Abby opened the laptop and logged in using her mom’s password. She went online and searched for history shows about Lincoln. She found a website that had the exact same show she’d seen with her father the night before. She clicked Play and watched a little bit of it.
The screen showed a photo of a busy street in Springfield, Illinois.
The narrator was saying: “Election Day was finally here. All day, and into the evening, people streamed into Springfield to vote. Yet Abraham Lincoln was still missing. No one had seen—oh, wait, there he is.”
And the screen showed the outside of the Lincoln home. Mr. Biddle, with his beard still hanging loose, walked up the steps toward the front door. Doc was right beside him.
“Lincoln finally returned home,” the narrator said. “But who is that child?”
Abby smiled. “Nice work, Doc,” she said. She stopped the show.
All she’d have to do now was wait for just the right time to lower the screen and press Play.
“Another biscuit?” Mary Lincoln asked, holding out a tray.
“Thanks,” Doc said, taking a few.
Doc, Mary Lincoln, and Mr. Biddle were sitting in the parlor of the Lincoln home, having tea. Mrs. Lincoln held the plate of biscuits toward the gym teacher.
Mr. Biddle said. “What’s going on here? Where are we?”
Mary smiled. Yes, she was well aware that this man was not her husband. She could guess what Doc was up to and was doing her best to play along.
“Mr. Lincoln is a bit nervous, and understandably so,” Mary said to Doc. “There is a very good chance he will be elected president today.”
Doc looked out the window. It was getting dark, and the party was starting. Booming brass bands rolled by on wagons. Crowds were marching through the streets, holding torches, talking and shouting.
Mary checked the clock. “We’re to meet our friends and supporters in town. And if you win, Mr. Lincoln, you’ll be expected to say a few words to the crowd.”
Mr. Biddle said, “What about the wrestling?”
“Excuse me?” Mary asked.
“I don’t want to miss the wrestling,” Mr. Biddle said.
“Come on, you’ll be great,” Doc said. “You did such a good job as Lincoln today. People loved you!”
Mr. Biddle smiled. “They did, didn’t they?”
“Just do more of that kind of stuff,” Doc said.
Mary Lincoln stood up. “We’d best be going. Mr. Lincoln, would you please fix your beard?”
Mr. Biddle hooked the beard around his ears. He walked to the front door with Doc and Mrs. Lincoln.
The moment they stepped outside, the crowd in the street gave a huge cheer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The crowd in the school gym gave a huge cheer.
In the wrestling ring, Gigantic Phil climbed onto the ropes and lifted his arms in air. His opponent, Al “The Alligator” Albertson, was lying facedown on
the mat.
“Now he’s going to jump on that poor fellow?” Lincoln asked Abby. They were sitting together a few rows from the ring.
“Of course,” Abby said. “That’s his big move.”
“But the man is injured!”
“It’s all fake,” Abby said. “They plan it out ahead of time.”
“This is not the kind of wrestling I’m used to,” Lincoln said.
Gigantic Phil leaped from the top rope, soared through the air, and slammed his elbow into the back of The Alligator’s head.
Or, it looked as if he did. Really, he missed by a few inches. Everyone but Lincoln knew this.
The Alligator rolled around in fake agony. Gigantic Phil dragged his opponent to the edge of the ring. He ducked between the ropes, jumped to the floor, grabbed The Alligator by his feet, and yanked him out of the ring and onto the gym floor.
Kids and adults leaped to their feet and roared.
“Stop the fight!” Lincoln shouted. “Someone stop it!”
No one heard him. The crowd was going crazy.
Gigantic Phil motioned for a girl in the front row to stand up. She did, and he grabbed her chair. He folded the chair and raised it high above The Alligator, who lay on the floor, holding up his hands, pleading, “No! Please!”
“This is too much!” Lincoln screamed. “Put that chair down, sir!”
He started pushing his way toward the ring.
Gigantic Phil looked to the crowd, grinning like a villain.
