“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?”