The Night Bus Hero by Onjali Q. Raúf

Author:Onjali Q. Raúf [Raúf, Onjali Q.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Hectoooooooor! Is that you?” shrieked my mum as soon as I opened the front door. She was hovering in the corridor like a traffic warden waiting to give someone a parking ticket.

I wanted to ask her who else she thought it was going to be, but I could tell right away that wouldn’t be a good idea. She looked angry.

Helen poked her head out of the living room and watched from a safe distance.

“Hector, maybe you can tell me why I got a call today, right in the middle of an important meeting, with the news that MY son was being interviewed by the police! The POLICE!”

I stood quietly and waited. If you interrupted Mum when she was shouting at you, it made her go on for longer.

“I cannot believe that you would come up with a story about seeing a crime and then lie to the police about it! Do you know how serious that is?”

“I didn’t,” I said, slipping past her and running up the stairs. “I didn’t lie!”

“You get back here RIGHT NOW!” shouted Mum, ignoring what I had just said. She was angry, but not angry enough to follow me up the stairs. “You wait until your dad gets home, young man. This is the last straw! I’m sick to the back teeth of having to try and make excuses for you and always worrying about what trouble you’ll be getting into next!”

I slammed my bedroom door shut and chucked my rucksack on to the floor. But straightaway, I heard footsteps outside and then a loud annoying knock. Before I could even answer it, my door swung open, making me wish for the millionth time that I was allowed to have a lock on it.

It was Helen, looking redder and spottier than ever. “Go away,” I warned.

“Did you really tell the police you saw the thief?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “So?”

“You do know that you can get locked up in prison for lying to the police, right?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s called obstruction of justice.”

“I’m NOT lying,” I said, pushing her out of my room and closing the door in her face. “YOU’LL SEE!”

“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to help you if you are,” shouted Helen through the door.

“LIKE YOU EVER WOULD,” I shouted back. I could hear her footsteps as she stomped downstairs.

My stomach was growling at me, so I pulled out my stash box and, sitting down at my desk, started to munch on an extra-large chocolate nut bar and a bag of onion rings. As I switched on my computer and poured the last crumbs of the chips straight into my mouth, my bedroom door swung open again. I got ready to yell at Helen to get out, but it was only Hercules. He was playing his favorite game of pretending to be jumping on an imaginary pogo stick. For some reason, he had a line of glitter joining up his eyebrows.

“Boing-boing-boing,” he announced, bouncing in a circle around me.

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