“Have you thought about the questions she might ask?” his father said.
“Like why I thought it was a good idea to have an eSports club?” Caleb guessed.
“I’d prepare myself for more than that,” his father advised. “My impression of Ms. Ford is that she likes stories with controversy. A seventh grader who fights for an eSports club may be enough for ITV. But for the story to play on KFKN, it’s going to need something juicier.”
“Like she’ll ask if I think eSports is appropriate in schools?” Caleb asked.
“You already answered that in the ITV story,” Mr. Arnett said. “But what if she asks why one team always plays the German side?”
Not that again, Caleb thought wearily. “It’s just a game, Dad.”
Mr. Arnett adjusted his glasses. “Being played by kids who’ve dressed up in uniforms reminiscent of the Nazis and who sometimes joke around in German accents.”
“Come on,” Caleb said. “They’re just playing.”
Mr. Arnett planted his elbows on the kitchen table and leaned forward. “You’re aware that for the past few decades there’s been an uncomfortably high level of hate speech and hate crime in this country, Caleb. And all too often they’re perpetrated by people who identify with Nazis, racists, and white supremacists.”
Caleb brought a spoonful of soggy cereal halfway to his lips, then stopped. It had just occurred to him that this wasn’t random breakfast conversation. His father had planned it. That was why he hadn’t yet left for work. But maybe it was a good thing. There were certain delicate questions you sometimes wanted to ask, but there were very few people you felt safe asking. “Dad, why should people around here care? I mean, are there any Jews in Ironville?”
Mr. Arnett took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know, Caleb. And that’s not the issue. The issue is that the hate symbolized by the Nazis is very much alive in this country. Not just against Jewish people, but against black people, brown people, Muslims, immigrants…anyone who isn’t white and Christian. Honestly, son, I find it incredibly disturbing that anyone would make a game of it. And to call it The Good War? Have people forgotten what actually happened during World War Two? It was the largest recorded genocide in the entire history of the human race, Caleb. Six million Jews and millions of Slavs and Russians. Gays and people with disabilities. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty million human beings, Caleb. Slaughtered for no military purpose. Can you imagine the number of extermination camps the Nazis needed to kill that many?”
Caleb shook his head. He’d never thought about that.
“And this ridiculous idea that it was just the Nazis who did it?” Mr. Arnett went on. “That somehow the Wehrmacht, the everyday German soldiers, didn’t know? Think about it, Caleb. The geographic area in which most of those camps existed, in which most of those people were murdered, was smaller than the state of Texas. Imagine for a moment that the state of Texas contained hundreds of concentration camps. Imagine that nearly twenty million people were executed over a period of five or six years. Do you really believe you could live in Texas and not know about it? That you wouldn’t hear something from a friend or a storekeeper or a stranger? Or see something yourself? Or smell it?”
“Smell it?” Caleb repeated uncertainly.
“Millions of bodies incinerated in ovens,” his father said. “The stink of death must’ve been everywhere.”
Caleb’s stomach churned. He swallowed back bile.
“Not every German was a Nazi, but nearly every German soldier had to know what the Nazis were doing,” Mr. Arnett said. “So the idea that your game is somehow okay because the players are pretending to be the Wehrmacht is nothing short of ridiculous.”
Mr. Arnett refilled his coffee cup. “Caleb, the people who perpetuate Nazi symbols today, and those who draw swastikas on walls and wave Confederate flags, are haters and racists. It almost doesn’t matter if it’s the Jewish people they hate, or black people or Muslims or Hispanics. What matters is that they are promoting hate against other human beings. What matters is that they are promoting lies and falsehoods. And in doing so, they are harming humanity as a whole.”
The cereal had turned the almond milk in Caleb’s bowl the grayish color of concrete. It didn’t matter. He’d lost his appetite.
“Every person in this country has the same choice the German people had in World War Two,” his father continued. “They can stand by and watch, feeling frightened and believing there’s nothing they can do. Or they can do something.”
