Own nothing.
.
.
"Da?" Max called, peering into the study. "Hey, Da?"
"In the kitchen," came his father's reply. He was stirring a mug of black coffee and reading some important looking documents. "What is it?"
"Tonight, for dinner..." He suddenly felt like his question was absolutely daft and should not be asked. "Ah..."
"Rosalind's not coming," Da said, turning a page. Barking spiders, how did he do that?
"How did you do that?" he demanded, running a hand through his sandy hair.
"You make this sort of strange face when you think about her. Looking back, your mother did it too." His father smiled, clearly remembering something. "But why the sudden interest? Whatever happened to that girl Jeanie?"
"Arty," he said darkly. "Arty happened to Jeanie." Max's cousin Artemis was his on-again off-again best mate, but his presence seemed to create this sort of vacuum that girls got sucked into. He was the most confident person he had ever met, yet he was also oddly charming. It wasn't bloody fair that clumsy, awkward Max had a cousin like that to compete with.
"Something about a man in uniform," Arty had said. "Ask your ma." at the time, Max thought it had been a joke, but her asked his mother about it and was treated to the most bizarre story he had ever heard.
Jeanie had been pretty, very pretty indeed. But his sister's new friend had erased every trace of her from his memory. Rosalind Franklin was not just a bonny face; she was one of the smartest people he had ever met. She could go on and on about life-threads (they're calling them dioxy-something acid now), while Max could manage a boring conversation about working in a mechanik's shop. However, she never made him feel stupid or inferior, and showed great interest in his work.
His father's voice brought him back to reality.
"You don't think... ah, you don't think they've done anything bad, have they? You know, -" his voice dropped- "-marital things?"
If Max had been drinking something, he would have choked on it.
"No. No, they- I mean, I don't think- he hasn't- just... no." The answer was probably yes, but he decided it would be best not to say anything.
"Oh... good," his Da finished vaguely. "You- you haven't done anything bad either, right?"
"No." This was quickly becoming even more awkward than the time his mother had found the pin-up calendar under his bed. "Can we please not talk about this?"
"Sure." There was a note of gratefulness in his voice.
Max bounded up to his room. Just as his door closed, the front door opened.
"Hello, schatz," he heard his father say. "How was your... Is something the matter? You look worried."
"Haven't you listened to the wireless-" -it's a radio, Mam, call it a radio- "-At all today?"
"No. Why?"
"It's just like last time all over again. 'Mergency draft." Max could hear pacing, and his mother sounded close to tears. "Thought we stopped it. I thought it was all over..."
"You mean..." His father swore softly in German. "Max. No. Not my son. They can't- they- my son, they just- mein Sohn..."
He had never heard his father cry before, and it was disturbing. He raced down the stairs.
"Mam? What's going on?"
She let out a great sigh, and she suddenly seemed a lot older than forty. His father had turned away so Max couldn't see his face.
"There's been a declaration of war," she said softly. "Your draft card will come in the mail soon."
No one notice Bovril padding in.
"Thought it was all over," it said sadly.