So what if he occasionally fantasizes that Kerrianne is Logan? He feels guilty about that, and because of it, Mason knows he should break up with Kerrianne, especially since she talks about a future with him. He wanted to tell her it was over weeks ago. He couldn’t. Not with Kerrianne on the Snow Ball dance committee, planning tomorrow night for the past two months. What kind of jerk breaks up with his girlfriend after she’s bought a midnight-blue strapless dress? (Yeah, she texted him a photo of the wrist corsage she said would complement it best.)
Mason realizes he needs to focus on Mr. Bartley. He’s at the Smart Board. A picture of Hitler fills the screen. Sick. Mason lives with a brutal dictator in his father and coach. He certainly doesn’t want to advocate for one at school.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Logan running her fingers through her short choppy hair, gripping it like she wants to tear it out. When Mr. Bartley says, “Examine if there is any legitimacy for the arguments on your side of the debate,” Logan looks like she wants to strangle him.
Mason’s right there with her. Half the assignments he gets—including this one—are a waste of time. But there’s college, and he’s always known that if hockey isn’t his ticket out of Riviere, his grades have to be. He has both. Besides, he likes battling it out for valedictorian against Logan.
Again, he glances toward her, then refocuses on the evil dictator with the bad mustache. Mr. Bartley says, “History is one of our best teachers. Unfortunately, this assignment will show you that society hasn’t learned much at all.”
Who wouldn’t agree with that?
As Mr. Bartley drones on about Nazis, snippets of the old story Grandpa told me in his workshop flash into my mind. I try to piece them together like the jigsaw puzzles we made. I know my grandpa told me he grew up in Poland on a farm with fields of wheat and apple trees. There was a barn filled with cows and a horse, goats and sheep. A river ran through their property, and he used to follow its bank to get to the nearest town. If he said the name, I don’t remember, but it was in Poland.
I glance out the window. Big flakes of snow fall diagonally, swirl in gusts of wind, adding to my deteriorating mood. It means more work for me and my family’s inn. I mentally add “shovel and salt the parking lot and sidewalks” to my to-do list. With a wedding party checking in tomorrow morning, I expect a late night, and instead of listening to Mr. Bartley, I go through everything I’ll need to do when I get home—extra touches to get ready, like arranging champagne, glasses, and Nana’s homemade chocolates for the bride and groom.
Mr. Bartley steps in front of my desk and frowns at my blank notebook. “Disappointing,” he murmurs, and continues down my aisle. I pick up my pen and glance at Logan to see if she heard. She’s glaring at Hitler’s image and has a full page of notes. On my right, Spencer flips his notebook up, showing me lines of text with red swastikas for bullet points. The word “Jew” has a red slash through it. He’s also drawn gallows. Stick figures wearing Jewish stars hang from ropes. I shake my head in disgust and mumble “asshole” under my breath.
I try to focus on what Mr. Bartley’s saying about the Final Solution, but Spencer’s gallows spark another memory. Grandpa had talked about gallows. I close my eyes, picture sitting with him in his workshop surrounded by wood shavings, sanding toys for Santa.
Grandpa told me that the Nazis were rounding up the Jews. A truck had stopped at their farm, checked their papers. The SS officers took their food, then warned his family to stay away from town. But Grandpa was worried about his Jewish friend. He wanted to find him. Even though his parents forbade him to leave the house, Grandpa snuck out after they fell asleep. He saw hundreds, maybe a thousand Jews in the town square forced to stand silent as several Nazis selected six boys for no reason and hung them from gallows. The rest of the story floods back into my mind like a tidal wave. I know what happened to his friend. I know what happened to the people in the town.
The memory leaves me shaken as Mr. Bartley scans the room.
“A demonstration,” he says. “I’d like those of you with blond hair and blue eyes to please stand up next to your desks.”
Pretty much everyone twists in their seats, checking each other out. Jesse Elton and Allie Fitzpatrick stand immediately. Allie has the most beautiful eyes, a deep turquoise blue the color of a calm Lake Ontario on a sunny day. In the front row, last seat on the left, Heather Jameson hesitates, but with everyone’s attention on her, she slides out of her chair and stands. She smooths back strands that escaped from her ponytail, then crosses her arms over her chest. Like Kerrianne, I’ve known Heather since kindergarten. She’s tiny, barely five feet, and looks more like a sixth grader than a senior. Like Logan, she loves to read. Heather always has a novel open, even in class. I think books are her way of avoiding people—armor—especially after her older sister was arrested in Riviere’s biggest drug bust. It happened during our freshman year. Heather’s sister ended up in juvie. Unlike Logan, who has a singing voice that makes dogs howl, Heather has a voice that could make angels weep.
With all this attention on her, she looks like she could weep now.
Mr. Bartley does another quick scan of our class, then addresses Jesse, Heather, and Allie. “Again, this is strictly a demonstration. If you feel uncomfortable, you do not need to remain standing.”
Speaking to all of us, he says, “Under Nazi Germany, blond-haired, blue-eyed characteristics were considered ideal for their Aryan race of superior human beings. Jesse, if you lived under Hitler’s rule, by appearance alone, you would have been considered a potential candidate for the SS.” He faces the rest of the class. “Other requirements included being at least five foot eleven, physically fit, and in excellent health. However, candidates needed to provide proof that their lineage had no Jewish blood going as far back as one hundred fifty years.”
“I’m pure.” Jesse grins and flexes his muscles, getting a sprinkle of laughter. Mr. Bartley ignores him. Logan’s disgust mirrors my own.
A photo labeled “Heinrich Himmler, the commander of the SS, with his daughter” fills the Smart Board. She, of course, has blond hair, blue eyes.
“Heinrich Himmler started a program called Lebensborn, or ‘Spring of Life,’ in order to accelerate their Master Race. It is believed that over a twelve-year time period, up to twenty thousand children were born under this program. That doesn’t include the two hundred thousand or so blue-eyed, blond-haired children who were reportedly removed from their parents in captured countries to be raised in German homes. Take a look at the screen. I need a volunteer to read out loud part of this October 4, 1943, speech that Himmler gave to SS officers.” A few hands go up. Mr. Bartley calls on Kerrianne.
“One principle must be absolute for the SS man; we must be honest, decent, loyal, friendly to members of our blood and to no one else.