by David Potter
Fast.
It flies through the window.
I duck, I hit the deck, round two.
The pickax sails above my head, lands in the snow.
Soldier Number Two gets to it before I do. He’s also ticked off about having his legs yanked out from under him. About losing his musket to a kid. About having to be the guy marching around in the snow while everyone else gets to warm up inside.
So he grabs the pickax, raises it above his head with both arms, and is just about to bring it down. But he forgets one thing. One very important item.
I still have his musket.
He starts to swing the pickax, and I do what anyone in my sneakers would do.
I stick him in the belly with his musket.
Hard.
It’s lucky for him it’s the butt end, not the business end, of the musket.
He goes, Arrrrrrrr.
Arrrrrrrr, like a pirate.
His arms were above his head, his big fat belly was totally exposed, and I hit him as hard as I could.
That’s when he went, Arrrrrrrr.
The guy staggers backward.
Bev screams: “Mel!”
Butt-Ugly raises his Luger. Hallucination or not, I’m calling ’em like I see ’em, and I say it is a Luger.
He fires.
His Luger, unlike my rifle, is loaded and ready.
It goes: boom.
SIXTEEN
I DON’T DODGE BULLETS.
In case you’re wondering.
I don’t dodge bullets, I don’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, and, normally speaking, I don’t fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
I’m only twelve years old, for crying out loud. Well, twelve years and three months, if you want to be technical.
So when a guy points a pistol at me and fires, what do you expect me to do about it?
If you guessed not much, you guessed right.
Butt-Ugly fires; I stare. That’s pretty much it. I see a little burst of yellow fire shoot out of his pistol, I hear the boom of the shot, but I don’t really do much of anything else. I don’t feint left, dodge right. I don’t hit the deck. I just stand there, staring, and I don’t even have much time to think things through. To think: Oh, this must be the last second of my life. What were all those things I was going to do? Or: I’m so sad. How I’ll miss my dear old dad and mom. My life—all twelve years and three months of it—does not flash before my very eyes.
I kind of fritz out, if you want to know the truth of it. I freeze. My mind goes like totally blank.
Boom.
You hear that, you wait for the next part, where things go bad.
Like, your life is over, in other words.
The end.
But I hear the boom, but no bang.
Boom, but no bang.
Meaning he missed from ten feet, or there was never a bullet in there in the first place.
Boom, no bang.
It takes me a long, long time—like two, three seconds—to process this.
He shoots, but I’m alive.
Then I see the other guys raise their muskets high. The one dressed as a farmer, and the one dressed as a soldier. Who, if I saw correctly out of the corner of my eye in one of the milliseconds just before Butt-Ugly raised his Luger, had been busy ramming rods down the barrels of their muskets. Which is how they load the things, remember. My data-processing center, otherwise known as my brain, sends out an alert.
A message.
Danger, it says.
Danger, danger, danger.
This time I don’t just stand there, though. This time I hit the deck like a trained Navy Seal and scramble the heck away from the window.
Two shots blast right above my head: boom and boom.
I hear, at the same time, Daniel and Elizabeth, who are about thirty yards away from the firing line, but off to the side.
They’re screaming. At the proverbial tops of their lungs. They’re screaming at me. Or rather to me.
“Come!” they scream. “We have to get away!”
I’m so happy to hear the word we. It’s nice, at a time like this, to feel included in things.
SEVENTEEN
THEN I HEAR BEV screaming too. From inside the farmhouse.
And you know what? I can’t remember the last time two girls were screaming to me at the same time. Okay, I remember: like, never.
Bev screams: “Mel! Mel! Get away!” And her scream is cut off, like someone puts a hand over her mouth.
