The Not-So-Boring Letters of Private Nobody

by Matthew Landis

  “I guess all historical societies look like old people’s houses,” he said.

  “Prime selfie spot located.” Kevin ran over to a maroon sign ten feet away that read ADAMS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY: THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG RESEARCH CENTER.

  They took a quick picture, and then Oliver got his book bag from the trunk. “I’ll call you when we’re done,” he said to his dad.

  “Did you get your sandwiches?” his mom asked.

  “Got ’em.”

  “Okay, have fun!” She waved and they drove off to the battlefield. Oliver almost chased after them.

  Ella led them up an old brick stairway and along the winding entry walkway that took them around to the front of the house.

  A faraway voice called, “Good morning!”

  Oliver looked up and saw an older woman with gray hair waving from a second-story window.

  “Mrs. Bolton?” Ella called up.

  “That’s me. You must be Ella. And you two are . . .” She trailed off, looking from Oliver to Kevin.

  “Kevin—Head Writing Consultant,” Kevin announced. “My extreme pleasure to make your acquaintance. Nice house.”

  Oliver gave a half wave. “Hi. I’m Oliver.”

  “I’ll come down and let you inside.”

  A minute later, a side door creaked open and the short and stocky Margaret Bolton invited them into a small entryway. She had on a plain dress that looked a little Amish and wore those big white sneakers that old people wear. Oliver wondered if Mrs. Bolton was the old person who lived in this house. It would make sense.

  “I’m so pleased you made the trip,” Mrs. Bolton said, smiling so her face crinkled up. “Impressed, actually. Never had middle school students in here to do serious historical work. Mostly just grad students and authors.”

  “Thanks for having us,” Ella said. “It’s very kind of you to let us examine these papers.”

  “You’re doing us a favor too. We only have a limited staff, so we can’t transcribe every document.”

  She led them through the entryway to a small desk with a sign that read ABSOLUTELY NO CAMERAS ALLOWED. “Just need you to sign in first—standard procedure.” When they’d all written their names, Mrs. Bolton walked them into the reading room. A big oak table sat in the middle with some chairs, and a few computer stations were set off in the corner. Like the historical society in their town, bookshelves covered every inch of wall space.

  “I’ve pulled the Wentworth items already,” Mrs. Bolton said. She gestured to the three office boxes that sat on the big oak table. “Here they are.”

  Ella eyed them like they were meat cubes. “Wow.”

  “Now, you have to be very careful when examining these items.” Mrs. Bolton pulled three pairs of white cotton gloves from a cabinet. “The documents are in good shape because we keep them in a climate-controlled setting, and we ask all researchers to wear gloves when touching them.”

  “Keeps the oil on our hands from speeding up the decay,” Ella said. “The guy who runs our historical society showed us.”

  “Oh, very good then. I’ll be in my office two flights up—just give a holler if you need anything.”

  Ella threw her stuff into a chair and pulled on a pair of gloves. “Will do. Thanks again, Mrs. Bolton.”

  “Happy hunting,” she said, heading up the switchback steps.

  Ella leaned on the table for a few seconds. “Let’s do this.”

  She lifted the top off the first box and stared inside.

  Kevin peeked into the second box and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like a document coffin.”

  Ella lifted out several stacks of paper encased in plastic and read the labels. “Estate papers.” Something caught her eye and her face lit up. She took out a gaudy bronze picture frame that held a sepia-toned portrait of four people. The girl, who looked about Ella’s age in the picture, sat beside her mom while her dad stood behind them. A toddler sat on the ground and stared the other way.

  “Hi, Susanna,” she said.

  “How come they’re not smiling?” Kevin asked.

  “Nobody smiled back then,” Oliver said. He took the top off his box and glanced down at the stacks of paper. “They treated all photographs like very serious school pictures. All very proper and stuff.”

  Ella peered into his box and almost shoved him aside. “Ollie—look.”

