Maya Strickler was quite a strange girl. Steady, coarse hands, fierce green eyes that could face even death, and red locks tumbling beyond her shoulders. You couldn’t imagine her being so peculiar. But a few years ago, sometime in the 1940s, she was a young Jewish girl who had not a care in the world. But her visions of a perfect life shattered when the Nazis came to be. She lived in the country, where her family owned a beautiful red farmhouse and a mulberry orchid. Swallows used to reside, strangely, in these trees. Their pretty little nests nestled in the soft company of the leaves. Jokingly, the villagers living nearby used to call it ‘Mulberry Lane’ as if the swallows had their own little street in their own little town. Growing up, Maya was a strong, courageous young lady who knew anything and everything about the country. She could tell you which berries were ripe and which ones were not, how to properly climb a tree without falling on your behind, and even when to expect the swallows to build their nests. Maya loved the swallows. Every morning, noon, and evening she would go down to the mulberry orchid and greet them. Sometimes she would bring some sticks for their nests. Other times she would give them little treats or talk about her day. It just so happened that on a very particular morning Maya went down to say hello to the swallows. “Good morning, Richard. Have you slept well?” she asked a tiny chick. “Oh, very good!” She giggled as he tweeted in reply. “Excuse me. Where are your parents?” a voice suddenly said behind them. Maya turned around to see a broad-chested young man wearing a Nazi uniform. “Um, down there.” She pointed to their stables. “Thank you.” Before leaving, the man whipped out a notebook and started furiously writing down something. When he stopped, he pointed at Richard. “Are those birds authorized to be here?” Maya didn’t really know what he meant by authorized, so she answered with a cheerful nod. The man sighed. “Very well. Be off now, find somewhere else to play, little girl.” Maya frowned. She wasn’t a little girl! She was 10 years old. Double digits! How dare he! With a sharp turn of his heel, the man flounced off towards the stables. A bad feeling started growing in Maya’s stomach at his words, though. So she decided to follow him. She crept into the stables quietly, where her red-haired parents were talking to the man in hushed whispers. Maya couldn’t make out what they were saying quite well, but one sentence made her understand enough. “You need to leave here. I am taking you with me.” The man said curtly. “Where?” her mother whimpered. He didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed Maya’s father by the hand and dragged him out to where some other Nazi officers were waiting. “No, no, no!” Maya ran out of the bushes to the little scene. She tried pulling her parents away from the officers. “Don’t touch my mummy!” she shouted as her crying mother helplessly watched. “Ah, the idiotic child I met earlier. Oh well, get her too.” But Maya ran away as fast as she could to the mulberry orchid. She hid in the brown shed and held her breath when she heard footsteps dampening the grass. “Swallows, help me.” She whispered in the darkness, starting to cry herself. One of the kind swallows heard her and flew into the shed, sitting on her trembling hand. “Follow me,” it tweeted. “What?” Maya’s eyes widened. “Just follow,” it said, taking her out of the shed. “Where are we going?” Maya said, blinking away tears as the swallow lead her to the little creek they owned. “Take the current and you will find a home. Quick. Before they come.” The swallow flew away in a hurry, desperate to protect her eggs. Maya obeyed. She dove in and swam and swam until she was out of the country. Wet, shivering, and hungry, she had no idea what to do. She slept in libraries and stole whatever she could. Downtown Amsterdam was not the best place to live for a young child on her own. One day, she was sleeping in an alleyway when a beautiful lady was walking by. She stopped dead when she saw little Maya curled up on the dirty ground. “Oh, poor child. She must be Jewish. I must act quick before they find her.” The woman scooped Maya up in her arms and covered her with a shawl before quickly running towards her house. Maya woke up hours later to a warm fire and a blanket covering her. Seeing the woman, she got up and started running. “Wait!” the woman caught up with her in the hallway. She enfolded Maya in her arms. “It’s alright.” Maya looked at her and burst into tears, embracing the hug wholeheartedly. For the remainder of the troubled times, Maya lived with Ms. Swan, a rich British lady who welcomed Maya into her home and kept her safe from the Nazis. The two were very happy together, and when the war ended, Maya was reunited with her father and mother, who had miraculously not been killed in the concentration camps. Although they insisted many times it was purely good luck, Maya knew that it was thanks to someone else she and her family were reunited with each other. She never forgot how the Swallows of Mulberry Lane saved her and was forever indebted to them.
The End.
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