I’m scrambling away at this point, don’t forget. Like a trained Navy Seal, or maybe like just an ordinary seal, the kind that has flippers instead of arms and legs. I’m scrambling through snow, my arms and hands and fingers and feet and toes are nearly frozen solid, but I’m making progress. I’m getting closer and closer to Daniel and Elizabeth, and if there’s one main thing I’m thinking, it’s this: man, I’m glad these guys don’t have automatic weapons. This whole gunpowder–ramrod musket thing is really helping me out, because it gives me a few extra precious seconds.
I get to Daniel and Elizabeth, who are hiding behind some kind of little stone thing. A well, I’m guessing.
Two more volleys fly above our heads.
Daniel grabs my arm: “We have to get out of here. They’re armed, we’re not. It’s hopeless if we stay and fight.”
“What about my friends?” I say.
“You can’t help them,” Elizabeth says. “They told you so themselves.”
When was it—all of ten, fifteen minutes ago—when we were in the horse stable and just about ready to kill each other? Things can change in a hurry if the muskets start going. “What made you come?” I say.
“If there’s any chance,” says Elizabeth. “Any chance at all … that our father will not be remembered … that General Washington will not be … we decided it was better …”
“To try,” says Daniel. “Instead of try not. Now, we must go. Follow us. We know where to hide, so they’ll never find us.”
We move out. Zigging and zagging. About seven minutes later we’re on another small hill, and we glance back: no soldiers. They’ve decided to stay put. A Bev and a Brandon and two iPhones, it appears, are more important than us.
I have to take a break. I’m panting, I’m huffing, I’m puffing, I’m sweating like a pig, and I’m frozen to the bone.
I sit down in the snow and take out my iPhone. And you know what? At this point I don’t really care what Daniel and Elizabeth think about it. They stare and frown, but they need to take a break as much as I do, so they sit.
One new text has come in.
From Mr. Hart, of course. He says: What is your power situation? You need to have at least 50%.
Really, Mr. Hart? And how is that going to help Bev and Brandon?
Why is that? I tap in.
It won’t work with less than 50% power.
What exactly won’t work?
Do you want to come back or don’t you?
Of course. But we have a problem.
What?
Bev and Brandon have been kind of captured.
Hessians?
Yes.
Armed?
Yes.
You?
No.
There’s a pause. I take advantage: Plus can’t get more power—no electricity here.
No response. I’m down to five percent power, but I’m beginning to think it doesn’t matter, especially if there’s nothing to be done about it. Also, why fifty percent? What does Mr. Hart know, anyway? And what isn’t he saying? I tap in: Mr. Hart, what’s going on? Why are we HERE?
It’s a while before I hear the three-chord mini melody. I read: How much power now?
5 percent, I answer back. And notice he didn’t answer my question.
Then this: Turn off! Urgent you conserve power!
I turn off my phone. Meanwhile, Daniel and Elizabeth stand up. They want to get moving, but I have a new idea. One that might be able to help us all out, General W
ashington included.
It’s totally crazy. Yet I’m sure it’s right.
“Is there any way,” I ask, “that you could get me to Philadelphia?”
“Philadelphia?” Elizabeth asks. “Whatever in the world for?”
“I need to see someone,” I say. “He might be our only hope.”
“And who would that be?” Daniel asks.
“Dr. Benjamin Franklin,” I say. “Who else?”
EIGHTEEN
I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE asked if they wouldn’t mind giving me a lift to the moon.
“Philadelphia?” says Elizabeth. “It is miles away. I don’t see how … I don’t think it would be possible …”
“It’s only, what, thirty miles from here?” I say. “Thirty-five, max. How long would it take us—an hour or two?”
“Are you proposing that you walk?” Daniel says. “In this weather?”
“No. I’m proposing we get there the fastest way possible. So I can see Dr. Franklin. And he can do something for me. Which if it works will solve everyone’s problems.”
“What is it you want him to do?”
I hold out my iPhone. “Fix this,” I say.
“What’s wrong with it?” says Elizabeth.
“It broke,” I say. “And it needs to be fixed. I believe Benjamin Franklin is the only man alive who can fix it.”
