by David Potter
“You ask me?” says Dr. Franklin. “I scarcely believe your tale at all. But now a part of it—the essential part of it—is confirmed. General Washington is dead. But the rest of it? What proof have you?”
“I am the proof. I know things that could not possibly be known. You—all of you—are my history, my past. And I have the device with me. The iPhone. I was holding it in my hand … when … when … something happened.”
“And what, precisely, happened, pray tell?”
I think about it. It’s hard to remember. Foggy, in my mind, in my memory. But: “There were three of us. Me, Bev, and Brandon.”
“We’ve seen them,” said Daniel. “At the farm. They were captured by the Germans.”
“Right,” I say. “But before then … we had come in a minivan to watch the reenactment. Which was kind of pathetic, if you want to know the truth. Because we were left behind—on Christmas Day, no less. Our parents were kind of too busy. So the school was taking care of us.”
“School?” says Sally. “What school?”
“Minivan?” says Mr. Farrington. “What is a minivan?”
“Reenactment?” says Dr. Franklin. “What is this?”
“A minivan is a kind of car,” I say. “It has an engine inside, an internal combustion engine that runs on gasoline and propels the car along. The school is the Fredericksville School, which is where we go. And a reenactment is when a bunch of people get dressed up and pretend they’re people from a different time period. For example, if you got dressed up like Pilgrims, you might reenact the Mayflower landing. So every Christmas, thousands of people gather. To watch a bunch of … reenactors … cross the Delaware. In longboats. Just like Washington did, on Christmas night of this year. Then they marched into Trenton, where they routed the Hessians and changed the course of the war.”
“My Lord,” says Dr. Franklin. He picks up his pen and dips the tip into the inkwell. “An internal combustion engine? How exactly does it work?”
“Father,” says Sally, “let us keep our eyes on the main chance, shall we?”
“We could make ourselves a tidy fortune,” he says to her, “a tidy fortune indeed, if we knew a quarter of what this young man says.”
“Father, Father,” Sally says, shaking her head. “A fortune, tidy or otherwise, is quite beside the point, don’t you think?”
“A fortune is never beside the point, my dear,” Dr. Franklin says. “Ahem: ‘An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.’ Poor Richard’s Almanac, I should guess 1752.” He waves his hand. “But in any case. Carry on, young man. Pay no mind to me.”
“So I’m trying to piece this together.… We’re walking around, watching the reenactors getting ready. It’s a beautiful, sunny day, kind of warm for Christmas, but then it hasn’t snowed on Christmas in years—I don’t suppose anyone’s heard of global warming, but let’s not go there—and then we stop at the general store, where they were serving free apple cider. This general store is a touristy place, they sell books and knickknacks and fake muskets for kids and tricornered hats. And laminated copies of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
“The constitution?” says Dr. Franklin. “Of what?”
“Of these United States,” I say. “It comes later, in 1787. The Constitution is what establishes us as a nation. I had to memorize the preamble to the Constitution when I was in the fifth grade. Want to hear it?”
There being no objection, I begin: “We the people,” I say, “of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.”
“Hear, hear!” Dr. Franklin says, and gives two raps upon the floor with his cane. “Hear, hear. I support those sentiments in their entirety. Well said!”
THIRTY
BUT I HAVE TO finish my story. “Anyway,” I say. “So we’re in this general store. And now I remember something—we were really bored. It was Christmas, remember, and maybe all of us were feeling a little terrible, you know, that we had to spend Christmas, of all days, with each other instead of our families. Anyway, we see this old guy scurrying out from the basement of the general store, and Brandon dares us to find out what the old man is up to.
“We walk down this rickety wooden staircase to the basement, which is, like, two hundred and fifty years old. Cobwebs all over. We’re all getting the creeps, but it’s also kind of fun. So there’s like two rooms. The first room is kind of what we’d expect—dirt floor, old stuff all over, smelly, cobwebs, and dark. We have to use our phones to light the place up. But then Brandon notices another room. Smaller, with a door. And definitely a light on inside. He tries to open the door, but it’s locked. So he grabs the doorknob and basically breaks in. Then he says, ‘Whoops.’
“We go inside. There’s a small table, and a chair. And on the table is a”—I’m about to say a MacBook, but of course no one will know what that is. I think for a moment. “Well, there’s basically a much bigger version of this,” I say, holding up my iPhone. “Much bigger, and much more powerful. So anyway, Brandon starts poking around. Now, we’re all figuring that this is the old guy’s, uh, machine, the old guy Brandon saw, but it’s weird, because what’s up with that? Does the old guy live in the basement of the general store or something? And now I remember what happened next very clearly: Brandon must have hit the wrong button. I don’t know what he did, but I remember what he said. He said: ‘Uh-oh.’ Like he’d just done something wrong.