“Do it!” people shouted.
“Hit him!”
And he was about to. He started swinging—but Abraham Lincoln gripped a leg of the chair and yanked it from Gigantic Phil’s grasp.
Phil turned toward Lincoln.
“What are you doing?” Phil demanded.
“Can’t you see that man is beaten?” Lincoln asked.
“Yeah, so?”
“So this is no longer a fair fight,” Lincoln said.
Gigantic Phil and Abraham Lincoln glared at each other.
The crowd was loving it—they thought this was all part of the show.
“It’s that Lincoln guy from school!” someone shouted.
“Hit him, Phil!” people shouted.
“Go, Lincoln!”
“Go, Phil!”
“You want a fair fight?” Lincoln asked. “I will give you a fair fight!”
Abraham Lincoln climbed into the wrestling ring.
Gigantic Phil put down the folding chair. He looked around, waiting for someone to tell him what was happening.
Lincoln took off his hat and jacket. He started rolling up his sleeves.
In Springfield, a man stepped out of the telegraph office and held a piece of paper above his head.
“The results from the East are in!” he shouted.
The street went silent.
“Lincoln has won in Pennsylvania and New York!” the man bellowed. “Our own Abraham Lincoln will be the next president of the United States!”
The crowd roared, waving torches.
Doc and Mary nodded to each other. Doc guided Mr. Biddle to the front of the crowd.
“Here he is, folks!” Doc said. “Abraham Lincoln!”
People shouted:
“Our own Honest Abe!”
“Mr. President!”
The gym teacher stood on the sidewalk, looking out at hundreds of happy faces.
They were waiting for him to say something.
Anything.
“Um, okay, yeah,” Mr. Biddle said.
Anything but that.
“Tell us about your plans as president!” someone shouted.
“Right, plans …” Mr. Biddle said. “I have a lot of them. Big plans. Small plans. All kinds of plans.”
“Like what?”
“Hey, check this out,” Mr. Biddle said, flexing his arms. “You don’t get pipes like that from playing video games!”
Everyone stared.
“Guys, look,” he said, “I’m definitely going to say some wise things. But first, let’s get that blood flowing. Who knows how to do jumping jacks?”
No one did.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gigantic Phil and Abraham Lincoln slowly circled each other in the ring.
Lincoln leaned forward, reaching out his long arms. He grabbed for Gigantic Phil, but Phil hopped out of the way.
They circled each other again.
Gigantic Phil lowered his head like a ram and charged. He hugged Lincoln around the waist, trying to twist him to the ground. Lincoln staggered but would not go down.
Lincoln broke free and backed away. Then he darted forward, seized the sides of Gigantic Phil’s tiny shorts, and lifted the large man off the mat. The crowd gasped in shock as Lincoln flipped Gigantic Phil up onto his shoulders.
“Take it easy, bud,” Phil said. “This is just for fun.”
“I’m having tremendous fun!” Lincoln shouted.
Gigantic Phil started swinging wildly but couldn’t grab hold of any part of Lincoln. Lincoln twirled around
and around, spinning Phil like a helicopter blade.
Phil finally broke free and dropped six feet, crashing hard onto the mat. He was dizzy. And mad.
He grabbed Lincoln’s legs and lifted, sending Lincoln tumbling. As Abe tried to get up, Phil grabbed his arm and tossed him across the ring. Lincoln flew into the ropes, bounced off, and stumbled back toward Phil. Phil drove his shoulder into Abe, knocking him flat on his back.
Lincoln sat up, his head spinning.
“Perhaps I’m too old for this,” he said.
The crowd went wild when they saw Gigantic Phil climb onto the ropes.
Abby was the only one who noticed a short woman in a long dress make her way toward the wrestling ring.
Just as Gigantic Phil was about to leap, Mary Lincoln climbed into the ring. Phil stopped himself, balanced on the top rope, looking down.
Mrs. Lincoln looked from Phil to her husband and back to Phil.
