As Max bustled about readying coffee for the General, he tried to calm his nerves with sun-soaked memories of his bucolic youth. He was so absorbed in his meanderings through edelweiss-littered meadows that he was startled to find a bespectacled young man standing amiably next to his desk.


"Er, excuse me?" Max interrupted the newcomer's intense scrutiny of a crack in the floor.


His visitor's face burst into an infectious grin, delighted to have been noticed. "I'm looking for my brother!" he chirped.


"I'm sorry, but you shouldn't be here," Max explained, trying to herd the man towards the door.


"But Herr Fenstermacher said I should look here. Hans didn't come home last night, and he always comes home, even though sometimes it's kinda late. He's busy you know, but he always makes it home before morning. So that's why he makes me dinner before he leaves, just in case he gets home late, so I'm not waiting up hungry."


Max was completely lost. "Herr Fensterwho? What? Who's Hans?"


"Hans is my brother! I'm Franz! Hans and Franz Bricker." Franz was veritably beaming. "It's kinda neat how it rhymes like that, isn't it? I've always liked that. Hans and Franz. Hans and Franz. Makes it easy to remember."


"Wait, wait, wait." Max was waving his hands and shaking his head, trying to jar some sense into this mess. "Hans Bricker is your brother?"


"Ja! Do you know him? Is he here?" Franz was bouncing up and down like an overactive puppy. "He's a little taller than me, but he has darker hair. Mine is more blond." He raised his cap to prove his point. "It gets really blond in the summer, you should see! Hans definitely looks more like papa. But he has mama's green eyes." Franz scrunched up his face in boyish earnestness. "Oh, I don't mean he really has mama's eyes. Ew! That would be gross wouldn't it! Messy if you ask me! And where would you keep them?"


Max tried getting a better look into the blue eyes of his new best friend, and decided Franz was missing more than a few vital connections upstairs. And why was he so darn chipper?


"Look, I'm sorry Franz. The Gestapo is on its way here to pick up your brother." Max picked up a large tray loaded with a coffee pot, cups, and all the accoutrements, anxious over how long he was taking to get back to the General. "You'll have to talk with them." And good luck to them too, Max smirked inside.


Leaving Franz behind, Max found himself stuck in front of the conference room door. He was trying to figure out how he would open it with his arms loaded up, when a new voice exploded into the office. "Where is my prisoner?"


Max dropped his head to his chest. Speak of the devil.


Trying not to sink under the weight of his tray, Max called over his shoulder, "I'll be with you in a moment, Major Hochstetter."


"Bah! The Gestapo waits for no one!" Hochstetter marched up to Max and grabbed his arm intent to spin him around. Instead, Hochstetter was greeted with a spray of hot coffee across the front of his uniform.


The shock of the scalding liquid splashing across his own front and into his face caused Max to drop the tray. Cups shattered across the floor, coffee spilled everywhere, and Max struggled to resist the urge to drop to his knees and pound his fists against his forehead crying: "Nein, nein, nein!" But then again, maybe Major Bergmann was on to something there.


"Aighh! You Dummkopf!" Hochstetter sputtered. Franz ran over and started dabbing Hochstetter's front with reports he'd grabbed from Max's desk. "Bah! Get away from me!" Hochstetter shoved Franz away. "Who is this man?"


"I'm Franz!" said Franz, as if this answered all.


Heaving a world-weary sigh and ignoring Hochstetter who continued to swat at Franz's bumbling attempts to help, Max knelt down and began cleaning up the broken dishes.


"I came looking for my brother Hans," Franz continued. "Hans Bricker. He's Hans, I'm Franz!"


Hochstetter lost a bit of his glower at this news. "Your brother, you say?"


"Ja! Ja!" Franz nodded emphatically. "He wasn't home when I woke up this morning and he's always home in the mornings. He makes my breakfast. And he wasn't there this morning, and I got real hungry, so I packed a bunch of food," Franz patted the satchel he had slung over his shoulder, "and thought I would try to find him so he could make me something to eat."


Max was almost enjoying Franz's rambling as he reached for more shards on the floor. Is this guy for real? He found it all a bit hard to believe. He then swatted at the strange incessant tickling on his right ear.


Hochstetter tried his awkward best to smile. "And your brother, he is often out late at night?"


"Oh yes, Sir. He's always busy. That's why we switched."


"Switched?"


"Ja! Instead of bedtime stories, he tells me wakeup stories!"


"Wakeup stories?" Hochstetter prodded. "Perhaps of his night time activities?"


"There's this one he tells about a girl whose brothers are all turned into swans and she has to make them little shirts out of flowers so they will turn back into people." Franz looked to be thinking really hard. Max wondered if he'd ever done that before. "So I don't think that really happened." Franz brightened. "But wouldn't that be neat? Have a magic shirt that would change you into a bird and you could fly around…"


Hochstetter was losing his thin wisp of patience. "But your brother, does he tell you where he goes at night?"


Franz frowned a little. Max batted again at his ear.


"I can never remember. That's why it's been taking me so long to find him today. I've been all over, and with no breakfast and no wakeup story… well, that's not true. I did hear a wakeup story this morning but it didn't make much sense."


"I don't care about your breakfast or your precious stories." Hochstetter was beginning to shake. "I want to know where your brother goes!"


Franz continued prattling oblivious to veins throbbing on Hochstetter's head. "I overheard two men talking in the Marktplatz and it sounded like they were telling the story of The Three Bears, which is one of my most favorite stories ever…"


Both Max and Hochstetter perked up. Could it be?


"And the one man was talking about Papa Bear, and how he had left some packages for the bridge and that there would be a big party tonight. And I remember thinking that was kind of strange, to give presents to a bridge, but maybe it is the bridge's birthday, and I guess that would be really nice of them an' all. But I kept waiting for them to get to the part where Goldilocks comes in, and they never did. And I figured I better find Hans, cause he knows just the right way to tell that story…"


"The bridge!" Hochstetter's eyes were ablaze already envisioning the hunt to come. "Did they say which bridge?"


" Hmmm. Let me think…" As Franz wandered through, Max supposed, the fairly empty halls of his mind, the tickling to Max's ear grew unbearable. He viciously swatted at the air around the right side of his head and ended up attacking Franz's arm.


Max leapt to his feet rubbing his right ear. "What are you doing?" He glared at Franz's extended finger hovering close to his head. "Have you been tapping my ear?"


Franz simply grinned sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders. Max shook his head incredulously. He didn't even know how to respond to that


But Hochstetter did. He grabbed Franz by the shoulders and through clenched teeth he snarled, "Which… bridge?"

"Oh, um…" A light dawned in Franz's eyes. "The Oelde!" Franz announced quite pleased with himself. "The Oelde Bridge, you know, down by the old mill."


Hochstetter released Franz, pushing him into Max. Franz tripped over his own feet and knocked them both to the floor. Hochstetter growled down at Max while shaking a threatening fist, "I will return for my prisoner later."


On his way out, Hochstetter slammed the door with such force that the large portrait of the Fuhrer flew off the wall, landing facedown in a puddle of coffee.