The Crazy School Read Online Free PDF Page A

wanted to know.
    “Because those ships were emptied out,” I said. “All the tanks and planes and jeeps they’d brought over that weren’t blown up got left there, in case Stalin tried taking over Europe after the war. A lot of bodies got left there, as well. Two hundred ninety-fi ve thousand Americans didn’t come home—guys no older than all of you.”
    Wiesner looked stricken.
    “I think about that when I’m on the FDR Drive. And I think about the people killed in London when the buildings were destroyed in the fi rst place. Thirty-two thousand civilians.
    Families. Little kids,” I said.
    “How many people altogether?” asked Sitzman. “The whole war?”
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    “There’s probably a table in here.” I picked up the textbook. “Page two-thirty-six: sixty-two million, fi ve hundred thirty-seven thousand, eight hundred deaths total, military and civilian.”
    Sitzman looked at the page. “Which includes fi ve million, seven hundred fi fty-four thousand Jewish holocaust deaths.”
    “Three million in Poland alone,” I said.
    They were quiet.
    I heard footsteps in the hallway.
    “How could they do that? Sixty-two and a half million people,” said Sitzman.
    The footsteps slowed and then stopped just shy of the classroom door.
    “I have no idea,” I said.
    “And we keep doing it, over and over,” said LeChance.
    “But people try to make it stop,” I said. “Like, even though there was the League of Nations after the First World War—
    which, you might recall, didn’t accomplish crap to prevent the Second World War—these guys were ready to try again. Roos-evelt and Stalin and Churchill, in Yalta. They invited forty-six countries to San Francisco. The Germans hadn’t even surren-dered yet.”
    “Why San Francisco?” asked Wiesner.
    “I always fi gured it was because people think of California as a frontier—new. The place to go when they want a fresh start, want to dump bad history. The gold rush . . . the sixties . . .”
    My parents . . .
    “Grateful Dead and all that, right?” asked LeChance, grinning.
    “Sure,” I said. “All that. Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love and Go Ask Alice. Pilgrims and dreamers. Peace marches.
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    Pretty much the start of the history I was actually around for, as a kid.”
    “Tell us about that,” LeChance said.
    “Sure,” I said, “when we get to Vietnam.”
    Whoever was out in the hallway started walking back in the other direction, no doubt relieved to discover I wasn’t advocat-ing global genocide.
    I looked at the clock. “Five minutes, guys. How ’bout I give you a head start on fi nishing the chapter. Maybe we can get through the rest of this war tomorrow. Start talking about Korea and Levittown and McCarthy . . . the whole fi fties trip.”
    When the bell was about to go off, I told them that anyone willing to help me get the damn map rolled up would get extra credit.
    Sitzman took me up on it. For a second I thought LeChance would too, but Fay Perry peeked around the doorway at him, all sylphy and golden, with those enormous gray eyes.
    She touched the crescent charm that hung at her neck on a silver chain—his gift, a moon from Mooney—and the boy was gone.
    It was getting colder out. I walked back over to close the window.
    There were some guys with a truck across the lawn, unloading lumber and bags of concrete.
    “Sitzman, you hear anything about them doing construction?” I said.
    He looked up, wistful. “Santangelo’s buying a helicopter. He needs a pad to land it on.”
    “Nice for him,” I said.
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    “That was cool today, what you talked about,” said Sitzman.
    I’d fi nished the daily behavior marks and shoved them in my desk. Now we were up on chairs, on either side of the wall map. The thing was still jammed, and we hadn’t made any headway.
    “Thanks,” I said.