Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans
Page 3
Again, I nodded, trying to show support. I knew that William and his wife were only trying to do what was best for their toddler. However, I also knew that other Pilgrims had chosen to bring their young children.
William interrupted my thoughts and said, “I apologize. I have yet to ask your name.”
Before I could respond, screams turned our attention toward the shops. Women were running toward us while dodging several large cheese wheels as they rolled toward the water. I had a funny feeling I knew who was behind this. When all the cheese wheels came to a stop, I looked for Liberty. I presumed he was hiding.
I turned back to William and said, “Thank you very much for your time. I’m Rush Revere, and I look forward to visiting with you more on the Mayflo—” And then I remembered what William had said. The ship the Pilgrims were boarding was not the Mayflower. “Is this the ship you’re taking to America?” I pointed to the harbor.
“It’s one of them,” he said. “We purchased the Speedwell here in Holland. However, we need another. We have friends who are looking into hiring a ship in London. Hopefully, it’ll be bigger and better than this one. We have many families and much to bring to the New World. Both ships are expected to meet in Southampton, England, before we embark for America.”
I couldn’t remember the fate of the Speedwell. Did it travel with the Mayflower all the way to America? Was it shipwrecked? Did it sink? I know that William Bradford sailed on the Mayflower to America. So he had to survive the trip back to England, but what about the other men, women, and children? I turned my thoughts again to my new Puritan friend and thoughtfully said, “I think it will be best if I meet you in England.”
Confused, he asked, “Are you not traveling with us on the Speedwell? Do you have another ship coming for you?”
I stared at him as I searched for what to say. Finally, I replied, “Yes, well, I, um, I’m waiting for someone. And I have some supplies I still need to gather. And I . . .”
“No excuses, my friend,” William said, smiling. He firmly put both hands on my shoulders and stared straight into my eyes. With great sincerity he said, “There is no need to fear. Take courage. God will bring us to the New World. Whatever adversity we face will only make us stronger.” He shook my hand. “I hope whoever you’re waiting for comes soon. And I hope our paths cross again. Safe travels, Rush Revere.”
Before leaving for the New World in 1620, the Pilgrims prayed at the Old Church at Delfshaven, Holland.
William Bradford as a young man.
Pilgrim woman with shawl joined by Pilgrim man with musket circa 1620.
As he left to find his wife and board the ship with the other Pilgrims, I marveled at his courage, determination, and faith. I was eager to know what happened to the Speedwell, curious to reach England and meet the other travelers, and eager to experience life upon the Mayflower. First, however, I needed to find Liberty and return to our classroom. I was very curious to know what my students had learned and a little worried to know what Liberty had been up to.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to look very far to find Liberty. I heard his high-pitched whistle coming from a bright-colored shop at the corner of the street. That’s when I saw his head peeking around the corner. Was he hiding? When I was close enough to speak to him I asked, “Why are you hiding behind this shop?”
“Funny you should ask,” Liberty said with a grimace. “First things first: I need you to pay the shopkeeper of this store.”
“You broke something,” I said.
“No, I did not break something,” Liberty replied. “Just because I’ve broken things before doesn’t mean I can’t be trusted to try on wooden shoes in a small Dutch shop because I want to prove to that doubtful shoemaker that horses are wonderful cloggers!”
I looked down at Liberty’s hooves only to discover four bright yellow wooden shoes with red tulips painted on each of them. “Liberty, you’re going to have to remove those shoes and return them immediately,” I said.
“An excellent idea, theoretically,” Liberty replied. “The problem is . . . I can’t. They’re stuck. How I got them on I have no idea. But these wooden babies are wedged on pretty tight.”
I reached down and tried to pull one off. Sure enough, they stuck like superglue.
I sighed with frustration and said, “What am I supposed to do, enter you in a horse-clogging competition? Oh, brother. Liberty, I insist that from now on you stay by my side and do exactly what I say. Your freedom to choose as you please is becoming troublesome!”
Liberty calmly replied, “You’re sounding an awful lot like King James.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, not sure what he meant.
He smiled and said, “Here’s the thing. I’m a curious horse. I can’t help it. It’s just who I am. Discovering new things that interest me is what makes me happy. I love that we can travel together and discover the truth about history. But what interests you may not always be what interests me. Forcing someone else to like the things you like, or to do the things you do, is not what freedom is about, is it?”
“Of course not,” I said humbly.
“From what I heard near the cheese cooler, King James didn’t want the Puritans to have the freedom to choose what they believed. He just wanted them to stay with the Church of England and do exactly what he said, or else! But the Puritans believed that the Church of England practiced many things that the Bible never taught. So some Puritans called themselves ‘Separatists,’ because they wanted to separate themselves once and for all from the Church of England. I even heard one of the Puritan women say that the king threw an entire family into prison just because they chose to believe differently than he did.”
I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I felt horrible for trying to force Liberty to do what I wanted. “I’m sorry, Liberty,” I said. “You’re absolutely right. Will you forgive me?”
“Of course I’ll forgive you. You’re not the only one who makes mistakes,” he said as he lifted up a wooden shoe and waved it at me.
