Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II (Operation Kinderspion)

by Adam Gidwitz

Now, Max was smart enough to know that Stein and Berg couldn’t really be on his shoulders. They were figments of his imagination. Products of the terrible trauma of being separated from his parents and his homeland. They had to be. Nonetheless he decided, for the moment, to play along. “So where did you come from?” Max asked the creatures. “I come from Germany!” said Berg. “Or, what people now call Germany. It’s had lots of different names since the beginning of time. ‘Ugg.’ ‘Flurp.’ ‘The Holy Roman Empire.’ But no matter what you call it, I am a spirit of that land! Some people refer to me as a kobold.” Max had heard of kobolds in fairy tales. They were what we, in English, might call hobgoblins—little creatures that cause mischief, like hiding your keys under the couch or raising the toilet seat in the middle of the night so in the morning when you sit down you fall in. “I, on the other hand,” said Stein, and then he added, “uh, other shoulder, I guess…am a spirit of the Jewish people. I also cause mischief. Usually by sticking myself to someone and making their life miserable. It’s my speciality. My kind have had lots of names since the beginning of time, but these days people tend to call me a dybbuk.” Max had heard of dybbuks, too. They were supposed to be evil spirits, who possessed people and tormented them. He had always expected them to look scary. Neither Stein nor Berg looked scary. They looked like little old men. Balding. With round noses and round bellies. Ne...