“All of our iPhones start going haywire. Lighting up, going on and off, and then they start beeping—but not beeps we’ve heard before, because you can select your own beeps, you know?”
They don’t know; I remember that none of them have ever heard, let alone selected, an electronic beep of any kind, so I continue. “All right. Then our phones, like, start talking to each other. Communicate somehow, or send a signal. ’Cause all three phones start doing the haywire thing, but in some sort of sequence, or pattern—like they’re all being programmed or something. And all of this is happening right after Brandon pushed some buttons on the guy’s machine and said uh-oh. Then the room starts twirling around. It’s weird, ’cause I had completely forgotten about this till now. Next thing is, we’re in this stable someplace. And it’s, like, really, really cold, you know? It takes us a couple of minutes to get oriented, then we start poking around, checking out what’s what. That’s when we see him. General Washington. Lying dead, in a horse stall, though it was pretty obvious that whoever had shot him had just done it. The blood was … you know … still fresh.”
Dr. Franklin holds his hand out once more. “Let me examine your device … once again, if I may.”
I turn it on and hand it to him. “There’s more stuff,” I say. “Just swipe it, like this, with your finger.”
He swipes my phone, and sees what I have on page two.
And page three.
And page four.
“What, may I ask,” he says, “are these symbols?”
“Those,” I answer, “are called apps. Short for applications. Programs that make it do stuff.”
“So how does one … cause one of these apps, as you call them … to initiate?”
“Just touch one of them,” I say.
“With what?”
“With your finger. Just tap it once, not too hard, not too soft.”
And so the great Dr. Benjamin Franklin, inventor, signer of the Declaration and the Constitution, taps an app on my iPhone. He taps it once, not too hard, not too soft.
And opens Angry Birds.
“What in heaven’s name,” says Dr. Franklin, “is all this squawking racket?”
THIRTY-ONE
“TAP HERE,” I SAY, pointing to the home button. “It’ll get rid of that. It’s just a game, by the way. To pass the time.”
Dr. Franklin peers at me over his half-rimmed spectacles and frowns. He doesn’t even have to tell me what he’s thinking. I know. I know full well. All this incredible technology … and you waste your time with that silly game? It’s pretty much the exact same thing my dad—and every one of my teachers—says all the time.
“Very well,” he says. “Perhaps you should describe for me … the utility … of these apps of yours. Before I do any further—what do you say?—tapping. What, pray tell, is this one? iTunes?”
“That’s for music,” I say. “To listen to anytime you want.”
“Most ingenious,” Dr. Franklin says, and taps the iTunes icon. Up it pops, and the first song he sees, he doesn’t like. “ ‘American Idiot’? Good Lord, what is that?”
“Just an old song,” I say. “I don’t even listen to it anymore.”
“ ‘American Idiot’? By Green Day? What is Green Day?”
“Just a punk band, sir, but they’re not that cool anymore. I should probably delete that one.”
“And this one? Lady … Lady Gaga?”
“That’s a mistake,” I say quickly. “I don’t even know how that got there.”
He frowns again—and he rolls his eyes. “I shall tap no more,” he says. “This device is most disturbing indeed. But I see there are useful functions: Mail, Notes, Clock, Calendar, and so forth. Pray tell, what is this one? iTime?”
“iTime? I don’t think … I didn’t know … that I have an app called iTime.” I check my phone, and sure enough, there it is. A pale blue background, and a white arrow, pointing in both directions, across the middle. “I never downloaded that,” I say. “I’ve never seen it before, either.”
I notice we’re down to one percent power, the lowest I’ve ever been. “Dr. Franklin,” I say, “we have to turn this off. Once it loses power it will be useless. We have to figure out a way to recharge it. Then we can see what iTime is all about.” I take the phone from his hands, turn it off. Then I show him the battery slot on the bottom of the phone. “See this? That’s where the charger goes. One end fits right in, and the other end basically goes into a wall outlet. And a wall outlet, before you ask, is how every home gets electricity. Every house has four or five wall outlets in every room. You plug your wire into the wall outlet, and voilà—all the electricity you could ever want.”
He wants his paper and pen again. “I must write this all down,” he says. “Fascinating. Tell me: is there a fee, for the use of these wall outlets?”
“Dr. Franklin,” I say, “if you can get my phone fully recharged, I promise to tell you everything I know, and you’re free to do whatever you want with it.”
He closes his eyes, and then the great man nods. “I think,” he says, “it may be possible, but I make no guarantee.”
That’s going to have to be good enough. For now, anyway.
