Shell Shocked (4 page)

“Good evening, boys,” the guard said as he walked toward us. His rifle was slung over his back.

“Good evening, sir,” we both answered.

He was old, like all the guards at the plant. It was rare to see young men—anybody between eighteen and forty—anywhere. They'd all enlisted and were overseas fighting the Nazis. Like our father. That meant that older men—men who were too old to fight in this war—were responsible for military duties that didn't involve combat. They were members of what was called the Veteran Guard. Some were in their late-fifties or sixties, and a lot of them were men who had fought in World War I. Some of the guard detail at Camp 30, the prisoner-of-war camp, had looked as though they were too old to have fought in World War I. It hadn't filled me with confidence to see those guys guarding the prisoners. No more than it gave me confidence to see them guarding this plant.

“State your business,” the guard said very formally. “And speak up … I'm a little deaf in the one ear.”

“We're here to see a movie,” Jack said. “Our mother works here.”

“And who's your mother?” he asked.

“Betty Brown.”

It caught me a little by surprise. I wasn't used to her name being Brown. At least we still got to be Brauns, though our “divorced” mother had gone back to her maiden name.

“Is she new here?” he asked.

“A few weeks.”

“That practically makes her a veteran. Do you know how many new people have started here in the last month?” he asked.

“A lot, I guess.”

“I could tell you, but it's classified information. Let's just say more than a lot. Was a time when I knew everybody who lived around here. Then I only knew all the people at the plant. Now?” He shrugged and shook his head. “Let me have a look at my list.”

He pulled a book out of his inside pocket, opened it up and started flipping through the pages. Settling on one, he scanned down it. Finally he looked up at us through his thick glasses. “I don't see no Betty Black in here.”

“It's Betty
Brown
,” Jack said.

“Brown?”

“Yes. Betty Brown, not Black.”

“Why didn't you say that in the first place?”

“We did say Brown!” Jack exclaimed. “Do you think that we don't know our own mother's name?”

The guard started flipping through the pages again, ignoring Jack's question. He ran his finger down a page.

“Here it is, Betty Brown. But it doesn't say anything about any kids, and I can't let you in unless you're listed in this book.”

“Betty Brown is our mother. Our last name is Braun. George and Jack … I mean John Braun.”

The security guard looked at him questioningly. “You sure you got your first name right this time? Is it John or Jack?”

“It's both,” Jack protested. “It's officially John, but people call me Jack.”

“How come you have a different name than your mother?” the guard questioned.

“Our parents are divorced,” I said.

“Divorced? In my day, a man and a woman stayed together no matter what. ‘What God has joined together let no man put asunder,' and all that.”

I could feel Jack getting ready to explode.

“Our father is in Africa fighting—”

“He
was
in Africa,” Jack said, cutting me off.

I'd forgotten about the cover story. “Yeah, now he's in Europe with the air force. He's a Spitfire pilot. He's shot down six Nazi planes,” I said. That was all part of the cover story.

“Good for him. You must be proud of him. Still, I don't
see your names here,” the guard said. “No John or George or Jack Brown is on my list to admit.”

“We're not Brown. We're Braun!” Jack exclaimed. “Remember? We have a different name than our mother.”

“Oh, yeah, of course, don't know where my head is. Say … Braun … isn't that a German name?”

Again I felt Jack start to bristle, so I jumped in. “Our grandfather was German. We're Canadians.”

The guard shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. They're so desperate for workers I think they might hire Adolf Hitler himself if he'd promise to show up, work hard and not take any matches or lighters onto the grounds.” He looked at us again. “Do you boys have any matches or lighters?”

“Of course not,” Jack said.

“Just have to be careful. Better safe than sorry.” He looked back down at the list. “Here we go, John and George Braun. You're on the list. Please proceed.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Come on, John.”

We walked past the gatehouse. There were two other guards sitting inside. They were both considerably younger, almost young enough not to be members of the Veteran Guard. We waved, and they waved back to us as we passed.

“That was unbelievable,” Jack said as we continued to walk. “We could have brought anything in. He didn't search us, he didn't check us—”

“He did look at the list until he found our names,” I said, defending him.

“But he didn't know if we actually were who we said we were. We could have claimed to be anybody.”

“I hadn't thought of that.”

“Somebody should. Maybe we should talk to Bill,” Jack suggested.

“Maybe we should just go and see a movie.”

“Bill should know.”

“Bill probably already knows. Besides, do you even know how to get in touch with him?” I asked.

“Well … I guess we could go up to Camp X.”

“No, we can't. We're not supposed to go there any more,” I said, reminding him of what Bill had told us. “How about if we go to the movie? Do you know where the Community Hall is?”

“It's this way,” he said. “Some of the kids from my class told me how to find it. You're right, let's go and watch a movie.”

IT FELT GOOD
sitting in the dark, watching the images up on the screen. We got two Looney Tunes cartoons—one a Daffy Duck and the other a Bugs Bunny. He really was a
wascally wabbit
. They made me laugh so hard that I forgot about everything—not just here, but everywhere.

And that's when the newsreel came on. No cartoon. No pretend. It showed film that had been taken of our soldiers. A lot of it was troops waving and smiling, and then maps and arrows so we'd know some of what was happening. But it also showed some burned-out tanks and German prisoners of war, hands on their heads, being marched away under armed guard.

It didn't say where it was but the background looked like desert, all scrub and hardly any vegetation. It could have been North Africa, where our real father really was. There had obviously been a big battle, and if we'd killed and
captured some of their men there was every possibility that they'd killed and captured some of ours … maybe even … I couldn't think about that. There was no point. I had to believe that he was all right and if something had happened they'd let us know. But how long would it take before we found out? Would it be days, or weeks? Could my father have been in that battle, and we were watching the film of what happened before we actually knew what had happened to him? Again, I couldn't let my head go there any more.

