by David Potter
As if those guys are surrendering to us.
SEVEN
NOW SOME OF THIS is starting to come back to me. Our school closes down for the Christmas holiday from December 22 to January 2. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the kids go home—or go someplace, anyway—for the holidays.
Every year—so we’re told—a handful of kids can’t go home. ’Cause their parents are, you know, too busy. Too successful. So they make arrangements. To have the school take care of the kids from December 22 to January 2.
They didn’t tell me who else was going to be left behind—and I sure as heck didn’t ask anyone—so when the big day came, for a while I thought I was going to be the only one. Parents came and got their kids, and everyone was so Christmassy with hearty good cheer and season’s tidings, it made me want to puke.
I was told to wait in my room.
Then—after the place cleared out, so no one would notice—I was told to go to the Dining Hall.
And there was Bev.
Somewhat peeved, as usual. In a theatrical kind of way. Because Bev can’t just sit there and be peeved like anyone else, you see. The whole world has to know. And thanks to her mom, and her gene pool, Bev is a complete natural when it comes to letting the world know how she feels about something.
But—to be completely honest here—seeing that Bev was a Left Behind sort of … sort of … sparked things up a bit, at least from my point of view.
I mean, like, everyone at school knows who Bev is. She hadn’t so much as said two words to me all year, though. We weren’t in any of the same classes. Though I kind of was aware of her schedule. I mean, when I had English, Bev had math. When I had American history, she had biology. Look, I just happened to know this, so don’t start reading into it. I have a good memory, all right? And I’m a guy who notices stuff.
But I will say that when I saw Bev in the Dining Hall, I wasn’t a hundred percent disappointed.
Okay, for a second, a split second, and no longer than that, I thought, How utterly convenient.
Together at last.
I tried to start a conversation. I said something lame, like “Stuck here too?”
And Bev said: “Yeah. What’s your point?” Which pretty much ended that effort, dead on the spot.
Fifteen minutes later Brandon rambled in, and our little group was complete. Mr. Hart laid out the program for us. Fun trips, here and there.
One day we went to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Which was fun, except we’ve been there, like, fifty times already.
One day we went to an indoor water park.
And then this morning, Christmas Day, the grand announcement: the Washington Crossing the Delaware thingy. A bunch of reenactor dudes—generally speaking, weird overweight guys dressed up in Revolutionary War garb who are probably accountants and sales guys in real life—parade around and then get into four or five boats and row themselves across the Delaware, from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Holiday crowds line the banks on both sides and give the accountants and sales guys a big “Huzzah, huzzah!” when they make it over.
Then we were supposed to go back to school and have a lovely Christmas Day feast, with a proper turkey and fixings, and exchange a bunch of gifts, if we had any to give or receive. If any of our parents had secretly sent gifts to us, they’d be forked over.
All right.
Okay.
This much I remember now. And Mr. Hart, our history teacher, was the oddball who had to go with us on every one of our little day trips, and didn’t get to go home to any family he might have had somewhere. So this morning, Mr. Hart drove us over in the school van. Bev rode shotgun, Brandon and I sat in the back. I stared out the window, and told myself that this probably wouldn’t be the worst Christmas I would ever have in my life. It was the worst one up until now, for sure, but I still had a long way to go.
The ride over wasn’t much fun. It was, in fact, basically dead silent the whole way.
The pretty but snooty one in the front, the slacker dude in the back, and me.
Like I said, none of us are exactly friends.
We didn’t, you know, talk to each other and stuff like that.
We were just thrown together, and told to make the best of it.
We are the Left Behinds.
So what do we know about surrender flags?
Have any of us ever been surrendered to before?
I think not. What the heck is the protocol? The correct procedure?
Are we supposed to say “Okay, no prob” and wave ’em in? Then what do we do?
Grab their muskets?
At a time like this, we wouldn’t actually mind having Mr. Hart around, even though he’s kind of dorky.
