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“the shelter.” My mother says, “Joel, could you go down to the shelter and bring up two cans of tuna fish?” There is no water in the shelter. Only wine, vegetable oil, cans of lima beans, and an inexplicably large supply of canned tuna fish. This worries me.
    I suppose, when the attack comes, the Panicellis will let us in. The Wiszcinskis also have a well-supplied shelter. The Wiszcinskis always have a lot of food, which is surprising because Stanley is so skinny. Stanley did not think much of the food in our shelter and told me that when the attack comes I could come to his. I could even bring Sam if I wanted. We clicked our pieces of Montana jade and smiled.
    So when the attack comes I will have a number of possibilities. Hiding under a desk, on the other hand, is hard to take seriously. We are told to do it and we do it. You have to do something to be ready for the Communists.
    When the alarm sounds, Stanley Wiszcinski often dives under the same desk as I do. We look out from the bottom of the desk to see Miss Norris’s legs. They are an architectural wonder. She is so fat that from her knees to her ankles her legs are all the same thickness, like two pillars. And then all of this is held up by shoes with the thinnest, highest heels imaginable. They must hurt her.
    â€œHow can she stand in those shoes?” Stanley whispers to me.
    â€œThey’re going to snap,” I say.
    â€œWhen she comes falling down we’ll be safe here under the desk. See, Joel, it’s safe here.” We both start laughing.
    â€œYou won’t be laughing when the Russian Communists come with atom bombs,” Miss Norris snaps. She’s right. That is not going to be funny. But now I recognize Myrna Levine’s giggle and know that Kathy must be nearby.
    â€œAre your hands over your heads?” Miss Norris says in a threatening tone. We quickly put our arms back up, at that moment more afraid of Miss Norris than the bomb.

    But today when the siren goes off and I dive under a desk, instead of Stanley being there it is Kathy Pedrosky. And Myrna is nowhere in sight. I don’t know what to say. Of course, we’re not supposed to be talking, so I don’t have to say anything. But it is an opportunity, if I could only think of the right thing to say. Something good could come from the Cold War.
    But what? I know she will not be interested in Miss Norris’s legs.
    Then Kathy Pedrosky turns her eyes to me and says, “Joel, I feel safe here with you.”
    I want to say something. I almost say “I feel safe with you too.” But then, just in time, I remember that this would be a huge mistake. I am the man. She doesn’t want to make me feel safe. I am supposed to save her from a nuclear attack. I think of saying something like “Don’t worry, I will save you.” Save her from the Russians. But how do you save someone from a nuclear attack? So I do not say anything.
    After school she is standing by the front door—just standing there, as if she is waiting for me. She holds out her hand and I take it and we walk out together holding hands.
    Now I am mostly thinking about Kathy. I take my allowance and buy a pin with a gold circle, which she wears. I feel grateful to the Communists in Russia.

Chapter Seven
    My Cuban Love Crisis
    I was grateful to the Cold War for getting me Kathy but then it took her away. I suppose I can blame Khrushchev.
    Nikita Khrushchev, who looks like my uncle, bangs his shoe on the table and can’t go to Disneyland. That is what I know about the head Russian, Nikita Khrushchev. It does not seem like enough to hate the man, unless it is true that he wants to drop an atomic bomb on our school. No one likes an A-bomb dropper. But I don’t believe that he does, and in fact he never has dropped an A-bomb on anyone. We did, but he didn’t. I just don’t understand this Cold War. It is between the free world and the Communist world,