Ben Franklin's in My Bathroom!

by Candace Fleming

  I glanced over at the crystal radio. It wasn’t glowing or chattering anymore. It just sat there on the counter, dark and silent.

  “That’s not possible.” But even as I said the words, I knew it was. Somehow, some way, we had turned the dial, and instead of modern-day Paris or New York City, we’d tuned in to colonial America. I shook my head again. “This is crazy.”

  “But so cool,” said Olive.

  “Ahem!” Benjamin Franklin coughed to get our attention. “It appears you children know who I am, and yet I do not know you, or for that matter where I am.”

  Olive nudged me forward. “You tell him.”

  I made a face at her. Then I turned to Benjamin Franklin. I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Um…hiya. I mean, greetings, Mr. Franklin, sir. I’m…er…Nolan Stanberry, and that’s my sister…”

  “Olive.” She waggled her fingers and gave him a gap-toothed smile.

  Pulling off his fur cap, he took a little bow. “I am charmed to make your acquaintance.”

  “Us too…um…I…Charmed, that is,” I said. I took a deep breath, knowing what I had to say. “Mr. Franklin…”

  “Call me Ben. Everyone does.”

  I tried again. “Ben, you might want to sit down for this.”

  “For what?”

  It was time to break the news. “You’re not in Philadelphia anymore.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re in Rolling Hills, Illinois. In twenty-first-century America.”

  I could see my words sinking in by the changing expression on his face.

  Disbelief: “This cannot be. It breaks with all known scientific principles.”

  Surprise: “And yet, the scientific mind is ever questioning….”

  Wonder: “Does the lad speak true? Have I traveled across two centuries?”

  Excitement: “I have! I truly have!”

  “I think he took that pretty well,” I said to Olive.

  “Oh, yeah,” she replied.

  Ben spun in an excited circle, giggling and holding his head as if it might burst. Finally, he paused, and looked over at Olive and me. “I beg you children, pray show me more of your century’s innovations and advancements before I return to my own. I shan’t waste this precious opportunity.”

  He looked around the kitchen and pointed to an object on the counter. “Tell me. What is that device?”

  “It’s a toaster,” said Olive. “You plug it in, and the bread toasts.”

  “The coils heat by electricity,” I added.

  Ben gasped. “Did you say electricity? Could it be that my modest experiment with kite and key has come to something?”

  Olive grinned and flipped the wall switch. The light above the kitchen table snapped on.

  Ben gazed up at it. “Oh, it does work. It works!” He nodded toward the switch. “May I?”

  “Sure,” said Olive.

  Ben snapped the light off. Then on. Then off. Then on again.

  “Zoons, but it works every time!” He rubbed his hands together. “I must see more.”

  I pulled Olive aside. “I think he’s seen enough,” I whispered. I glanced up the stairs, expecting Mom to appear at any moment. This would definitely not make things easier for her. Or us. “Ben has to go back right now, like this very instant. Before anyone finds out he’s been here.” I glanced over at the radio. “It should be pretty easy. Just a few clicks of the dial and—”

  “Hey, Ben, look at this!” cried Olive. Ignoring me, she flipped a switch on the blender.

  VROOM!

  “And this!” She pushed the buttons on the microwave.

  BEEP-BEEP!

  “And this!” She turned on the coffee grinder.

  GRRRRR!

  “No, stop!” I called to her. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  But she and Ben were off—pushing buttons, pulling levers, flipping switches, plugging in cords and…

  Foosh!

  …flushing the toilet in the guest bathroom. I could see them through the open doorway, Ben bent over in deep concentration.

  “By Jove, a self-cleaning commode,” he declared. “Ingenious.”

  He flushed again.

  Foosh!

  “Where does the clean water come from?”

  Foosh!

  “Where does the dirty water go?”

  Foosh!

  “The scientific mind is ever questioning!”

  “What’s all that flushing?” Mom called from the top of the stairs. “Is someone sick?”

