Colin woke up and opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling, he had put a picture of a bridge in the night up there. He really wished he could just run across that bridge away from the life he lived. He got up, and jumped out of his tiny cot onto the floor. He walked across the room to the other side where the stove was. He turned it on at a low heating and then turned around to pee in his bucket. Ever since his parents had died he had lived like this. They had had no money either. He took one of the dozens of cans out of the box and opened it. He emptied the beans onto a pan he had found in the trash. He put the pan on the stove and walked back to the cot. Next to it there was his duffel bag. He pulled out his only other t-shirt and took at one of the two other pairs of underwear. He changed and went to the stove. He emptied the beans into an empty sardine tin and took the plastic fork he had stolen from a fast food restaurant’s trash. He quickly ate everything. He had to get out of the basement before the school janitor came. He hid his stuff in a big box and pushed it to the corner of the room.
After going upstairs he went through the vent into the library where he went to his hiding spot. He took out one of the books he had stolen. It was about learning Spanish. He was only on chapter two. He had only four weeks before the end of the school year. He only had four weeks until he had to leave. He had saved up enough money to fly to Paris from where he would hitchhike all the way to Madrid. He had to learn Spanish in that time. He had to. He looked at the watch he had stolen from lost and found. People would start arriving soon. Colin put the book back and crawled out of the library. He went outside and then ran to the back alley behind the diner across the street. He sifted through the trash like he did every day. He started to cross the street to get back to school when he saw a little girl run across the street and a speeding car. She was going to be killed so he did what he had to. He ran across the street and pushed the little girl out of the way. She turned around to see who had pushed her when she saw the car speed by and the body of the boy who had saved her. He was on the ground with cuts everywhere. He was dying. She screamed. She didn’t know what else to do. The man in the diner across the street heard the scream and turned towards the girl. He saw the boy on the ground. His eyes widened. He told his wife to call 911 as he ran out the door. He ran to the body on the ground. He saw the life leaving Colin. He could see the despair and death in the boy’s eyes. He picked him up. As teachers and students arrived they went to the man. The ambulance arrived. The boy wasn’t breathing. The paramedic gave him CPR. Everybody was crying the little girl was in the arms of the man who had first noticed. He held her to calm her but he was crying himself. The paramedics put him in the ambulance. They set him up to the machine but then he was gone. No breathing. No pulse. Nothing. This boy who had risked his life for this little girl had died. He died a hero. The principal went to the morgue that day to identify the boy. She recognized him as Colin.
The next day she brought together the entire senior class to tell them of the passing of the classmate. No one really knew him but they all felt some pain. The girls cried and the boys comforted them but they tears in their eyes. The janitor found Colin’s box and the librarian found his hiding spot. They had never known him. He had been invisible for over twelve years. He had no friends. No acquaintances. The boy who had died a hero had been alone his entire life. His parents had died before he was ten. He had no other family. But now everybody thought about him. They wished they had known him better or at all for that matter. The principal had organized a funeral by asking them to contribute to the ceremony. On the tombstone it said, “Hero, Savior and Role Model.” They made a tribute to him in front of his locker. The little girl’s family had gone to the funeral. The little girl had bought a flower for her hero.
She wrote about him for the assignment “my hero”. As she grew she never forgot. He was always there for her. When she felt alone or sad he would comfort her. When she went to high school she asked for the locker next his. She grew up to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner. In her acceptance speech she thanked him more than anyone, even her parents. She started a foundation to help orphan children and she named it after him. Her first son’s name was Colin. She never forgot him. She told her children about the story how he had saved her life. And when they grew too old she told her grandchildren. She never forgot.