A short story for learners of English.

Max loves action comics and movies. He works in the car park of a big supermarket. It is a not a good job, but Max was not clever at school. He doesn’t have any qualifications. He couldn’t go to university. This job was the best he could find.

Max collects the shopping carts that shoppers leave in the car park. He takes the shopping carts back to the entrance of the supermarket. It is sometimes hard work but it is not difficult. So Max has a lot of time to dream.

He dreams of being a hero. He dreams of being Superman or Batman. Of course his dreams are crazy but as Max tells himself, Dreams are free.

Today it is very wet and windy. Max is wearing a long blue raincoat. It has the name of the supermarket on the back.

Max is standing next to a row of carts. He will push them together and then he will take them all back to the supermarket door. He looks around to see if there are any more in the car park. There are special places for shoppers to leave the carts. Most people take their carts to these special places but some people are lazy, and leave them near their cars.

He sees two young boys in jackets with hoods.

They should be in school, he thinks. What are they doing here?

He sees a small woman pushing a cart towards her car. The cart is full of shopping bags. She looks old and the weather is very bad.

I’ll go and take her cart for her, he thinks.

He starts walking across the car park. The woman puts her cart behind her car. She walks to her car door to unlock it.

Suddenly the two boys run towards the cart. They take the cart and push it towards the road.

“Hey you!” shouts Max “What are you doing?”

Max chases the boys. The boys run out of the car park with the shopping cart and along the road. Max runs very fast.

“Stop! Stop!” he shouts.

The boys run to the corner. There is a car coming. They have to stop. They turn around and see Max. They see a very big man. His long coat is blowing in the wind. It looks like a cape. He looks like Batman, or Superman. They are frightened. They leave the cart and run across the road.

Max takes the cart of shopping and pushes it back to the supermarket. The little old lady is sitting on a seat outside the store. The store manager is talking to her. She is very shocked. She is crying. Max walks up to her.

“I couldn’t catch the bad boys, but here is your shopping,” he says.

“Oh, thank you!” she says.

“Well done, Max,” says the store manager.

“You are a hero,” says the lady.

Max’s face is red. “Oh, no,” he says. “I am not a hero.”

“You are a hero to me,” she says. She gives Max $20.

Max doesn’t want to take it, but she pushes it into his pocket.

“Please take it,” she says.

Max helps her put her shopping into her car. Then he takes the empty cart away.

I’ll be able to buy a new comic on the way home, he thinks.