“All right,” I said, “time for plan B.” I walked into the shop, placed four gold coins on the counter, smiled at the shopkeeper, and walked back outside. “And just for the record, I hope you never feel forced to do anything. I’m glad you’re a curious horse. And I’m especially glad the Pilgrims had the courage to believe and think for themselves. Otherwise, America might not be a free country.” I lifted myself onto Liberty’s saddle and said, “I think it’s time we head back to the future!”
“Wait, you want me to run in these?” Liberty complained, staring at his shoes.
“Well, you said you could clog in them,” I replied.
“Well, yes. But clogging and running are two different things.”
“I won’t force you,” I said, smiling, “but humor me, will you? Back to modern-day America.”
“This is so embarrassing,” Liberty said pouting.
He willingly trotted back to the same field that we’d arrived in. His trot turned into an awkward half gallop. With a little more speed he said, “Rush, rush, rushing from history!”
With one jump we soared through the swirling time portal and landed back in the hallway at Manchester Middle. I knew the time portal created a sixty-second delay of any footage from my smartphone to the digital projector. We had just enough time to slip into the back of the classroom without being noticed. We watched the students as they watched Liberty and me race back through the field and jump into nothingness. The movie ended, and Liberty flipped on the classroom lights.
Tommy raised his hand and said, “Just for the record, I’m not a big fan of King James. He sounds like a real party pooper. He probably got too many wedgies when he was a kid.”
“As you can imagine, these Pilgrims weren’t big fans of the king, either,” I replied.
“They should’ve just done what the king told them to do,” Elizabeth blurted out.
Surprised, I turned to Elizabeth and asked, “Do you do everything someone tells you to do?”
“Ahh,” I said. “Well, then it sounds like you would’ve made a great King James.”
“You mean Queen James,” Elizabeth said, suddenly realizing she had just called herself by a boy’s name.
Several students tried to cover up their laughs but Tommy couldn’t resist and said, “Hey, James. What’s up?” He put his hand in the air as if to give Elizabeth a high five.
She ignored him.
“In all seriousness,” Tommy said, “I liked that William Bradford dude. He was cool. Too bad he and his wife didn’t bring their little guy with them.”
“Let me ask everyone the same question. If you were William Bradford, would you have taken your three-year-old son on a death-defying voyage across a tempestuous sea?”
I heard several halfhearted responses. “Probably.” “Maybe.” “I think so.” “I guess.”
I had almost forgotten about Freedom until she raised her hand like the tallest mast on the Mayflower. “Freedom, you have an opinion?”
Freedom’s dark eyes reminded me of that same determined stare that William Bradford gave me right before he boarded the Speedwell. Freedom spoke from somewhere deep within and said, “I could tell they loved their son, more than anything. They only wanted what was best for him. It took courage for the Pilgrims to leave their homes and travel into the unknown. But it takes more courage to travel into the unknown and leave someone you love behind.”
“Well said, Freedom,” I replied. “And who knows, maybe they thought they could come back for him someday. Or maybe someone else had planned to bring him to America when he was older. I don’t know. What we do know is that more than anything, the Pilgrims like William and Dorothy Bradford were real people ready to give their lives for their freedom, no matter the cost, no matter the pain, no matter the sacrifice.”
Suddenly, something yellow shot from the back of the room and would have struck me in the head if I hadn’t dodged it at the last second before impact. It hit the chalkboard behind me and splintered into several pieces.
From the back of the classroom, Liberty’s eyes were as wide as cannonballs. With a surprised smile he said, “By golly, those wooden shoes do come off! I was beginning to wonder. I think a larger size would’ve fit better. Of course, now it’s going to be rather difficult to clog in only three shoes. Anyway, the trick to getting them off is to leverage this hoof like this and wedge the other by pushing down like that and . . .” Again, the second shoe shot off like a rock from a slingshot, but this time it whizzed to the left and crashed through an outside window.
“Oops,” Liberty said.
I rolled my eyes, but before I could say anything else the door to the classroom opened. Principal Sherman walked in, looking alarmed, and asked, “Did I just hear the sound of breaking glass?” His eyes locked on the broken window. “How did this happen?” He turned to the class and then to me and asked, “Is anyone hurt? How did the window break?”
Curious, the entire class turned around to look at Liberty, and I wondered why Principal Sherman wasn’t equally alarmed at the fact that there was an actual horse standing at the back of the classroom. However, upon further inspection, Liberty was gone.
“Well, is anyone going to answer me?” Principal Sherman asked again. “Mr. Revere, do you have an explanation?”
“An explanation?” I stalled. “Well, yes, of course.” I realized that Principal Sherman would eventually find a yellow wooden shoe outside the classroom window so I began: “We were discussing the Pilgrims and how they left England to escape religious persecution and settled in Holland along their journey to the New World. I brought a wooden Dutch shoe from my trip to the Netherlands as a bit of show-and-tell and—”
Principal Sherman interrupted me and said pointing, “You mean like the one that’s broken and splintered on the floor here?”