“What do we do?” I say. “How do we know it’s not a trick?”
The English-speaking dude—Mr. Butt-Ugly—is still waving his white flag. Back and forth, back and forth.
“I like really, really need to find a bathroom,” says Bev.
“I think,” I say, “that we ought to tell them to put down their muskets. And then come forward.”
“With their hands up?” Brandon asks. “Or behind their heads?”
“I think with their hands up,” I say. “Who knows what they got in those high hats of theirs.”
Brandon does the honors. He’s got the biggest voice, and he lets it rip.
EIGHT
“LAY YOUR MUSKETS DOWN!” Brandon shouts. “And come out with your hands up!”
Then we all kind of snicker. I mean, just how often do you get a chance to say something like that?
Mr. Butt-Ugly yells back, “Ve vant to talk! Ve don’t vant to surrender. Ve propose von hour truce.”
This is a curveball. No one’s sure what to make of it.
“An hour-long truce?” I say. “What’s that going to get us?”
“It’s going to get us an hour,” says Bev. “Maybe we can agree, if it’s someplace warm. With a bathroom.”
“There are no bathrooms, Bev,” Brandon and I say at practically the same time.
Brandon checks behind us, then to the left, then to the right. All dramatic-like. Then he says: “Guys, what options do we have here? I’m starting to get cold too. And I don’t see any place to … to run to … around here. What time is it, anyway?”
We glance at our phones. It’s 2:02 p.m., Wednesday, December 25.
And I’m down to eight percent power.
Then I get another text. Again from Mr. Hart.
I read aloud: Did you go to the basement of the Taylorsville General Store?
“Did we?” I ask.
“Did we what?” says Brandon.
“Go to the basement of the Taylorsville General Store. It was off to the side, remember? It had its own entrance.”
And then we think. All of us, at the same time, about the same subject, which is probably something that doesn’t happen often. Certainly not in any classroom we’ve been in recently.
“I think we did,” says Brandon. “Something’s coming back.”
“We did,” says Bev. “Of course we did. I’m not surprised that all of you disremember, but then your attention spans are rather limited. It was your idea, Brandon. If you recall, you dared us. Like we were all a bunch of third-graders.”
“That’s right,” I say, snapping my fingers. “We were bored, we went to the Taylorsville General Store, we saw this old guy scurry out of the basement, and Brandon, you said, ‘What in heck is this geezer up to?’ Remember? Then you said, ‘Let’s find out.’ And you said we wouldn’t do it, not even on a dare.”
“But we did,” Bev says. “The door wasn’t locked. There were no lights. There was a staircase. The basement was black.”
“We used our iPhones,” says Brandon. “To light the way.”
“So let me tell him,” I say. I tap back a single word: Yes.
It doesn’t take long for Mr. Hart to answer. A couple seconds, maybe. Which sort of sticks in my mind, because, um, how can this happen?
>
Are we texting each other?
Across what—almost 240 years?
But before my brain explodes, I read aloud his text. Did anything … unusual happen?
I type back: Kind of.
Then he texts: R U OK?
I send this: We’re fine.
Mr. Hart: R U all together?
Me: Yes.
We’re gathered around my iPhone, naturally, all of us reading his texts as they come in. “Why don’t we just call the dude?” Brandon says. “Tell him to pick us up with the van?”
“Not a bad idea,” I say, and try, but no dice. Not even a dial tone. “Something is extremely weird about this,” I say. “Did someone mess around with my phone?”
No one answers, but Mr. Hart sends another text. I’m afraid you may find yourselves in a very strange situation. Don’t panic! We’ll get you back.
OK, I type. And then: Anytime soon?
He answers: One question: has anything changed?
Like what? I say.
Answer the question, he says, annoyed. I can tell. Mr. Hart is easy to read, in person or by text.
“What should I tell him,” I say. “The truth?”
“Go ahead,” says Brandon. “Blow the dude’s mind. Why should we be the ones having all the fun?”