She said, “What do you boys think you’re doing?”
Abby got up and ran to the stage.
“One hundred and four!” Mr. Biddle counted. “One hundred and five! One hundred and six!”
Doc watched from the sidewalk in front of the telegraph office. Things could hardly be going any better.
Mr. Biddle’s beard had come loose again, and it was bouncing up and down and hitting him in the nose. “Come on, guys!” he shouted, “Do ’em with me!”
A few people tried doing jumping jacks, but they were packed too tightly, and their flying arms banged together. So they stopped.
Someone in the crowd yelled out: “The leaders of many Southern states have vowed to leave the Union if you won. What do you say to them?”
Mr. Biddle stopped.
“The whole country could start breaking apart before you even get to Washington,” another person shouted. “What will you do about that?”
“Um, I, well …” Mr. Biddle said. “Did you know I was born in a log cabin? Dirt floor and everything.”
The crowd was getting impatient.
“We know about the log cabin!”
“We want to know what you’ll do as president!”
“Can you save the Union?”
“Who here knows how to do squat thrusts?” Mr. Biddle asked. “Such a great full-body workout. Watch and learn!”
In the school gym, the movie screen above the stage began to lower.
Abby was sitting at the computer. The website with the Lincoln history show was still open.
But no one noticed her or the screen. They were all staring at the woman who had interrupted the wrestling match.
“Time to come home, Mr. Lincoln,” Mary said. “Can you stand?”
“I think so,” he said.
He groaned as he pushed himself up.
“Now, Mr. Lincoln, while you’ve been busy with this nonsense, you might be interested to know that the people have just elected you president of the United States.”
“That’s not my concern,” Lincoln said. “I have a new career now.”
“He’s pretty good,” Gigantic Phil said, jumping down from the ropes.
“Pleased to meet you,” Mary said. She shook Phil’s hand, then turned to her husband. “Are you ready to go?”
“Sorry, no,” Abe said. “My mind’s made up.”
Abby hit Play on the history show. She turned the volume all the way up.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Everyone in the gym looked up at the show on the screen.
They saw Mr. Biddle attempting to teach the people of Springfield about squat thrusts.
“But no one was squatting in Springfield,” said the narrator of the show. “No one was thrusting. A lot of people were starting to walk away, grumbling as they headed home.”
“Well, Lincoln has always been a bit odd,” one man said.
“Sure, but tonight he really cracked,” another guy said.
“Must be the pressure of becoming president at a time like this.”
“Oh, well. There goes the country.”
“Come back!” Mr. Biddle shouted. “I know they’re hard! That’s why they’re good for you!”
Abraham Lincoln stood in the wrestling ring, a look of horror on his face.
“That’s not how it’s supposed to happen,” Lincoln said.
“And are you just going to let that happen?” Mary Lincoln asked.
“Well, I—” Lincoln noticed Abby on the stage. “This was all your doing, I suppose.”
“And Doc,” Abby said. “You can thank us later.” Walking to the front of the stage, she shouted, “You see what would happen without Abraham Lincoln? We really do need Lincoln! The real one!”
“That’s nice of you,” Lincoln said. “But I don’t know …”
“What do you guys say?” Abby asked the crowd. “Who thinks Abraham Lincoln would make a good president?”
“Better president than wrestler!” someone shouted.
The crowd laughed.
“You may be right, sir,” Lincoln said, rubbing his lower back.
“A lot of you guys saw him in school today,” Abby said. “He’s great, right? Awesome stories and jokes! Okay, forget the jokes, but we were totally wrong to call him boring. It’s not just that he did important stuff—that’s true—but the thing is, he’s actually a fun guy to hang around with!”
“Thank you, Abby,” Lincoln said. “That means a lot to me.”
Abby smiled at Lincoln, then turned back to the crowd. “And we’re going to pay attention to him from now on, right? We want to see what he does next!”
The students cheered.
“That’s all I ever asked,” Lincoln said.