I had forgotten about that one. “Yes, and apparently, wooden shoes are not very sturdy.”
Principal Sherman walked over to the window and saw the second wooden shoe lying on the grass near a big oak tree. “And yet that one looks just fine,” he said.
I joined him by the window and said, “Um, wood is stronger than glass?”
He was not amused. He continued his classroom interrogation: “I’ve still not heard a reasonable explanation for why the window is broken.”
“Yes, I was getting to that,” I said, wondering if this would be my last day teaching at Manchester Middle School. “Let me start by saying this has been an excellent class and—”
Before I could finish whatever it was I was going to say, Tommy jumped up from his seat and shouted, “I did it!”
I was not expecting that.
Principal Sherman took a deep breath and didn’t look a bit surprised.
I could not let Tommy take the fall for Liberty’s antics. “I can assure you that it was somewhat of a bizarre accident,” I said.
“Yes, I’m very well acquainted with Tommy’s ‘accidents.’ But not everyone loves a class clown. Tommy, you’ll report to my office as soon as class is over,” said Principal Sherman, who nearly growled when he finished.
“If you’ll permit me, Principal, I have an appropriate consequence for Tommy’s outburst,” I said.
“Continue,” the principal said while straightening his tie.
“We both know how much Tommy lo-o-o-o-oves history,” I said. “I think the appropriate punishment is to keep him after for detention in my class. I’m happy to give him an extra history lesson that he’s bound to never forget.”
I could see that Principal Sherman was pondering the idea and examining Tommy’s reaction. Tommy didn’t disappoint. His face showed pure misery. The principal smiled and said, “I like that! In addition, Tommy will write on the chalkboard, ‘I will not throw wooden shoes through glass windows’ one hundred times.”
“I like your style, Principal Sherman,” I said.
“And I like yours, Mr. Revere, especially that tricornered hat. I need to get one of those,” he said. “I’ll have the custodian clean up and repair the window immediately.” With that he turned his huge shoulders and exited the classroom.
Relieved, I let out a long breath.
“What happened to Liberty? How did he get out of the room so fast?” Tommy asked. I could hear several other students ask similar questions.
Thankfully, I was saved by the bell before I had to answer their questions. Class was over. As the students grabbed their backpacks, I said, “Tomorrow, we’ll continue the journey with the Pilgrims. Thank you, everyone. Class dismissed.”
As the students began filing out of the room, I noticed that Tommy stayed behind for his detention and extra history lesson.
I noticed that Freedom stayed as well. I was pretty sure that it was her head I saw dart back into the classroom just as Liberty and I had jumped through the time portal.
If I didn’t know any better I’d think Freedom was on to me.
Chapter 3
Freedom crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. Tommy looked back at Freedom and then back to me, shrugging his shoulders. Freedom stared at me like I might disappear if she looked anywhere else. I finally asked, “Freedom, is there something I can do for you?”
She was twisting her hair between her fingers. I could tell she was pondering whether she wanted to say something or not. She looked across the room at Tommy and then back at me. She was a pretty girl with very tan skin. She flipped back the blue feather in her hair and then pushed the rest of her long black hair behind her shoulders. Finally, she spoke and said, “He never left.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re referring to.” Actually, I knew exactly what she was referring to, but I decided to play dumb.
“Liberty, he’s still in the room,” sh
e calmly said. “I can smell him. Horses have a strong scent. And if you look closely, you can see his image outlined against the back wall.” Still sitting at her chair, she turned around and traced Liberty’s outline with her finger.
“I don’t see anything,” Tommy said as he strained to see what Freedom was pointing at.
It was apparent that Freedom had a gift. She acted as sure as if she were pointing at the sun. Questions raced through my head. Could I trust these students about the time-travel abilities that Liberty and I enjoyed? Would they be able to keep the secrets about our historical missions? I decided to take a chance and said, “As I mentioned earlier, Liberty is an extraordinary horse. In addition to his language skills, he has the ability to disappear.”
“Not disappear,” said Freedom. “He’s blending into his surroundings like a chameleon.”
Suddenly, Liberty reappeared right where Freedom had pointed, gasping for air. “I couldn’t . . . hold my breath . . . a second longer,” said Liberty, still trying to catch his breath.
“What the . . . !” Tommy exclaimed. He looked at Freedom, then to me, then back at Liberty. “Did he just appear out of thin air? That’s awesome! I mean, that’s the coolest trick ever! How do you do that?”
Explaining the impossible is never easy, but I tried my best and said, “Soon after Liberty and I met we discovered that when Liberty holds his breath he can turn invisible. Well, he’s invisible to most people,” I said, glancing at Freedom. “It’s sort of like when you hold your breath and your face begins to turn red or even purple. When you let out the air, the color in your face returns to normal. It’s the same principle with Liberty.”
“Except he turns invisible,” Tommy said. “Coolest. Thing. Ever.”
“Frankly, I’m surprised that Freedom can see through the disguise,” I said. “I’ve seen Liberty vanish at least a hundred times and I’m still not always sure if he’s in the same room.”