by David Potter
We stare at him and say not a word.
“Ah,” he says. “I see why you look at me so questioningly. Have I missed the essential point? It would not be for the first time, my dears. Because you, young man, are asking me for something. You are asking me to provide you electricity, not explain its properties. Forgive my digression. But what does this … this thing … have to do with the … killing of General Washington? I am having trouble indeed with this news you bring me. Firstly, I barely believe it, and require confirmation before I allow myself to plunge into the pits of despair. Secondly, you ask me to provide you electricity? At a time such as this? Whatever for?”
I can only think of one way to answer him. I turn on my phone and take a picture. Of Dr. Ben. Because, if you think about it, no one has ever taken this man’s picture … ever.
Then I show him.
“By Jupiter,” he says. “That is most amazing, young man. An astonishing trick. Tell me, how is it done? Is it a painting? An etching, perhaps? Have you had it prepared prior to your coming to see me?”
“It’s not an etching or a painting, Dr. Franklin. It’s what we call a photograph. Which is sort of … well, I guess you can call it an instant reproduction of something. And, among other things, this”—I hold up the iPhone—“can take thousands of them. Also, video, which is like a photograph, only moving.” Then I point it at Dr. Franklin, at Elizabeth, and at Daniel, and shoot a little scene. Ten seconds.
Then I show them.
I’m down to four percent power, but it’s now or never, I figure.
Daniel and Elizabeth are properly astonished at the video clip. Dr. Franklin, alas, is not. Perhaps he doesn’t like what he saw, or doesn’t realize just how … old … and stout he really is.
“Young man,” he says. “I demand that you give me that … that … whatever it is … this … object … immediately.”
“I cannot, sir. Not until you agree to help us.”
“Help you? I should say not. First you tell me General Washington is dead, then you ask me for electricity?”
“I haven’t explained everything to you yet. You don’t understand.”
“Understand what? That you have some kind of clever … device … that you use in a wholly unjustified manner with no other purpose in mind than to horrify an old man?”
“I’m not trying to horrify you, Dr. Franklin. Like I said, we’ve come to you for help. Because something has gone terribly wrong.”
“Yes, you told me. About General Washington. And that you yourself are from—from where did you say? The twenty-first century? How have I allowed myself to listen to such rank nonsense—and from children! I don’t believe a word of it. Not a single word. I now must ask you to leave my premises. Immediately! And take that infernal device of yours with you! I wish to never see it for the rest of my days!”
TWENTY-SEVEN
A PICTURE, SO THEY SAY, is worth a thousand words. There’s really nothing else for me to do, then, except turn the phone around, and show Dr. Franklin my Camera Roll.
I show him the pictures I took of Daniel and Elizabeth.
Then my other shots. From yesterday morning, in the van on the way over. A shot of Brandon with an inadvertent piece of cream cheese on his nose, from a bagel he had just wolfed down.
A shot of the crowd gathered at Washington Crossing State Park to watch the festivities. There’s usually a fife and drum band, a speech by a politician or two, and then the ritual reenactment of Washington and his army crossing the Delaware in longboats.
Then I scroll around. I have a picture of my dad, and one of my mom. Not together, of course. They haven’t been together since the divorce, and for quite some time before that as well.
Dr. Franklin coughs. A polite cough. To let me know something.
Which is, I’ve been staring at the picture of my mom.
And the whole point of this was to share, wasn’t it?
“May I see?” Dr. Franklin asks, not unkindly. He holds his hand out.
I place the iPhone in his palm. He can see for himself how my mom is dressed. He begins to nod, as if something is starting to make sense. Daniel and Elizabeth gather behind Dr. Franklin, and, since I’ve showed them how my iPhone works, they take on the instructor’s job.
“Press that,” Daniel says. “It’s called the home button.” Dr. Franklin presses it with a very stubby forefinger.
My home screen. Messages, Calendar, App Store, Clock.
“Quite ingenious,” says Dr. Franklin. “What is this device called again?”
“An iPhone,” Elizabeth says quite proudly. It’s almost as if she owns it herself.
“And its primary purpose?”
“It’s a combination of things,” I say, “but first and foremost, I guess, is that it’s a phone.”
“A phone?”
“A telephone. You can talk to someone else who has one. Anywhere in the world.”
“Do you mean to say that I could … converse with someone … who is not in the same room as I?”
“Sure. You could have a live conversation with someone in a different city if you wanted, or even a different country.”
“Hmmm. I am not so certain that is a good thing. You say ‘live conversation,’ which implies there is an opposite, namely, ‘dead’ conversation. Is your device capable of communicating with those no longer among us? I have heard of such things from those with a more mystical mind than mine.”
“No. You can’t talk to dead people with an iPhone. That would be crazy.”
“I see,” he says. “What provides its … its … energy?”
“A battery.”
“A battery?”
“Yes. Built in.”
“Remarkable. I daresay I did invent the battery, if not electricity. Most remarkable, young man. And how is it that … one can talk to another? Through what mechanism?”
