Ctrl-Z by Andrew Norriss Page A

and safety.
    ‘Everything OK,’ he was murmuring to her, his voice nothing like the rough tones he normally used. ‘Everything all right.
     No worry…’ One hand was stroking her hair and he looked carefully along her body. ‘You hurt?’
    Lilly shook her head.
     ‘Mr Kowalski,’ said Callum, ‘your trousers are on fire.’
    Some of the burning paraffin had splashed up
on to Mr Kowalski’s clothes and little flames were spotted over his shoes and the bottom half of his trousers. Mr Kowalski
     ignored them as he turned to Alex.
    ‘Go next door. Quick,’ he said. ‘Phone fire brigade.’ Then he placed Lilly carefully on the grass before beating out the flames
     on his trousers with his hands.
    Alex ran along the side of the house, his heart pounding, and when he got to the front, did what he realized he ought to have
     done when the fire first started. He picked up a large rock from the front garden and threw it as hard as he could towards
     the sitting‐room window. The glass shattered, Alex reached in through the hole to undo the catch, opened the window and climbed
     inside.
    In the hallway he could see that some of the paraffin had leaked under the kitchen door and was burning on the hall carpet,
     but he ignored it and ran into the dining room. The computer was sitting on the table and all he had to do was reach out to
     it…
    … and press Ctrl‐Z.
    ‘We’re going down to the park,’ said Callum, gesturing to the pavement where he had left Lilly in her wheelchair, holding
     Mojo the dog on a lead.

    ‘Lilly wants to feed the ducks and says can you come too.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Alex. ‘Right…’ It was taking him a moment to catch his breath.
    ‘What have you got in there?’ Callum pointed to the box of fireworks Alex was holding.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Alex. ‘I was just… tidying up.’
    ‘Are you coming or not?’ Lilly called from the pavement.
    ‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘Yes, I’m coming. Definitely.’
    It was one of those times, he thought, when feeding the ducks was about as much excitement as he wanted.

C HAPTER T EN

    T he incident with the fireworks was a sharp reminder to Alex that if he was going to do anything dangerous, he needed to make sure that either he or Callum was standing very close to the Ctrl‐Z button, preferably with a finger poised, ready to push
     down the moment anything went wrong.
    As it happened, nobody had been hurt, but the more he thought about it the more Alex realized he had been very lucky. If Mr
     Kowalski had not appeared when he did, if the flames had moved a little closer to Lilly, if he had tried to run across the
     kitchen and failed… it could all have ended very differently.
    In the days that followed, Alex found he couldn’t stop thinking about it. At odd times during the
day pictures of what had happened would flash into his mind and he would find himself going through the whole business again
     in his head. Try as he might, he couldn’t make the pictures go away and the image that came up most deter‐minedly was of Mr
     Kowalski. Mr Kowalski pulling him back from the door… Mr Kowalski walking through the flames to scoop Lilly up into his arms
     … Mr Kowalski with his trousers on fire calmly putting her down on the grass before beating out the flames with his hands…
    Alex had always thought of his neighbour as a grumpy old man who only spoke if he wanted to complain, but he knew now that
     he had been mistaken. Mr Kowalski might be old and grumpy and shoot at dogs in his garden with an air pistol, but he was more
     than that. Mr Kowalski was… a hero. On the day the kitchen caught fire he had shown the sort of courage you read about in
     stories and had walked into the flames to save Lilly’s life at the risk of his own. He probably deserved a medal.
    The trouble was that nobody
knew
Mr Kowalski was a hero. Not even Mr Kowalski. Alex wanted to tell him how grateful he was for what he had done and how much
     he admired him, but he