All of Me (Sebastian Vettel)

51. Past and Present

Heppenheim, November 2004

Alyssa skipped along the hallway, whistling to herself, her long dark braid bouncing up and down off of her back. It had been a good day. She'd got an A in her maths test, and Sisi and Seb were taking her and Joel out for pizza after school, and it was her birthday.  Today she was eleven years old. 

"Alyssa Harper! Walk. Don't skip in the corridors," came the stern voice of her teacher, Frau Müller.  She spoke in English as Alyssa only knew limited German. Alyssa stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly, afraid that she was in a lot of trouble. She looked at the grey haired teacher with apologetic eyes.

"Es tut mir leid Frau Müller. I'm sorry," she replied.

The teacher's stern look disappeared, replaced by a friendly smile and Alyssa felt relief flooding through her. 

"Don't do it again.  Now go on, I'm sure your parents have some fun planned for your birthday."

Alyssa nodded and walked towards the double doors that led out onto the playground.  Most of the other children had already disappeared. She was late as she'd been to the bathroom to tidy her hair up. As she stepped outside in the chilly November she thought about what Frau Müller had said about her parents.  If only it was true. 

Her father was somewhere back in England.  She hadn't seen him in God knows how long, and her mother didn't care.  Alyssa didn't even know if the woman had even remembered it was her youngest's birthday.  She knew all she had to look forward to when she got home was abuse, abuse and more abuse.  Stupid little cow, useless bitch, pathetic waste of space. 

Still at least she had pizza with Sisi, Seb and Joel to look forward to.  

She looked around, trying to spot any of them, then grinned as she saw Seb leaning against the stone gate posts. She smiled to herself, thinking for the umpteenth time that Sienna was the luckiest girl in the whole world. Seb truly was the nicest person ever! And he was so cute, if a little geeky.

He hadn't noticed her yet, he was staring across the playground towards the climbing frame at the end. She approached him, noticing that he'd had a hair cut since she'd last seen him. His overly long blonde locks were now shorter and more styled.

She moved a little closer before calling out his name.

"Sebby!" His head whirled around and a big smile appeared on his face. He held his arms open and she ran into them, hugging him tightly. 

"Happy birthday Aly!!" he exclaimed in English. He always spoke English around her as he knew she had very little German in her vocabulary. She was getting better at it though.

"Danke, wie geht es dir?" she said, before switching back to English. "Oh I'm so happy you and Sisi are taking us out.  It feels like ages since we've been out."

"I'm very well thank you little one.  I've been very busy racing.  Look at you!  You've grown so much," he said, holding her at arm's length.  Alyssa blushed. 

"Where's Sisi and Joel?"

"They're meeting us at the pizza place.  Joel needed the toilet and apparently couldn't wait. I said I'd meet you and walk down with you. I wanted to give you this."

He pulled a small package out of his back pocket and handed it to her.  She smiled and tore the brown paper open.  "I saw it and I thought of you."

Inside the paper was a rectangular, black plastic box. Alyssa opened it and inside it found a gold chain with a penguin shaped pendant on it.  Alyssa gasped and threw her arms around Seb's neck.  "It's beautiful!  Thank you Sebby!" He hugged her back again briefly before releasing her.