  Olive rushed out into the hallway.

  I rushed after her.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Olive called back. “It’s just Ben Franklin experimenting with—”

  I slapped my hand over Olive’s big mouth.

  “Too much juice,” I shouted up the stairs. “I drank too much juice.”

  There was a long silence.

  I could tell Mom was standing there, deciding whether she should come down. “Are you sure everything’s under control, Nolan?”

  “Sure, I’m sure,” I said. I shook my head. Mothers, geez. What goes on in their brains? They get all suspicious over a little toilet flushing. But bunches of appliances zapping on and off? That doesn’t faze them one bit.

  Foosh!

  Mom sighed and shut her door.

  Olive squirmed away. She wiped her lips. “Lemme go!”

  I could feel things hurtling out of control. “He has to go back. Now.”

  From the laundry room came the sound of the dryer buzzing.

  “Incredible!” said Ben.

  “Why?” asked Olive. “He’s our new friend—our really, really, really old new friend.”

  The ceiling fan in the family room whirred.

  “Stupendous!”

  “I want to keep him,” said Olive.

  “Are you kidding? He’s Ben Franklin, not a goldfish.”

  The television blared.

  “Zoons, but it boggles the mind!” Ben sat down, mesmerized by the flashing images. “What is this marvel?”

  Olive glanced in through the doorway. “Oh, that’s a reality show called Real or Wig. The guest stars try to figure out if the person’s hair is really their own, or—”

  “Olive!” I yelled, but then caught myself and whispered through gritted teeth, “Olive!”

  She looked at me.

  “This is serious,” I said. “He can’t stay.”

  “Wig!” Ben shouted at the television.

  She looked back at the television, giggled, and made a buzzer sound. “Errrrrnt! Sorry, that’s just a super-bad haircut. It’s called a mullet.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Listen, will you? Sure, it would be fun to keep Ben around. It’d probably be the coolest thing ever. But that radio, or whatever it is—”

  “It’s a time machine.” She rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

  “All I’m saying is that we have to keep it—and him—secret. We can’t let anyone know. Not even Mom.”

  “Why not?”

  I couldn’t explain. I just knew deep down in my guts that we needed to keep all this quiet.

  “Wig!” shouted Ben again.

  I walked into the family room and flipped off the Reality Channel.

  Ben looked disappointed.

  Olive harrumphed. “All right, fine, we’ll send him back….”

  I sighed with relief.

  “Right after the tea party.”

  Oh, brother.

  BEN FRANKLIN SURE COULD eat. Besides a whole box of pizza puffs, he inhaled half a bag of potato chips, two peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches, a stack of marshmallow cookies, and three teacups of tropical fruit punch, which he gulped down with his pinky raised. He wouldn’t touch the Sprouts ’n’ Stuff, though, not after he’d sampled a bite.

  “They taste,” he said, “like weeds and dirt.”

  Olive shot me a look. “Told you so.” She held out a bag to Ben. “Would you care for a few more cheesy doodles?” she said in her b
est tea party voice.

  “Waste not, want not,” said Ben.

  She shook out the last of the doodles onto his Princess Aquamarina tea party plate.

  He crunched on one. “Ah, delicious doo-doo.”

  Olive giggled. “Not doo-doo, silly. Doodles. A doo-doo is—”

  I thumped the crystal radio onto the kitchen table.

  Ben’s eyes lit up. “What, pray tell, is that?”

  “It think it’s how you got here,” I explained. “And how we’ll be able to send you back.” I picked up the headphones.

  “Not yet!” cried Olive. She snatched the headphones away. “I want Ben to tell me a story first.”

  “No, Olive. We have to send him home.”

  She stuck out her chin.

  “Come on,” I said. “Give them.”

  “Ben’s traveled here from a long time ago, and I want to know what it was like back then.” She turned to Ben. “Tell us a story from colonial days. Pretty please?”

  I groaned. “We don’t have time for this. Mom could come downstairs any second.”