“Um. I’m not quite sure of that. Sound waves? Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, but to tell you the truth I’m not sure how they work. This is wireless, though. Back in the old days, there was no such thing as wireless. Every phone had to have a cord to it. Which attached to the whole network, I guess.”
“Network? What kind of network?”
“Well, again, I don’t really know, exactly. I think a network is where they keep all the cords and wires and stuff. And the routers, I think that has something to do with it. My dad put a router in at our house, but it never works right.”
“A router? What is its purpose?” Then Dr. Franklin nods at Elizabeth, and points to a piece of paper and a pen he has nearby. Elizabeth brings him not only the pen, but an inkwell. As soon as the paper is in his hands he places a book in his lap and the paper upon it, and starts taking notes.
“Um … well, that’s a good question.”
“But you don’t really know,” he says, peering at me over his half-spectacles. I’m glad that he isn’t my teacher, because if he were I’d be heading for an F.
“No. Not really. I just use it.”
“Fair enough, young man. Let’s return to these ‘sound waves’ you spoke of. What are they? Or do you not know?”
“Well, I do know something about that. Sounds are carried along, you see. On waves.” I use my hand to show just how a wave goes. He follows my hand for a second before glancing at Daniel and Elizabeth and rolling his eyes.
“They are?”
“Yes.”
“What sort of waves? Like in the ocean?”
“No. Invisible ones.”
“Invisible waves?” says Elizabeth. “That surely must be quite impossible!”
“Well, it isn’t. I learned about it in science class.”
“Hmmm. A most interesting theory. Waves, you say? As in, the sound itself—say a clap of my hands—travels via an ‘invisible wave’ from source to ear?”
“Yes. Something like that.”
“And this battery—you say it’s ‘built in’? Built into what—this device itself?”
“Yep.”
“How could that be? It would have to be incredibly small.”
“It is incredibly small. They figure out ways to make ’em that way. Miniaturization is what they call it.”
“Miniaturization?”
“Yes.”
“May I see it? This battery?”
“Well, no, you can’t. Not with iPhones. Unless you unscrew it and mess things up.”
“So what happens when the battery is drained of its charge? Is the device then useless?”
“No, because you can recharge the battery. I recharge mine every night, but if you use it a lot, you might lose power, which kind of stinks. As a matter of fact, I’m down to about three percent power right now. And I know we’re going to need this phone. So problem number one is, do you think you could figure out a way to get some juice into this thing?”
He peers at me again, over the rim of his half-spectacles. “Juice,” he says, frowning. “I shall take an intuitive leap, young man. You are not talking about the liquid that one can extract from a lemon, or a lime, or an apple. You are using this word ‘juice’ as a synonym, are you not? For electricity, yes?”
“Exactly,” I say. He’s an old dude, but he’s one fast learner.
I’m not surprised. It’s why we came to Philadelphia. He may not know it yet, but I am one hundred percent positive he’s going to be able to help us. He’s only Benjamin Franklin, after all, who happens to be the smartest guy in the world. He’ll figure something out.
Won’t he?
TWENTY-EIGHT
HE HANDS THE PHONE back. “Young man,” he says. “I can’t tell you how intrigued I am. I have a thousand questions more—two thousand. The most important of which is, of course, whatever has this … device … to do with General Washington? I am glad I have chosen not to believe what you have told me about his demise, for if I did—if it were true—I would be quite unable … quite unable to function, I fear. Do you know how we came to select Washington to lead us? It was mere months ago … perhaps a year … at the Second Continental Congress. A most deliberative body. Which is to say, there was very little all could agree on most of the time. But we had finally come to a decision: we should have ourselves an army. We cast our eyes about for someone to lead it, and who should walk into our ken but none other than the tallest man in the room, a man dressed—almost as if he were auditioning for the part—in full military regalia. A bit tight, to be sure, about the stomach and shoulders, but then I found out later the uniform was a relic from our good Virginian’s youth. I turned at once to John Adams and said, ‘There, sir, is our man.’ And thus George Washington became General Washington.”
Elizabeth gives me a nudge. “Get on with it,” she says. “I suspect we haven’t much time.”
“Dr. Franklin,” I say. “We really need your help. I mean, like right now, we do. The problem is, this device? If we don’t do something soon, it will be totally useless.”
“If you have come to me … with any expectation,” Dr. Franklin says in a grave voice, “that I would be able to provide you some sort of practical assistance … such as regenerating this battery you speak of … then I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I can provide you no help. To do what you ask, we would need to repair to my proper living quarters, or to one of my former businesses, where I at least have the necessary means and tools to examine the situation in a more efficacious manner. Here”—he gestures to the sitting room, the entire house we’re in—“I am, quite unfortunately, utterly helpless. And here, also quite unfortunately, I must remain. I am in hiding, if you must know. I am officially incognito. Unofficially, I believe all of Philadelphia to know where I am and why I have delayed, but all of us must, for appearance’s sake, play the game.”
