Entries for National Reader's Contest Season Two

Ellis Island Blues

A/N This should be pretty historically accurate, I just got through the learning part of the immigration unit and went to Ellis Island and Liberty Island just yesterday. Just so you know, an X high up on a color represents a suspected mental deficiency, and an X in a circle is a definite mental deficiency.

"Look! There she is!"

The calls and cheers echoed around the hull of the boat through the stairwell and woke little Rachael as she curled in a ball in her mother's lap. Her brown hair was ruffled and the curls frizzed, but the girl couldn't care less.

"Mama, Mama, wake up!" She called and wrapped her chubby fingers on her mother's arms and shook her up.

"Mmm..." the woman groaned and lifted her eyelids. "What is it, Rachael?"

"Mama, they say they see her!" squealed Rachael. Her mother's eyes shot open and she sat up straight.

"Let's go see her," she said with a smile and stood, taking Rachael's hand and pulled her through the crowds of men and families and made their way onto the near pitch black deck.

"I don't see her, Mama," the little girl said and pulled towards the edge of the boat. She glanced around in the air in a desperate search, but the tall backs of men blocked her view.

"Here," Rachael's mother said and scooped the child into her strong arms and the girl's eyes glowed as the towering brown copper woman came into view. The torched glowed with a magical sparkle in the dark night sky, a giant star much closer than all the distant ones that had guided them to her. Her sturdy face watched eagerly, as if scaring away the evil men who attacked their home every night to take bread and their Shabbat candles. The book in her hand seemed to take down all their names as they passed by her side. The awe in Rachael's eyes was unmistakable, the glow and almost fear, but the love and admiration giving them a sheen.

"Be careful, Miriam," a wispy woman's voice called. "You're girl there isn't yet 8, you don't want to drop her into the water to have her die an early death!"

"Auntie Beckie!" Rachael cried and squirmed until her mother let the young girl get her footing to run and throw her arms around the wild eyed and wiry haired old woman. She was coming to find her son, who had come three years prior. The old woman smiled with a gaped tooth grin and a distant look in her eyes.

"Hello, Rebecca," Miriam said with a slight glower in her eyes.

The women talked for a while about home, and how they couldn't wait to see the synagogues their men had found. Rachael wanted so dearly to wander off to the railing and watch the lady travel behind them in the night, standing at the gate and keeping those men away. Those men who made her mama cry herself to sleep, and hurt her to the point of screaming.

The lady moved farther and farther away, but not by much before they called for everyone to stand aside so they could dock at an island a little ways away from where the statue stood.

"Rachael, come here," Miriam called and took the girl by her hand. "Let's go get our things."

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They had dragged their luggage over the gang plank and all the way into the building only to be told to leave it in the entrance. Men shouted in a language far from the Russian or Yiddish Rachael was used to. Their weird words confused her, but someone translated and told them that they had to leave their things by the walls.

Miriam placed the trunk down, and tried to pull her daughter along, but the girl clung stubbornly to the handle. The trunk was so heavy it didn't even budge as she was yanked away, and in turn Rachael went absolutely nowhere.