The Lincoln Project

by Dan Gutman

  “Excuse me, good sir,” he said, trying to sound as grown up as possible. “My friends and I are greenhorns around these parts. Would you be so kind as to direct us to Baltimore Street?”

  “Down thataway,” the man replied. “Where ya headed?”

  “We’re fixin’ to see President Lincoln deliver his Gettysburg Address.”

  “His what?” asked the man.

  “I mean . . . uh . . .”

  Luke pulled David aside.

  “They didn’t call it the Gettysburg Address before he delivered it, you dope!” he whispered. “It’s like they didn’t call it World War I during that war because nobody knew there was gonna be a World War II.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” David said to the man. “What I meant to say was that my friends and I got a hankering to see the president speak.”

  “You folks are a mite early,” the man replied. “Old Abe ain’t gonna be dedicating that cemetery ’til tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Isabel asked, flabbergasted. “Isn’t today November nineteenth?”

  “Nope,” the man told her before continuing on his way. “I reckon it’s the eighteenth. All day, in fact.”

  The Flashback Four turned to one another.

  “What are we doing here today?” Luke asked.

  “Miss Z must have messed up,” Julia said. “She sent us a day early.”

  Isabel grabbed for the TTT.

  U SENT US 2 THE WRONG DAY!!! she typed.

  There was a long silence. And then . . . Bzzz.

  IT WAS A TYPO. I HIT THE 8 INSTEAD OF THE 9. SORRY.

  “A typo?!” Luke said angrily. “The lady invested billions of dollars in this technology. She made sure we all had the right clothes. She told us how we’re supposed to talk. She drew us a map. She took care of every detail. And then she types the date wrong?”

  Isabel typed furiously . . .

  BRING US BACK HOME! SEND US HERE TOMORROW.

  Bzzz. This time the response came back quickly . . .

  NO CAN DO. THE BOARD CAN ONLY SEND YOU 2 A TIME PERIOD ONCE. I’M SORRY. DEAL WITH IT.

  “Deal with it?” David said. “Is she kidding?”

  “Mistakes happen, I guess,” said Isabel. “She told us we should expect the unexpected. Well, this sure is unexpected.”

  “Oh great,” Luke said, thinking out loud. “This means we’ll have to find a place to sleep here tonight. We’ll have to get some food. I didn’t bring a toothbrush. Did you guys? And where are we going to shower? We’ll have to—”

  “Relax,” David said, putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “We can handle this.”

  “Hey, you know what? I don’t care,” Julia said, a smile spreading across her face. This just means we have more time to spend here. It’s going to be fun! Let’s go exploring!”

  Julia started skipping away in the direction of Baltimore Street.

  “We need to stay together,” Luke shouted after her. “Miss Z told us—”

  “Oh, lighten up, will you?” Julia shouted back. “We’re not babies.”

  The others had no choice but to follow Julia as she skipped down the street, giggling and chatting with every passerby.

  “Hello, m’lady!” Julia said to a woman pushing a baby carriage. “Isn’t it a simply lovely day? Isn’t 1863 a simply lovely time to be alive?”

  “Julia!” David shouted. “Knock it off!”

  Julia continued her frolic around the square, and then stopped suddenly. Two men in Union army uniforms were standing near the corner, on crutches. Each of them was missing one leg, and one of them was also missing an arm. Clearly, they had lost their limbs fighting in the war. And they were the lucky ones, Julia realized. Thousands of their fellow soldiers were buried in the cemetery that President Lincoln would be dedicating.

  Julia looked around. For the first time, she noticed the signs of war in Gettysburg. Picket fences and walls of buildings were riddled with bullet holes. Windows were shattered and had not been replaced. Sad-eyed women were holding pictures of their husbands who had died in battle. It wasn’t all a party.

  “I’m sorry,” Julia said to the group. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Forget it,” David said. “It’s all good.”

