At this speed? Who am I kidding? Maybe Caleb was able to do a glove-down slide when he was practicing on a gradual slope at a slow speed, but now he was going way too fast to squat that low, turn the board sideways, and use the friction of the sideways wheels and his gloved hand against the asphalt to stop. If he tried that now, there was no doubt in his mind that he’d lose his balance and go kersplat on the hard asphalt.

He was still picking up speed. The board’s wiggle had become an all-out wobble. The wind was blowing hard enough to make his eyes tear. Blood was pounding in his ears. The skateboard’s wheels were making a loud whining sound. He must have been going a hundred miles an hour.

I’m gonna die!

In Sarah’s bedroom, Emma looked through the shelves for that book about Anne Frank. She knew it was about a Jewish girl and the Nazis in World War II. The whole issue of the Nazis was bothering Emma. It seemed to come up now every time the eSports club met. Especially today when Ms. B nearly went bonkers over the goon squad’s gray shirts and Iron Crosses. It felt so strange. World War II had ended about eighty years ago. That was before any of Emma’s grandparents had been born. Before TV, for Pete’s sake. Things like smartphones, texting, and Instagram were at least 50 years in the future. It was a time when girls were expected to wear skirts and blouses every day. It might just as well have been the Stone Age. Also, the Allied forces had won the war. Nazi Germany and the Axis were defeated. So why, all this time later, were the Nazis still on people’s minds?

Something else nagged Emma about the Axis squad. First the custom tees, now the gray shirts and the medals. Where’d the money for those things come from? Ever since Gavin’s father had gotten injured, his family didn’t have money to throw around. And she got the impression that was true of Crosby’s family as well.

Emma found the Anne Frank book, with its maroon cover and black-and-white photo of a cheerful-looking girl with shoulder-length dark hair. Emma remembered that Sarah had read the whole book in one weekend. She’d refused to do anything except read, eat, and sleep. Emma couldn’t remember her sister doing that with any other book.

Now she was going to find out why.

While Zach waited at the bottom of the hill for Caleb to come down, he thought back to that afternoon’s eSports match. It had been tight and close, and once again the squads had been tied going into the final round. It was clear from the start that the Axis team had come prepared with a counterstrategy. As the squads went into the ninth and final round, Zach had doubts about winning. But then, partway through, Nathan went back to his old one-man lone-wolf kill-spree mode—the approach that the rest of the Allied squad had warned him wouldn’t work forever.