  He followed her finger to several small, leather- bound books stacked along the bottom of the box. Oliver counted twelve. “Diaries.”

  Ella opened each cover to check the dates.

  “Bingo,” she whispered. “Susanna’s diary from 1861 to 1863.” She set it flat on the table and carefully leafed through the pages. “July 3, 1863. Cannon fire can be heard all day as if right outside our door—Ollie, start typing. Father says war is a plague that destroys the land. Thank heaven Thomas and Solomon are far from this place.”

  “Must be her brothers or something,” Oliver said, opening the laptop.

  “Or her other boyfriends,” Kevin said.

  Ella ignored him and kept reading. “July 4. This Independence Day is marked by sorrow instead of celebration. We have set up sickbeds for the wounded. Near twenty have arrived with grave injuries. I fetch water and empty bedpans. One soldier coughs constantly and is very weak. His name is Raymond. Mother fears he may perish. He is kind to me and speaks often of his home.

  “July 5. Raymond’s flux has worsened. Mother fears he will go home to our Lord soon. He has grown too weak to hold a pen. I promised to write his parents should he pass. We spoke late into the night and I feared each sentence would be our last.”

  Ella’s voice wobbled. Hearing her made Oliver’s throat tighten.

  “July 6. More soldiers arrived today but I cannot care. Raymond has died. I woke this morning and found him in that final slumber. I cried terribly. I will write his family and send his belongings, save the picture he gave me. I have set it on my nightstand. I pray for his family.”

  Oliver looked up from the screen and saw a wet streak down the side of Ella’s face. He had no idea why she was crying, but he really wanted to hug her.

  Ella set the open diary on the table and—as if they’d willed it—a small bit of paper fell out.

  Kevin picked up the photograph. “He’s uglier than I thought he’d be,” he said. “I mean not ugly, but you know. Scruffy, I guess.”

  Oliver sized him up: not really tall, kinda broad. Solid. Brown hair and a short beard. One thing no one could deny: He looked awesome in his Union uniform.

  Ella turned the photograph over. Pvt. R. Stone was scrawled in cursive.

  “And there it is,” Oliver said. He shut the laptop and raced to pack up. “We can probably see part of the battlefield before we go home.”

  Ella sat down in a chair and looked at Kevin and Oliver. “I have a proposal.” She took a couple seconds to compose her thoughts. “We’re supposed to examine Stone’s wartime experience, right? How the war impacted him—and vice versa.”

  “Uh-huh,” Oliver said.

  “Ollie, had you ever heard of Stone before we chose him for our project?”

  “No.” He slid the laptop into his backpack.

  “But you know a lot about the Civil War.”

  “. . . Yeah . . .”

  “Stone is just one of hundreds—maybe thousands—who enlisted, but died before ever fighting. And nobody knows their names. Nobody cares about them.”

  “Uh-huh—Kevin, start packing that box.”

  “People don’t value their story,” Ella said. There it was—that wobble in her voice. “All people care about are battles and generals. Guys like Stone were like . . . like little soldiers in a big war, but their story is just as important.”

  Oliver nodded. “Right.” Why were they still sitting here?

  “Little soldier, big war,
” Kevin said. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Ella. “Little Soldier, Big War: The Forgotten Life and Death of Private Raymond Stone.”

  Ella nodded. Cleared her throat. Blinked hard. “What do you think of that title, Ollie? It pulls everything together—how Stone gave his life but never fought, and how his story is just as important as any other soldier’s.”

  Deep in his gut, the rebellion rumbled. “It doesn’t pull everything together.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “We’re still leaving out Henry Weller, and we don’t even know if Stone would have fought in the war without him. That could be an actually cool piece to all this. Not just this Susanna girl.”

  Ella rolled her eyes.

  “And I think the title is confusing,” he added, because come on now—that eye-rolling was just not called for. She deserved to hear the truth: that nobody knew about Stone because he didn’t do anything worthy of being known.