No dissent, not from anyone, though now Bev is looking super peeved. I think it’s more the bathroom thing, though.
So I go for it. Someone killed George Washington. Pretty sure it was him.
He types back, and now I’m sure he’s annoyed, because Mr. Hart never misspells anything. R U kiding?
NO, I say, all caps.
He returns the favor. WHO????
HESSIANS, I type back.
Then there’s a pause. A long, long pause. It’s almost like Mr. Hart is consulting with somebody on the other side.
Finally this: Power down! You MUST not lose power. Reconvene in one hour for further instructions! Be safe!
I turn my phone off, and look around. Be safe? Easy for him to say.
The thing is, Mr. Hart’s texts are kind of hard to process, because we have these German guys seventy, eighty yards away. Who are waiting for our answer.
To their one-hour truce request.
“What do we say to those guys?” I say, nodding to the Hessians.
“I don’t trust them,” Bev says. “Not for a minute. We’re witnesses. And I don’t care what year it is, there’s only one thing you do with witnesses: you get rid of them.”
“We didn’t witness anything,” Brandon says. “We didn’t actually see anything happen.”
“We saw a dead guy in a horse stall,” Bev says. “One minute later, we see these guys. Two plus two, Brandon. Add it up. It’s not hard.”
“And that dead guy just happens to be,” I say, “General George Washington. So they have every reason in the world to want to get rid of us.”
“Boys,” Bev says, and we’re like, Enough already with the bathroom. But Bev says something else. “Boys, two things. One, if I’m not mistaken, Washington wasn’t supposed to get killed today. And this would have a pretty big effect on how things are supposed to turn out, don’t you think? So that’s a big problem. And second, I’ll be right back. You guys stay here. And don’t turn around.”
We get it. We have enough to think about, so we don’t think about Bev. We have to figure out how we’re going to answer these Hessians, first of all, and then we have to think about what we’re going to do about General Washington. Though what are we going to do about that—go back in time?
Again?
Then we hear a scream. From behind us.
Bev.
NINE
BEV SCREAMS FIRST, THEN says: “Get away from me, you stupid Hessian!”
So that tells us something.
That tells us those guys had no intention whatsoever of surrendering.
That they thought we were just a bunch of stupid kids.
Brandon plows through the snow to where Bev is screaming.
I follow. I have an iPhone, which I hold aloft, like it’s a weapon, but you know what?
It’s not.
Not even pictures are going to help.
Brandon gets there first, and I’m right behind. To the edge of the woods, where Bev has gone to go.
The other dude dressed as a farmer has Bev. He has a hand over her mouth, and then he just lifts her up and takes off, like she’s a giant loaf of bread.
Then we hear the English-speaking dude yell at Brandon and me. “Halt,” he says. “Halt immediately! Or ve vill shoot to kill!”
“Easy, Brandon,” I say, but Brandon isn’t listening. I know I said that Brandon’s not so dumb, but you know what?
Sometimes he is.
Like right now.
Maybe it’s a New Mexico thing. Maybe in New Mexico they teach kids that snow has magic powers.
Brandon leans down, makes a giant snowball, and chucks it like it’s a bomb that’s going to do real damage somehow.
Mr. Butt-Ugly sees this and shouts something. I don’t catch the word, exactly, but I’m pretty sure it’s the German word for Fire!
Which they do.
We hit the deck. Or the snow, as is the case.
Nothing goes off at the same time. It’s kind of a slow release kind of thing. Bam, we hear. Then not quite a bam, maybe some kind of misfire. That’s it? One good shot, and one dud?
And we know what they have to do next: reload their muskets, which is not so easy a procedure. So we have time. Maybe thirty seconds.
Time enough to come up with a plan.
Which we might have done, if Brandon hadn’t completely lost his cool.
He stands up, right there in the middle of the snow, and says something completely stupid.
I mean, really, really, really stupid.
Brandon says, “You want a piece of me? Huh? You want a piece of me? Well, here I come!”