  “Just one,” she said.

  Ben broke in. “At the risk of sounding immodest, I am a renowned raconteur. My storytelling abilities are exemplary.”

  “See? He’s exempt…expat…He’s good!” insisted Olive.

  Geez, she was stubborn. I raised my hands in defeat.

  “Hooray!” whooped my sister. She wiggled around, getting comfortable in her chair.

  “But just one,” I added firmly.

  Ben nodded. “I confess, sitting here in this electrified room with these unusual yet delicious comestibles does put me in mind of a story.”

  He started to talk. And as he did, I could see the pictures in my mind’s eye. All the details. Just like in a graphic novel.

  Olive clapped. “You are a good storyteller.”

  “Thank you, young Olive.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t tell that kite-in-the-thunderstorm story,” I said. “I’ve heard that one a gazillion times. But this one was all new to me.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “You have heard tell of my kite experiment?”

  “Everyone’s heard that,” said Olive.

  I nodded. “It’s a pretty famous story from American history, what my teacher, Mr. Druff, calls a greatest hit. Our social studies book at school was full of your greatest hits.”

  At that, Ben’s chest puffed up like a peacock’s. “Tell me, which of my other…er…greatest hits have made it into your history books?”

  I thought a moment. “The Franklin stove,” I said. “The lightning rod. The public library.”

  “Rolling Hills has a library,” interjected Olive.

  “Every town does,” I added.

  Ben’s chest swelled so big I thought the brass buttons on his coat were going to pop right off. “I also had the idea of forming clubs of active men to combat Philadelphia’s fires.”

  “Fire departments,” I said.

  “Every town has one of those, too,” said Olive.

  “Oh, but I am reeling with joy!” said Ben.

  Olive bounced up and down in her chair. “Let’s show him. Come on, Nolan, let’s take Ben to the library.”

  Ben bounced too. “That is a splendid idea. You are a precocious young lady, Miss Olive.”

  “No, it is not a splendid idea,” I said. I turned to my sister. “You can’t walk around town with Benjamin Franklin. He’s the real guy…you know, Founding Father, inventor of electricity, wearer of fur cap and short pants. From the past. Famous dead guy.”

  “Nolan!” exclaimed Olive. “Don’t call him that….”

  “Many pardons for interrupting your discussion,” Ben cut in, “but I believe there is something unusual happening at yonder window.”

  I turned.

  The glassy eye of a periscope peeked just above the sill.

  I SLIPPED OUT THE back door and raced around the side of the house.

  A kid wearing a trench coat kneeled in the bushes beneath our kitchen window. I couldn’t see his face because it was pressed against the eyepiece of a handheld periscope. But I knew who it was. Only one kid in Rolling Hills owned a trench coat.

  “Tommy Tuttle,” I said.

  Still on his knees, Tommy lowered the periscope and turned to look at me. Calmly, as if hiding in bushes were as normal as crossing the street, he stood and wiped the dirt off his knees. Then he stepped out from behind the shrubbery. “Hello there, Nolan,” he said, all fake friendly and even fakier innocent. “I just stopped by for a snoop…I mean, a scoop of sugar.” He went on. “I’m baking brownie bites. I’m famous for my brownie bites.”

  I like Tommy about as much as I like Grandma’s broccoli-and-onion casserole. Mostly I try to stay away from him. But when a kid is in your grade and lives on your block, it’s kind of impossible.

  “I see you’ve got an unusual visitor,” he said. “Who is he, huh? You can tell me.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What’s it to you?”

  “Just curious.” Tommy smirked. “Is that your grandpa in there? He looks really old. He dresses funny too.”

  “You should talk,” I replied, glaring.

  “Hmmm…who does he remind me of?” Tommy pretended to think a second; then he snapped his fingers. “I know! Benjamin Franklin. Yeah, your grandpa reminds me of Benjamin Franklin.”

  I could feel my belly filling with bats again. “Get out of my bushes!” I hollered.

