A Fellow Just Like Him
Some of my very best friends have never lived.
But they are no less real. They are with me all the time. As I go through my day I can imagine what they'd say about something, how they'd react to a situation, the real people I know whom they would like too.
I visit them whenever I need laughter of their presence or guidance from their approach to life. But the only way I can get back with them is to pick up the book that houses them and reread the story again. These friends are old and young, male and female, human and......not. Today's focus is the young men among them.
Prove Yourself a Hero by K. M. Peyton
The world of steeplechase horse racing is where Peter's and Jonathan's lives intersect, but otherwise their stations in life are wide apart. Peter lives a hardscrapple life whereas Jonathan is the child of great wealth, a student at a posh private school.
So that day Peter thought it was luck when a plumbers' van pulled up alongside them and asked directions to the Meredith mansion. Jonathan climbed in to show them the way and Peter cycled on alone. Then that night the police came to interrogate Peter.
He felt appalled, trying to think what must have happened when Jonathan realized that he wasn't going home. Serious kidnappers, as he understood it, were pretty ruthless. Jonathan could hardly be enjoying himself at this moment. He pointed this out, coldly, to his father, and his father said, 'If the boy's worth his salt, he'll give them the slip.'
Peter thought this a stupid thing to say. 'If the kidnappers are worth their salt, they won't let him, surely?'
'Well, he's bold enough on a horse. He's not one of your ninny boys. I reckon he'll keep them on their toes.'
Peter decided, not for the first time, that he wasn't on the same wave-length as his father. What being bold on a horse had to do with evading kidnappers he did not follow. Jonathan might be bold on a horse because he knew horses backwards and didn't have anything to fear; but, horses apart, he was quite a sensitive lad and not much given to violence. Quite clever enough to appreciate the danger he was in. And imaginative enough not to enjoy it at all.
Peter McNair and Jonathan Meredith inhabit several of K.M. Peyton's books: The Team, Prove Yourself a Hero, A Midsummer's Night Death, and Free Rein. As memorable likable as they are, I esteem the author for even more than creating their characters. When it comes to describing willful horses and the challenges inherent in riding them, Peyton is an incomparable describer of the British horse racing scene.
Tex by S. E. Hinton
S.E. Hinton has a knack for creating memorable characters, particularly guys. There's Ponyboy, and Dallas, and Johnny, but the one I wish was real is Tex. Not only does he have a habit of talking to animals, he understands their replies. He is so happy-go-lucky, so trusting that everything will turn out OK that he is a natural daredevil. His mother is long dead, his father is gone for months at a time, but why should Tex worry when his big brother does all the worrying for him? But a parent would have told Tex that he would be judged alongside the people whose company he kept, that not every person who wanted his company was worthy of trust, and then maybe Tex would not have been looking down the barrel of a gun pointed straight at him.
The Kid from Tomkinsville by John R. Tunis
Before there was Rick Ankiel, before there was Tommy John's surgery, before there was Roy Hobbs of The Natural, there was a brilliant young pitcher who was the focus of three magnificent novels about baseball in the 1930s. Roy Tucker was a naive country boy whose talent threw him in among the tobacco-chewing, grizzled, worldly men of the Gashouse era of major league baseball. Roy had courage that kept him contending even when his pitching career was ended by a victory celebration gone too rowdy. Roy's creator, John R. Tunis, had a way with words that made it easy for a reader to lace on imaginary spikes and ride the bench alongside Roy's Brooklyn teammates as they battled the Giants and the Cardinals for the top spot in the National League.
These books are so well regarded that they remain in print decades later, but if you find that you like to reread these books seek a hardbound copies in a used bookstore.
