Washout

Change A WW2 story

The year was 1939, the setting was a small town in France. Sophie Alexandre was 10 years old.

"Hey, wait for me!" Sophie called, running down the road after her brothers.
She had 3 in all, all older, all annoying. And they were always leaving her behind like this.
Panting, Sophie arrived in the schoolyard just moments after her Pierre, her brother, who was the youngest of the 3, only 11 months older than Sophie herself.
The little girl slapped her brother on the arm indignantly.
"You know Maman doesn't like you to run off like that. You are supposed to walk with me. Not make me chase after you."
"Oh c'mon Sophie." Her eldest brother, Albert, placed his hand on her back. "'Twas just a bit of fun."
Sophie sniffed hautily, crossing her arms. However, her brothers tickled her until she was forced to smile.
"You just best not do it again." She warned.
The boys mock saluted her. "Yes sergeant!" The cried in fake, gruff soldier voices.
Sophie covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle. She forced herself to look stern. "At ease, men." She commanded.
The boys dropped their salutes and raced off to join their friends.Sophie was glad to find a quiet spot in the play yard to wait for her own to arrive.
While she was waiting, Sophie heard laughter coming from behind her. She turned around to see a group of girls her own age sitting behind her and giggling to each other.
Sophie was about to turn back around when she realized the girls were looking at her.
One girl in the group was snickering especially meanly. Sophie recognized her immediately as Lydia Clarke, a stiff and hauty little girl who always made sure to point out how much money her family had, and pick on those who weren't as well off.
   Dislike filled Sophie's chest. The other child stifled her giggles long enough to point to Sophie's dress.
  Sophie looked down to see that her skirt was splattered with mud and dirt from running down the road to the schoolhouse.
   "What is the matter, Sophie?" Lydia asked. "Did your Maman not wash your dress after you rolled with the hogs last night?"
  Her friends erupted in laughter, and Sophie felt her cheeks turning red.
  "I would lend you one of mine, but you know, I just don't think my Maman would want scum like you mussing it up." She continued with a smirk.
   Sophie could hear no more, and turned and ran to the school building, the girls' cruel laughter echoing behind her.

   That same day at the midday meal, Sophie took it outside in the schoolyard with her friends, as she often did.
  They sat together under a large beach tree, where the shade was cooling.
   As Sophie peeled the paper off her bread, she noticed Lydia and her friends sitting near by.
  To her dismay, the teasing girls noticed her as well, and immediately began to taunt her and make faces.
  "What do they want?" Isabelle, Sophie's good friend and neighbor asked, eyeing the girls wearily.
Sophie explained how Lydia had teased her that morning about her grubby dress.
"Those vixen." Rose growled after hearing the story, cracking her knuckles.
"She'll get what's coming to her alright." Sasha agreed, scowling at Lydia's back. Matilda looked frightened.
"There will be absolutely none of that." Isabelle countered, placing her hand over Rose's. Matilda looked reassured, and even Sophie had to admit she was glad they wouldn't be taking that kind of action.
She loved Rose and Sasha, and she knew they meant well, but sometimes they could get a bit carried away.
"It is most un-lady like." Isabelle said firmly.
She then turned to Sophie. "Do not worry Sophie. That girl is no good. Don't listen to what she says about you. Tomorrow she will be off to teasing someone else." She patted Sophie's hand.
Reluctantly, Sophie had to agree, the words of her sensible friend were, she knew, wise.
"And if not..." Rose made a fist.
"Rose!"

In the next weeks that followed, Sophie did all the things she loved to do in her small French town.
She went to the pastry shop on the corner, and the cafe in town. She read all the wonderful books in the children's section of the public library, and she swam in the water hole behind Matilda's house.
And of course she went to school and learned and studied and ate lunch with her friends under the beach tree in the school yard.
She tried not to worry about Lydia Clarke and her teasing, and Isabelle was right, in a few days she had moved on to bothering someone else.
Life was as it had always been, at least in Sophie's world.
But in France things were changing. As Hitler edged ever closer, the Nazi threat was becoming less and less of a far off power, and more and more real.
Suddenly there were more soldiers in the streets, and less margarine and sugar in the pantry and the shops.
Suddenly basements were being checked to see if they would be efficient air raid shelters.
   And suddenly France didn't seem so safe anymore.