  Tommy raised his hands. “Oh, gee, Nolan, I didn’t mean to make you mad. But it is curious how much that geezer in your house resembles good old Ben. He looks just like the guy on the hundred-dollar bill. Weird that’s he’s so interested in toasters. And blenders. And overhead lights.”

  “How long have you been out here snooping, huh?” I demanded.

  “Since I saw that strange package on—”

  “No, don’t bother,” I interrupted. “Just get lost.”

  “Aren’t you touchy,” he said, sneering. “And you know who’s touchy? People who have something to hide.”

  I tried to laugh, but my mouth had gone dry and I could only cough. What else had Tommy seen through his periscope?

  “You might as well confess,” Tommy went on. “No secret is safe when I’m on the case.”

  That’s what I was afraid of. Tommy would snoop out the truth. And he would broadcast it all over town.

  “Come on, Nolan. Spill it,” he pressed.

  The bats in my gut were going nuts. Struggling to keep cool, I tightened my fists. “I mean it, Tommy. Take your periscope and get out of here.”

  He shrugged. “Have it your way. But I will find out what’s going on.”

  After Tommy left, I stood there in the bushes letting the bats fly off. This was all too much. Tommy Tuttle. That crazy crystal radio. Ben Franklin in my kitchen! I hurried inside. Ben had to go back to the time of powdered wigs and buckled shoes. Right now.

  The kitchen was empty.

  So was the family room.

  And the guest bathroom.

  “Olive?” I called.

  That’s when I saw the note on the kitchen counter. With a feather plucked from my mother’s centerpiece and dipped into a cup of chocolate pudding, Ben had written with lots of flourishes:

  Through gritted teeth, I muttered, “I’m going to kill her.”

  ROLLING HILLS IS A small town, so it didn’t take long for me to get to the public library—a two-story building made of limestone. It has tall white columns and a wide porch that goes across the whole front. Some millionaire named Andrew Carnegie donated the building to the town more than a hundred years ago, which explains why it’s called the Rolling Hills Carnegie Public Library. It also explains why the place looks like something you might see on TV. You almost expect to see a couple of old people sitting outside in rocking chairs, talking about the good old days.

  I spotted Olive and Ben standing on the front steps. A small crowd had gathered around them.

  “How come you’r
e wearing your Halloween costume?” asked a little girl in a tiger-striped tutu and purple polka-dot rain boots. She giggled. “You look silly.”

  “Come on, buddy,” said Mr. Middleton, one of the tellers at my mom’s bank. “Tell us who you’re supposed to be.”

  “Are you trying to be Thomas Jefferson?” asked Tutu Girl’s mother.

  “He’s Thomas Jefferson!” squealed Tutu Girl.

  “Oh, no, no, Tom is much taller than I,” replied Ben. He bowed. “I am Benjamin Franklin.”

  “I should have known by the glasses,” Tutu Girl’s mother said.

  “Bifocals,” said Ben. “I invented them.”

  “Oh, there you are!” cried Mrs. Bustamante, the library director. She weaved her way through the crowd, dodging and ducking and moving pretty good for a lady who’s probably already in her thirties. She inspected Ben, growing slightly confused. “Benjamin Franklin? We were expecting Thomas Jefferson.”

  “Told ya!” Tutu Girl said.

  Mrs. Bustamante grabbed Ben’s arm, shook her head, and said, “Well, you’ll just have to do. We have a room full of people waiting. Do you know anything about Jefferson?”

  “Indeed, I do, madam,” Ben said as she swept him along.

  “And why are you wearing a squirrel?” she asked.

  “It’s marten fur, madam. I bought it from a most fashionable Philadelphia hatmaker,” replied Ben.

  “Looks like squirrel to me,” insisted Mrs. Bustamante. “Now, let’s get you inside and set up.”

  “Set up?” asked Olive.

  Mrs. Bustamante didn’t answer. She bustled them into the library.

  I took the stairs two at a time, barreling after them into the lobby.