2024 Winner Short Story – Youth The Girl Who Stole Swastikas, by Annabelle Huff People say they’re scared all the time. Lucky. I can’t afford that privilege. Not when I’ve seen things that would give people nightmares. I don’t get nightmares anymore. I guess it would be too cruel living in nightmares when I’m awake and asleep. My waking nightmare is World War 2. I know it better as Operation Magpie. I could see the lights of the gala sliding down the horizon as the train rattled along. You don’t get scared. Leaning forwards, I clenched the vibrating handrail. Leaped. And landed hard. The wind whipped my hair, but I didn’t tug the Nazi cap over my brown hair until the last minute. Tonight I was not a Jew. Tonight I was on a mission. “Name?” The receptionist asked. “Maria.” I slipped smoothly into a German accent - and my new role. “Maria what?” “Schmidt, of course. Didn’t you see my parents walk in? Don’t tell my mother I was late.” Acting is lying, and this was both. “...the Schmidts are on here.” I grinned under the shadow of my cap as I walked in. Good thing it was such a common last name. As the doors closed behind me, my heart burned. I was drowning in faces from headlines and luxuries thicker than the accents. Nazi soldiers paraded around with girls hanging off them. It was tempting to steal their credentials, humiliate them, make them feel a brand new emotion: uncomfort. But I was here for one thing only. And there he was, the man with a black heart and white gloves. The target. I eyed the general from afar, taking a glass off a passing tray. With the cap’s shadow covering the top half of my face and a sip from the glass covering the bottom half, I would be anonymous. Just like all the times before, the target would be left without his secret and with a headline. And just like all the times before, I told myself I wasn’t scared. “Remember that you are a professional.” I murmured. Yet as I made promises I needed to believe, my hands shook so bad that I couldn’t sip out of the glass. Now or never. “Hey, you.” I spun around, splashing water on the person behind me. It was a boy with a swastika pin and a military haircut, but he was too young to be in the military. He was my age, and he looked much too cocky for someone facing a snarling girl. “Why are you staring at the general?” “Why were you staring at me?” “Trying to figure out who your parents are, of course. I haven’t seen you before.” He dabbed at his now wet tuxedo. “So tell me. Who are you?” “None of your business, thank you very much.” “You’re welcome. But that doesn’t answer my question. I’ll go first. I’m Adolf.” “Like Hitler?” My heart free fell. Stupid! He must’ve heard the contempt dripping from my words. My sweaty fingers slipped on the glass. “Like Hitler.” He cocked his head. Before he opened his mouth again, I cut him off.
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