Free Edenville Owls by Robert B. Parker

certainly different than anything anyone else had ever said to me about the country and the war. He used words like nigger and kike, as if they were perfectly okay words. He talked as if Jews weren’t white. He spoke of a yellow invasion from Asia. He spoke of the Communist plan to rule the world by stirring up rebellion in the inferior races. He talked like it would have been better if we had joined the Germans and defeated Russia. I was completely amazed.
    “I too was deceived,” he said. “I fought in this war, on the wrong side, killing Christians on behalf of Jews and Bolsheviks. I was given a Medal of Honor for it. And I am ashamed. I am ashamed of the medal, and I am ashamed of myself. But it is not yet quite too late. We still have a chance to save our nation and our race. It is you who are our chance. You strong, young white Christian men who can choose fertile, young white Christian women and form the breeding stock for a race of cleanliness and purity.”
    He stopped and gestured toward us with both hands and bowed slightly and clapped, apparently for us. The boys in the audience began to clap back and pretty soon there was loud applause. I clapped along with the others.
    “Together,” the reverend said, “we will move forward. Together we may save our race.”
    More applause.
    When it died down, the reverend said, “Next week we will begin systematic instruction, with some guest instructors.”
    Then he stood at attention and we all stood up at attention and he put his right fist over his heart.
    “White and Christian until death,” he said.
    We all put our right fists over our hearts.
    White and Christian until death.

CHAPTER 27
    I was walking Joanie home from school. I knew Nick saw us. And I was pretty sure he didn’t like it. But I had to talk with her. And I couldn’t wait. I felt as if my skin were stretched too tight over the rest of me. I talked all the way to the corner of her street and down, and stopped outside her house and kept talking. Joanie listened and nodded and listened.
    Finally she said, “Let’s go down to the bandstand, I don’t want to go in yet.”
    I could have kissed her. The thought startled me a little in the middle of my long talk. I could have kissed her. I wanted to kiss her. I had never really kissed a girl before. A few on the cheek at spin the bottle games. But real smoochy kissing, no. I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. Besides, if I kissed her, it would change everything. She might get mad. And even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be my best friend anymore. She’d be…I wasn’t sure what she’d be. It made me feel strange.
    The bandstand was empty as usual. And the harbor was where it always was, empty in winter, only a few boats at mooring.
    “So I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or not,” I said. “I have to do so many wrong things to do it.”
    “You think too much about things,” Joanie said.
    “You have to,” I said. “I mean a man has to. How else can he be a good man?”
    “Maybe he just is a good man,” Joanie said.
    “And I haven’t even told you yet about the guy,” I said.
    “Is he bothering you?”
    “In a different way,” I said. “Wait’ll you hear.”
    “Finish telling me about what’s bothering you so far,” Joanie said. “Then we can talk about Oswald whosis.”
    “Well, so far I’ve lied and broken my word and skipped school and broken into Miss Delaney’s house,” I said. “I mean, am I a good guy or a bad guy?”
    “You’re a good guy, Bobby. You know it and I know it.”
    “How do I know it?”
    “You know,” she said. “Sometimes you have to do bad things to do good things. It’s bad to kill. But my uncle John killed people and he’s not bad. What he did was good. He had to kill people to defend us. All the soldiers did. During the war it was right to kill. Nazis and Japs.”
    “But now it wouldn’t be,” I said.
    “That’s right. Things change. You know you’re trying to do a