Owen and the Soldier Read online

  “For my money, Lisa Thompson is one of the greatest treasures we have in contemporary children’s fiction. She effortlessly blends sentiment with skill, creating stories that excite the mind while tugging the heart. A rare, brilliant talent”

  MAZ EVANS

  “A clever, thought‑provoking story that draws parallels between past and present conflicts, and how we remember those lost so that we can move on”

  EMMA CARROLL

  “This truly incredible tale that comes from the heart is both a gift and a gentle reminder of remembrance, appreciation and standing up for what you strongly believe in. No one writes stunning stories with the depth of emotion and empathy quite like Lisa does”

  SCOTT EVANS, #PRIMARYSCHOOLBOOKCLUB

  “This book tells a poignant and powerful story about the importance of remembering and feeling heard … it had me in tears!”

  STEPH ELLIOTT, A LITTLE BUT A LOT BLOG

  “This small but perfectly formed novella is another guaranteed hit from Lisa Thompson … the messages she sends go right to your heart”

  K AND O: BONKERS ABOUT BOOKS BLOG

  First published in 2019 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2019

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2019 Lisa Thompson

  Illustrations © 2019 Mike Lowery

  The moral right of Lisa Thompson and Mike Lowery to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-78112-917-3

  For Clare, Jeff, Grace and Ella

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  CHAPTER 1

  Everyone has a secret, don’t they? Not a big fat secret like they robbed a bank or they poisoned their grandma by accident. But small secrets. Something people keep hidden deep inside, hoping it won’t bubble up their throat and burst out of their mouth for everyone to hear.

  Maybe some people secretly wish they could be a stuntman in a Hollywood film or perhaps they secretly fancy Amelia Carey in class 9A. Or maybe their secret is something a bit … different, like mine. Maybe they like to sit on a bench in the park and talk to a soldier. Not a living, breathing soldier, but a soldier made of stone.

  There was a stone soldier in our park. The park wasn’t really used any more, except as a shortcut on the way to somewhere else. There was an old toilet block that had bars on the window and was always locked, and there was a tennis court in the middle that was free to use. Someone stole the net last summer, so now it was just a rectangle of tarmac with a fence around it.

  I walked across the park on my way to and from school. There was a war memorial garden behind some high hedges and I always looked in at the stone soldier inside. He sat on a bench, all on his own, and one day I saw he looked different. There was a white stain across the top of his cap. I thought someone had scribbled graffiti on the soldier at first, but when I got closer I realised it was bird poo. There was no one around, so I went in and over to the bench. I got my drinking bottle out of my bag and dribbled some water on top of his head to wash the poo away. The water poured over his cap and ran down his face. I sat beside him on the bench.

  “There’s no need to cry about it,” I said as I watched the water drip onto the dusty ground. “You can’t sit there with poo on your head, can you? You’d look like a right idiot.”

  The stone soldier stared down at the floor. He wore a uniform from the First World War and sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

  I’d looked at the soldier many times as I walked past, but I’d never seen him close up before. There were a few lines across his forehead and his lips were pressed together. Some of his chin had crumbled away and half of one of his boots was missing. I thought he must have been sitting in the garden for a long time.

  “Do you like being a soldier?” I asked him as I studied his face.

  Dad once told me that in the last two years of the First World War, men didn’t have a choice about fighting. The people in charge of the country made them go to war. I thought the stone soldier must have been one of those men. He didn’t look so brave to me – he just looked like a normal man who was made to go to war.

  “I don’t think you do like it really, do you?” I said as I put my water bottle away and spotted a packet of tissues in the bottom of my bag. Mum had put them in there months ago. They were covered in tiny yellow ducks and far too embarrassing to use in school, but I kept forgetting to throw them away. I took a tissue out and began to wipe some of the water off the soldier’s cheeks.

  “Sorry about the ducks,” I said.

  I thought the soldier looked better now that he didn’t seem like he was crying. I used another tissue to wipe the last of the poo from his head, then I got up and put them in a bin by the hedge.

  The small area behind the hedge was known as the war memorial garden, but there weren’t any flowers or plants in it. There was just the stone soldier on the bench, the bin and a plaque with twenty‑five names engraved on it. Those were the names of men from our town who died during the First World War. I once asked Dad which one the soldier was, but Dad said that he represents all of the soldiers who died and that he wasn’t a real‑life person. I wanted to ask Dad what regiment he might have been in if he had been real. But I hadn’t seen my dad for two years now, so that wasn’t going to happen.

  I sat back down on the bench and took out a tinfoil parcel. Inside was my leftover sandwich that I hadn’t finished at lunch‑time. I normally had ham and lettuce, but today I had fish paste because that was all I could find in the cupboard.

  As I ate my sandwich, I watched the sun and shadows flicker across the soldier’s back. I almost thought I’d see him move as he took a deep breath and sighed.

