The War of Denton Primary

[Imrel]

Carrie Müller came home from school one dreary afternoon with her jotter in tatters, a graze on her knee, and the strap of her satchel almost torn off. It hadn't been the first time that week, or in fact that year. Since the third of September last year, Carrie had been getting this kind of treatment from her schoolmates, and they were getting progressively rougher as the war went on. She knew why they hated her, of course, even though it hadn't always been that way. At five years old, she started the local primary school along with several other children and had fitted in perfectly. Now she was nearly twelve and in her final year, which was without a doubt the worst of her life. When term started in September, so did the feud between England, France and Germany. And it was at that point that the other children at Denton Primary began to regard Carrie as different from the girl they had once known. They forgot about her warm brown eyes, her mop of scruffy hair, her quiet knowingness and the way she would always trade away the ham sandwich from her packed lunch, and saw only someone whose last name had two foreign dots above the U.

Garin Müller was German, so the war put him in a difficult position. Should he fight for his native country, or for that of his wife and daughter? In the end, he simply didn't make the choice, and he stayed at home to run his bakery. Every Sunday, when he came to open the shop at noon, he would find a white feather tucked under the door, fluttering slightly in the wind, and he would pry it up and lodge it into the window frame in line with the other white feathers he gathered. And when he couldn't make it to work on Sundays, Carrie would go and perform the ritual collection of the white feather for him. Neither they nor Garin's wife Alice saw any shame in providing bread instead of dead.

The white feathers and whether or not Garin fought, or for which side, was no concern of the Denton children. Only one immediate enemy existed for them, and that was Carrie, so they made her suffer. Billy would steal her pen so she couldn't take notes. She'd retrieve it at the end of the day, and write down notes from memory, but she wrote down less and less every time. Anne would use her hideous mustard colored crayon to scrawl all over Carrie's textbooks. Carol would leave jagged margins of paper in Carrie's notebooks from tearing out sheets of schoolwork. Martin would snatch her schoolbag from her at the end of every day and stamp on it. When all of this first started, Carrie cried. She cried to her parents, she cried to Johnnie in the bakery, she cried to her pillow. But after a while, she found she could cope, and she settled for lower marks in school than she usually got. Her work standard became gradually lower, until she was near the bottom of the class and had stopped caring. And once it had been established that whatever they did to Carrie to sink her academic performance had little to no effect, her classmates raised the level of her punishment. Thomas and Edward would take it in turns to trip her up as she passed them in the corridors. Beth would steal her headband, if she was wearing one, and return it in shreds. Norman would gather a couple of his cronies to hold her down while he punched. And when this started, Carrie was beyond crying. She accepted her schoolyard status. In the eyes of the other children, she was a Nazi.

"Carrie! Oh, my darling petal, whatever happened?" Alice was fraught with worry and concern as per usual, but her little girl shrugged it off and looked to her scuffed shoes.

"Nothing, Mummy, I just fell over a few times."

Immediately her mother's expression became stern. "Those horrid boys; they tripped you up again, didn't they? Dearest, you have to tell your teachers!"

She had already thought of that. Several times. But, for some reason, it didn't seem worth the effort. After all, wasn't real fighting going on across the globe? What right had she to complain of a bleeding nose or a bruised shin? Part of her hoped for an adult at school to recognize that she was being harassed, but schoolyard scuffle and tussles were commonplace nowadays, and the faculty found it better not to meddle in the pupils' affairs. They failed to notice that Carrie Müller was almost always in the center of the fights.

"It's nothing important. It doesn't matter, Mum."

Alice watched her daughter's expressionless face sadly, reaching out and rubbing her gently on her tugged woolen shoulder.

"I'm worried about you, sweetheart. I never see you in the mornings anymore, you just take off and go to school without saying goodbye or having breakfast."

"I'm not really hungry in the morning." This was actually true. Her appetite came to her around midday, though the fact that her lunch always went missing made it hard for her to satisfy it. It was lucky that Johnnie was always willing to spare her a free bread roll or bun when she passed the bakery coming home.

There was no point in pushing the matter further. Mrs. Müller tightened her grip on Carrie's shoulder and steered her inside.

"Any homework today?"

"Not really."

"All right then. I'll call you for dinner."

Carrie ambled into her dull cupboard of a bedroom and sank onto the worn, creaking mattress of her bed. Shivering, she drew the thin quilt up about her, not even bothering to remove her shoes, and like a starved urchin, leaned down and pulled the remnants of Johnnie's floury roll from her satchel, then sat back and started to gnaw at it, in momentary content.

[Imrel]

"Guten Abend, my lovelies. How were your days?"

Alice smiled and gave her husband a warm kiss on the cheek. "Quite awful, darling. My shift at the warehouse has been extended two hours. At least I still get home in time to meet Petal."

"That's something." He kissed her back and pulled her into a half embrace, and looked at Carrie expectantly. "Blütenblatt?"

