School is hell. Why did my father have to take that damn job?! Oh yeah, such great learning him. Damn him for moving me away from all my friends to a country where I have no friends, and to top it all off, I don't speak the language!
"Alice, Sie haben die richtige Antwort?Mrs. Schmidt startles me as she asks me for the answer to the last question.
"Um . . . Die Antwort ist sechzehn.I stutter out the correct number. Everyone snickers at what I assume is mispronunciation of yet another word. Mrs. Schmidt offers me a small smile and nods as she tries not to laugh. I sit with my head on my desk until class is over. I write the homework, but since it's in German I'll have to translate it later.
I make my way out to the courtyard as quickly as I can. Some people laugh as I walk past them, others whisper behind me, and some people simply ignore me. I know fully well that nobody will offer me a seat with them, so I find an unoccupied tree to sit under. I pull my book out of my bag for our twenty minute break.
"Yet another thing to set me apart from everyone else, I sit here and read while they all talk and play games." One girl looks over toward me, then speaks in rapid German to her friends. I catch a little of what she says, "girl . . . American . . .book . . ." They all laugh and continue talking.
I sigh, and as I open my book, a boy sits next to me. I star at him for a minute, still holding my book. He looks at me and offers me his hand.
"Ich bin Ludwig, Was ist dein Name?" I process what he said for a minute before I realize that he was asking what my name was.
"I'm Alice." I take his hand and he shook mine vigorously. He turns toward his food and starts to eat. I am so shocked that it takes me a minute to start eating myself.
For the next couple of weeks Ludwig sits next to me while I read, and when we rearrange seats in geometry, he sits next to me. Neither of us say very much to each other, partially because my German isn't getting any better. Occasionally we say hi as we sit down, and we usually have simple conversations at lunch, mostly about food. He also helps me figure out what the homework is by opening the book to the correct pages and pointing to the problems.
"Alice, Wollen Sie wissen, wie sp舩 es ist?"(do you know what time it is?)
"Ummm. . . . Es ist jetzt zehn vierzig fnf" It's fifteen minutes through the break, 10:45. A girl walks up to us and starts talking rapidly to Ludwig. He growls at her, and she looks genuinely frightened. She run off and he shouts at her.
"Ludwig, was ist das?"(What was that?)
"Es war nichts, Machen Sie sich keine Sorgen." (It was nothing, don't worry about it.) I drop it, but the furious look in his eyes doesn't go away until the end of lunch. After Ludwig and I part ways to go to class the girl corners me. She starts speaking so fast I can't hear it all, and what I do catch pisses me off.
"You need to stay away . . . he's mine you bitch, got that? . . . if you get too close . . . I'll send my brother . . . you up . . . whore . . . can't even speak . . . don't know what I'm saying . . . stupid freak . . ." I shove her away from me and walk to class. She walks past me, absolutely fuming. After school, a boy from my biology class comes up to me.
"Sie war frech zu meiner" he says that I was rude to his sister. I try to walk past him, but he shoves me to the ground. He kneels down and raises his fist. I cover my face, there's a hard grunt above me and his weight is gone. I look up and see Ludwig, his back to me, pressing the boy to the wall. He speaks rapidly in German, and I don't know what he's saying. I have a feeling there is a lot of cussing and threatening, because the boy's face goes from anger to fear almost instantly.
A teacher comes up and breaks them up, then leads all three of us to the principal's office. I sit next to Ludwig in the office, and he whispers to me;
"Geht es dir gut?" He looks at me worriedly as he asks how I am. I smile and say that I'm fine, and that he shouldn't have done that.
"Wenn ich es nicht machen Dann huten sie sich verletzen, Und es w舐e meine" (If I didn't then you would be hurt, and it would be my fault.) I'm not sure what he said, he had whispered it to himself, but the principal comes in before I can ask him to repeat it.
"Na dann, Herr Fischer sagt, dass sie schon seit langem kapft erneut Ludwig.(Well then, Mr. Fischer says you've been fighting again Ludwig.) Ludwig explains what happened, and the boy argues that he didn't start it.
"Gut Miss Bard?The principal looks at me expectantly.
"Ludwig war. . . Schtzen mich von ihm. . . Er versuchte mich schlagen. . .(Ludwig was . . . protecting me from him . . . he tried to hit me.) I explain what had happened in my usual choppy German. He speaks again, but I am too tired to try to listen.
Later Ludwig tells me that he got one week of in school suspension for attacking the other guy, but he had been expelled. Apparently it wasn't the first time he's attacked someone at school.
Summer vacation comes and I go to visit my friends in California. Ludwig looked sort of sad when I told him I wouldn't be around all summer. Secretly I was a little glad, I wanted him to miss me.
"Alice! You totally have a crush girl!" Emma squeals at me when I tell her about him.
"You're crazy Emma, he's just a friend!" She looks at me with a 'seriously?' expression.
"You've been talking about him for two hours, you smiled so hard while you were talking, and your eyes glazed over a little. You have a crush, and the sooner you admit it, the sooner you'll be able to find out if he likes you too.I continue to tell her how crazy she was, secretly wondering if it's true.
"He is hot . . . and I do really miss him now that he's not here. . . . Maybe I do like him . . ." We hang out all summer, and this question is never far from me.
"Alice!" Ludwig shouts my name at the airport. He raises a hand so I can see him through the crowd.
"Sie m hten Heimfahrt mit ihrem frined?" (Do you want to ride back home with your friend sweetie?) I nod and run toward him.
"Ludwig! Haben sie mich vermissen?" (Did you miss me?) His cheeks turn slightly pink as I finally reach him and hug him. I can only imagine what we look like, but I don't care! I missed my friend.
"Y-yes Alice. I missed you very much." I look up at him shocked as he stares down at me.
"You speak English? Why didn't you tell me!?" I smack his shoulder.
"I learned it for you." He hesitates for a second before kissing me gently on the lips. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back, completely absorbed in the moment. When we break apart I look into his eyes;
"Das ist lustig, ich lernte Deutsch fr Sie." (That's funny, I learned German for you.) I say unwaveringly, in perfect German.