A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

I tell Addy how glad I am to have her as a friend, and I mean it. If I hadn’t found her today, I doubt I would have lasted long in a city this loud and strange. Addy mentions I could have gone to the Quaker Aid Society instead, since they help people who are separated from their families hold onto hope. Still, I’m glad things worked out the way they did.

Addy’s whole face lights up when she asks if I’ll come to school with her tomorrow. She talks about it the way other kids talk about a trip to a water park, going on about the double desks and how I could be her partner. I think about my failed grade back home and feel a lot less thrilled about the idea, but I tell her I guess I will. She promises her teacher, Miss Dunn, is kind, and that nobody there will think less of me if I can’t read or write yet.

When we carry our plates to the back table, Addy asks her mother if I can stay with them since I’m separated from my family. Mrs. Walker doesn’t hesitate for a second. Of course I can stay. Then she tells us we can head home on our own while she talks to Reverend Drake about a benefit for the Freedom Society. Wait. She’s letting us go somewhere alone?! And then she warns us to be careful. Now that sounds like Mom.

Outside, the sun is still bright, and Addy chatters as we walk, telling me her momma sews the most beautiful dresses at the shop where they live above. I mention that Mom once tried to teach me to sew and gave up on me completely. We laugh together, comparing notes on how hopeless we both are with a needle.

That’s when a heavyset man with red hair steps out of nowhere and blocks the sidewalk in front of us, shouting for us to stop right where we are.

Addy and I both freeze. The man looks us over like we’re something he’s caught. He says we look like two runaway slaves he’s hunting, and demands to see our papers. I don’t even know what that means, and I whisper as much to Addy. She whispers back that he means freedom papers, and that this is bad, very bad.

I want to tell him we’re not slaves at all. Addy starts to speak, ready to try to talk her way through this.

My heart is slamming so hard I can feel it in my throat. Every instinct in me says to grab Addy’s hand and run, to get around the next corner before this man can reach either of us. But Addy has been in this city a lot longer than me, has survived worse than one shouting stranger, and she might know exactly the right words to get us both out of this safely. I have only a second to decide. Do I pull her away and run, or do I trust her to explain?