Hero

Daughter of Alba, the housekeeper, Kate Paredes—her Hispanic last name means “walls”—grows up with Zach, and they’re close. Beautiful and whip-smart, Kate has confidence and wisdom beyond others her age. At school, she’s popular, drawing the interest of the student body president, Spencer Warren, who jealously torments Zach because of the boy’s close connection to her. Between Kate and Zach, she’s the stronger person, but she’ll do anything for him, and she insists he bring her in on his adventures. She and Zach are a lot like brother and sister, but because they’re unrelated and she’s the central female character, the book also suggests that there might be a romantic spark between them; for example, “Kate squeezed Zach’s hand. He made no move to take it away” (207). Regardless, Kate serves as Zach’s muse, confidante, chief advisor, and best friend.

Gray-haired Mr. Herbert, who stood on the Zagreb runway as a warning to Tom Harriman, contacts Zach and tries to teach him how to be a hero. Zach at first distrusts Mr. Herbert; John Marshall insists that Mr. Herbert is evil and that John and Zach’s father fought many battles against him and the rest of “the Bads.” John also says that Mr. Herbert is wrong to pull Zach so soon into the fray.

However, Zach comes to distrust John’s judgment, and Mr. Herbert helps Zach understand his real opponents and train for the battles to come. Mr. Herbert confesses that, when he was the hero, he allied himself with the Bads; regretting his choice, he then tried to help Zach’s father do real good in the world. Before he dies, Mr. Herbert also admits that he’s Zach’s grandfather. In the story, he serves as Zach’s teacher and mentor; he also serves as an adjunct to Zach’s conscience, guiding the boy past arrogance, suspicion, and fear to a clearer sense of his destiny and worth.

Tom Harriman is a “hero,” an individual with superpowers who fights evil. He works as a special consultant to the US president, traveling the world, helping solve problems, catching bad buys, and upholding American security. As the narrator of the book’s first chapter, he’s a bit full of himself, but he dies suddenly, to loom over the story as a tragic figure whose murder cries out for justice. Tom would have been Bob Kerrigan’s running mate for US president; Tom’s wife, Elizabeth, tries to finish that work by managing Kerrigan’s campaign. Tom’s death pushes the plot forward: His son, bereft at losing him, soon begins to acquire his father’s powers and becomes the next target of the evil forces always arrayed against the latest hero. Tom is Zach’s touchstone; his death carves a hole in Zach’s life that the boy must fill with his own resources.

John Marshall, the Harriman family attorney, has worked closely with Tom Harriman for many years; he keeps an eye on Tom’s family after Tom's death. John has a name that recalls one of the most important figures in early American political history, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, who established the principle of judicial review by which the Court could strike down laws it deems unconstitutional. Indeed, John makes his own unilateral judgment that Tom has become a liability, and he lets the Bads kill him and, later, doesn’t try to stop an assassin from firing on Senator Kerrigan. For these things, Zach condemns him as a collaborator of the Bads and banishes him from the Harriman family.

John may be a force for evil, as Zach believes—his explanations for his motives in letting Tom Harriman be killed seem to be excuses made by a person of weak resolve—but his thoughts about how to save the world from bad guys are complex and nuanced. In that way, he represents the many opposing thoughts Zach himself has about what it means to be a hero. 

Born Elizabeth Townsend, Zach’s mother is the daughter of a US senator, director of the charitable Townsend Foundation, and campaigner for Senator Bob Kerrigan’s run for the presidency. Mourning the death of her husband, Tom, Elizabeth throws herself into the campaign that Tom would have participated in as Kerrigan’s running mate. Tom never told Elizabeth about his superpowers, and she’s ignorant of the Bads and the ongoing battle between them and the latest hero; thus, she doesn’t know that two heroes—her husband and son—have lived with her. Like his father, Elizabeth is a touchstone for Zach, a loving mother to whom he can turn for reassurance, especially after his dad’s death.

Senator Bob Kerrigan, a friend of Tom Harriman’s since their days at Harvard, is running for president, and he leads in the polls against his opponent, Vice President Dick Boras. Kerrigan wanted Tom to be his running mate, but Tom was killed; Kerrigan dedicates his campaign to Tom. The senator’s campaign is a call to integrity and service; it resonates with the public, who throng to his speeches. Zach’s mom, Elizabeth, sets aside her work directing a major charity to help run Kerrigan’s campaign. Now that Zach’s father is dead, Kerrigan becomes the standard-bearer for the heroism that Tom embodied and Zach admires. Kerrigan’s campaign is the first thing Zach must defend in his new role as a hero.

Growing up, Zach hears stories from his father about “the Bads,” a mysterious group of evil people bent on wreaking destruction. As a teen, Zach learns from Mr. Herbert that the Bads are the principal group against which Zach’s father fought, and they killed him. The Bads are responsible for much of the evil in the world; the story hints that they’re the power behind many dictators and that they caused 9/11. Zach thinks at first that the assailants who challenge him are members of the Bads, but Mr. Herbert later admits that he’s simply using them to train Zach.

Because Uncle John and Mr. Herbert seem to be on opposite sides, Zach struggles to know which of them represents the Bads, who otherwise lurk in the shadows. The central conflict in the story centers on this dilemma; the Bads are the antagonists, personified either by John or Mr. Herbert. 

As Zach’s nemesis at school, student body president Spencer Warren is nice when he needs to be and a bully when he can be. He picks on Zach because Zach is best friends with the girl Spence wants, Kate Paredes. Zach challenges Spence to a fight, but Spence bests him easily. Spence appears early in the book as a first test of Zach’s ability to fend for himself. Failing the test teaches Zach humility about his dawning powers.

One of several people directed by Mr. Herbert, Knit Cap keeps showing up in Central Park, usually to threaten Zach or Kate. He’s the first of Zach’s random challenges and serves the boy as a surprise training partner.