I’m not getting the sense that they’re mildly reluctant to help. I’m getting the sense that they will absolutely refuse to help me under any circumstances whatsoever.
Which won’t be good.
Because there’s no way I’ll be able to get from here to there without their help.
“Look,” I say. “It’s cold. It’s hard to think. Is there someplace warm we can go to talk this over?”
Neither makes a move.
“It won’t go away,” I say. “The problem. Not by itself, it won’t.”
“The problem?” says Elizabeth.
“The problem. That would be General George Washington. Who just happens to be lying dead as a post in your father’s horse stable. Have you guys thought this through?”
They obviously haven’t, so I spell it out for them. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. At some point—probably soon—Washington’s men are going to wonder where he is. They’ll start to look for him, if they haven’t already. They’ll find him in your barn. No matter what excuse your father tries to come up with, it’s his farm and his barn. How do you think this is going to go over? With Washington’s men, for starters?”
“Perhaps not so well,” Daniel says.
“Yeah. Perhaps not. Perhaps real badly. Put it this way: I wouldn’t want to be in your father’s shoes. Not when a few thousand soldiers find out their leader has been killed on his property.”
“But he didn’t do anything!” Elizabeth says without conviction. “He wouldn’t … he is not …”
“He’s right, sister,” says Daniel. “I fear Father knows not what he has done. Perhaps it would be better if we could find someplace warm to talk.”
Then he starts walking. Elizabeth follows him, and I follow her.
We go along a pathway that connects to a sort of road. It’s a little hard to tell what’s what with all the snow, but Daniel and Elizabeth know the way. Up the road a bit we come to a small stone house, this one right by the road, not set back from it. It’s where they’re staying, Elizabeth tells me. Daniel, Elizabeth, their mother and father, and their six other brothers and sisters. The house belongs to an uncle, who has his own brood of older kids, but no wife. She died the year before. Of exhaustion, Elizabeth tells me. And unhappiness.
“ ’Twas not the cause,” says Daniel. “ ’Twas a disease. Doctor said. I’ve forgotten which one, though.”
“All right,” Elizabeth says. “Have it your way. She was so exhausted and so unhappy she caught herself a disease. The same result in the end, isn’t it?”
“My sister is not pleased,” Daniel tells me, “on account of all of us having to live with … live here.”
“With him,” Elizabeth says. “Our dear uncle James. A loathsome man if ever there was one. He thinks me his maid.” Her eyes flare.
“Did the Hessians force you out?” I ask.
“Oh no,” says Elizabeth. “They paid Father for the privilege. Most handsomely, I might add. Our dear uncle has staked a claim to half, on account of his putting us up for the fortnight.
“And now we know what they were up to. The pretense was that they were farmers, simple folk, German, of course, but simple. Not entwined in the revolution, not soldiers. Father allowed himself to be convinced. Mother was not, nor were we. But Father saw the gold and took it. We heard him tell Mother it was more than he could make in a year and a half.”
We walk past the stone house, come to a barn, set back maybe thirty yards from the road. “Uncle is not a farmer,” Daniel says. “He’s a tradesman.”
“What’s his trade?” I ask.
“Furs,” Daniel says. “Mostly.”
“Whiskey,” Elizabeth says. “And muskets. In return for furs. He takes trips, Uncle James does. To Western country. Once a month. Stays two weeks. Always comes back in a foul mood. And in a foul odor.”
“Elizabeth,” says Daniel.
“ ’Tis true, brother,” she says. “And well you know it.”
Daniel opens the door to the barn, and there before us, as if sitting in a place of honor, is a carriage. Uncle’s carriage, no doubt.
I know nothing about carriages, or buggies, or whatever you call them, but this thing? It’s old, decrepit, beat up, and smelly.
It’s got two wheels, a torn-to-bits black cover made of some kind of fabric, a bench to sit on, and, projecting frontward, two long wooden shafts, which I suppose latch on to a horse somehow. The shafts aren’t hooked up to anything at the moment, though. They’re resting on the ground, so the whole contraption leans forward, like it’s just about ready to fall apart.
