We Used to Be

prologue

In a small town in Germany 3 small children played in the grass. Two boys both blonde; identical in looks. Then a girl, stick straight brown hair with ruby fires. All these children acting as friends. Alex the girl was just one of the guys in this group of four young children. The boys were 4 the girl was 3. One year and kindergarten would separate the three. The children stood up for a final race. It was growing dark and the girl would soon have to go.

"Race you Billa!" the girl said staring one boy down.

"You're on!"

"Hey I'm in this!" the other boy, Tom protested.

"Yea, so I can beat you Tommi!" Alex snickered.

"Don't call me Tommi!"

"TOO LATE!"

"Are we racing or not?" Bill interrupted, Alex and Tom fought like brother and sister.

"We're going!"

"3, 2, 1," Bill called.

"Ready, set?" Alex added.

"GO!" Tom yelled even though he had started before. It didn't help him any, Alex beat him.

"CHEATER!" Alex yelled at him.

"Am not!"

"Yea, you are," Bill agreed with Alex.

"Hey you're my twin not hers!"

"But she's right," Bill shrugged and looked at the sky it was darkening Alex would have to go soon.

"I always am!" with that Alex pounced on Tom. They fought for a short while. Alex's athleticism won out.

"Owned!" Bill called just as the street lights flickered on.

"ALEX!" her mom yelled Alex muttered something unintelligible horrible for a 3 year old I'm sure and ran to her house.

"Now we get to go back to our house," Tom sighed, he was embarrassed about being beat by a girl who was younger than him (some things never change). They walked back to the house. Bill laughing evilly as he hurried to tell his mother what had happened.

"Alex Hunny I need to talk to you," her mother said as Alex came inside.

"Yes, Mommy?"

"We're moving tomorrow," she looked at her child warily she was prone to extreme outbursts of temper she was sensitive and quick to react on emotional fronts (some things stay the same).

"We are what?"

"I got my citizenship and we are leaving for America tomorrow!"

"No!" most people think that children are to young to realize the implications of such a dramatic change maybe most are but Alex always was exceptionally smart. She realized that a new country meant saying goodbye to her friends to her days spent playing she did not want to go.

"Yes, you get to see your sister and your daddy!"

"I don't want to!" she screamed.

"I don't care what you want!" she picked the screaming child up unceremoniously and dumped her in her room. There was screaming and pounding. She just locked the door and went back to reading her book. After a while there was silence she wasn't surprised. This always happened. Alex would through a temper tantrum and an hour later her mom would go check on her and she would be asleep having sobbed herself into unconsciousness. She wasn't aware that that wasn't what was happening this time. Alex was a crafty child. She opened her window and her climbed out. She ran across her back yard and into Bill and Tom's. They were outside she knew they would be she had sat and watched them play wistfully many times. She ran tears pouring down her face. She was a dreamer a happy one she had had an idea about how she wanted the next few years to go it was all being destroyed. No one knew this was the start of the destruction of the happy child known as Alex.

"BILL!" Alex yelled it not to loud she didn't need her mother to hear.

"Alex?" that was Tom's voice but when they appeared it was both Bill and Tom.

"OH god Alex what's wrong?" Bill said the moment the girl was in sight. He always protected her.

"I'm leaving?"

"You're what?"

"My mom says were moving and we're leaving tomorrow," she started crying harder. Bill gave her a hug.

"Where are you moving to?"

"America!"

"WHAT!"

"I know I'll never get to see you guys anymore!"

"Alex, could you please stop crying?" Tom begged; he didn't deal well with emotions, he never would.

"I'm sorry," she pulled away from Bill, "I had to tell you two, I guess this is good bye," she walked back to her house. Her mom never found out about that escapade if she had Alex's life may have been so different.

"ALEX!"

"VATER!" even with the sadness of loosing her friend what little girl could resist there own dad?

"Alex," Casey, Alex's older American sister stood there she was in kindergarten and proud of it. She looked down at her 3 year old sister with curiosity she had been born in Germany like Alex but had been brought back.

"Casey?" The girls hugged. They would have a strange relationship, they were sisters but they would always be friends. The girls would have talked but Alex didn't speak English. They were at the house and Casey was teaching Alex English when Alex heard her parents arguing. She could hear her father complaining about his daughter not speaking English. She could also hear her mother saying how she would forget the language and her life there, after all who remembers when they are 3?

The years went on. Alex contrary to what her parents believed never forgot her homeland. That knowledge was intensified the first time they took her to an American library. Alex found a computer logged on and found the internet and email. She figured it out at age 4. She always had been one of the brightest children out there. She got Bill's mother's email by hacking her mother's account at age 5. She talked to him through there until he got his own. He taught her German because her family was trying to get her to forget it they wouldn't tell her. They stayed friends. It was hard only communicating through the computer. They drifted apart as there worlds changed. Bill started school and hated it. Alex started school loved it and excelled. She skipped the third grade. Bill's parents hated each other and divorced. Alex's parents hated her. Alex hated them back. They refused to admit that she was German. She loved her home country. In fact her email and I.M. screen name was IamNOTamerican. She hid it from her family only her sister knew how she felt. Alex encountered bullying problems in the fifth grade. She had developed self hate from the way her parents treated her. When the bullying came she hid more in herself. Across the ocean Bill was worried his extroverted friend was turning inward. Tom told him that she was just growing a thicker skin but Bill remembered Alex she was open and carefree this girl he was talking to, as much as she pretended to be, was not. Alex began to do research as she got older. She discovered that as a German citizen it was her right to live in that country. She watched the news as Germany and the U.S. fought and she planned. Alex knew that when she became a teenager she was old enough that the courts would listen to her just as they would in a custody case. Carefully she compiled all her information. Her school records her standardized test scores (ACT and SAT), Athletic records all of it. She knew she was the type of student any school would want what about a country? She knew that America and Germany were fighting. America would refuse to relinquish one of there top students and Germany would want her back. In peaceful times this would have been harder but now with the two countries at odd's they would welcome the chance to start a fight. The day after her thirteenth birthday was the day she decided to go to the courthouse and get this all going. She was getting out of here if it was the last thing she did. Casey who was now 16 her birthday being earlier in the year than Alex's was taking her. Alex had found that Casey was also a German citizen. Casey had been angry she had heard the way her sister talked about the country and at very least wanted to see the land where she her sister and her mother had been born.

AUTHORESS NOTE

I HAD COFFEEEEE

Anyway here's the beginning the interesting stuff will start next chap…

CAN I GET SOME REVIEWS

They make my dark world bright!

Really

It's sad but true….