  I screwed up the tinfoil and put it back into my bag and then I stood up.

  “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said, and I went out past the hedge.

  And that was how it all started.

  That was when I began to talk to the stone soldier.

  CHAPTER 2

  At school the next day, my first lesson was English, my worst subject. My English teacher was a man called Mr Jennings. He was young and funny and nice, but he was a big fan of something that he called “classroom participation”. In fact, he liked it so much he had a poster on the wall behind his desk that said:

  YOU ALL HAVE AN OPINION

  LET’S HEAR IT!

  All the teachers asked us questions in lessons, but Mr Jennings took it to another level. He asked questions all the time. Sometimes he even got us to stand up and shout out our favourite line from a book we were reading. Not all together, but everyone in turn. I hated his lessons because I hated talking in front of the class.

  Today, Mr Jennings read a piece of poetry to us. Then he walked around the room, picked out people at random and asked them to talk about what they liked and didn’t like about it.

  “Kyle!” Mr Jennings said. “After hearing that poem, do you think Rupert Brooke
was in favour of the war or against it?”

  He asked questions in a nice way and he never got angry if someone said something really stupid. But he did get frustrated if you didn’t say anything. Today, Mr Jennings pointed at me and asked, “Owen! What do you think Rupert Brooke meant when he used the words ‘caught our youth’?”

  I heard the entire class groan. All the other teachers knew I didn’t like talking in class, so they didn’t bother asking me questions any more. But Mr Jennings was quite new and he wouldn’t give up.

  I knew my answer, but I could still feel my face burning. The words jumbled around in my head. I tried to get my brain to grab hold of them and put them in the right order. I slowly opened my mouth. Mr Jennings folded his arms as he perched on the edge of his desk.

  “Come on, Owen,” Mr Jennings said. “You have views, I know you do. Share them with us!” He gave me a big grin.

  I closed my mouth, looked down and shook my head. I heard Mr Jennings sigh.

  “Unfortunately, it looks like Owen doesn’t want to give us his opinion,” he said. “Would anyone else like to share their views?”

  I heard the rustle of school shirts as a few arms went up, and I relaxed a bit. Mr Jennings wouldn’t waste time asking me any more questions today, so I was safe for now.

  The last lesson was Geography. It was fine because we just watched a film about coastal erosion and then the bell went for the end of the day. I was the first person out of the door and heading home before the others had even pushed their chairs back in.

  I walked down the road and turned into the park, making for the war memorial garden. I sat down next to the soldier, who didn’t have any poo on him today. I took out my fish‑paste sandwich and began to eat.

  “Mr Jennings thinks he’s an amazing teacher, but he isn’t,” I said to the soldier. “He thinks he’s so cool and hip and different, but that’s not teaching, is it? It’s just pointless.”

  The stone soldier stared forward at the floor, listening.

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t answer him because I didn’t know what to say. I know exactly what ‘caught our youth’ meant in that poem.”

  I screwed up the tinfoil and threw it at the bin. I missed, so I picked it up from the floor, put it in the bin and sat back down.

  “Rupert Brooke was happy about the war starting,” I said. “That poem is all about how he and his friends were excited about going to war. The war ‘caught’ their youth. Do you get it?” I asked as I looked under the peak of the soldier’s cap.

  “I guess you didn’t feel like that, did you?” I said. “I don’t think you ever wanted to go to war. You were one of the men that was made to go.”

  I grabbed my water bottle from my bag and took a swig.

  “It must have been really scary,” I whispered. I scuffed my foot on the floor and then looked at my watch. It was nearly quarter to four. I didn’t want to go home yet. I knew that Mum would be on the sofa when I got in, in her normal spot. She’d ask me how my day had been and I’d tell her that it had been the best. I would say that I’d told Mr Jennings what I thought about a poem that he’d read in class. Mum would smile at me, but her eyes would be as blank as the stone soldier’s.

  “Do you know what I want to be when I’m your age?” I said to the statue. “I want to be a stuntman.”

  It was true. Stuntmen got to be in all the best films and yet they didn’t have to speak. And they were brave. I’d read up all about it and apparently you needed a wide range of skills. I was going to teach myself as many as I could.

  “Do you know what I’m learning right now?” I said, and I tapped the soldier on the arm. “A forward roll. It might sound easy, but it’s important to be able to do a perfect roll first. Then you can do more complicated moves like fight scenes and tumbling down the stairs. You need to be able to do a forward roll safely.”

  That was what the man on the YouTube video had said anyway.

  “Do you want to see one?” I said.

  I stood up and kicked a few stones out of the way.

  “It’s all about going over onto your shoulder,” I explained. “Your head shouldn’t touch the floor at all. Watch.”

  I crouched and placed one knee on the dry ground. I put my hands down, then tucked my head towards my left armpit and flipped over onto my right shoulder blade. I rolled along the length of my arm, then I sprang up onto my feet. It was just like the man’s roll on the YouTube video. A small pebble had stuck to the palm of my hand and I picked it off as I stood up.