  There was the blast of a train whistle. It was the Conewago, a twenty-five-ton steam locomotive coming in from the nearby town of Hanover Junction. It pulled into the Gettysburg train station a block away, and more people streamed out of it into the square.

  The population of Gettysburg was only 2,400, but there were already 15,000 people in town, with more arriving all the time. Every hotel was booked solid. Every bed was taken. It didn’t seem like the little town could hold any more people. The square was getting more crowded. It was becoming hard to stay together as a group.

  “Hey, y’know, I bet President Lincoln is already here,” Luke said.

  “What makes you say that?” Isabel asked.

  “Well, it’s not like they have Air Force One,” Luke replied. “Lincoln probably came from Washington, DC, by train, and it must take hours with these old trains. So he most likely had to come in the day before his speech, right?”

  “Maybe we can meet him,” said Isabel.

  “That would be cool,” David said.

  “Where do you think we would find him?” asked Luke.

  “Beats me.”

  While this discussion was going on, it suddenly occurred to Luke that Julia was not with them.

  “Where’s Julia?” he asked, looking around.

  “I don’t know,” said Isabel. “I thought she was with you.”

  “Why should she be with me?” Luke asked. “I thought she was with you.”

  “Don’t look at me,” David said, putting his hands in the air. “I don’t know where she is.”

  Julia was gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  PRIVATE PROPERTY

  DAVID, LUKE, AND ISABEL WERE IN A PANIC. THEY whirled around frantically, trying to take in the whole square at once. Julia was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is she?” Luke asked urgently.

  “She was here a minute ago,” said David.

  “I knew this was a mistake,” Isabel said. “What are we gonna do if we can’t find her?”

  It seemed like one thing after another was going wrong. First the Flashback Four were sent to Gettysburg on the wrong day, and now one of them had run off. What if Julia was lost? The others would have to leave without her. Worse, what if she was kidnapped? Isabel wondered if it could have been those two boys who were flirting with them. Or it might have been the man they had asked about Baltimore Street. It could have been anybody. There were hundreds of people milling around the square, and some of them looked pretty shady.

  “We need to text Miss Z,” Isabel said.

  “What’s she gonna do?” David asked. “She can’t help us. We have to find her on our own.”

  “Let’s not panic,” Luke told them. “I’m sure she’s right nearby. She couldn’t have gone very far. Be positive.”

  The three of them scanned the sea of faces scattered across the square. Just about all the women were wearing those big, bell-shaped dresses, just like Julia.

  “If we were in our regular clothes, we would be able to find her right away,” David said. “She would stand out.”

  At that moment, the TTT buzzed in Isabel’s pocket.

  “Oh man, what does Miss Z want now?” she muttered, pulling the device out. This was on the screen . . .

  WHAT IS GOING ON?

  “Just ignore it,” Luke advised Isabel. “We can deal with her after we find Julia. David, why don’t you run over and check out that corner of the square? I’ll check out the far corner. And Isabel—”

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea for us to split up?” Isabel asked. “I’m afraid we might—”

  “Look! Over there!” David suddenly shouted, pointing at a house across the street. “Is that her?”

  “I don’t see anything,” Luke said.
>
  “A girl went in the door of that house,” David told him. “It looked a little like Julia.”

  “Everybody here looks a little like Julia,” Luke pointed out.

  “Was she with anybody?” asked Isabel.

  “I don’t think so,” David said. “But somebody might have been in front of her. Let’s go!”

  They hustled through the square, dodging people left and right as they made their way across the street.

  “Maybe Julia just had to go to the bathroom,” Isabel said hopefully, elbowing her way around an elderly couple.

  “She would have said something to one of us,” David said.

  The house they were running toward was a three-story redbrick building, one of the tallest in Gettysburg. A plain-looking house, it didn’t have any fancy carvings or flourishes on the outside walls, like the bank on the other side of the square did.

