Read The Good War online

Contents (19)

Zach wrinkled his forehead as if he found the question puzzling. “Because I like building things.”

That night Emma met with the rest of the Allied squad online.

“Would someone please tell me the point of reviewing a match we won?” Nathan grumbled sourly.

“We nearly lost,” said Emma.

“But we didn’t,” Nathan argued. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have better things to do.”

Emma didn’t appreciate Nathan’s attitude, but she agreed to make the review as fast as possible. Besides, there was really only one thing she wanted the squad to see—that throughout the match, instead of holding his position, Nathan had gone off by himself and gotten into one shoot-out after another. When they reviewed the rounds, it became obvious that the Axis players had figured out how to use Nathan’s lone-wolf approach against the Allied squad by laying traps and ambushes.

“We have to play more as a unit,” Emma said.

“I agree,” said Caleb. “A strategy can’t work if we’re not all following it.”

Emma assumed that Nathan knew they were talking about him.

“Look,” Nathan said, “we’ve won the last three matches. I don’t see what the problem is.”

That was when Zach, who rarely said anything during these reviews, spoke up. “We nearly lost today because they developed a counterstrategy. My guess is that they’ll try it again next week and probably win if we don’t play better.”

“Who gave you a crystal ball?” Nathan snapped.

Emma was tempted to inform Nathan that if he wasn’t always so wrapped up in his own performance, he might have noticed by now that Zach probably knew the game better than anyone. But just then something popped up in the chat room:

DROOF: Long live the Axis. Sieg Heil!

Emma had no idea who Droof was or how he had found their chat. And why had he written that? Actually, she’d heard those last two words before. She was almost certain they were German. “Anyone know what that means?”

Caleb googled it. “The Germans used it in World War Two. It means ‘hail victory.’ ”

Now Emma remembered where she’d heard that phrase. In a movie called Schindler’s List. The Nazis in the movie said it.

“What’s the big deal?” Nathan asked impatiently. “Just kick him.”

Emma kicked Droof out of the chat. But she was still bothered by what the troll had written. Why “Sieg Heil”? What did that have to do with their chat? She decided it was just some dumb random jerk thing, and hopefully they’d never hear from him again. But suddenly Droof was back.

DROOF: Arbeit macht frei

“Okay. Now ban him,” Nathan said. “This is stupid.”

While Emma banned the troll, Caleb googled “Arbeit macht frei.”