SPECIAL FEATURE: BY KIDS
Natalie, Age 14
The year is 1847. Ten-year-old Sequana has been fighting The Great Potato Famine for three years. She is now sitting in the cramped underdeck of *Sean’s Dance*, the “coffin” ship delivering her to Brooklyn, New York. The night was calm, and Sequana had no idea where she was in the sea. Now, her piercing green gaze was staring blankly at the darkness as her deathly pale fingers fiddled with her dark auburn hair. Suddenly, there was a sound in the depressive void. It was someone coming to a coughing fit. Sequana got scared and ducked underneath the thin blanket she had. Gradually, the sounds of the sea and the person coughing slowed her into a dark wave of sleep.
As Sequana entered a state of weariness, she began to dream. And in her dream, she woke up to a bright, sunny day on her family’s farm on the edge of Dublin. But it was not the sound of her mother making breakfast that woke her, or the sound of Ceala, the hen, clucking in her ear. It was the foul smell of something gone wrong that snapped her eyes open. When she opened the door to what could’ve been a nice day, Sequana saw one of her family’s worst fears… the potato famine blight had reached its nasty fingers onto their land. Despite the efforts of her family to save the crop, there were none left except for the pitiful seed potatoes of which they ate. At this moment, Sequana’s blood turned to ice, as she knew that trouble was ahead.
A moment later, Sequana had another dream. But this memory was more recent. It was the day that Lord Yarrow came. He had come for the rent of the land that Sequana’s family had been living on for years. Already, she missed the clucking of Ceala. Now, her father had gone to work on a road, and he may not return. Mother had gone missing, and Sequana had no money for the rent. As she was fleeing her home, she saw Lord Yarrow walking up the path towards the house that would soon be demolished. As she was running, she stumbled upon a ticket that was rubbed into the ground. It was dirty, but still valid. It said it was for a ship heading towards Brooklyn, New York.
Now, the hot sickly air and the sound of men shouting woke Sequana up. She crawled from the blanket, then climbed out of the underdeck where she and other passengers were kept like cargo. When Sequana finished blinking the sunlight away, she saw men throwing ropes to tie to the port. Then, it hit her. She had made it.
