The Forbidden Six

November 25th, 1938

Liese groaned and sat up, checking the time as she did so. One in the morning. She groaned again and laid back down. Every time she closed her eyes, sleep evaded her. It was like the fruit dangling in front of Tantalus: so close and yet so far.

"Do you think he fancies me?" she said to Nelke, who was sleeping on her bed. The dog stretched her legs and looked up at Liese, annoyed. "At the dance he said that he would 'save a kiss' for someone he liked. Someone like me. Does that mean he likes me? And why am I only thinking about this now? The dance was so long ago. I haven't really been able to think about it, with all the things going on.

"Tomorrow I'm going to go to Werner's house and ask him what he meant. I'm not quite sure if it's a good idea, though," she thought out loud. She looked down at Nelke, wondering what she thought about her plan. Nelke, being a dog, didn't respond.

Liese nodded to herself and slowly drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, she got up and started to walk to Werner's, Nelke at her side. She had brought along her dog so she would have a reason not to stay for too long. She dragged her feet on the sidewalk as the world passed by her. She stopped near his house and started to talk to her dog again. For a moment, she speculated how insane she must look, standing in front of a house and talking to a dog.

"Is this a good idea? What if it ruins our friendship? What if he does like me? Romantically, I mean. I don't like him back, or I think so, but that's not the point, right?" Liese rambled.

Nelke laid down on the ground and Liese tugged her back up, taking it as a cue to ring the doorbell.

After a minute, Jakob opened it with Werner at his heels. The younger boy saw the dog and his eyes grew wide. He knelt down and started to pet the black lab. He grinned and looked up at Liese. She nervously smiled back as Werner invited her in.

"Is it okay if I take her off of the leash?" Liese asked, referencing her pet.

"Na klar," Werner answered with a carefree wave of his hand.

Liese unleashed her dog and followed Werner to his room. She sat on the rug in the middle of his room. Her fingers absentmindedly picked at loose threads on the rug. His eyebrows knit together as he looked at her.

"Are you okay?"

"Ja, I'm fine. Why?" she quickly responded.

"What's wrong?" Werner said with increasing worry.

She started to bite one of her nails, which was an old habit of her's. Recently, she had been doing well and her nails were long for the first time in her life. Her eyes wandered around the room and they never settled on one single thing. Werner took note of all of these things with concern.

"Anne, don't do that. I know how proud you are of your long nails. Now just tell me what's wrong."

"I feel ill." She stood and began to walk towards the door.

"If you feel ill, why did you come here in the first place?" he asked.

With a defeated sigh, Liese turned to look at him. "Uhm, so you know at the dance how Leyna kissed you and then I was talking to you and you said that you would save your kiss for someone you actually liked? Someone like me?"

Werner froze. He slowly nodded after a moment.

Liese continued after some hesitation. "What does that mean?" She didn't know where she was going with this. There was no turning back.

"It means I'd go steady with you."

Liese sputtered. "As... as a date? Or do you mean just as friends?"