The kitchen was still. Mr. Arnett’s words echoed in Caleb’s ears. He knew that his father had spent a lot of time preparing that speech. He’d probably even done research. And for his father to do that meant that it was a lot more serious than Caleb had allowed himself to admit.
* * *
When Caleb got to his locker that morning, Emma was waiting for him. He assumed that she wanted to discuss the strategy for that day’s match, but he was wrong.
“Have you ever read The Diary of a Young Girl? she asked.
Caleb frowned. “Why would I read a young girl’s diary?”
“It’s about Nazism,” Emma said. “Well, it’s really about this girl whose family had to hide from the Nazis during World War Two. It’s really disturbing.”
Caleb was about to ask what she found so disturbing when Ms. Dean came down the hall. “Caleb, I heard from the photographer,” she said. “He’s going to email the portraits this afternoon. We’ll go over them after school.”
“I can’t,” Caleb said. “I’ve got the eSports club.”
Ms. Dean frowned. “This is a lot more important than playing video games. And it can’t wait. Especially if we have to schedule retakes.”
“Can you get someone else to do it, and I’ll join you as soon as the eSports club is over?” Caleb asked.
The bell rang. Emma headed for class, leaving Caleb with Ms. Dean, who was now glowering at him.
“I think you’re showing terrible judgment, Caleb,” the yearbook advisor said, then turned and marched away. Caleb’s ears burned. No one had ever accused him of showing bad judgment before. Suddenly everything was becoming overwhelming. Zach, Nazis, his parents, eSports, KFKN, the yearbook…The pressure was coming from way too many directions.
* * *
Nathan held his arm out straight and pulled back on his fingertips as he strode down the hall toward the computer lab. He was getting his wrists limber. It was match day, and he was feeling great. For once, there hadn’t been a peep from Emma about strategy. And he knew why. Because all the strategy they’d discussed before the previous matches had nothing to do with winning. They’d won because when the fighting got close and tight, Nathan took things into his own hands. He hadn’t been a jerk about it. He’d just done what was necessary to win.
And he planned to do the exact same thing today.
* * *
Emma was in shock. Through her headphones came the steady clop of troops marching to the beat of crashing drums and cymbals, and the shouts of someone giving an impassioned speech in German. On her monitor, The Good War had been replaced by a cascading flood of Iron Crosses, green frogs, swastikas, the number 14, burning crosses, nooses, and a dozen other symbols Emma didn’t know the names for. It felt as if a demon had taken possession of the round.
Earlier, the match had begun normally. The Allied squad quickly won the first round. Nathan had played strategically, but Emma couldn’t help wondering if that would change. Then, early in the second round, the Allied players again jumped out to a lead. It almost felt like the Axis didn’t know what hit them. Then everything went haywire. The crazy marching audio. The flood of weird symbols on their monitors.
“Malware,” said Zach, who was sitting next to Emma.
Wha…? “From where? By who?” she asked.
Zach nodded at the Axis side of the table. A few of the Axis
players stared at their monitors with confused expressions. But Crosby was grinning.
Suddenly, Nathan jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair. Before anyone could react, he sprang around the table, grabbed Crosby by the shirt, yanked him up, and started to scream at him.
* * *
Caleb was stunned. Why had Nathan grabbed Crosby and begun shouting at him? What was going on with their computers? Gavin was sitting next to Crosby, so Caleb expected that he’d do something to protect his friend. But Gavin just sat there and watched. It seemed obvious to Caleb that if someone didn’t do something fast, Crosby was going to get the stuffing kicked out of him.
Ms. B yelled, “Stop!” at the boys, but Nathan and Crosby continued to scuffle. It felt as if everyone was waiting for Gavin to act. Finally, Zach jumped up, wrapped his arms around Nathan from behind, and started to pull him away. Now Caleb felt another shock. This could have been the first time he’d ever seen Zach touch another kid at school.
