Free The Invisible Hero by Elizabeth Fensham Page B

back of his car. Eventually he says in this frustrated voice, ‘Why on earth don’t you want to get in the back?’
    â€˜Because I like sitting next to you,’ the girl explains.
    Well all our group just wet themselves with laughter. All, that is, except Ruth who didn’t get the joke. ‘I wouldn’t get in the back, either,’ she said. Of course, once I’d explained the joke to her, she laughed and blushed. ‘And I wouldn’t offer a girl alcohol,’ I said. I’ll never be into drinking. It’s the truth, but I actually wanted to lighten her embarrassment. It doesn’t matter if Ruth’s slow on the uptake because she’s sure proved she’s not slow to stand up to creeps.
    My kind of hero has to stand up to something bigger than himself. For that reason I have been thinking about doing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It’s not just about making my grandfather happy. It’s because Ataturk was a bit of a superman. He was an incredibly brave army officer at Gallipoli, commanding his soldiers to defend Turkey. Eighty-six thousand Turkish soldiers died – a far higher death toll than with the allied soldiers. Dede’s grandfather was one of those who died, a photo of his wife and young son in his pocket.
    Dede was showing me a book about Ataturk this afternoon. Ataturk was more than a soldier. He became Turkey’s first President in 1923. Ataturk is the name he was given when he became president. It means ‘father of the Turks’. And he seems to have been just like that. He brought all sorts of reforms to Turkey,including introducing education for women. He said, “Everything you see in the world is the creative work of women.” And he said other wise things – like you expect a true leader should. Here’s another quotation of Ataturk’s that I really like:

    Every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow men.
    And then there’s something Ataturk wrote in 1934, nineteen years after Gallipoli, as a tribute to the ANZAC soldiers:

    Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they are now our sons as well.
    This letter is inscribed on a memorial at Gallipoli.
    I turned to my grandfather and said, ‘How forgiving can you get?’
    â€˜It’s gracious, indeed,’ said Dede.
    Tonight I keep thinking about that letter. Like, who would be happy about a similar sort of letter written to the Japanese on amemorial – maybe up on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea or in Darwin?
Ruth Stern: Wednesday
    The treatment Phil Dugan has copped at school has taken the fun out of everything. Like this hero and villains assignment is supposed to inspire us and make us think – at least, that’s what Mrs Canmore said. When she said this, I wondered if she’d heard about Mr Quayle’s public humiliation of Phil. When she was speaking to the class, Mr Quayle leaned back on his chair with a smirk on his face, like he has to go along with everything but doesn’t believe in it. If you want to know what a cynic is, just take a look at Quayle.
    It’s the only time I’ve seen Mrs Canmore react to Mr Quayle. She looked him straight in the eyes and said something like, ‘I’m sure you agree, Mr Quayle. We need to know how to identify evil – name it for what it is.’ That was a bit of straight shooting, for sure. Then she added, ‘And we need idealists to show us the way.’
    Well Mr Quayle leant further back in