He starts charging at them through the snow. His only weapons: snowballs.
I’m pretty certain he didn’t think things through, but that’s Brandon for you.
He’s running, he’s screaming, and then I hear a sick kind of crunch. Like what maybe a musket butt would sound like slamming into somebody’s shoulder.
Then I hear thrashing and crashing, and a lot of foul words, most in English, some in German. Then another one of those sick crunches.
After that, a lot of rustling around. No arguments, though, and no English. Then a lot of footsteps crushing through snow, rushing away. The footsteps get fainter and fainter, until there’s nothing but dead silence.
It’s the silence that gets to me. That, and knowing our forces have now been reduced from three to one.
And I am the one.
TEN
I LET FIVE MINUTES GO BY.
Ten minutes.
I’m trying to think this through, I swear.
The situation has deteriorated.
It’s gone from pretty bad to absolutely horrible.
Ten minutes turns into fifteen, and I’m beginning not to like snow so much. The stuff is everywhere. And I’m frozen to the bone.
Finally I decide to do something. A guy can sit around with his mouth agape for just so long.
I decide to reconnoiter.
Which is a word I’ve never, ever had a reason to use up until now.
I walk around and find a kind of ridge, and from here I can see the lay of the land.
We’re on a farm. In the absolute middle of nowhere. I can see the stable where George Washington is lying dead, I can see a couple of other small buildings we noticed before, and I can see a farmhouse, which is pretty much in the center of everything. The farmhouse is made of stone, and it’s not too big, nothing too fancy.
And that’s where they all are.
All of them. Soldiers, fake farmers, and kids.
Everyone except me.
Alone, frozen solid, atop a hill. And in the nice warm farmhouse, my two other Left Behinds, two Hessians in
full regalia, and two Hessians dressed like farmers.
I have to think this through all by myself.
I mean, we’re talking big, big, big implications here, are we not?
Ummm, do you think George Washington being dead before crossing the Delaware River on Christmas night, 1776, counts as, you know, a problem?
Let’s see: No Washington, no crossing. No crossing, no victory at Trenton for the troops. No victory at Trenton for the troops, no more army. No army, no revolution. No revolution, and everything we know—everything, but everything—doesn’t go as it’s supposed to go.
So that would be a problem.
And the thing is? I’m sitting here atop this hill, freezing my behind off, and I do not have a single, solitary clue what to do about any of it.
Not.
A.
Single.
Solitary.
Clue.
ELEVEN
THIS FARMHOUSE IS A little on the crooked side. It’s kind of leaning right. Maybe they didn’t plumb the thing when they built it. Smoke is pouring from a chimney. That must be the kitchen, probably the only warm place inside. I’d put the odds at one hundred percent that the kitchen is where everyone’s gathered right about now.
I can get as close as I want, because they didn’t bother to post a guard. Or as close as I dare, which are two different things. I want to peek in the window, see what there is to see.
I’m just not sure I dare to.
It’s a courage thing, if you want to know the truth. Nobody would see, right? Nobody would know if I just sort of took a step back. A step or two back.
But when I hear someone whisper something right behind my left ear, I nearly jump out of my sneakers, and it’s all I can do not to start wailing like a little bitty baby.
“Be still!” the voice says, a notch above a whisper. It’s a girl’s voice. “Hush!”
Another voice—a boy’s, I think—then says, “We’re not going to harm you. But don’t thrash or they’ll hear!”
I turn around. Two kids my own age, more or less, are behind me. One boy, one girl.
I’m betting they’re related. Like, brother and sister. They both have freckles across the nose, brown eyes, and light brown hair, and they’re dressed, unlike me, for the cold. Which means they have on long coats, boots, and hats. Well, the boy has on a hat—a tricornered job, naturally—and the girl has on a white bonnet, I guess is what they’re called, tied under her chin. The boy puts his fingers to his lips. The girl puts her hands on her hips, and appears to be somewhat annoyed.