CHAPTER TWO

All of the sounds wouldn't stop. I kept walking, but it only got louder. I knew I couldn't turn around because it was too late for that. I could guess that I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be, even when Amelie told me to keep going. My feet were hurting more than ever, and I was about to fall asleep standing up. Was it possible to do that? I think it was, but I had never seen anyone do it. It wasn't comfortable probably.

When I got more close to the lightning, I finally got to figure out what those ants with mushroom-umbrellas were. They were people! They looked ant sized before, but now I could see them perfectly. I don't know what their mushroom-umbrellas were called, but they made them fall from the sky and fly to the ground like birds. They were landing everywhere. I could sort of see the planes zooming by through the clouds, which I think were more from the explosions than anything. I picked up the pace of my walking, staring up at the sky as all of the people started to land in the distance. I was so amazed by it that I soon forgot about walking and stopped to watch them. I wanted to know how they did that…I had never seen anything like it ever. It looked hard but they seemed to know exactly what to do.

I wasn't sure who the people were connected to them, though. Were they the same people in the planes who took away Julien's house and Amelie's little garden? I hoped they weren't.

I decided to wait 'til I knew for sure. Maybe I could play hide-and-seek, since I was great at it. If I hid I could at least try to figure out who they were, and maybe wait 'til they left. Then I would be safe. I quit walking for a moment and searched for a hiding place. Trees were never any good, but I found a bunch of bushes that were full of leaves, so I ran and crouched down behind them. I was still afraid of the loud noises and the lightning which I was sure now wasn't lightning, actually. It was just more and more explosions… I laid down on the grass instead and covered my ears to try to block out all of the loud things around me. I found out that the grass was all wet and muddy, with annoying little bugs buzzing past my ears. The mud was going to ruin my nightgown and coat, which were already kind of dirty from falling before. I hoped Amelie wouldn't be mad that I got my new coat full of mud and grass stains because she had bought it especially for me and it was a lot of money.

I pulled my hands off my ears because it wasn't working anyway. Nothing I could do would ever get rid of that terrible noise that surrounded me.

Then, I heard footsteps and voices. They were whispering so I couldn't tell what they were talking about. Peeking through the leaves, I saw two of them walking together. I pushed some more of the leaves out of the way to see what they were doing, kneeling in the grass which was all squishy and disgusting. Kneeling made the brush-burns on them hurt, but there wasn't any other way I could get a good look.

It took me a minute, but I recognized them from all the posters and signs and films back in Chicago. They had the same helmets and uniforms in the same kind of color. It was a weird color, like halfway between green and brown. It had to be them, though—the soldiers! They were from America, like me.

I guess I made more noise than I thought when I was trying to see better, because one of them whispered, "Did you hear that?"

I didn't think I had made a lot of noise. Boy, did these soldiers have good hearing.

"Hear what?" another voice asked back.

Their voices were low, and when I listened real close, they sounded like mine. They were American, I was definitely sure of it. This made some of the queasy feeling in my stomach go away a little. Since being with Amelie, I hadn't seen anyone from my country for awhile. It felt nice, but I wasn't positive what to do. They seemed like they were in the middle of something very important; a secret mission, probably, like most soldiers did. I didn't know much about soldiers, but the boys used to talk about them all the time, and so did the Sisters. The Sisters didn't tell us much about everything that was going on, but sometimes we prayed for the soldiers at bedtime.

"Flash!" I heard one of them say.

I had no idea what that meant, or who this man was talking to. If he was trying to talk to me—if he'd seen me—what was I supposed to say back? It seemed like a strange word to just whisper out loud. Was he saying it to his friend or to me? I couldn't answer him because it would give me away. But then I heard this funny clicking sound. I don't know what it was, either. These soldiers were odd. I had never seen anything like them; they'd never showed anything like what they were doing now back home. What were they doing?

There was more gunfire in the background, which made my tears come back. It also made me jump. I accidently moved and hit my knee on a branch in the bush, which hurt the scrapes on my skin. I cried out and rustled the leaves when I moved back, and that made the footsteps come closer.

"Flash?" one of the voices asked. I knew it was more of a question this time because his voice was higher when he said it, like he wasn't sure if he should.

Then the footsteps came closer, so I shut my eyes and listened to them. I could hear their feet on the ground, very close. I got angry at myself for letting them find me. I thought I was good at hide and seek! Everyone always said so at the orphanage. They always told me I was hard to find because I was small. But these soldiers were so much better.

I felt someone standing next to me. He must have moved because it felt like he was hovering.

"Sir?" one of them asked.

"Stay there," the one nearest to me said to his friend. His voice sounded nice; very comforting, I thought. I kind of understood what those French people in Amelie's town were talking about now, with the difference in accents, since I'd been away from America for some time. "We don't want to scare her."

"Her?" His friend sounded really surprised. I bet he hadn't expected to find me here. I was starting to really believe I had wandered off where I shouldn't have. But maybe running into some soldiers was a good thing?

The first man didn't answer. Curious, I opened my eyes and looked up. The man who had told his friend to stay put was crouched near me. I stared at him and he gave me a small smile. I was still kind of afraid, especially since his face was covered in what looked like dirt, and his eyes were looking at my forehead. His smile went away all of a sudden. I didn't know what he was looking at. Reaching up my hand, I felt something wet and sticky down the side of my face. When I looked at my hand, the stuff on my fingers was dark. I was bleeding! I don't know how I couldn't have noticed it before. I guess I had hurt myself when I fell but with all the running and watching the soldiers, I hadn't quite noticed.

