Conflict

Conflict:
 * 1) At the beginning of the novel, the reader is introduced to Afrika's character. Afrika is a runaway slave who is on her way to Canada to reach her opportunity at freedom. The best opportunity that Afrika or any other runaway slave has at reaching Canada with some type of safety is by traveling through the Underground Railroad. On the trail of the Underground Railroad, Afrika starts off in a group, which is led by Harriet Tubman. Afrika, at the time, was pregnant, and started to give birth earlier than expected, which resulted in her having the baby while traveling with Tubman and the rest of the slaves on the Underground Railroad. Tubman informed Afrika that in order for her to remain with the group, she must leave her baby isolated in the woods. Afrika reaches internal conflict at this point because she doesn't want to leave her baby isolated and alone, but she knows that with the baby, she won't be able to make it safely to Canada.
 * 2) After Afrika was left alone by Harriet Tubman and all of the other slaves, she decided to make the best out of the information that she knew and continue on the trail to reach Canada and her opportunity to freedom. While she was still with the other runway slaves, Tubman shared a lot of significant information that is crucial to remaining safe from any slave catchers. Also, Afrika was informed of various safe houses along the Underground Railroad that she could go to and have security and shelter. After using this information to her benefit, and locating different safe houses, she was back on her way on the trail and headed North to Canada. One night while she was traveling along the Underground Railroad, Afrika heard a gun shot and immediately began to panic. She frantically began running through the river, hoping to avoid any contact with the slave catcher's dogs. After a decent amount of time running through the water, Afrika was unsure if she had even been traveling North. Once she stopped to make sure she was still headed in the right direction, she realized that she had not, and she was actually heading South.
 * 3) It becomes obvious that Lucy is not like most girls her age or any girls during that time period. She seems to isolate herself from her sisters because she is not as girly as the rest of them. It is made clear that Lucy would rather spend as much time as possible away from her sisters and on her own or with her grand father. Throughout the novel, the reader reads about the relationship between Lucy and her grand father. As time goes on during the novel, Lucy and her grand father consistently grow closer. Lucy becomes heart broken and distraught the night that her grand father's pneumonia unexpectedly turned into a stroke. After a few nights of continuously fighting and staying strong, her grand father died, leaving Lucy feeling alone and isolated.
 * 4) After Lucy's grand father died, Lucy decided to stay at his house as much as possible. One night while staying at his house, Lucy made a life changing discovery at his house. She opened the grand father clock to find Afrika. She found out more about her grand father's interests in being an abolitionist and helping runaway slaves. Since her grand father had died and could no longer keep his promise to help Afrika reach Canada, Lucy decided to make it her obligation to help Afrika. She went above and beyond to help her. They went onto a ship, and Lucy led her to Canada and she finally reached freedom. Once Lucy's family was informed on where Lucy was, they made an immediate assumption that she had died. They lived for months with this though, causing conflict in their family.