A/N: This story is not true! If it was I would definitely not put this up onto FF, just because it isn't fiction. Although something really similar happened to me.

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Karen had never wanted to move. Most teenagers didn't want to move to another school district, let alone another country. It wasn't just leaving all her friends and school. It was going to a place where everything was different. In the beginning, her German had sucked. Everyone talked way too fast and with too many unknown words. Of course she had picked up things, but still, even when reading Kafka in German class or studying some random topic in biology, there was no way for Karen to understand everything. And then those online translators wouldn't understand that epilithisch is actually a German word, or would give her Eutrophierung means eutrophication. What was eutrophication? (A/N: This is actually true. It happened to me.)

What was perhaps the worst thing was that there was no marching band, let alone color guard. Perhaps? More like definitely. There was no family-that-isn't-actually-related-to-you. She was all alone. Here, a flag would be considered the national black, red, and yellow stripes or the European navy blue with a circle of twelve stars. Not something you actually spun. A rifle was a weapon.

She learned the language and got confused as hell about different subjects. She made friends. She played her flute and piano and walked to school and got excited in gym class with the part of step aerobics, march in place (actually fully getting your feet in the air, though, rather than marking time) and learning about marches in music class (and marking time when nobody saw her feet).

But there was nothing quite like the weight of a flag in her hands. No summer days ever seemed as hot as during band camp, and no November nights were ever as cold and wet as practices.

It pained Karen to go onto Facebook and see all of her band friends' pictures, everyone smiling and having a great time. Indoor guard, too. She looked up some of the shows on Youtube. They didn't give her the same feeling in her gut as when it was shows where she was in it. Her friends were all there. Even when watching tapes of the show when she was in America, when she had her sprained ankle and couldn't perform, she still had that feeling.

She nearly cried from missing it. Several times.

Guard pictures lined her walls and bookshelf. Awards and medals were proudly hung. She had recordings of her show music on CD and iPod. Gloves and shoes were kept clean, and sometimes she wore them in fits of nostalgia. Her uniforms had been rented, or else she would have worn those, too. And Karen had even copied the music sheets for the flute section from her friends and played the music, too. Well.

Partly through eleventh grade, after a year and a half of being in Germany, her parents told her they would be moving back to America, her old town- in time for band camp. She could do marching band if she wanted. Of course she wholeheartedly agreed.

But on that first day of band camp, Karen looked at the group of people. She realized something, something she should have noticed before.

Each year, seniors graduated. And each year, new kids came along and joined the marching band family, and changed the band. After three years of having only one marching band "family," only a fourth of the people were left. The others were strangers.

Karen hadn't gone through this change sophomore year, or even junior year. She had thought this band would be her band. The one with everyone she remembered and loved.

She ran from the band camp and back into her mother's car.