Good luck homing pigeon

Chapter one 2nd July 1942

I could remember, clear as day, the date my sister, Briana turned sixteen. It was March 1939-a beautiful Springtime in Paris; and what a day it was too. She woke up especially early that morning, so it was no surprise how wide awake she was when mama, papa and me came into her bedroom with a plate, laden with chocolate croissants. There she ate her breakfast in bed (and offered me a croissant in secret, one our parents had closed the door), took a good, long bath, and emerged downstairs, donned in her favourite colored dress-emerald. Anybody would've thought she was royalty! The way she was pampered the entire day. And later that night, her birthday party was, well...legendary. There wasn't a single person I knew who could've critiqued Briana Khristoff's sweet sixteenth.

Briana was extremely lucky, to have her most treasured birthday at such a good time. Less than a year later, the Germans crossed the Maginot line. At the time we all felt so...so hopeful, and confident. We thought foolishly, that our allies just might've stood a chance against so many men. But that was where the problem lay, wasn't it? There was just too many men. Too many men, who had too many guns, and far  too much power. What they wanted with our country, I wasn't entirely sure. All I heard was that the man, well-the Fuhrer, was a man with many ideas and many plans. There, I could only assume that France was all part of his plan.

Since that winter of 1939, I let my hopes turn to doubts that my birthday would ever be as good as Briana's. And today the day had finally come. Today I would judge for myself, just how good a birthday this would be.

"Kate!" Briana whispered, as she shook me awake. "Katie Kat wake up, it's your birthday!"

Briana sat, perched on the side of my bed, still in her nightgown. Christ! What time was it? It couldn't have been, well...more than five, six thirty in the morning, could it? Shouldn't I at least be entitled to a sleep-in?

"Ugh, Briana! What time is it?"

"It's time for you to get out of bed!" In a flash, she stripped back that oh, so beloved blanket from me! "Up, up, up! Time's a wasting!"

Groping my side table, I threw whatever object I could reach towards my pesky sister. I wasn't sure what it was, but it hit Briana with a satisfactory yelp. Good, I grumbled to myself. Maybe that'd make her go away and let me sleep a little longer. At least until Angelo came banging on our front door.

"Oh no you don't, you little pessimist!" Again, she stripped away the blanket I'd just retrieved to my sleepy, grumpy self. "If you don't get up this instant, I'll..." She waited for a moment, for whatever evil thought would come to her cunning mind next. And then, as an idea came to her, her lips widened in a devious, little grin."I'll wait 'till Angelo gets here, and he can get you out of bed however he see's fit."

No, no, no, no...I had no lock on my door, and Angelo...he cared for bodily discretion as much as a lion could care for a gutter-mouse. Not very much at all. He would most likely barge into my room, armed with handfuls of fresh, damp earth (generous with the worms if I know Angelo) and forcibly pour it down my bed if I wasn't out of it in three seconds. I will hand it to him, he was willing to take things as far as they could go, maybe even further, when it came to breaking the rules. He was a trouble-maker: but I liked trouble. Trouble was exciting-fun. God only knows that a person could never write a successful story if their protagonist was well-behaved. No.  He would have to be a hero, a Robin Hood, an Angelo.

"Fine!" I groaned, rising groggily from that bed; ode to my beloved bed! I would miss it so. "This better be worth it."

"Grumpy guts." Briana wrinkled her nose as she began to pull me out of my room. "Come on, I've got the ingredients out for breakfast!"