He looked up to the screen. Mr. Biddle was being interviewed by a newspaper editor.
The editor asked, “Do you think there is any way to prevent war between the North and the South?”
“I certainly do,” Mr. Biddle said.
“And how can that be done?”
“Simple,” said Mr. Biddle. “We’ll settle our differences with one giant game of dodgeball.”
Abraham Lincoln took his wife’s arm. “Let’s go, Mrs. Lincoln,” he said. “We have work to do.”
“People here aren’t very nice,” Mr. Biddle said.
“I guess not,” Doc said.
He and Mr. Biddle were walking down a dark street in Springfield.
“Why were they getting so angry at me?” Mr. Biddle asked.
Doc wasn’t sure how to explain.
They were almost back to the Lincoln house when Doc heard Abby’s voice.
“Doc! There you are!”
Abby ran up. Abraham and Mary Lincoln were right behind her.
“You’re back!” Doc said to Abe.
“I’m back,” he said.
“Yes, thanks to the two of you,” Mary said to Doc and Abby.
“You might want to go down there,” Doc said to Abe, pointing toward the center of town. “People really want to hear from you. The real you, I mean.”
“Of course, right away,” Lincoln said. “But I want to thank you for all that you’ve done.”
“The whole school-visit idea didn’t go exactly as planned,” Abby said.
Lincoln laughed. “Perhaps not.”
“But we did it,” Doc said. “We fixed history!”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Lincoln said.
Doc and Abby looked at him, surprised.
“But you’re back,” Abby said. “You’re going to be president.”
“I am, I am. But, you see … I can’t speak for the others.”
“Others?”
Lincoln seemed a little embarrassed. “It’s my fault as much as yours,” he said. “I was trying to teach you a lesson. And it worked, I suppose … but, they all saw. They don’t have to do the same old thing anymore. They realize that now.”
“They?” Abby asked. “You mean other historical characters?”
“We’re not characters, we’re people,” Lincoln said. “What I’m saying
is that history might start to get a little mixed up. If Abigail Adams wants to become, oh, I don’t know, a pirate—what’s to stop her?”
“Who’s Abigail Adams?” Doc asked.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Lincoln said. “But she did, you can bet. Look, I’m going to talk to them, all of them. I’ll do my best to keep things moving along as they should. But I can’t promise anything. You’re going to want to keep an eye on that history book of yours.”
“We will,” Abby said.
“And can I count on you?” Lincoln asked. “If I need your help to set things right?”
“Anytime,” Doc said. “You know where to find us.”
“Good.”
Lincoln shook hands with Abby and Doc.
Then he said to Mr. Biddle, “If you hurry, you can catch the last few wrestling matches.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Abby, Doc, and Mr. Biddle watched Abraham and Mary Lincoln walk away. Moments later, a huge cheer erupted in the center of town.
Abby and Doc smiled at each other. Their work was done.
“So,” Mr. Biddle said, “how do we get out of here?”
“That’s a good question,” Doc said.
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Well, we’ve done it before,” Abby said.
“So do it again,” Mr. Biddle said.
“But we don’t know how,” Abby said. “Last time, it sort of just happened.”
“That’s not exactly right,” Doc said.
“What do you mean?”
“We were talking with Lincoln, remember?” Doc said. “And I was telling him how all the kids in our class think history is … I don’t know if I can say it.”
“Say what?” Abby asked.
“I don’t want Lincoln to hear,” Doc said. “Or that Adams lady, whoever she is.”
He looked toward town.
“Just try it,” Abby said.
“But I don’t believe it anymore,” Doc said.
“Just say it,” Abby said.
Doc looked around. No one was watching. He said, very quietly, “History is boring.”
And they were gone.
The big cardboard box in the library storage room rocked back and forth and tipped over. The top flaps opened and Abby, Doc, and Mr. Biddle crawled out.
Mr. Biddle stood up and looked around.
Abraham Lincoln, Pro Wrestler Page 4