D. MacHale - The Never War

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think you’re a genius,” I said quickly.

Spader wasn’t enthused. “What is that stuff?” he asked nervously.

“Cheeseburger, French fries, Coke-food of the gods, my friend,” I said. I lifted up my burger, took a delicious whiff, closed my eyes, and wolfed into it. Oh, yeah, I was home.

Spader lifted up a fry, looking at it curiously. “What exactly is a french before it’s fried?” he asked.

“White vegetable, cut in strips, fried in grease,” I answered. “Stop talking. I’m trying to focus.”

We didn’t say another word for the rest of the meal. Spader ate reluctantly, but didn’t seem to hate it. I put ketchup on our fries and salted them up real good. Man, they were excellent. The whole while Gunny stood over us, smiling. He was like a proud chef who enjoyed the way his food was being appreciated.

Then, for dessert, Gunny lifted two more silver covers to reveal…banana splits. Yes! He even had a couple glasses of milk to wash it all down. It was all so incredibly excellent. It had been a very long day, but this dinner made it all worthwhile. I wanted it to last forever, but my stomach was screaming for me to stop. I was totally stuffed and absolutely happy.

“Now don’t go expecting this kind of service again,” Gunny cautioned. “This is special because you just arrived. After this you eat in the kitchen with the rest of the staff.”

“Gunny,” I said. “You have no idea how perfect this is.”

“Oh, I got a pretty good idea,” he said with a smile. ”But it’s better than you think,” I added. “Tomorrow’s my birthday and this is the best present ever.”

“Then happy birthday, shorty,” Gunny said, beaming. “Many happy returns.”

“Happy birthday, mate,” said Spader. “Wish I could raise a pint of sniggers.”

“Yeah, but this’ll do me just fine,” I said, holding up a bottle of Coke.

Gunny took the now empty cart and put it by the door. He then came back into the living room and sat down with us. As much as I wanted to kick back, burp, and pretend life was good, that wasn’t meant to be. We were here for a reason, and it wasn’t to gork out stuffed on burgers.

“This is all new to me,” Gunny said. “Chasing Saint Dane, I mean. What do we do?”

It was time to get down to somerealbusiness. The party was over.

“All the territories are reaching a turning point,” I said, holding back a burp. “We’ve got to figure out what that turning point is here on First Earth, and what Saint Dane is doing to push it the wrong way.”

“This should be snappy-do, Pendragon,” Spader announced. “You’re from this territory. I mean, you’re from thefutureof this territory. Think of something big that happened in 1937 that Saint Dane might be messing around with.”

The pressure was on. I wasn’t very good at history. It all seemed so boring, memorizing dates and places and speeches made by guys I didn’t care about. But even though I was historically challenged, it didn’t take me very long to come up with an idea. To be honest, it was a no-brainer.

“You’ve got something, don’t you, mate?” Spader asked with a sly smile. I did, but I wished I didn’t. The more I thought about it, the more freaked I got. This was bad. This wasreallybad. My heart started to pump faster and my palms got sweaty.

“What is it?” asked Gunny.

“Thereissomething,” I began. “I don’t remember all the dates. But there is definitely something big about to go down.”

“So tell us, mate!” exclaimed Spader.

“The war you were in, Gunny,” I said. “The Great War? That became known as World War One.”

Gunny’s eyes grew very wide. “Are you saying there’s going to be a World War Two?” he asked in shock.

I nodded.

Gunny looked down and shook his head sadly. “And they said it was the war to end all wars.”

“They were wrong,” I said.

“When did it happen?” asked Spader. “Who was fighting?”

I suddenly wished I hadn’t slept through Mr. Varady’s world history class.

“I don’t know all the facts,” I said. “There was this Hitler dude from Germany who tried to take over Europe. And Japan tried to take over Asia.”

“That’stwowars,” Spader said.

“I think that’s why they call it aworldwar,” I shot back. “They fought against Russia and the United States and England and China and France and oh, man\This is huge! Millions of people died. Millions. It changed the world!”

Spader said, “So maybe we should go over to Germany and talk to this Hitler fella.”

I laughed at that. “You don’t get it,” I said. “We can’t just go over to Berlin, knock on Adolf Hitler’s door and say, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Hitler, you don’t know us, but we’d really like you to reconsider this Holocaust thing. Okey dokey?’” ”Why not?” asked Spader innocently.

“Trust me. We’re talking about leaders of huge nations ruling millions of people. This is so far out of our league, it’s not even funny.”

“So when does it all happen?” he asked.

I had to stand up and pace, hoping it would rattle loose some factoids I might have picked up somewhere.

“I don’t know the dates. But it wasn’t all of a sudden. There was a buildup. The wheels were definitely turning by 1937 but I don’t think it got to be a full-blown war until almost 1940. Guys, this soundsexactlylike something Saint Dane would stick his nose into, and we arewayover our heads.”

Gunny had been listening quietly. It must have been tough for him to hear that the world was about to be turned upside down again. Finally he said, “Don’t be so sure about that.”

“Are you crazy?” I shouted back at him.

“Think about it,” Gunny argued innocently. “We know the war is coming, and we know Saint Dane is here to cause trouble. It all sort of fits. Our job might be to stop this war from happening.”

“That’s impossible!” I shouted. “There’s no way the three of us could stop something so big.”

“Maybe,” Gunny said thoughtfully. “Or maybe we’re thinking about it the wrong way.”

“Gunny,” I said patiently. “It’s aworld war. Airplanes. Guns. Bombs. Soldiers. Millions of soldiers. We’re two kids with big underwear and a tall guy in a fancy suit. I don’t mean to sound negative, but I’m thinking Saint Dane may have picked a winner here.”

Gunny nodded thoughtfully. “I hear you. There’s no way in heaven we could stop something like that once it got going. But the thing is, what if it’s only a little thing that gets it going in the first place?”

“Explain that, please, mate,” said Spader.

“I’m saying that you never know what leads to what. There might be a little old something that happens that seems like nothing at first, but it might lead to something else, and that leads to something else, and so on and so on until you find yourself in the middle of a big old war.”

“But-“

“Don’tbeso quick, shorty,” Gunny interrupted. “Think about it first.”

“Okay,” I said, forcing myself to stop hyperventilating. “You’re thinking there might be something small about to happen, that’s going to start a chain reaction that will lead to World War Two…and we have a shot at stopping it?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“You’re dreaming!” I shouted.

“I might be, at that,” Gunny said. “But I know we’re here for a reason. I also know that Saint Dane is here, somewhere. From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t show up just to sightsee.”

“He’s right, mate,” exclaimed Spader. “What if Saint Dane is here to make sure something happens that leads to the big war? Or what if he’s trying to make the war into something bigger than it was going to be already? Hobey, if we find out what it is, we could make sure it doesn’t happen.”