teach his son how to be confident and stand up for himself and not let those jerks get to him so much. He would just be there. Benji huffed. Too bad his father ran off.

  He remembered his teacher’s book and knew it would be a great escape, even if it was just for a little while.

  “Benji!”

  Benji jumped and saw his mom standing in the doorway.

  “Jeez, Mom. You scared me.”

  “Well, I’ve been calling you for the last five minutes. Dinner’s ready.” Laura saw the book, now lying on the bed. “You get lost in another adventure? Where to this time?”

  “Tibet.” Benji smiled. “This guy Baker’s trying to get to the bottom of the deepest gorge in the world. Apparently it’s a sacred Buddhist place. It’s cool. Real-life Indiana Jones stuff.”

  “Sounds fascinating. You’ll have to tell me all about it when you finish. Now come eat.” His mom turned and headed down the hallway towards the dining room.

  Benji stuck a piece of scrap paper in the book to mark his spot and tossed it onto his desk, which sat under a map of the Karakoram region of Pakistan pinned to the wall; one of his dreams was to hike to the base of K2, the second tallest mountain in the world, located in Pakistan. A topographical map of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, less than an hour away, was laminated to the desktop and Harrison Ford kept watch over the room from a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie poster on the closet door.

  After one last glance at the constellations on the ceiling, Benji flipped the light switch and followed his mom to dinner.

  Midway through a supper of chili and corn bread, Laura asked what it was that had finally convinced Benji to fight. Benji stopped eating and looked at his mom.

  “He slammed my books out of my hands and got in my face and said, ‘At least I have a father.’”

  Laura’s spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. She put it back in the bowl and looked across the table at Benji.

  The last time Benji had brought up the subject of his father was two years ago, when he was twelve. She refused to talk about him then and had tried to change the subject. When Benji persisted he was sent to his room for the rest of the evening.

  His father walked out on them when Benji was five. He remembered the exact day; it was the first day of kindergarten. That morning, Benji woke to the sounds of his parents arguing. He couldn’t recall exactly what was said, but he remembered the yelling, and the slamming of doors. His father walked through the front door and never came back. Benji never saw or heard from him again. His father abandoned them.

  “Mom,” Benji said, “Why did you and Dad split up? Where did he go?”

  They looked at each other for a moment. Benji expected the topic would get changed, and if it did, he wouldn’t press it.

  “We never split up.”

  Benji’s jaw dropped.

  “What?” Benji exclaimed. “Then where is he? He left almost ten years ago. How can you not divorce someone who walks out on their wife and five-year-old son?”

  Laura sighed. “We should have had this conversation a long time ago.”

  “And you never would.”

  “I know,” his mother said, “I don’t like talking about your dad. I don’t even like thinking about him. It makes my heart hurt so bad I can hardly take it.”

  Benji stayed quiet.

  “Your dad and I had a huge fight that morning—one of our biggest. I was so mad at him!” She wiped her eyes. “But we loved each other very much. Oh, I m
iss him.”

  “But where did he go? Why didn’t he come back?”

  “He went to the Amazon rainforest and never returned. No one knows what happened. He just disappeared.”

  6.

  A real life Indiana Jones

  Benji’s chair scraped across the floor as he jumped to his feet. “Do you really expect me to believe that? That’s a story moms tell their kids when their dad runs off with someone else.” He stomped towards the hallway and his room.

  “Benji, I’m telling the truth. If you’ll sit down I’ll tell you the rest of it.”

  He considered her offer, looking down the hallway and then back to her, where she sat red-eyed and fighting back tears. He gave a theatrical sigh, trudged back to the table, and dropped into the chair.

  Laura continued, “Your father was an anthropologist who specialized in undiscovered tribes. In other words, he went through jungles looking for native people who have never had contact with modern civilization.

  “He worked for a nonprofit organization called Here First, a group that recognized the right natives have to their land—that they were 'here first.' As a part of this group, he found tribes in Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and the Congo. He would then study them, taking pictures and mapping the area, while doing his best not to be seen or get close.”

  “So my dad was an adventurer?” Benji said slowly, hardly believing what he was hearing. “Honestly?”

  His mother nodded. “He did it for two main reasons. One was to find and study societies that had never been seen by outside eyes. They fascinated him.

  “The second reason was very important to him: by documenting these tribes, he was sometimes able to have the land protected from miners and lumber companies for hundreds of miles around. That way, he could preserve their way of life. If outsiders came in the tribes would be wiped out by the destruction of their resources and the diseases they have no resistance to.”