FosterS

The Search for Freedom

By Foster Sutton

Machiem was only twelve years old when he had to flee his home country of Pakistan. His family was secretly Jewish in a country full of Muslims. If anyone found out he was Jewish, he would either have leave the country, convert to Islam, or be killed. Machiem and his family did whatever they could keep it a secret. It would be terrible if anyone found out. One day during Hanukkah, a sacred holiday to Jewish people, Machiem heard a knock on his front door. He went over to go see who it was. He opened the door and five Pakistani police men came into his home. His family was very startled when they came in. They knew something was very wrong. “We have found out that you all are Jewish,” one of the policemen said, you all need to either leave the country, or die. You have two minutes to decide. It is obvious you would leave the country. If you choose to leave, you have twenty-four hours to pack up your belongings and leave this country.” “What do you mean we are Jewish?” Machiem’s mother asked, “We are Muslims. We would never even think of being Jewish?” “We wiretap every citizens’ households now. It is a new law. We have to make sure nobody is doing illegal things. We overheard your family celebrating Hanukkah.” Machiem’s mother argued with the policemen for a few minutes. Then she gave up, so the family would have to pack their things and leave the country. They couldn’t afford plane tickets. So they had no idea how they could leave. They tried to think of how they could leave. They were thinking about going to the United States because there, everyone has freedom of religion. So Machiem’s parents thought they should borrow a car from a friend and drive it to a dock in Saudi Arabia. Then they would get on a boat and go to New York City in The United States. They thought since they could have freedom of religion it would be good to go to the U.S. They drove to a dock in Saudi Arabia. They found someone who could take them to New York City for very cheap. They got on the boat and went to New York City. They didn’t want to get arrested for being immigrants so they went to the immigration services and tried to get papers. The immigration services said they had to wait a little while. The **media** eventually found out about this and they ended up having paparazzi at their door every day. They didn’t like this at all. They thought they should leave the country and go to a Jewish country. Yet, Machiem’s mother thought they should stay in this country. “We need to stay in this country because it has freedom of religion,” she said. “If we go back to Pakistan, they are going to kill us.” “But don’t you hate the paparazzi following us all the time asking us questions?” Machiem’s father said. “We could find another country to go to where Jewish people can live in peace.” “I think we should stay here because this is “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”Machiem said. “I agree with mother because this is a great country even though the freedom of press lets the paparazzi act annoyingly. Machiem’s family eventually decided to stay. After a few months of being annoyed by the paparazzi and the press, the family’s papers came in the mail. From then on, Machiem thought everything was going to be okay. Machiem was walking to his school on his first day. It took him about fifteen minutes to get there. When he got there, they were checking inside the students’ backpacks. Machiem was in shock watching the teachers do this. He thought in America you couldn’t look through some ones’ possessions without their consent or a search warrant. A teacher walked up to him, and took his backpack. Machiem didn’t know what to do. He thought maybe he could run, take back his stuff, push the teacher away, or just let him check his backpack. He decided to just let the teacher check his backpack. After all he had nothing to hide. The teacher finished searching him and walked away. It wasn’t a problem at all. But Machiem still wasn’t sure why he was able to search inside his backpack. When the search was finished, all of the kids went to their first class. On the first day there, Machiem already made a new friend. His friend’s name was Joseph. Joseph had a very high temper. He would constantly argue about the searching of the backpacks. Machiem was used to going to school and going through the backpack searches every other day, but Joseph hated the searches more and more each time. Nobody knew why, not even Joseph. He just disliked the searches and everything about them. Joseph and Machiem both walked to school together every day. One day while they were walking to school, Joseph seemed even more irritated than normal. “If they do the backpack search today,” he said, “So help me, I will go crazy.” They got to school that day and the students were lining up for the backpack search. Joseph looked very irritated when he saw the lines. They waited in line for a while and Joseph was next. Right when the teacher touched Joseph’s backpack, Joseph took the backpack back and punched the teacher in the face. The teacher didn’t do anything because he would go to jail. So Joseph kept on hitting him and hitting him and the teacher kept pushing him away but that wasn’t enough. When Joseph was finished fighting him, he was bruised all over and bleeding a lot. The teacher had to go to the hospital and he sued Joseph. Joseph and his family had to go to the District Court. They couldn’t afford an attorney so they were given one. They had to have the trial in front of a jury. The jury was made up of twelve people and they were picked from ninety people. The first twelve people they questioned became the jury itself. Nobody in the jury was allowed to have a bias towards or against either side. Also, they weren’t allowed to know either of the people. Joseph’s parents had to pay for the teacher’s medical bills, about three thousand dollars, and an additional two hundred and fifty dollars. Joseph then was grounded and sent to a boarding school that didn’t have to search the students’ backpacks. From then on, there weren’t any more arguments about the searching of the backpacks, because the school no longer did the searches. (To be continued!)



HISTORICAL COMPONENT: The main historical event that happened in Johnny Tremain was The Boston Tea Party. This was when the Sons of Liberty dressed up as Indians and went onto British tea ships and threw tea off of them. The British were in debt after the French and Indian War. To recover that debt, the British put tax on a lot of things, including tea. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty got angry at these taxes, so they committed the Boston Tea Party.

THE SETTING OF THE NOVEL: The setting of this book was in Boston just before the Revolutionary War. The way I know this, is because an event in this book was the Boston Tea Party. This happened just before Lexington and Concord which happened just before the Revolutionary War. This meant that the setting of the story was in Boston because the Boston Tea Party was in Boston also. The setting was in Boston just before the Revolutionary War, because all of the events that happened in the story, happened just before the Revolutionary War.

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