Band of Brothers - Sunshine Solider

chapter 2: au revoir

" Quite so, my dear." her mother answered. 

" Why?" called Leroy, " You afraid some boy might see you asleep? I see you sleeping all the time." 

" Leroy Tarvers, Je vais vous nourrir aux chevaux." she snapped at her brother, sticking her tongue out.

" Oh no." her brother said monotoned. " I'm terrified." 

" MJ's gonna stay for a bit. We'll be upstairs." Charlotte said and her mother nodded.

" Just be quiet. Louis hasn't been feeling well." her mother said.

" Of course mother." Charlotte said with a nod. The two girls headed upstairs, as she heard her mother and brother burst out laughing. She giggled to herself. True to her mother's word, she walked by Louis' room and saw him passed out, ice on his head, tissues on the floor, with a water bottle and medicine on the bedside. 

" Hey Lucie!" MJ said softly as they passed her room.

" MJ! Hey!" Lucie called back looking up from her dolls. Lucie loved MJ, and looked up to her, as if she were another sister. The two girls then sat in Charlotte's room, talking for hours yet again, giggling and laughing the entire time. As the school year began and drug on, and the onset of being a 10th grader hit the girls, the war became more well known as well. By 1941, America and it's citizens were getting knowledge of the war quick and fast from the advances of Hitler on the Allies. The Tarvers kids learned in school more and more everyday, and as boys grew older, they became even more amped up to want to fight even if America wasn't involved. MJ tried to get Charlotte to talk to John Henderson, but Charlotte had swallowed the feelings by that point and had avoided him completely. He was dating Vera Flynn anyway, the popular girl, why would Charlotte even try? 

As her 16th birthday came and went, boys became the one thing on the two teenage lovesick friends. And that's when Roger McKinnis who had grown much more in early 1941, and started talking to the girl. Charlotte knew it was wrong, she knew nothing would benefit from it, but she let him sweet talk her, and take her places, and eat with her and MJ. But that's when it happened. Where her life altered completely. She didn't mean to be left in a dank alley way, sobbing alone, to the point where police found her, unclothed and bleeding everywhere. She had been 16. Roger McKinnis was taken to a different state and put into early juvenile for what he'd done. 

Her father, became enraged. He didn't allow any boys to the house for a while and Charlotte completely understood why. He was protective of his family, and if anything happened, he would fight for them. Leroy and Louis, both on the football team, became hardened by the incident and when they heard comments about their sister, they had to restrain each other from fighting them. 

They were good young men. They were mature, but they would fight anyone that hurt her more than she already was. 

John Henderson saw the girl a week after the event, crying with MJ outside. And he couldn't get any information. He was bothered deeply about what had happened. By the new school year though everyone knew. 

But everyone liked Charlotte, and her family and brothers so she got sympathy. Except for well the jocks and popular girls. They heckled her and she was called names. John never did. He liked Charlotte. She was quiet, but every time he ever interacted with her, she'd been nothing but kind and meaningful to get down to business. 

Then December 7th, 1941 came. 

It had been a normal afternoon on the East Coast, kids in school, when the broadcast crackled to life. Pearl Harbor had been hit, some attack by the Japanese, that killed thousands, and sunk ships and lives. Charlotte had been hit hard. Through the past year, it'd been nothing but hardship and hearing this only set that in stone. By the next day President Roosevelt had declared war on Japanese, then Germany, and Germany turned around and declared war on America.