  “What,” she asked evenly, “is confusing about it?”

  Oliver saw Kevin shake his head slightly. “It’s fine,” Oliver said. “It’s great. Can we go?”

  Ella watched him for a second. “Okay. I’ll go ask Mrs. Bolton if we can scan the diary and photograph.”

  “Okay.”

  She peered at him for another second and then hiked up to the second floor.

  “Dude,” Kevin said. “Keep it to yourself. If you spill your guts about Stone, you can forget about going out with her. I don’t exactly know why, but she’s kind of invested in this guy, and I get the feeling that if you insult him or something, she’s gonna take it personally.”

  Oliver felt like the Civil War was about to be fought inside his stomach—a rebellion of Ella’s made-up history vs. actual history.

  “Got it,” he said, slinging his backpack onto his shoulder so hard he almost broke the strap.

  —CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT—

  THE REBELLION OF HISTORICAL ACCURACY

  Oliver looked at himself in the giant wall mirror in his parents’ bedroom. “I look like a mobster.”

  “You look great.” His dad brushed a piece of lint off the dark suit. “It’s a little big, but better than yours. You’re growing too fast. We’ll have to get you a new suit this summer.”

  “Where’s my handsome son?” his mom called from downstairs.

  “Ugh,” Oliver said.

  His dad turned Oliver around and adjusted the blue tie. “Your first dance. Okay, then. Any questions?”

  “Dad.”

  Oliver’s dad held his hands up. “Just trying to keep the door open on the conversation.”

  Oliver looked at the gigantic suit. The sleeves went almost past his fingertips. “We’re not really going together. I mean we are, but just as friends.”

  “Your mother and I started as friends.”

  “We’ve been over this.”

  “Okay. Well—I think it’s great. You went for it. That’s the hardest part.”

  “Come on,” Oliver’s mom called up. “You don’t want to be late for your first date.”

  “It’s not a date,” Oliver said.

  “Ollie’s got a girlfriend,” Addie singsonged from the piano room.

  His dad clapped him on the shoulder. “Ready?”

  “Almost.”

  Oliver went to the basement to check his email. Nothing from Senior Assistant Amanda DeFrancesca. Of course. Why should anything about this project go his way?

  Oliver grabbed his book bag and went back upstairs, his giant suit pants swishing all the way.

  “My little boy.” His mom sighed as he walked into the kitchen. “You look very dapper.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means handsome.” She kept gazing at him.

  Addie scuttled in and looked him up and down. She tugged on the long suit coat sleeve. “It’s too big.”

  “I’m aware,” Oliver said.

  “Why are you bringing your book bag?” his mom asked.

  “Uh.” He really should have planned out that lie beforehand. “Extra clothes in case I get sweaty. From all the dancing.”

  She bought it. “Now: the corsage.”

  Oliver’s dad dug something out of the fridge. It looked like a giant pin made of strangled flowers.

  “What is that?” Oliver asked.

  “It’s a corsage.” His mom took it out of the plastic container and held it over her heart. “You attach it here, on her dress.”

  “I have to put that on her?” Oliver asked.

  Addie laughed.

  “You’d think they’d make them with clasps by now,” his mom said. She winked at Oliver’s dad. “So nobody can accidentally stick you in the collarbone and get blood all over your dress at senior prom.”

  “Maybe if somebody’s dress wasn’t so distracting,” his dad said, “I would have had better aim.”

  “I’m leaving,” Oliver said.

  “Let me drive you,” his mom said.

  “I’ll walk. I do it every day.”

  “I don’t want you to get your suit dirty.” She gave him a side hug. “Let’s go.”

  Oliver sat in the way back of the van. It still kind of smelled like strawberry shortcake. Wendy’s lingered in the air too. He was equal parts terrified and excited.

  “I think this is great,” his mom said.

  “Ugh.”

  “My little boy. Going to a dance. Kinda makes me feel old.”

