Alexander's mother had always sought to teach him to make the best of things. In this respect, she had led by example, always ready to spin a rotten situation into something fantastic and new.
Power outages were a frequent foe in Alexander's childhood. One night, upon coaxing him out from under the bed, his mother had decided it was time for a flashlight puppet show. Soon, flickering lights sent Alex giddily running to the sock drawer.
Money was always a problem: not just for their little family. The community existed in perpetual poverty. The nearest bookshop was an hour away. Nonetheless, Alexander's mother spent any nickel she had to spare on books. But it was never enough. By the time he was nine, he'd read through every bit of text in their town, and owned a handsome collection of paperbacks to boot. Knowing she had a brilliant child, and couldn't provide the intellectual nourishment he needed, killed her. But she had him write instead. Every evening, she returned home with a pile of newspapers and found her son furiously writing responses to the previous day's stash. She worked in a diner near the airport: it was horrid, thankless work. The patrons never left tips, but as they rushed to catch their flights, they often left their papers.
Never allowing her son to miss a meal on her accord kept Miss Faucette plowing on. They never had enough money to fill the cupboards, but Alexander's mother wouldn't have him go hungry. She brought home stale pastries and took him on berry gathering adventures.
Their world had reeked of want: Alexander's mother had been clawing him a way out. He was hungry, and she thought the world deserved. No, needed, his mind.
Then, when Alexander was eleven years old, he lay in bed, emerging from the flu just soon enough to watch with all his wits about, as it devoured his mother.
She withered away, uttering her last words days before she died: "The world needs you legions more than me"
The events that followed his Mother's passing led Alexander to the conclusion that, for once she had been wrong. The world didn't need him. It seemed to have regretted sparing his life and was making every effort to remedy the error.
But the debater in Alex knew that he had survived two guardians and a deadly storm. If the world really wanted him dead, it was doing a crummy job.
The storm was historic: there wasn't a city left on the island that hadn't been reduced water damaged ruins. It killed hundreds, injured thousands, and tore families apart. By that point, Alex had nothing but a small library to his name. Hurricane Irma whisked that away as well. The books were swept up like birds and flew to watery deaths in the floodwater. He clung to the one he truly needed and went back under the bed like he had as a child, emerging into a nightmare.
Aid did not arrive for two days. In that time, four people in the town died. Alexander concluded his mother must have been wrong: storms were scary, she should have eaten too, things were not okay.
Aid workers set up tents, but not enough, so even in torrential downpours, they had to queue up outside for half the wait.
Alex was just one among hundreds, all tired, and hungry, and drenched, waiting for:
-one water bottle
-one granola bar
-one apple/other fruit
-one small first aid kit
He reached the tent and a temporary reprieve from the rain. The spark in his soul was waning when he saw a man with styled hair, and a sports coat out slip into the makeshift structure, and close his umbrella. He tapped the water off and began scanning through the crowd, sticking to the wall until he spotted a relief worker. Alexander stepped out of line and looked towards her. That man was a producer.
What was the point of a tropical storm if one couldn't use it as a platform?
The aid worker met Alexander's gaze. He was a bit short, and a bit thin, but with chubby cheeks, and life in his eyes. She said something to the well-dressed man, then left him at the far edge of the tent. She approached Alexander, and he eagerly met her halfway.
And so it came to be, that one 13-year-old Alexander Hamilton was broadcast into the homes of a few hundred in Northern Oregon, and subsequently shared over a million times on Facebook.
The wind was blowing rain diagonally; the young reporter's umbrella offered little protection. Behind them was a flattened town.
3, 2, 1:
"Welcome back to North-On News at 9: I'm here on Nevis with Alexander Hamilton, a local boy whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Erma. Alexander, I hear that you've been getting a lot of help from the American government. Care to tell the folks at home how their tax dollars are being used?"
She had a big smile plastered on her face.
And then Alex opened his mouth. The 13-year-old delivered a scathing indictment of the American Congress, calling their relief funding "inadequate" and a, "poorly conceived publicity stunt that did nothing to prevent the need for such emergency aid in the future"
But, what really sealed the deal was not the big words or the comedically expressive look of confusion on the poor anchor's face (her fluff piece; how had they picked this kid for her fluff piece?), but the fact that Alex had begun his criticism as such:
"I would suggest that any congressmen watching take notes"
This was the line that became a headline, and the title of video clips. Alexander Hamilton had successfully made political-ideology-dispersal lemonade, out of hurricane lemons. He was viral, and internally, had to apologize to his mother: she was wiser than he'd been able to know.
The fanfare lasted for nearly a month. This was just long enough for CNN to track "That Alexander kid" down for another interview. People had begun to question his motives, and ask whether he was worth listening to. Alexander considered the partisan attacks waged against him to be slander. He was given a chance to defend himself and doubled down on every statement he had made. Alexander also revealed that he wanted to go to America. There had been accusations that he hated the country. On live television, he insisted that he thought it was a great, but mismanaged country.
Then, a new breaking news story hit, and Alexander Hamilton disappeared. Behind the scenes, a few dozen families had requested to adopt him. Each had their own agenda.
Alexander had made it to America, and the world which had briefly been taken by the young boy with a big mouth and a little ponytail was left in the dark.
The dark was a horrid place to be. Alexanders new family fell through. They had used a Facebook group to 'rehome' him. When that family attempted to register him for school, the police were called in.
Alexander's American dream had fallen to pieces. For the next two years, he was shuffled around endlessly, and try as he might, some nights it was impossible to believe that staying on Nevis would have been a worse fate.
