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could you please direct us to the baby pond.” Karl was polite as usual.
    “What baby pond?” she answered seemingly confused.
    “The one where the storks get the babies for their delivery route,” Harold chimed in to help his friend.
    “Oh that one,” the women smiled at the boys. “We don’t show ponds like that in our zoo. It is out in the country where the big baby lakes are located.” Karl smiled back at her and thanked her for the information.
    “I don’t believe her either. This is a question for my grandpa,” he declared to Harold, who suggested that they should drop their investigation for the time being. There were far more pressing issues to attend to.
    Lately, both boys used every free minute they had to study for the Cadet School entrance examinations. They even had, for the time being, suspended their excursions in the U-Bahn system. They studied and studied. Their fathers supplied them with school books from the higher classes. By the end of the school year they were so far ahead of their class that they were bored out of their mind during the school hours.
    There was nothing the teachers could tell them that they did not already know forward and backwards.  
    “I am sure that my grades are sufficient,” Karl confided to Harold as they carried their report cards home. Report cards were given twice each year, six months apart from each other.
    The German report card grading system started with #1 as very good and ended with #6 as insufficient. The only thing better than #1 was a handwritten remark by the teacher such as: excellent, best of the class, extremely advanced and similar comments.
    Neither Karl nor Harold had received a number in their last report card. They had nothing but remarks of excellence. But, they also had a remark below the #6 in turnen (physical education).
    Harold’s remark read: "Unable to catch a ball and unwilling to learn."
    Karl’s card was not any better: "Objects loudly to ball games by claiming that he cannot learn anything from a ball which is round and only rolls around the ground. He also refuses to run or jump."
    “That’s about right,” said Harold as he studied the teacher’s remarks and Karl agreed. Due to shortage of teachers (most of them had been drafted) the class now numbered 128 students. Herr Halama had been drafted as Karl had anticipated and was not heard from anymore. There was even talk among the students that they might get female teachers in the new school year and that the all-boys classes would be integrated with girl students.
    “If we get female teachers, I definitely want to be in the Cadet school. I mean my mother is nice and all and she cooks alright but she knows her place when my father speaks.” Harold was adamant about that.
    Karl loved his mother, but suspected her of being in tune with the Nazi propaganda. His father was quiet when a discussion about Hitler was about to unfold. Karl considered him to be a wise man. But like Harold, he was unable to equate a female with an authority figure.
    He agreed with Harold that the best way to learn something worthwhile might be by attending the Napola. But, he had heard from his father that the Napola too demanded a certain amount of physical education.
    In addition to that, his father could not fully prove their Aryan linage. Due to the destruction of some records during World War One, some of the birth records from their great-grandparents had been lost. These were two strikes against him.
    Harold on the other hand could prove his Aryan ancestry far beyond the requirements. He was also physically strong and might overcome the remarks on his report card.
    The examination for the Napola took six days. In the German test system there was no provision for multiple choice answers. All the answers had to be in writing, about a minimum length of 70 words. If the answer was less than 70 words but was correct, you still lost points for failing to give sufficient examples. If the answer was