Battle Fatigue by Mark Kurlansky Read Free Book Online Page A

anything like the things I’m thinking. But I am alone. No one else is having these thoughts and that tells me something. Somehow I have taken a wrong turn that no one else has taken and I am going to be quiet about it until I understand how I have gotten it all wrong. In my school, you don’t say bad things about President Kennedy. Not in my school. Not in Haley.
    â€œSo, cats,” says Mr. Walter. “What are we going to do about Cuba?”
    Donnie LePine is right there with his hand straight up in the air, snappy like a salute, proud that he knows the answer. “We have to make the Russians back down.”
    â€œNuke ’em! Nuke ’em right in Cuba!” shouts Stanley Wiszcinski. All those early years spent surrendering the Japanese flag have somehow damaged Stanley’s mind.
    â€œWe have to stop them,” says Kathy Pedrosky. She always says everything so well. If only I agreed with her. But I just keep quiet. A lot of the kids agree with her. They don’t like the idea of the Communists pushing us around. But I don’t see them pushing us around. Khrushchev just wanted to go to Disneyland. Well, he also wanted to have a lot of missiles—as many missiles as we have, and we want to have a lot of missiles too. But why aren’t the other kids talking about life as we know it ending on the planet?
    I can see that, despite what they say, a lot of them are worried. The whole school is acting like Rocco Pizzutti, somber and silent.
    The school gives us regular updates on the situation and I can tell that the teachers are scared too. That makes me feel better but also worse. I am glad that I am not the only one scared, but it also confirms that I have good reason to be scared. Wouldn’t it be better if I were just crazy and weird and there is nothing to be scared of?
    Kathy is scared. I can tell by the way she hangs on to me. I like that. But today, for no reason, she starts crying. I lie and tell her it will be all right.
    She cheers up and says, “President Kennedy will know what to do.” I nod, but I don’t want to answer because I am not at all sure that is true.

    And then suddenly it’s over. The Russians back down. I’m glad that someone has.
    â€œThere is no stopping America,” Stanley says.
    â€œNot as long as we have President Kennedy,” says Kathy. “He knows how to handle the Russians.”
    â€œAre you sure?” I say. “He nearly got us all killed.”
    â€œBut he didn’t,” says Kathy. “And now we’re a lot safer.”
    â€œI don’t feel safer. Life as we know it on the planet could end.” A look comes over Kathy Pedrosky’s lovely face. It is disdain. “Kathy, you were scared. We both were scared.”
    â€œJoel, you can be so creepy,” she says. And she walks out of the room with Stanley Wiszcinski.
    I had been right in the first place. Girls don’t like guys who are afraid of things. Even if they are just afraid of the end of the world.

Chapter Eight
    A Live German
    I remember my father once saying “The more money you have, the more money you can get.” This, of course, is very bad news for poor people. Well, there is also some bad news for lonely people: the more friends you have, the more friends you can get.
    Ever since the Cuban missile crisis, when Kathy declared officially that I was creepy—and everyone heard her—I haven’t been popular. Let me be clear. I am fourteen years old, well into my teenage years, and for teenage boys, popularity means being liked by girls. I still have my friends Athos and Porthos. We click our stones and talk about fighting the Russians and even debate whether we will do this from the army, the navy, or the air force.
    I am not sure about fighting the Russians but these are my friends and I don’t want to be alone. The winter of my unpopularity would have been the perfect time to meet someone new, but that