AUBURN — As Brooke Farrell got ready for school Tuesday morning, she received a text from her big sister.

Happy birthday, it said. Sorry I can’t be there to give you a hug.

Brooke understood, but she was sad. Brianna Farrell had enlisted in the Navy right out of high school and was stationed in Italy; she didn’t have enough leave time to travel back home, even for her little sister’s 16th birthday.

They hadn’t seen each other for nearly a year and a half. A birthday text would have to do.

But a couple of hours later, Brooke was sitting in her Edward Little High School French class when the classroom door swung open.

Suddenly, Brianna stood in front of her, dressed in a Navy uniform, carrying flowers and a small teddy bear.

“Oh my gosh!” Brooke shouted and jumped up from her desk.

The sisters hugged, pulled back, hugged again.

Brianna lied when she told her sister she couldn’t come home for her birthday. She’d been quietly saving her leave time for nearly a year, just for this moment.

“I missed you,” Brianna said.

Although born four years apart, the sisters were particularly close growing up. They did almost everything together, including sharing a bedroom, so it was hard on Brooke when Brianna left for the Navy not long after she graduated from Edward Little in 2016.

With Brianna, 20, stationed at the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy as part of U. S. Navy’s military police, the sisters hadn’t seen each other in 16 months. They texted each morning, called and spoke over FaceTime when they could. But the six hour time difference made communicating difficult. And it wasn’t the same as being together.

“She was crying, ‘I just want Brianna home for my birthday. When is she coming home?’ ” said their mom, Crystal Asselin.

Brooke didn’t know that Brianna had already hatched a plan. She would come home for her little sister’s 16th birthday. And it would be a surprise.

Well, it would be a surprise for Brooke. School officials and everyone else in the extended family — 40 to 50 people — knew about it.

“I was texting everyone like, ‘This is when I’m coming home. You know, don’t tell her. I’ll be so mad.’ They were like, ‘No, we won’t tell her,'” Brianna said. “Somehow we kept the secret. Somehow.”

“I don’t know how,” Brooke said, looking at her mother, grandmother, cousins and friends gathered around her — all of them in on the surprise.

Brianna arrived in town late Monday evening and stayed with her grandmother in Auburn. She sent Brooke’s Tuesday morning birthday text from there.

A few minutes before 9 a.m., family in tow, she walked into her sister’s classroom.

The class erupted into applause.

Brianna stayed for a few minutes to talk with students about her military service, but soon the sisters were striding down the hall together, Brooke looking at her in disbelief.

“I was thinking it’s my birthday, I know she’s working, this must be really hard for her, I can always call her and text her. I can always call her on my birthday,” Brooke said. “The next thing I know, she’s here!”

Brianna will spend the next two weeks in Maine with Brooke. Their plans: Just hang out.

“I thought this was going to be a normal school day,” Brooke marveled.

“If I was coming here, I just had to embarrass you,” Brianna said and pulled her sister in for another hug as they laughed.

ltice@sunjournal.com

Brianna Farrell hugs her sister Brooke in a surprise visit to Brooke’s Edward Little High School classroom in Auburn on Tuesday. Brianna has been on active duty in Italy with the U.S. Navy, and the sisters haven’t been together in 16 months. (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)

Brianna Farrell, center, walks down the hall of Edward Little High School on her way to surprising her 16-year-old-sister, Brooke, in her classroom. (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)