"Is she okay, sir?" the man's friend wanted to know. It was sure nice of him to ask about me. I kept staring at the man with the nice smile and saw a patch on his shoulder with an eagle. It made a lot of sense to me, since they'd arrived here like birds did.

"She's hurt, but not too bad, not that I can see," the man answered. He searched me over with his eyes, which I think were a really nice blue color. Not as dark blue as mine, though. He smiled again.

"Hey," he said to me. He put his hand on my shoulder, but I moved away, unsure still, which made him pull his hand away. Amelie had never said anything about what to do if I ran into soldiers. I didn't even know there were American soldiers here in France.

He nodded. "Hey," he said again, "I'm not here to harm you." He paused for a second. "Can you understand English?"

I nodded like he had. The Sisters at the orphanage had always said not to talk to strangers, so I didn't want to say anything.

"My name is Lieutenant Winters and I'm with the American army," he explained. I don't know what a lieutenant was, but it sounded mighty important. "What's your name?"

The Sisters always said not to give out that kind of information to strangers. I shook my head 'no,' and his smile went away again. He was disappointed.

"I can get you help," he said to me, pointing to my head. I knew it would be good to get some bandages. Maybe for my knees, too. But I still needed Amelie to kiss it to make it better. I couldn't go with him because Amelie had never said to. I had to wait here just in case I missed her and she hadn't disappeared and she was looking for me. If I went with the soldiers, she would never be able to find me again.

I shook my head.

"You can't stay here, sweetheart," he said. "I know you're scared, but if you come with me, I can get you somewhere safe."

I shook my head again and then felt bad because the soldier looked down, disappointed once more.

When he looked back up, he said, "I need you to trust me. I promise I won't let anything bad happen to you."

He reached out his hand for me to take. I looked at him, and the patch on his shoulder. He was a good guy, so he had to be telling the truth even though he was a stranger. But maybe he wasn't really a stranger now that he told me his name. I decided to take his hand and I hoped the Sisters and Amelie wouldn't be mad at me for it. It had to be okay if he was in the American army.

"There you go," Lieutenant said, helping me up from the muddy grass. "Can you walk?"

I gave him another nod. He kept my hand in his and led me forward out of the bush. I noticed his friend standing there. When he turned around he had this funny look on his face; his mouth was hanging open, kinda like a goldfish or something.

"This is my buddy, he's with the American army, too," Lieutenant explained, looking down at me. "His name is Private Hall, but you can call him John if you'd like." I nodded again because I didn't know what else to do.

"Did you get her name, sir? Or how she got here?" John asked him.

Lieutenant shook his head. "She won't talk."

I felt kind of bad, because he seemed nice enough but I just really didn't feel like talking. I don't know why. I was still nervous being around these soldiers, since they were not really like the ones I'd seen on the posters now that I thought real hard. I know they had the flag patches but I don't ever remember seeing any of the soldiers flying down like birds with mushroom-umbrellas in those posters. What kind of soldiers were they? Their jobs were real interesting. If I wasn't so shy, I would've asked them. Maybe later…

And, I was in a strange mood. I'd never been in this kind of mood before so I didn't know what was wrong with me.

Lieutenant glanced around. "We have to keep moving, get to the assembly area. Hopefully, we'll run into someone on the way," he said. Then he crouched down to my level. "I need you to stay in between us and be very quiet. Do you think you could do that for me?"

I nodded to let him know I understood.

"Good."

So, we started walking again. John stood in front of me and led the way through the grass that was beginning to get as tall as me. He had a gun. I'd never seen a gun up-close before so I couldn't stop staring at it. It looked sorta heavy, and I almost asked him about it, but then I remembered hearing the guns going off back when I left the house and suddenly I didn't want to ask anymore.

Before I knew what was going on (I was tired and stumbling all over the place) we were near a small river and Lieutenant Winters was tugging me behind him, by a tree. John stayed close to him, aiming his gun. I watched Lieutenant hold something metal in his hand, which he pressed with his thumb. Oh! It made that funny clicking noise that I'd heard earlier. Now I knew where it had come from. We waited for a minute, and then soldiers started coming out of the grass and bushes on the other side of the river. I was amazed by how well they could hide! A bunch of them crossed the river, splashing and kicking the water everywhere. It reminded me of how thirsty I was.

When the other soldiers reached us, they sure were happy to see Lieutenant Winters. I tried to catch their names but they kept talking to each other so fast, and their faces were covered in that dark paint so I couldn't figure out who was who.

I did see that two of them had different patches than Lieutenant. The one with the same patch smiled at me but didn't say anything. They all squatted down to the ground so I decided to do what they were doing. I had no idea what they were talking about though. Lieutenant looked like he had a map and I guessed they were trying to figure out where to go. Maybe they were just as lost as me.

But soon we were walking again. My feet hurt even more, and I was getting so, so sleepy. Lieutenant told me to keep walking and to stay in between his friend named John and his other friend, who he called Sergeant Lipton. I accidentally tripped into Sergeant a few times because I was so tired, but he didn't seem to get mad at me. He helped me up and we kept going.

After we walked for a bit, we found even more of Lieutenant's friends. They all had the same patch as him, and they used that funny clicking thing to find each other again. There were more soldiers with black paint on their faces and more names but I couldn't understand them all. Being so sleepy made my brain not work right. Like the other soldiers, they were very happy to see Lieutenant. Lieutenant must have been mighty popular because he had so many friends.

All of them kept looking at me though, which made me shy.

One of them finally went up to Lieutenant and asked, "Who's she?"