"Leyna." Her mother was at her bedroom door. "Your friends are in the kitchen. They're here to celebrate your birthday." She started to walk away. "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag," she added.
Leyna grinned. She threw on a dress that she made herself and fixed her long brown hair into a presentable hairstyle. She went down the hall to the kitchen. Her five friends sat around the kitchen table. Technically only four sat, since there were only four chairs. Werner stood off to the side, leaning against the wall.
"Mena stole my chair." He pointed to her and Leyna rolled her eyes.
"Guten Morgen." Liese smiled.
"How does it feel to be fourteen? You're finally my age," Pieter said.
"You're only a month older than me, you dummkopf," she said with a laugh.
"Liese and I made you a blueberry cake." Mena held out a plate covered with aluminum foil. Leyna graciously accepted it.
The group talked for a minute more before making their way to their tree. A blanket sat on the cold ground with a few presents sitting on top of it. They were wrapped with butcher paper and had little hand drawn flowers all over it.
"Why butcher paper?" Leyna turned to look at her friends.
"I stole some," Werner said, "from that mean butcher. He threw a spoon at me."
"You better not die," Liese teased him. He stuck out his tongue and laughed.
"Should we cut the cake?" Otto asked.
"No. Let's leave it out for the birds and bugs to eat," Mena sardonically said.
Leyna shot Mena a look before answering. "Ja. Who has the knife?"
Werner held it up. Mena snatched it from his hand. It clattered to the ground and the six looked at it. Werner reached to grab it and Mena pushed him out of the way. He landed on the ground with a hard thud. Leyna bit back a laugh.
"I don't trust you with a knife," Mena cried as he got to his feet.
"I don't trust Werner as far as I can throw him and that is to say, I can't," Liese added with a laugh. Werner tilted his head to the left as he looked at her with his eyes narrowed. She laughed and reached up to touch the locket, as had become her habit.
Mena distributed the cake and they all sang happy birthday to Leyna.
After the cake was eaten, they turned to presents. The butcher paper was decorated with painted flowers to give it a homely feel.
Leyna opened a present from Mena first. It was a drawing of all of them together. She thanked her and folded it to put it in her school bag. Liese gifted Leyna a green headband, which she promptly put on. Werner had written a poem for her. She read it out loud.
She can always put a smile on my face,
She would never be seen covered in mud.
She has the most amazing dog.
Her hair is so fluffy
I want to pet it as if it were a dog
Happy birthday Leyna
"It's...interesting. What do you mean about the mud part? And the hair part?" Leyna asked him. "It sounds like you were high when you wrote this." She glanced at Mena, her expression clearly saying that she thought Werner was crazy.
YOU ARE READING
The Forbidden Six
Tiểu thuyết Lịch sửMena, Leyna, and Anneliese were best friends in Germany during the 1930s. But that was before Hitler. Mena was half Asian and half German and Leyna was the Jew. That left Liese, the German girl who enjoyed her peaceful life. As Hitler rises to power...