The newsreel ended and the screen went dark. I tried to keep up with news of the war, but right now it was almost more than I could handle. Maybe no news was the best news. Cartoons and movies were about all I wanted to see right now.

The screen came to life and the title of the movie flashed across it,
Gone with the Wind
.

“Shoot, figures the only movie we've seen in the last two months is the one they're showing tonight,” Jack muttered. He got to his feet.

“Wait!” I grabbed him by the arm. “We could see it again.”

“Nah, I know how it ends. Besides, it wasn't like it was a good movie or anything. The war part was hardly mentioned. It was mainly a stupid love story and—”

“Boys!” a woman said, turning around in her seat. “Please, we're trying to watch the movie!”

“And I'm trying to leave it,” Jack said. He brushed my hand away and shuffled down the row.

Just because
he
didn't want to see the movie didn't mean that
I
didn't want to see it. It was a good movie … except for the romantic stuff. At least it was better than nothing. Beside, he couldn't tell me what to do. He wasn't the boss of me. Maybe I'd stay and watch the movie by myself.

I turned and watched as he walked up the aisle. The back door opened, letting in a shaft of light, and Jack exited to the lobby. The door closed behind him and the light was gone. Suddenly I didn't want to see the movie so much.

“Excuse me,” I said, stumbling and tripping and stepping on toes as I went after him.

I ran up the aisle and through the door, and Jack was standing right there at the candy counter. He turned around. He was holding a bag of peanuts and a bag of popcorn.

“A peace offering. Your choice,” he said, holding them both out.

I took the popcorn.

“I just didn't want to see it,” he said. “You can go back in and watch it if you want. I'll even come back and get you at the end.”

“I can get home by myself,” I said. “It's not like I don't know the way.”

“I know. But Mom might not be happy if she knew I'd left you here.”

“Well then maybe you shouldn't tell her,” I suggested.

“It's not me I'm worried about doing the blabbing.” He leaned in close. “Can't you get it straight where our father is stationed?” he whispered.

“It's hard to get everything right,” I said. “At least I know what my name is,
John
.”

Jack looked embarrassed.

“Do you
really
want to see the movie?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Let me finish my popcorn and we can head home.”

“That's a—”

“Excuse me.”

It was a woman … well, a girl, sort of. Her hair was all done up with hairspray and she was chewing on a wad of gum. She was wearing makeup—what my mother would have called
too much
makeup—and some really strong perfume.

“My girlfriends and I,” she said, gesturing to two others who were about her age and equally made up, “we have a bet as to how old you are.”

“What?” Jack asked. He looked even more embarrassed now.

“We were wondering how old you are,” she repeated.

Before he could answer, she waved the others over, and
they came and joined us. We were suddenly engulfed in a cloud of thick, stinky perfume. It wasn't just that I could smell it, I could
taste
it.

“So how old is he, Daphne?” one of the two others said, and giggled.

“He hasn't told me yet. He's playing hard to get.”

Hard to get? He wasn't playing anything.

“We were thinking that you aren't eighteen,” the first girl, Daphne, said.

“Because we figured that a big guy like you would have joined the army if he was eighteen,” one of the others added.

“You can bet on that,” Jack said. “I'm going to enlist on my birthday. I'll be standing there at the recruiting office waiting for them to open the door in the morning.”

“So how old are you?” Daphne asked.

“How old are you three?” Jack asked.

“We asked first.”

“Well, I'm not saying anything until you tell me your ages.”

“A gentleman never asks a lady her age,” she said, and she giggled again.

“If you were ladies in the first place you wouldn't have been asking me
my
age,” Jack said.

“Oh, we have ourselves a live one here!” one of the others said, and all three started to giggle.

“Okay, you win. We'll tell you,” Daphne said. “Juliette has just turned eighteen.”

Juliette curtsied slightly. She was wearing thick red lipstick to go along with her extra-heavy makeup. I wondered if she'd used a putty knife to apply it.

“And Doris is almost nineteen.”

“In two weeks,” she said, “although you don't have to get me a present if you don't want to.”

“And you?” Jack asked.

“I'm the baby. I won't be eighteen until next spring.”

“Which would make you seventeen,” Jack said.

Funny, she didn't look seventeen—she looked older than either of the other two.

“Which is
my
bet as to how old
you
are,” Daphne said.

“And you two … how old do you think I am?” Jack asked.

“We both thought you must be sixteen,” Doris said, and Juliette nodded in agreement.

“Well, you only missed by one year,” Jack said.

The hair on the back of my head stood up—had Jack now forgotten how old he was
supposed
to be? They'd guessed right as far as the world was concerned.

“That's right, he's seventeen,” I said, jumping in before Jack could say fifteen.

Jack looked at me and his eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise, before he realized that he'd almost told them he was fifteen and blown his cover.

“The same age as
me
,” Daphne said, sounding pleased.

“And almost our age,” Doris protested.

“Yeah, what's a year among friends?” Juliette asked.

Jack looked pleased and embarrassed at the same time. “You said you had a bet … what was it for?”

All three girls giggled.

“What was the bet for?” he asked again.

“Well … it's just that … you know … there really aren't that many males around here,” Daphne said.

“Unless you count men who are old enough to be our grandfathers,” Doris said.

“Or kids,” Juliette added. “And the few men in between seem to be married or injured or jerks.”

“So … the winner gets to buy you a soda,” Daphne said. “Do you want a soda to go along with those peanuts?”