  Isabel, Luke, and David didn’t know it yet, but I’ll tell you, reader. This house belonged to David Wills, a thirty-three-year-old lawyer and a prominent citizen of the town. It was Wills who led the drive to create a cemetery honoring the Union soldiers who’d died in the Battle of Gettysburg. He acquired the site of the cemetery, arranged the design, planned the ceremony, and invited President Lincoln to come and give a speech at the dedication. During the battle itself, Wills led people up on the roof of this building to watch the fighting in progress.

  David pulled open the front door. Isabel and Luke peeked inside. Nobody was there. They entered the house.

  “Nice place,” David whispered as they tiptoed through the dining room and into the living room. “Whoever lives here must be rich. They have a fireplace in every room.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re rich,” Luke whispered back. “That means they didn’t have any other way to heat the house.”

  “Shhhh! Quiet!” Isabel said.

  Actually, Wills was quite wealthy. All the rooms were elegantly decorated with expensive mahogany cabinets, flowery wallpaper, and gas lamps along the walls. The place looked like a museum.

  Isabel, Luke, and David stopped for a moment to listen. There were footsteps above.

  “Come on, she must have gone upstairs,” Luke told the others.

  “We shouldn’t be in here. This is private property,” Isabel whispered as they climbed the steps. “We could get in trouble.”

  “What if somebody lured Julia up there?” David whispered back. “We can’t just do nothing.”

  “We could get shot for trespassing!” Isabel said. “They shoot people for stuff like that in 1863.”

  “I have news for you,” David informed her. “They shoot people for stuff like that in our time too.”

  “Shhhhh!”

  At the top of the stairs, they looked left and right. There were several bedrooms on the second floor. All the doors were open, except for one.

  “In here,” whispered Luke, his hand on the doorknob.

  Isabel held her breath as Luke pulled open the bedroom door. And there, standing beside a small oval table, was Julia. She was alone.

  “Julia!” the three shouted, catching her by surprise.

  The bedroom was ornate, like the ones downstairs. Paisley carpet. Fancy fireplace with an oil painting on the wall above it. There was a rocking chair in the corner by the window, which looked out on the square. The red curtains were pulled aside, revealing white lace underneath.

  “What are you doing in here, Julia?” Isabel asked. “We were supposed to stay together as a group.”

  Julia had a guilty look on her face. She pushed the door closed behind them.

  “I . . . uh . . . had to go to the bathroom,” she whispered.

  “This isn’t a bathroom,” David said, pointing out the obvious.

  Julia was holding some pieces of paper in her hand. When she realized the others were staring at them, she hid them behind her back.

  “What’s that?” Isabel asked.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “If it’s nothing, let us see it,” David insisted, holding out his hand.

  Julia sighed, and then handed over the papers. David looked at them and gasped.

  “It’s . . . the Gettysburg Address!” he said, his voice going up in pitch.

  “Are you serious?” Luke asked, taking the pages. “Lemme see that.”

  There were three white pages, about six by nine inches. The first two were filled with steady, even handwriting. The third page had just a few lines on it. Some of the words had been crossed out and replaced with others, but the first line was unmistakable—Four score and seven years ago . . .

  “It is the Gettysburg Address!” Luke said.

  “This must be the room where Lincoln is sleeping tonight!” Isabel said, looking around. There was a familiar-looking stovepipe hat on a dresser in the corner.

  “Wait a minute,” Luke said, turning to face Julia. “Were you trying to steal the Gettysburg Address?”

  Julia hung her head, refusing to make eye contact.

  “Don’t tell Miss Z,” she begged. “Please?”

  At that moment, the TTT buzzed in Isabel’s pocket again. She showed the others the words on the screen . . .

  REPEAT. WHAT IS GOING ON?

  “Don’t tell her!” Julia said.

  Isabel tapped out this response . . .

  WE R DEALING WITH IT. LIKE U SAID.

  Luke, David, and Isabel turned back to face Julia.