  “Mom, are you going to cry?”

  “No.” She was about to.

  The van eased into the school bus loop. Kids were unloading here and there. Oliver wondered why the guys wore shorts and tank tops instead of suits. The girls wore grass skirts and giant flower necklaces like he’d seen on Hawaiian vacation commercials.

  “Have a great time, honey.”

  “Thanks.” He got out and shouldered the backpack. His mom took one more look at him and pulled away.

  Cars flooded in and more kids wearing Hawaiian gear got out. Clearly he’d missed the theme or something. Oliver felt stupider by the second in his dad’s giant mobster suit.

  And then he saw her.

  And instantly forgot everything else.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Uh. Hi.”

  Ella looked more beautiful than anyone Oliver had seen in real life.

  She looked like a model. From TV.

  That seemed like the only fair way to describe her.

  “Ella, you look like a model. From TV.”

  She smoothed her dress and looked around. “Are people still watching us?”

  “They’re not watching me.”

  Her face turned fire-hydrant red. “My sister picked it out. She made me wear it.”

  “Well, you’re wearing it like a freaking model.”

  “Stop saying that—”

  “Aloha!” shouted Kevin. He climbed out of his mom’s Volvo. He was also wearing shorts, a muscle shirt, and a flower necklace. “You two going to a funeral?”

  “I didn’t know it was a Hawaiian theme,” Ella said.

  “At least you’re in it together.” Kevin eyed Oliver’s giant suit. “Shall we?”

  “Where’s Cindy?” Oliver asked as they walked into school.

  “Who?”

  “Your date.”

  “Oh. Her. Yeah—we’re not going out anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “She dumped me, if you must know.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago. Via a drawing of me and her standing on opposite sides of a chasm that read goodbye. It’s a long story—one I fully plan on writing one day to get back at her, Taylor Swift style. But right now it’s too painful.”

  “She broke up with you an hour before the dance?” Ella asked. �
��That’s really mean.”

  “Love is a cruel game, Ella. But if you never play, you’ll never win—am I right?”

  “You can hang out with us,” she said, which Oliver didn’t like. Fake date or not, it was his fake date—not Kevin’s.

  “Thanks, but I’ve gotta roam. See what’s out there. You know?”

  “I actually have no idea,” Oliver said.

  “I’m going to hang out with Cindy’s friends and see if one of them will fess up on why she dumped me. Just come and find me when you guys head to the lab.”

  They strolled into the gym and Kevin branched off toward a clump of girls. Oliver looked around and wondered if the place had been decorated by an army of kindergarteners—a few fake palm trees here, tons of leis covering the circular tables there. In one corner a DJ was messing with sound equipment while a few teachers, including Mr. Carrow, made small talk. Across the gym a photographer was taking pictures of students in front of a fake Hawaiian backdrop.

  “Do you mind if we get the picture over with?” Ella asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Charlie wants me to get a picture.”

  “Okay.”

  They shuffled over to the picture booth and got a place in line. The couple in front of the backdrop was basically spooning; the guy was holding her from behind. Oliver suddenly got sweaty. Is that what he was supposed to do?

  “What’s that?” Ella asked. She pointed to the plastic container holding the flower pin.

  “I’m supposed to put this on your dress. It’s called a corsage.” Oliver took out the thing and just held it. No way he was going to attempt pinning it without explicit permission. And even then he would probably refuse.

  “It’s pretty,” Ella said. She took it from him and attached it to her dress herself. Saved.

  “My dad bought it.”

  They shuffled up in line.

  “So what made you change your mind?” he asked.

  “About what?”

  “The dance. The dress. The picture. It kind of goes against your whole mission, doesn’t it? Sticking it to your parents?”

  Ella chewed on a nail and watched the couple ahead of them get into a pose. Oliver wondered how she was feeling about their imminent hug session. “Charlie’s really into this kind of stuff . . . dresses and looking pretty. I thought maybe . . .”