Before reading

1.	What do you think is special about grandmothers?
While reading
2.	What does Zed find out about destiny (the things that cannot be changed in one’s future)?

6. A place beside the sea

Zed enjoyed the sun on his cheek. The wind through the open window blew his curly brown hair even wilder and more tangled. He felt good. When he had woken that morning, his eyes scratchy and his heart still heavy, his mom had already made the arrangements. She had taken the day off work and phoned his school and called Grandma to say they were coming to visit.

It felt good to be in the car with her, racing down the long southbound highway at the edge of the Indian Ocean, while everyone else was back at school. The sky was pale blue and the sea was deep blue and the air was salty and silver.

After a couple of hours they turned off the highway and drove along a narrow road through green bushes, then a dirt road through overhanging trees. Red flowers and yellow bananas flashed in the greenery; there was a smell of living things, of things growing.

Suddenly there was the sea again, and the house was up ahead, a small white cottage with a pair of shady trees in front. There were no other houses for miles around.

Grandma was older than Zed remembered, but she was smiling and barefoot and her white hair was long, and that was just like it always was. Zed’s mom and his grandma hugged hello, and held each other a long time and murmured things that Zed couldn’t hear.

Zed’s mom had left him there. She’d return later to fetch him. After they had talked.

Grandma had taken a walking stick and a straw hat from a rack inside the door and said: “Let’s walk. It’s easier to talk when you have something else to do.”

And so they walked together along the golden yellow sands, with the gulls wheeling above them and the sea glittering as though strewn with broken diamonds and the spray rising from the waves in a salty haze. There were pieces of driftwood and broken shells.

“Your mother wants me to talk to you about these ideas you’re having,” said Grandma after a while. “Do you know why she thinks I should talk to you?”

Zed shook his head and looked at the sand. He felt embarrassed.

“She thinks I can help, because I helped before.” She paused to let that sink in. “I helped with your father.”

Zed looked up sharply.

“Oh yes. She brought your father to see me, ooh, many years ago, now. Before you were born. She didn’t know where else to turn.” She poked a piece of seaweed with her stick.

“And I helped, just as I’m going to help you.”

“You helped?”

“Mm-hm. You see, your father was convinced that he was a superhero too. He wanted to learn more about himself, but where could he turn? Your mother loved him but she couldn’t understand, so she came to me. Your father and I went for a walk, right here, just like we are doing. And afterwards everything was much better.”

She stopped speaking for a moment, but they carried on walking.

“But after he left I felt bad,” continued Grandma. “That talk should have happened years before, when … oh, I suppose when he was your age.”

She looked down at Zed.

“I should never have let him grow up like that. You can’t change someone’s destiny. You can try, but all you’ll do is make it more difficult. Do you understand?”

“I don’t think so,” said Zed.

Grandma smiled at him. “Yes, you do. You know what’s inside of you. And you know far earlier than your father did.”

She sighed. She stopped walking. She and Zed faced each other.

“Your father thought he was a superhero. And he was, just like his father before him, and his father before him. He was a superhero. Just like you are.”

Zed followed her in a daze. Could she really have said what she just said?

“Grandma, I don’t understand.”

“I knew your father was a superhero all the time he was growing up. But I kept it from him. I thought if no one told him, maybe he’d never know. Maybe it would skip him.”

“But why?”

“Why? Because what mother would want that for her son? Always in danger, always alone. Misunderstood. People thinking you’re crazy. And besides …” She sighed again. “Besides, superheroes die young. I didn’t want him to die young, like his father.”

There were small bright tears in her eyes.

“And that’s why I never told your dad. He was growing up in a normal home without a superhero for a father, without his father’s superhero friends coming round and telling their stupid superhero stories and singing their superhero songs. I thought he had a chance to be normal.”

Zed didn’t know what to ask first.

“How did Grandpa die, then?” he blurted.

“The usual way,” Grandma said. “Supervillain.” She looked at him sharp­ly. “You haven’t run into any supervillains yet, have you?”

“I don’t know,” said Zed.

“Supervillains are like superheroes, only reversed. It’s passed down from father to son, just like superheroes. And it starts emerging around your age. Round about now.”

“But … but why are some people supervillains?”

“You want me to explain evil? All I know is there are three kinds of wicked­ness in the world. First, people who do harm thinking they are doing good. Second, people who don’t care whether they do harm or not. Then there’s people who enjoy doing harm. Those are the supervillains. Plus, of course, they’ve got superpowers.”

“What sort of powers?”

“Each one’s powers are different. Just like superheroes. You don’t know what powers you have yet, do you?”

Zed shook his head.

“They’ll come to you as you grow. What you do now, the decisions you make, that will decide the superhero you become.”

Finally, Grandma had to stop for breath. They surveyed the sea.

“And my dad? What superpowers did he have?”

“I don’t know. We never spoke about it.”

Grandma lapsed into silence. They turned back toward the cottage.

“So what do I do now?” he asked.

“Now,” said Grandma, “you grow up. In time, you become a man. And when you’re frightened or confused or just don’t know what is going on, you give your old Grandma a call. I’ll be right here.”

She put her thin arm around his shoulders and pulled him tight to her side.

“Never forget – supervillains have an advantage. They don’t play by the rules. They cheat and lurk and do their dirty deeds in darkness. So you must prepare. You must study and gain knowledge. You must be one step ahead.”

Grandma was tired. She lowered her head and leaned more heavily on him as they made their way back. They seemed so far away from everything, out there on that wild shore, far from the world, far from heroes and villains and choices.

“Can you refuse to be a superhero?” asked Zed, in a small voice.

Grandma sighed. “You can try,” she said. “But you can’t fight what’s inside you.” Her hand squeezed his shoulder tight.

“I feel it in you, boy, what your father and your grandfather had. It burns around you like a white flame. I’m sorry. I wish it weren’t so. But it’s your destiny.”

After reading

3.	Zed’s mother takes him to visit his Grandma. What is her reason for doing so? What happened to Zed’s father many years ago and how did his mother help him?
4.	For a number of reasons, Grandma did not tell her son (Zed’s father) that he was a superhero. Which two of these reasons do you think were the most important ones?
5.	What is a supervillain?
6.	Grandma says that supervillains have an advantage over superheroes, what is it?
7.	Grandma mentions three kinds of evil in the world. Which do you think is the worst?
8.	Would you like to be a superhero like Zed and his father before him? Why/why not?