“Hey,” I say, and I try to force up some enthusiasm, like it’s a brand-new Ford F-150 pickup. “Maybe we could take this?”
“Uncle’s shay?” Daniel says.
“Shay? Is that what this is called?”
“Yes. But no one else is allowed to use it. Although he won’t need it until next week.”
“Daniel,” says Elizabeth. “Have you thought of Uncle’s reaction?”
“I have, sister. He’ll be quite furious about it, but if we leave first thing in the morning, he won’t be able to catch us.”
NINETEEN
I WIND UP SPENDING THE night in the barn. And we leave pretty much at first light.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Spend the night, then leave.
I’m not mentioning the fact that I had to spend about an hour and a half explaining myself to Daniel and Elizabeth. They wanted to know everything.
I said: You mean, like you want to know the truth?
Of course, they said: What else?
So I told them.
It wasn’t my story that they believed. It was my clothes—I’m still wearing jeans, a jacket, white Nikes—and my iPhone.
I let them hold it. I turned it on for a few seconds so they could tap some icons. Daniel couldn’t get over the calculator, and kept putting in numbers. “If only we could use this at market,” he said. “The buyers always seem to miscalculate in their own favor, and Father never comes home with what he thinks he should have been paid.”
And I won’t mention that later, they came back in with some food—a hunk of ham and a chunk of bread. Or that I had to sleep in a bed of hay and froze my butt off. Or that I couldn’t help asking myself questions.
Terrible questions that had no answers.
Like: how did all this happen, anyway? Why are we here?
Are Bev and Brandon going to be all right?
What about our parents? Brandon’s mom, Bev’s mom, my mom and dad—wouldn’t they be a little bit concerned by now?
Do they even know we aren’t at school?
/> And let’s not forget: What is the deal with General Washington? Is he really, you know, dead dead? And if so, what the heck does it all mean?
Finally, when Daniel and Elizabeth left for the night, I thought they believed me, and I thought I could trust them. That the plan we had come up with—we’d take Uncle James’s one-horse shay all the way to Philadelphia, find Dr. Franklin, somehow get everything fixed—was a good one.
It won’t surprise you that I got, like, no sleep. Even if I’d had nothing on my mind, it still would have been freezing. And what if Daniel and Elizabeth changed sides and decided to tell their father and their uncle there was this super-weird kid who claimed he was from the future sleeping in the barn? What if in the morning they’d find a sheriff or a constable or whatever they called the local law-enforcement dude and turn me in?
Which, even if they did, wouldn’t solve anything. A constable wouldn’t make General Washington undead. Wouldn’t do a thing for Bev or Brandon.
At dawn, Daniel and Elizabeth quietly come into the barn. Elizabeth brings me breakfast—a biscuit, another piece of ham—while Daniel gets their uncle James’s shay prepared. “We’ve told Father and Mother,” Elizabeth says, “that we will be visiting our grandmother. Who lives in Doylestown. And they have prevailed upon Uncle James to lend us his shay. But instead of west to Doylestown, we will go south to Philadelphia.”
“Juniper will take us,” Daniel says. “Juniper knows the way.”
“Juniper?” I ask.
“Juniper,” says Elizabeth. “Uncle James’s favorite mare.”
And then we’re off.
But Juniper is in no hurry. Turns out she came with only two gears—slow and slower. After the first hour, Philadelphia seems far, far away.
TWENTY
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, there are roads.
Sort of.
Nothing like I’m used to. No signs, no traffic lights, no pavement, no lines in the middle, no shoulders, no fast lanes, no rest stops, no eighteen-wheelers, no highway patrol, no talk radio to help while away the time.
But a road nonetheless. With ruts through the snow, made by hearty fellow travelers who’ve gone before us. This is 1776, keep in mind; the folks around these parts know how to deal.