Max in the House of Spies: Chapters 7–14

David and Anthony Montagu attended St. West’s School, which stood in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, in ramshackle old buildings that still looked very much like they had when they had been built four hundred years ago.

The boys were all staring at him with an expression of bored cruelty that is the special domain of both the very rich and the very stupid. Max knew that they were the former—and suspected that they also might be the latter.

“A watchmaker,” said Master Yarrow, suddenly interested. He inclined toward Max like there was a breeze in the classroom.

“He owns one of the German watch companies? Montblanc? Lange & Söhne? You wouldn’t happen to be one of the titular sons, would you?”

The boys were staring open-mouthed, their perpetually bored eyes no longer ogling but rather verging on disgust.

Please remember, as Play has been interminable this year and war seems just around the corner, that as much as you all aspire to glory in battle, there is no ragging in yard, even during a very good tan.

Suddenly a tall boy with freckles and curly black hair loomed over Max.

Bonner and Circuitt hesitated for a moment. The army of boys appeared to waver.

Because the ‘science’ that the Jews pretend to do is ersatz science. Fake. Imaginary.

“He discovered the theories of general and special relativity.”

Everyone knew that Professor Goldenschaft was so militant in the classroom about Jews because he was constantly asked if Goldenschaft was a Jewish name.

“Have you studied any English history in your Nazi schools back home?”
Sometimes, a question is asked that assumes so many things that it lands on you with the weight of an iron stove.

“Not much,” Master Yarrow mused. “Of course not. Too busy goose-stepping and saluting Hitler, I imagine.”

Yarrow failed to suppress a smile.

Master Yarrow said, “So try your hardest! Best boys will make the first team, but effort will get even you gormless gits on the second! And failing that, there are always the colors!” Which elicited a chuckle, just as it had done on the first day of class.

“Are you all right?” Max asked.
Harold nodded curtly and managed to say, “’Course. Fine.”

Mr. Montagu looked at Mrs. Montagu. Almost imperceptibly, they both shrugged.

Cars roared past him, honking their horns angrily at the tiny boy who was staggering through traffic with a giant birdseed bag on his shoulder.

He pulled open the door and located in the musty darkness a polished wooden flagpole with a rolled-up pink flag on it. He withdrew it and unfurled the flag.

Max expected some of the boys to jeer at him as he ran past with the pink flag—maybe the Harrow boys, maybe Bonner and Circuitt.

And every pigeon who had ever happened to pay a visit to central London in the last month—and discovered that the unfurling of a pink flag over Victor Square heralded the distribution of forty pounds of birdseed—rose over the high wrought iron fence and descended on St. West’s rugby pitch.

The birds settled on the rugby pitch like a seething black-and-gray blanket.

I have never learned a prank from a human before. I will remember this day for the rest of my interminable life.

Stein seemed to be feeling proud, too—until he saw Max notice and he quickly went back to his customary scowl.

And then, amid the din, Max heard Uncle Ewen collect himself enough to say, “Sorry, Stuart, old boy. But that child is a genius.”

He could still hear the wild cacophony of crying, shouting, and laughter from downstairs, even through the closed bedroom door.

Improved immensely at speaking English and gotten rid of his German accent. Thankfully, because anti-German sentiment was getting more intense by the day.

But the effort was fraying his nerves like old wires in a radio. And, like a radio with frayed wires, his emotions were crackling with static.

Max hated this station—except at 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 11:00 a.m. on weekends, when it broadcast a show called Jazz Cracks that played American-style jazz, with only short interludes of pro-Nazi propaganda.

Then to Max he said, “So...shall I demolish you in table tennis? Or should I let you win for most of the match, before roaring back and utterly humiliating you in the last moments?”

He played by holding the paddle straight up in his fist and pushing the ball over the net to Uncle Ivor, as Ivor restrained himself from smashing every pathetic offering back into Max’s face.

“The evil god within me just can’t resist... My dark master must be sated!”

Max was entranced by Ivor. In addition to being hilarious, and a world-class table tennis player, he was a vivacious intellectual.

In addition to being hilarious, and a world-class table tennis player, he was a vivacious intellectual.

He was a voracious reader, he made experimental films that no one had ever seen, and—to Max’s great shock—he was an ardent defender of Communism.

He was a voracious reader, he made experimental films that no one had ever seen, and—to Max’s great shock—he was an ardent defender of Communism.

He gave poetic speeches about a future in which all humans were truly equal: equal in wealth, equal in status, equal in political power. Whenever he did this, Uncle Ewen liked to point out that, while that sounded nice, the world’s leading Communist country was the Soviet Union, run by Joseph Stalin, who seemed intent on making all of his “comrades” equal by making them equally poor, equally oppressed, or equally dead.

“What’s Naval Intelligence?” Max asked Stein and Berg as Uncle Ewen gallantly helped Mary the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Well, naval means ‘boats,’” said Berg. “So my theory is...Naval Intelligence means figuring out how smart boats are?”

“That’s the dumbest theory I ever heard,” Stein replied. “Dumber than a boat.”
“Do you know what it is?” Berg retorted.