  “Are you crazy?” David asked her. “Did you really think you would get away with this?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Julia replied. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “I remember learning in school that Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope,” Isabel recalled. “How can this be the Gettysburg Address?”

  “That whole envelope thing is a myth,” Julia told her. “The truth is that he started writing the speech in Washington, before he left for Gettysburg. He finished it right here, in this room. Or, he’s going to finish it here, later tonight.”

  “How do you know what he’s gonna do?” Luke asked. “How did you even know to come to here?”

  “There’s this thing called research,” Julia replied. “I looked it up online the night before we left. I found out that a lawyer named David Wills invited Lincoln to stay in his house the one night he would be in Gettysburg. This is his house. That’s when I got the idea to come here, if I had the chance.”

  “But why would you want to steal the Gettysburg Address?” Isabel asked.

  “Remember what Miss Z told us?” Julia said, lowering her voice. “There are only five known copies of the speech in Lincoln’s handwriting. That’s it. Do you have any idea of how much money a rough draft of the Gettysburg Address would be worth? Millions!”

  “So what?” Isabel said. “It’s stealing. It’s wrong.”

  “You’re not poor, y’know,” David told Julia. “You go to that ritzy private school, don’t you? Your parents are probably loaded. Why would you steal anything, much less this?”

  “Do you have any idea of how dangerous this is?” Luke asked Julia.

  “Maybe that’s why I did it,” she admitted.

  “You would never be able to sell the Gettysburg Address anyway,” Isabel pointed out. “It would be like stealing the Mona Lisa and trying to sell it to somebody. It’s too famous.”

  “How do you know?” Julia asked. “I bet there’s a collector out there who would give just about anything for a previously unknown rough draft of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln’s handwriting.”

  “She’s probably right,” David said.

  “Hey, if it’s money you’re after, I have a better idea,” Luke told Julia, putting the papers back on the little table. “But we gotta get out of here now. President Lincoln is still working on this. If you take it, he won’t be able to deliver his speech tomorrow. We’re under strict orders not to change history, remember?”

  “Let’s go,” Isabel said. “Somebody could walk in
here at any moment.”

  “Relax,” Julia said. “Everybody’s out on the square partying.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Luke. “What happens if the Secret Service walks in here right now? We’d all go to jail.”

  “They don’t have a Secret Service in 1863,” Julia told him. “I looked that up, too. They started the Secret Service after Lincoln was assassinated.”

  “Well, what happens if Lincoln himself walks in here right now?” Luke asked.

  “That would be cool,” David said. “I would thank him for the Emancipation Proclamation.”

  “What’s that?” Julia asked, prompting a group eye-roll from the others.

  Before the kids left, they couldn’t resist taking one last look around the room where Lincoln would be sleeping that night. The bed itself was a beautiful Rococo revival style with a white bedspread and a mahogany headboard carved with florals and scrolls. There were four pillows on it. On the bedside table was a jug of water. On the wall was a fancy mirror in a scalloped wooden frame.

  “Hey, what’s that thing under the bed?” David asked, peering down.

  “It’s a chamber pot,” Luke told him. “You pee in it.”

  “They peed in pots?” David asked, dumbfounded.

  “What, you think they had toilets inside the house in the old days?” Luke told him. “They had a privy outside. But nobody wants to go outside to pee in the middle of the night. Especially in the winter. So they used a chamber pot.”

  “You’re telling me that the president of the United States had to pee in a pot?” asked David.

  “Where else is he gonna pee?” Luke asked.

  “I don’t know,” David replied. “Maybe he peed out the window.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Luke asked. “Nobody does that!”

  “I did it once,” David admitted.

  “Gross!” said Julia.

  “Will you two quit arguing?” whispered Isabel. “Is that footsteps? I think somebody’s coming!”

  In fact, somebody was coming. The Flashback Four looked around frantically for places to hide.

  “Oh no!” Isabel said. “I told you we should get out of here!”