Carrie smiled in spite of herself. The German word for "petal" always had that effect on her, for some reason. "Fine, thank you Vatti."

But Garin saw past the fleeting grin and saw the somberness in the girl's eyes. He didn't bring up his concerns until they were all seated around the dinner table, the meager rations on chipped china plates before them.

"What happened in school today, meine Tochter?"

Carrie could never lie to her father. It was like an unspoken law that all of the household understood without realizing it. She didn't try to avoid the subject.

"Dominic's mother got a letter this morning. He showed the class. It says that his father died in the line of duty, parachuting into enemy territory."

She didn't have to say that she meant Germany.

Garin chewed his sliver of beef thoughtfully, never once taking his eyes from his daughter's pale, thin face. "And how did everyone take it?"

Carrie looked down at her untouched food, fidgeting idly with the fork in her lap. A stinging sensation was irritating the back of her eyes, and she almost felt the dampness well up at the rim of her eyelids, but it passed without being noticed. "They… They blame me. They don't like me, Vatti."

The walk home from school that Friday was far from uneventful, though the Müller parents were not apprised of what happened. Carrie had reached the crossing not far from the bakery, and rain was beginning to patter lightly down, bouncing off the cement of the pavement and nestling moistly in the girl's hair. Thinking of stopping by the bakery to say hello to Johnnie, have a roll and maybe stay awhile until the rain had passed, she stepped off the curb, her foot making the faintest splashing noise as it hit the collected water it the slight inclination in the road. However, that was how far she got before her way was blocked by three of her classmates. Almost gingerly, she looking up from the ground, meeting their eyes.

"Hello Billy. Hello Mike. Hello Dominic."

"Hello, Carrie Müller," Dominic sneered. He spat out her name so spitefully that it seemed like an insult, and that was how it was intended. Carrie's full name had now become what she was; her label, her brand, her denomination. Calling the enemy by her given name was too familiar, and addressing a girl by her surname was unheard of, so this mouthful of malevolence was what she faced from every classmate.

Carrie didn't say anything. Evasion and retreat were both not options, so she took a half step back up onto the curb and resigned herself to whatever was coming. The three boys glared at her maliciously. Of course, she didn't show fear, or concern, anxiety or any feelings; such reactions to bullying had passed. Without a whimper of pain or a pleading cry, torturing her was less satisfying, but still something that, in the view of preadolescent Dentonians, had to be done.

"My dad's dead, Carrie Müller," Dominic remarked. "Your dad's friends killed him."

A rare wave of emotion passed over Carrie. If they're his friends, then why is he here selling bread instead of fighting along side them? That was what she had a sudden desire to say, to retort right in Dominic's hard, bitter face. But she didn't. she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of losing control.

"Let me past, please," Carrie muttered.

The reply came, cold and sharp and hostile, "Why don't you try and get around us?"

"Because there's no point. Because you won't let me."

"Too right!" Billy blurted out, but was quashed with the look Dominic shot at him. This was his turn, his chance for revenge, and the other two respected that. They waited in silence, watching their leader; even Carrie looked on, as he recollected himself and prepared to let the flag drop…

"Now," he said, and Carrie was hurled backwards onto the stinging concrete.

The rain was coming down hard as Carrie sat on the curb, knees drawn in to her chest with her arms draped loosely around her shins, staring, just staring at the empty road without seeing anything but a shimmering cataract blocking her eyes from the rest of the world. They hadn't hurt her that badly. The rain had put them off, and she had only taken roughly five minutes of beating before they let her go. Motionlessly, she assessed the damage, aware of an ache stretching across the middle region of her back where they had knocked her down, feeling her elbow still jarred when she had thrown it back to break the fall, and quite sure that there would soon be a bruise on her thigh. Nothing much, she assured herself. She could easily hide the damage from her parents. Yet this did not comfort her.

Why? Why her? Was she really that terrible? Had she ever done anything to hurt them? How dare they judge her in this way? How dare they presume to know anything at all about her? How dare they feel themselves fit to execute her unjust trial and inhuman punishment? Did they have any idea how much suffering she was being put through, however hard she tried to hide it? What compelled their cruelty to a child just like them? What had she done to deserve this?

A car trundled down the road, raising a sheet of dreggy water with its wheels and soaking Carrie's feet right through her socks. She pretended not to notice, or to even exist at that point in time. Among the cold pellets of rain smattering against her frail face, hot, salty droplets shone through, dribbling pathetically down her cheeks.

That was the one time since Carrie had given up caring about her life that she had indulged in letting her emotions, her terrible loneliness and sorrow, get the better of her. Now it was over. Nothing more than a bright face for Mum and Vatti from now on, she warned herself.

"Carrie? My precious petal?"

There was no deceiving Alice Müller.

"Please, love. I can tell… Something's wrong. I hate to see you suffer."

"Sorry," Carrie murmured, unsure of how else to respond.