A second later, Caleb was on his feet, helping Zach keep Nathan and Crosby apart.
“He hacked us!” Nathan shouted.
“How could I?” Crosby yelled back. “I was in the middle of the match.”
“Why would that stop you?” Nathan demanded while Caleb and Zach held him back.
“ ’Cause if you knew anything about hacking, you’d know I couldn’t launch a malware attack while I was playing,” Crosby yelled. “I’d have to do it from another server.”
Nathan twisted and squirmed, struggling to break free from Zach and Caleb. Now Ms. B stepped between them. “That’s enough,” she said firmly. “Calm down or this is the end of the eSports club.”
Nathan stopped struggling. Everyone caught their breath, but Zach and Caleb stayed between Nathan and Crosby just in case the fight flared up again. It felt awkward for Caleb to be standing practically shoulder to shoulder with Zach. They hadn’t spoken since seeing each other at the mall over the weekend. Since then, Zach had stopped coming to the cafeteria for lunch. Caleb sensed that he was upset about what happened at the mall. And the more Caleb thought about it, the more he wondered if Zach was right. Maybe Caleb should have been more sensitive. Inviting Zach to hang out with him and his cousins wouldn’t have been so hard. Caleb had hoped that after today’s match he would walk home with Zach as usual and smooth things over. But now he had to go to the yearbook office to look at portraits after the match. So talking to Zach would have to wait.
* * *
Why me? Crosby thought. It’s totally unfair! Ms. B was marching both Nathan and him down to her room. She can’t prove I did anything! Nathan’s the one who started it.
Ms. B made them sit, then gave them the old “no one ever solved anything with their fists” lecture. She warned them that if it happened again, they’d both be written up and sent to Principal Summers. She gave Nathan an assignment to write about self-control and how he could have handled the situation differently. Then she told him he could go. Crosby couldn’t believe it. Why’s she letting him go and making me stay?
Nathan left, and Ms. B focused on Crosby. “What do you know about what happened today?”
“Nothing,” Crosby said.
The wrinkles around Ms. B’s eyes deepened. “When Nathan accused you of hacking, you said that if he knew anything about it, he’d know that you had to do it from a separate server. So clearly you do know something about hacking. Or, what did you call it…a hardware attack?”
Now Crosby saw his mistake. “Malware,” he said quietly.
“And it happened just when the Axis side was going to lose another round,” Ms. B added.
Crosby bit the inside of his lip. He knew where this was leading. She was going to accuse him of having something to do with the malware attack even though she had no real proof.
“And I suppose it was just a coincidence that the images that appeared on the monitors included Iron Crosses and swastikas?” Ms. B said.
Crosby stared past her at a big yellow sign on the bulletin board urging students to think about what they saw and read on the internet: Is it True? Helpful? Inspiring? Necessary? Kind? He didn’t know what Ms. B was going to do next, but he really didn’t want Principal Summers to get involved. If this incident got back to his mother and Aunt Mary, they might take him off screens for good.
Crosby knew he had to come up with an excuse, so he told Ms. B that he’d met someone online who said he could help the Axis win. “When he said he could help, I thought he meant giving us a secret weapon or something. I swear I had no idea he meant a malware attack that would blow up the whole match.”
Ms. B’s face was expressionless. As if she was trying to decide whether to believe him or not. Crosby felt himself growing more anxious. “I mean, every gamer knows what malware is,” Crosby went on. “But I had no idea that was what the guy planned to do.”
Ms. B still didn’t react. Crosby began to feel desperate. If this got back to his mom and Aunt Mary, he was toast. It was time for the last resort—waterworks. He sniffed and wiped the tears away and swore again that he’d truly had no idea the attack was coming.
Ms. B’s face softened. She pulled a tissue from a box and handed it to him. The tears had done the trick. Crosby had used them before to get out of tight situations. The great thing about tears with teachers was that you knew the story wouldn’t get out. He didn’t have to worry about anyone else learning that he cried.