“You’re in hiding from the British?”
“Oh good Lord, no. I am in hiding from my fellow countrymen, and, most particularly, my fellow revolutionaries. I have agreed, you see, to be our congress’s representative to the king of France. And there I should be now, in the court of Louis the Sixteenth himself, had I sailed on the ship that was to bring me. It—the ship—sadly left without me, nearly a month ago now. I was detained at the time of the sailing. Unavoidably detained. I shall sail as soon as I am able and as soon as there is passage on an outbound ship, which I expect to occur within days. So here I am. And here shall I stay. And no help may I give you of a practical nature.”
There’s a silence as we all process what has just been said, and then a voice, from another room.
“Father,” we hear. “Who are these children? And why …” She nods at us, sees that something about me isn’t right. “And why are they here?”
A woman—thirty, maybe forty—enters our room via a doorway in the back. She is wearing a long dress. An apron. She has a bonnet, of sorts, a white frilly bonnet, on her head.
“We have come to save the revolution,” Elizabeth says. “And only Dr. Franklin can help.”
“My dear,” the woman says. “I have heard those very words a dozen times, at the least. Why can only Dr. Franklin help this time?”
“Because,” Elizabeth says, “General Washington is gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“To his grave,” says Elizabeth. “He was white as a ghost. And quite dead. It was a blow to our hearts, to be sure. But he—Mel—has spun a tale so fantastical, he has given us hope.”
“I see no hope,” Dr. Franklin says, “if General Washington has perished. I will refuse to believe it until I must.”
“The hope,” I say, “is that in some way this death may be reversed.”
“Reversed?” says Dr. Franklin. “How so? How may any death be ‘reversed’? What alchemy is this?”
All eyes are upon me. So I say what’s on my mind, and why not? It seems simple enough. “All we need to do,” I say, “is figure out how I—and my friends—got to this century in the first place. Then we can reprogram things. So we arrive one hour earlier. When we can make sure nothing happens to General Washington.”
“You see, Sally,” says Dr. Franklin, “these children do not ask much. Only that I undo what has been done. If only I had that power—I could reorder all history!”
TWENTY-NINE
BEFORE ANYONE CAN REACT, there comes a knocking on the door.
“Dr. Franklin!” we hear someone shout. A man, who is trying to keep his voice down without much success.
“Dr. Franklin, I beseech you! I have urgent news! Of the utmost importance!”
Sally goes to the door, peers through the curtain. “It is Mr. Farrington,” she says, “from the print shop. He seems agitated.”
“Let him in, Sally,” Dr. Franklin says. “By all means, let him in. Shall we not have a dinner dance, and let the whole of Philadelphia visit?”
“Now, Father,” Sally says, and unlatches the door. Mr. Farrington enters. He is round, short, young, covered in snow, and red-faced.
“May I speak frankly, sir?” he says. “I have news of the utmost urgency.”
“You may, Farrington, you may. We’re all friends here. Tell me—by chance, does your news have to do with the revolution?”
“It does, sir.”
“With a certain general who happens to command our army?”
“It does indeed, sir. A great, great tragedy—General Washington has been killed!”
“I did not want to believe it,” Dr. Franklin says. “I prayed it was untrue. I still can scarce bring myself to accept it.”
“But how could you know this, sir?” says Mr. Farrington. “This news was delivered to me not five minutes ago. I have been told to inform no one other than yourself. How could you possibly know already?”
Dr. Franklin nods at us. “These children,” he says simply, “already knew. And told me.”
“But the revolution, sir, the revolution! The soldiers are deserting by the score! They have raided the stores and are alighting upon the countryside! They are in a mad hunger, and they claim they have not been paid by Congress what t
hey are owed and say that they intend to take whatever they can get in recompense!”
“So they likely shall,” Dr. Franklin says, “for, sad to say, their lament is true. General Washington has warned us plain enough: the men must be paid. But the Continental Congress has dithered, as usual. Dithered and discussed and dithered some more, as all assemblies of men are wont to do, and in the end decided nothing, did nothing. Of course, the Continental Congress has no money, no scrip, no tax-collecting authority, and therefore no means of generating revenue, save what our customs agents are able to procure. But trade has withered, hasn’t it, since we proclaimed our independence? By day’s end I fear we shall have no army, not without its general. Soon enough the British will put an end to it. And to us. Without an army of our own, we may as well be prostrate before them. The lion will show no mercy, of that I am quite certain.” Then Dr. Franklin puts a finger under his collar, as if he can already feel the noose tightening.
It is Elizabeth who breaks the impasse. “It is his device, sir—his contrivance—that has brought him here. And that, with your help, can be made to undo what has been done.”
“Can it?” Dr. Franklin asks me. “Can it do as she claims?”
“It can do something,” I say. “Otherwise, how could I be here in the first place?”
Mr. Farrington is puzzled and begs for answers, but no one takes the time to bring him up to speed, as we are certain that he can be of no help whatsoever.