"It's not your fault!" gushed her mother, pulling her into a tight hug. "What happened, Carrie, tell me, please?"

There was a pause. "Someone at school… Someone stole my lunch today." So what if it wasn't the whole truth? It wasn't as if she was lying.

Alice raised her eyebrows, looking at her daughter earnestly. "And?"

"And…" Carrie fought back the lump in her throat. "I'm hungry."

Carrie had been given a slice of hot toast with Alice's share of the butter ration, and a cup of weak tea, and sent to bed to contemplate the life she lead. She never talked about what happened away from the relative security of their house, least of all how she felt about it. If Amy had still been there, it might have been comforting to speak with her. Amy had been the girl down the road before her jittery family moved further into the countryside. Denton was a rural suburban town, fairly near the coast, and most residents didn't feel threatened by their position. Part of Carrie, and what she considered a rather cowardly part at that, wondered wistfully what it would have been like to leave as well, to go to a quiet place no one had heard of and to not be foreign… This part of her made guilt gnaw at the rest of her relentlessly. There was no more shame in being a Müller than there was in being a Miller. She chewed at the stale crust of her toast and hummed distractedly to herself.

********

[Imrel]

Guten Abend, gute Nacht, Mit Rosen bedacht,
Mit Naeglein besteckt, schlupf unter die Deck'
Morgen frueh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt
Morgen frueh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt

Alice didn't know the second verse to Brahms' Lullaby, so she continued humming the tune as she bustled around the kitchen, making dinner and trying to distract herself from the absence of her husband and daughter. Garin was no doubt detained at work. Perhaps Carrie was out with friends. There was still a possibility she had friends… wasn't there? She coughed awkwardly and lined the three chipped mugs in a perfect row on the counter. They'd be there. Not long now…

She was pushing a cold carrot around her plate at nine o' clock in the evening, starting to worry, when Carrie came in. The usual distant expression was on her face, and she seemed completely alright, apart from the livid blue bruise covering her left cheek, the shining purple one over her right eye, the blood trickling from her lip and nose, and the cuts on her forehead and right cheek.

"My God! Carrie, what happened?"

The look on Carrie's face was of complete clarity as she approached the chair her mother had jumped out of, dragging her right foot but with perfect composure.

"They feel hard done by. Need someone to take it out on. If not me, it probably would have been Sean. He's easy to catch. But my dad's German. So I'm German. I'm the enemy. It's easier to blame me than to accept that the world is having a fight with itself. I'm going to bed now, Mum, if that's okay. I'm a bit tired."

When Carrie came through to the hall the next morning, a Saturday, with her hair combed, her blood clotted and her bruises less prominent, it was to find her mother frozen near the front door, sat rigidly on the edge of the bottom stair, her hands clenched together so that the knuckles were pure white, looking as if she was expecting someone at the door. She had shut it three hours ago and not moved since.

"Mummy?"

Roused from her trance, Alice shifted her hollow gaze in the girl's direction.

"That was Johnnie. It's about your father." Her voice was remarkably calm, but her face showed how she was being ripped apart from the inside.

Carrie was almost afraid to ask. "What is it?"

Alice took a deep, shuddering breath and, not looking her daughter in the eye, recounted the story Johnnie had told her. "Your father was working later than usual at the bakery. A woman came in with a piece of lead piping and started beating him with it. She was hysterical. She didn't stop hitting him until Johnnie came and pulled her off of him. Bless that boy. The woman was taken away, of course… Screaming all the way that Garin was a Nazi and a spy and didn't deserve to live… Johnnie saw to it that your father was taken straight to hospital." Her voice faltered. "He has… a fractured skull… and possible… internal bleeding…"

Carrie did not say one word more. She turned on her heel and strode back the way she came in a fluid and meaningful motion. A click as the bedroom door snapped shut behind her, and then silence. She slid down the wall, hunched into a ball, and she stayed there for the rest of the day, motionless, and deaf to the environment around her.

When the sanctity of night finally enveloped the Müller household, Carrie dared to leave her desolate corner and creep under the coarse covers of her bed. It was well after midnight before it sank in properly. Her father was vulnerable. There was a possibility of his death. And she could have done nothing to stop it, just as he could do nothing to stop her misery. There was nothing she could do. Not even ignore it like she had been the entire year. They were at war. Not just their country, but their identities. They were feared, they were hated, they were there to be punished for who they were.

"That must be why," Carrie said to her hands in a thin voice muffled by her blanket. "They don't want an explanation or an apology. They just want to hurt us."

At four o' clock in the morning, twenty four hours after Alice had received the horrifying news, the twelve year old girl, oblivious to the nausea of hunger that consumed her, gave a trembling moan of grief and finally let the bitter tears fall.

(I wrote that for extra credit after we read Lord of the Flies in school, so it's meant to send a similar message. Please pardon my inexpert use of German. Any constructive critisism is welcome, though if it's about the WWII setting, chances are my parents have pointed it out already, lol.)