  “See?” I said. “I bet you weren’t expecting it to be so fast, were you? I’ve done about a hundred of those rolls and I think I’m nearly there. Then I’ll move on to backward rolls and side rolls.”

  I dusted off my trousers and the back of my shirt. I didn’t want to have to put them in the wash if I could help it. Mum got a bit stressed about that kind of thing now. I picked up my school bag and looked at the soldier. His sleeves were pulled up a bit and he looked strong, even though he wasn’t big. I thought he’d have made a good stuntman too.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said. I patted the soldier on his cap, then turned away and headed home.

  CHAPTER 3

  I was late for school the next morning. I went to the office, as that was what you had to do when you were late. I told Mrs Bachman, the secretary, that my alarm hadn’t gone off. She gave me a look. The kind of look someone gives you when they’re figuring out whether what you said is true or not.

  “That’ll be a late mark for you on the register, Owen,” Mrs Bachman said. “Are you sure it was to do with your alarm and nothing else?”

  I looked down at the visitors’ book on the desk in front of me, because I didn’t want to look at Mrs Bachman any more.

  “Yes, miss,” I said. “It needed a new battery. I won’t be late tomorrow.”

  Mrs Bachman tapped the desk with her pen.

  “OK, well, get yourself to your first lesson then. You’ve only just missed registration.”

  I wasn’t late because of my alarm clock. I was late because Mum was crying in the bathroom. I had to calm her down by sitting on the other side of the door and speaking to her. She came out eventually and said sorry to me and gave me a big hug. I told her to come downstairs and she sat on the sofa while I made her some toast and a cup of coffee. Then I rushed to get myself ready and ran to school. I didn’t have time to say hello to the soldier.

  My first lesson of the day was Art. It was my favourite class, so I hurried to get there as I didn’t want to miss anything. We were making clay masks and I was really enjoying it. Our teacher, Miss Cannon, told us we could be as creative as we wanted. Even better, she let us get on with it and she wasn’t interested in any “classroom participation” like Mr Jennings was.

  I sat in my normal seat in the corner. Miss Cannon was walking around handing out our masks, which she’d wrapped in cling film so that they wouldn’t dry out.

  “Class 9A, I’ve been very impressed with your work so far,” Miss Cannon said. “They’re really coming together. Remember to put your hand up if you need any help.”

  She gave me a smile as she placed my mask onto my desk.

  “Really good work, Owen,” Miss Cannon told me. “I love the simplicity.”

  I smiled as I carefully unwrapped my mask. Most of the class were making African tribal masks or the kind that you’d wear at a masquerade ball. But mine was completely different. My mask was futuristic. I had smoothed out the clay and I’d made small rectangular holes for the eyes. I was going to make some flat shapes to look like nuts and bolts and then fix them on the sides of the forehead. I wanted it to look like a mask from a science‑fiction film. When I became a stuntman, maybe I’d have to wear a mask like this if I was doing a fight sequence in space or something.

  I was just making a square shape when I sensed someone standing beside my desk. I looked up. It was a girl called Megan who was in most of my classes.

  “Can I borrow that smoothing
thingy?” Megan said. I picked up the tool and passed it to her.

  “You’re really good, you know,” she said as she stared at my mask. “Your mask is really original.”

  I nodded as I focused on what I was doing. Megan stood there for a few more seconds and then went back to her desk.

  I used some water to stick my shapes on my mask and then I sat back. It was looking really good. Miss Cannon said we could paint the masks after they’d been fired. She might have thought I’d paint mine silver or gold or something metallic, but I was thinking of painting it entirely black and the shapes red. That would look really cool.

  The lesson was over far too quickly – before I knew it we were packing up and getting ready for break.

  “Before you go, 9A,” Miss Cannon said, “can the following students head to classroom E10 before break‑time?” She was reading from a slip of paper at the front of the class. “Those students are Megan, Sean and Owen.”

  I saw Megan and Sean look at each other, puzzled. What was all this about? I watched as they headed off out of the class. Then I slowly followed them to the English block, where E10 was. My stomach plummeted when I saw Mr Jennings standing in the doorway, waiting for us. He had a big grin on his face.

  “Guys! Guys!” Mr Jennings said. “Thanks for coming down. Come in, come in.” It was like he was welcoming us into his house. “Right, I wanted to talk to you all about the opening of the new library next week. We’re having a ceremony and I would like you three to be involved.”

  Sean looked puzzled. “Doing what?” he said. Sean was clearly feeling as suspicious as I was.

  “Poetry!” Mr Jennings said. He fanned out his hands like he was revealing something magical. “I want you three to each write a poem and read it out in front of the invited audience at the library opening.”

  Megan glanced at me. “All of us?” she said.