“A bee,” said Lanny.
“For example?” said Robbie.
“Well, hand grenades; there are millions of them — ”
“We made a quarter of a million for our army.”
“And now they are somewhere out in the mud of Lorraine. You know what they look like; I don't need to describe them.”
“What would you do with them?”
“First I unload them. I have a mass of black powder, which I put up in bags. I know a man who supplies mining companies in Chile, Peru, all those countries. Then I cut off the handles; tomorrow I will find something to do with them. Then I have a little round metal box; it has a pretty shape, it sits up on end; I cut a slot in the top, and there you are.”
“What is it?”
“It is a children's bank, where they drop their pennies, their pfennigs, their sous, their soldi — in every country they have little coins for the poor.”
Robbie and his son couldn't keep from laughing. Such an odd idea: a hand grenade, the quintessence of destructiveness, made into a children's bank, the symbol of thrift. Swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks!