The Saga of Adeline McCoy - Book 1 - Chapter 1

I stood, unidentifiable, on the side of a deserted road in the middle of an unnamed city (to me at least) that was blanketed with darkness and frozen in a nightly chill. I was all alone and scared for some reason, as if I was hiding from something and I didn't want to be caught. Wandering around the streets, attached to an apartment building, I saw a poster that I could just barely read under the dim light of the street lamp. It said "Juden sind Verräter". The words were German, and I knew what they meant. Feeling sick, I turned away.
That's when the Gustapo came. They ran in their Nazi uniforms, night sticks in hand, and bright flashlights pointed on me. Silently, I ran out from under the dim glow of the street lamp, tearing through the night's thick blackness. I cut down an alley way, thinking it would lead to another street, or somewhere I could hide. Bright streaks of light loomed toward me as soon as I realized that the alley way was a dead end - literally - and I was trapped. Getting closer to me as I stood, helpless, in front of a brick wall, the Gustapo shouted the same German words that were on the poster I saw less than a minute ago. "Juden sind Verräter!!!" they shouted at me, night sticks ready in their hands to beat me until I blacked out. After that, they would take me to a destination unknown to me. So many other Jews have disappeared, and I had a feeling I was going to find out where they were. A night stick swung towards my face . . .



But it never hit me, because I woke up, screaming.
"Jude!!" My 17-year-old brother, Ace, exclaimed as he burst through my bedroom door. My real name was Adeline, but everyone has called me Jude since I was two years old. The Beatles are my favorite band, as you can probably tell. Anyways, my brother, Ace, always had my back, and was always looking out for me, so of course he knew why I had just screamed and was the first one to rush to my aid. "You had the dream again didn't you?"
My bedroom was drenched in pitch blackness, so Ace walked over to the lamp on the other side of my bedroom to turn the light on. Once he did, I noticed how tall he was compared to me, his brown eyes, his shaggy, medium length hair that he dyed dark blue, the piercings that he had on his right eyebrow, his nose, and his left ear that were similar to mine. He was still wearing his day clothes, which meant a Beatle's t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t see the point in pajamas since he goes to bed so late anyway. Most girls my age are afraid of my brother, and would probably consider their own brothers freaks if they just like Ace, but Ace was the best older brother anyone could ever ask for and nothing that anyone could ever say would change that.
"Yeah," I said as I sat up. Ace came over to sit on the end of my bed.
"Is everything OK with you? I know you get those dreams sometimes, but you've had them every night for the past week and a half! It's usually only once or twice a month at most."
"Herr Krueger did say we were starting our chapter on World War Two tomorrow."
"Ahh, there it is," Ace said, "Don't worry about it too much. Herr Krueger is the best German teacher you could ever ask for. He knows what you're going through from when I had him as a teacher in 7th grade. And you always said you wanted to know more about this stuff, but you could never get all the information you wanted. Now you have that. Just try to get through it, and remember that you're only in German class for 45 minutes a day. That’s it."
"I suppose you're right," I replied.
"I always am!" we both laughed, "Now get some sleep. It's 2 am," Ace got up, and walked toward the door, but before he walked out he turned around and said, "Tell those Nazi's that I'll murder them all with my bare hands if they mess with you again! Goodnight," he walked back to his room.
"Thanks for turning the lights off!" I said sarcastically.
"Sorry!" he ran back in my room to quickly turn the lights off, then left again.
I soon fell back into a deep, dreamless sleep.


BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! my annoying alarm clock sounded. I got up straight away to turn off my alarm clock and go wake up Ace. He was leaving for school in an hour, and I woke him up every day.
I took note of my greasy, auburn colored hair that was dyed with dark purple streaks as I walked to Ace's bedroom across the hall. My eyes were half closed, and I walked straight into Ace's door without opening it. I’m not much of a morning person. When I did open it, I saw that Ace had rolled off of his bed in the middle of the night and was sound asleep on the cold hardwood floor.
"Ace!! Get up! “I kicked him lightly in the stomach. When he didn't respond, I kicked him harder. When he didn't respond to that, I walked over to his desk to get his headphones and his iPod. I turned the iPod's volume all the way up, plugged in the headphones, put the headphones on Ace's head, and played "Revolution" by The Beatles. That was the only song that woke up Ace because Paul McCartney screams at the beginning.
Ace jolted awake and scrambled confusedly, trying desperately to get the headphones away from him. When he succeeded, he mumbled, "Thanks."
"You're welcome. Don't be late for school like you were yesterday!" I nagged him.
"When I go buy my car today you won't have to worry about that!" Ace replied.
"Yeah, and you can drive me everywhere from now on!" I said back.
"I have nothing better to do I suppose,” he replied.
"You really need a girlfriend," I told him, as if he didn't already know that.
"Don't remind me! Even you have a boyfriend! It's pathetic!" Ace said.
"You'll get one, don't worry," I comforted my brother.
"Doubt it. She barely even knows I exist!" he exclaimed.
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Who's 'she'?" I asked Ace.
"No one," he lied. I just looked into his eyes for a second, and then I dove onto the bed to retrieve a picture that I knew would be under his pillow - a picture of whoever he had a crush on. I found one of another girl when I was eight years old in the same place.
"JUDE!! STOP! CUT IT OUT!!" he yelled at me as he tried to pull me off the bed by my feet.
"Aha!!" I said excitedly as I took the photograph out from under the pillow. The girl in the picture had blonde hair with dark lowlights, green eyes, a nose piercing, and a warm, gentle smile. She was wearing a hot pink tank top, skinny jeans, and tye dye colored converse sneakers. She was standing next to a huge trampoline in what I guessed was her backyard. "How did you get this?" I asked.
"Facebook," he replied. Blushing, Ace tried to snatch the picture out of my hand.
"Have you asked her out yet?" I asked Ace.
"No."
"Why?" I pressed for answers.
"I already told you. She doesn't even know I exist!" he told me.
"Then make yourself un-non-existable!" I told him.
"What? How do I even do that?" he asked.
"Just talk to her! She looks like she's your type!" I said.
"But she's all popular, and I'm all not popular!" Ace whined.
"I don't care! Talk to her - today! You don't even have to ask her out. Just talk to her! Text me when you do!"
"Meh!" was his reply for when he had nothing better to say.
I placed the picture back under his pillow, said, "I'll keep my phone on!" and walked out the door.
I went into my bedroom where I took a shower in my own bathroom, blow dried and straitened my hair, replaced my silver colored nose ring for a dark red one, then put in fake-diamond earrings in all five of the holes that were pierced into my right ear, and the two that were in my left ear. My eyebrow piercing was still there, obviously, but I touched it just to make sure.
When I was done in the bathroom, I went back out into my bedroom to change out of my pajamas and into some clothes. I put on a skin tight tank top that was black except for a picture of the Abbey Road album cover, a pair of skinny jeans, black fishnet gloves from Hot Topic, and mismatching socks and converse sneakers. Once that was done, I walked over to the mirror on the wall next to my bed, and put on a very thin layer of cover-up, black eyeliner, and mascara. Then, I packed up all of my school supplies into my black over-the-shoulder backpack that had a bunch of drawings of small skull-and-crossbones.
"Bye, Jude!" Ace shouted from the hallway. He then ran down the stairs.
“Bye, Ace!!” I shouted, “Remember – I’ll have my phone on!!”
“Don’t let Mrs. Jackson catch you texting or chewing gum!!” Ace shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
“I won’t!” Mrs. Jackson, my ancient civilizations teacher, could always tell if someone was chewing gum or texting in class. She just knew – even if you took every precaution. She didn’t get you in trouble or anything. She would just make you spit out your gum or put your cell phone back in your locker. Mrs. Jackson was my favorite teacher, so I didn’t do that stuff anyways, but most of my friends did, “Now leave! You’re gonna miss the bus!!”
“Bye!!” Ace shouted as he opened the door, walked onto the front porch, closed the door, and left.
I had about an hour left to kill, so I put my iPod onto its speaker dock, and played the song “Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I started singing along while I cleaned up my bedroom. I fixed the black and white zebra striped comforter and sheets on my bed, put the lime green pillows back on my bed, picked up all my clothes off of the hardwood floor, and pulled the huge black curtains with hot pink peace signs up on my huge bay window so I could look out onto the sparkling December snow.
“It’s December 23rd!” I exclaimed, even though no one was listening. Awesome! Today was the last day of school before winter vacation! This was one of my favorite times of the year. Our whole family packed a whole month’s worth of fun into one small vacation. Hanukah had already passed for this year, but we still acted as if it was still going on. We had family parties every night, played outside all day shoveling snow, riding on the snow mobiles, building snowmen, ice skating on the pond, building massive snow forts, having snow ball fights, and just plain goofing around. Adults acted like children again, and no one had a care in the world.
“Jude! The bus will be here in 15 minutes! Danni and Michie are here!!” Dad shouted from the hallway. Danni and Michie were my cousins. We caught the bus together every morning.
“OK!” I shouted back. I grabbed my backpack and winter jacket, and headed downstairs. I stole an apple off of the counter because I hadn’t eaten any breakfast, “Hey, guys!” I greeted my cousins when I opened the door, “Ready for school!?”