Of course, Ms. B couldn’t let him go without a lecture about the dangers of the internet and how he had to be super careful when it came to who he communicated with. And of course, Crosby pretended to agree with everything she said. He figured the final step would be some stupid assignment like the one she’d given Nathan. But instead she stood up and said she had to get back to the computer lab.
And just like that, Crosby was free to go.
* * *
Except for the incessant tapping of Zach’s feet, it was quiet in the computer lab. Caleb had gone to a yearbook meeting. Gavin, Mackenzie, and Tyler sat with their arms crossed. Emma glanced toward Zach. He’d turned his chair away and pulled his hoodie down over his forehead so that his face was mostly hidden. His knees were pumping like pistons. Each time Emma replayed in her head what had happened, she thought of how Zach had been the first to try to break up the fight. This was a kid who’d been picked on for years and never fought back. And who had Zach protected? Crosby, the kid who’d probably picked on him more than anyone else.
Ms. B returned and gave them all a lecture. One more outburst like today’s and there’d be no more eSports club. She meant it. They could go.
It was too early for the late bus, so everyone either had to hang around school and wait, or walk home. Saying she had papers to grade, Ms. B went back to her room. She warned them not to touch the computers. She wanted the district tech to check them before they were used again.
* * *
The Axis squad left, but Zach stayed behind. Emma did, too. Zach wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. Was he hoping that Caleb would come back from the yearbook office so they could walk home together? For Zach, hanging out and skateboarding with Caleb after the eSports club had become the highlight of each week.
But then the thing at the mall happened, and Zach began to have doubts. Why hadn’t Caleb invited him to hang out with his cousins? Part of Zach’s brain said that it proved that Caleb wasn’t a real friend. But another part said that of course Caleb would want to be with his cousins. Especially since he didn’t see them that often. Zach knew that deep down he really did want Caleb to be his friend. But there’d been kids in the past who’d only pretended. And nothing was worse than that. Given a choice between a fake friend and no friend, he’d learned the hard way that it was best to have none.
“Zach?” Emma’s voice brought him back from his thoughts.
He raised his head, surprised that she’d spoken to hi
m.
“Any idea how that hack happened?” she asked.
It was a good question. Zach was familiar with the typical hacks and spam, like some griefer’s lame attempts to troll a chat, or some joker using basic user script to flood screens with offensive messages. But he’d never seen image spam before.
“Not sure,” Zach said. “I’ll have to research it.”
Just as he said that, Nathan came in. “Research what?” he asked, fetching his backpack.
“How that malware attack happened,” Emma said.
“What difference does it make?” Nathan asked. “They were being jerks. I say next match we hack ’em right back. Go for the jugular. Spawn kill ’em.”
Emma wasn’t surprised by Nathan’s knee-jerk response. Someone hits you, you hit them. Maybe in the end you’d win the fight. Maybe you wouldn’t. But either way, you were bound to suffer cuts and bruises. “And then they hack us again. And pretty soon it’s not a game anymore, it’s just an all-out hackathon.”
“Oh yeah? So, what do you suggest?” Nathan challenged her.
Zach wondered why Nathan always acted like such an aggro jerk. He wondered if Emma was thinking the same thing. There was a lot to think about. Not just how the malware had been launched, but about all the hate symbols. Why those images? Who had chosen them?
Zach was so lost in thought that he didn’t realize Nathan was speaking to him. “And what about you, Mr. Squad Tactician? You’re supposed to be the gaming expert around here. What do you think we should do?”
* * *
Blinking fast and making snorting sounds, Zach reached for his backpack and skateboard. Emma was sure he was going to bolt. Should she speak up and defend him? Before she had time to decide, Zach stood…and faced Nathan. He was stock-still. Suddenly not a twitch or a snort. Nathan blinked with surprise as if that was the last thing he expected. Then, in a measured voice, Zach said, “I think we should let them hack us all they want.”
The Good War Page 11