Tirzah

by Lucille Travis

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Trizah and her family are slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh forces them to make mud bricks without straw, so Tirzah cuts grass for her father and older brother to use. The police crack their cruel whips to make them work harder.

If only Tirzah's people could escape. If only Moses could persuade Pharaoh to let them go. Surely Yahweh, the Lord God, will hear their prayers to leave Egypt for a better life somewhere else, they hope.

Excerpt:

Knives flashed in the sunlight, and bundles of cut grasses lay along the Nile marsh. Twelve-year-old Tirzah and her younger brother, Oren, headed for a thicket of grass out of sight of the others at work.

Oren reached for a clump of reeds and froze. From the thicket above his head, two dark eyes stared at him. He swung around to grab his crutch and gasped as a man stood up, parting the reeds in front of him.

Tirzah whirled to face them, a handful of grass in her hand. "What do you want?" Tirzah asked, her heart beating fast.

"Nothing. Nothing more than to get out of here in one piece," he said.

From the ground where he still knelt, Oren held his wooded crutch like a shepherd's staff, ready to swing. "You're the one the Medjay were after, aren't you?"

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