THIRTY-TWO
ONE HOUR LATER, WE’RE in a print shop on Market Street that was once owned by Dr. Franklin but at present is managed by Mr. Farrington. We had to haul Dr. Franklin under a cover in our one-horse shay, which did not seem to please our one horse, good old Juniper. There wasn’t enough room on the bench for either Elizabeth or me, so while Daniel hauled Dr. Franklin down Market Street, we walked through the snow.
We’re all crowded around now in a back room of the print shop—Dr. Franklin, Mr. Farrington, Daniel, Elizabeth, and me. All we have to do is come up with a way to recharge my phone, fiddle around a little, then fix a monumental historical error—and the sooner, the better.
No biggie, right?
My iPhone is on the table, and Dr. Franklin and Mr. Farrington each have a big magnifying glass, and they are peering at things. And asking questions. Questions a reasonable person might reasonably expect the owner of the thing to know a little bit about.
Such as: “What’s it made of? Is the material found in nature, or is it manufactured?”
“If manufactured, how so? In a foundry? Through what process? How is the material shaped?”
“How is it bent?”
“How long does it take to cool off?”
“Would it melt if left out in the sun?”
“Would it freeze if left out in the cold?”
“How long does it take to make one?”
“How many are made at a time?”
“It appears that the face of the device is glass. How is the glass fitted to the other material, which, since you don’t know, is of indeterminate origin?”
“What happens if the glass breaks?”
Elizabeth decides to join in the fun. “On the back of it,” she says, “there is an engraving of an apple, with a bite taken out of its right side. Why so? Did someone eat it? If so, why?”
I give Elizabeth a quick glare, to no effect.
Then Daniel chimes in. “There are holes,” he says, “in the bottom. Why?”
I tell them one is for the earbuds, and the other is for the charger. Don’t worry about the earbud plug, I say. I’ll explain that some other time. It’s the charger slot we have to focus on.
They spend a good deal of time peering at the charger slot. Naturally they have more questions. They want me to describe, in precise detail, each item used in the recharging process, even if I don’t know their official names. I say you put one end of the charger into the end of the phone and the other end you plug into a wall outlet.
What could be simpler?
Finally Dr. Franklin puts down his magnifying glass. “Tell me, lad,” he says. “How does one … open … this device? There does not seem to be any … pathway, as it were … to the interior.”
“I have it,” says Mr. Farrington, peering through his magnifying glass. “On the bottom here. Two tiny screws. Perhaps … if we were … to unscrew them … the back itself could be lifted off? And then gain full access to its innards, perhaps.”
A low murmur, as Dr. Franklin and Mr. Farrington consult. “Capital idea,” Dr. Franklin says. “Capital!”
“The seed, sir, from you. But let me make haste. I shall return most expeditiously.” Then Mr. Farrington puts on his winter cloak, his hat, and a scarf, and is off.
“Where’s he going?” I ask.
“He’s off to get assistance,” Dr. Franklin explains. “From his brother-in-law, a Mr. William Topping. Who, as luck would have it, is a clockmaker. He shall bring his tools, and we shall pry our way into this … this … iPhone. And we shall see what we shall see.”
“Okay,” I say, though I’m pretty sure gaining full access to the innards is going to void my warranty. But then we all have to make sacrifices in times like these, right?
THIRTY-THREE
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER MR. Farrington returns with his brother-in-law, Mr. William Topping, clockmaker. Mr. Topping is nearly as old as Dr. Franklin. His face is red, from coming over in the cold and snow, and he is decidedly cheerful.
“Very delighted to meet you, young man, very delighted indeed! A rare pleasure, a rare pleasure to be sure! And you are from where?”
“New Jersey,” I say, offering my hand, which he gives a hearty pump. “Basically.”
“Basically from New Jersey? My word! Did you hear that, Franklin? The young man is basically from New Jersey! Har-har-har!”
Dr. Franklin forces a tepid quarter smile. “Topping,” he says, “we have before us a device whose exact provenance is unknown, and at this moment unimportant. What must be done to open it, Topping? That is our only relevant concern.”
“Opening it,” Mr. Topping says, “is but half the problem, Franklin. Do you seek to have it closed as well?”
“Closed?”
“Closed. After you’ve opened it, you do want it closed back up, yes?”
“Naturally,” Dr. Franklin says. “This is why we brought you, Topping. With the hope that you would not simply lop the thing in two with a meat cleaver. A delicate hand, Mr. Topping. Nothing is to be altered or tampered with. And yes, of course: what you undo must be made whole again, in as perfect a form as you see
before you.”
“Very well,” Mr. Topping says. “Then I shall need, firstly, a high chair to sit upon, and a small glass of rum, if you please, to steady my fingers. Secondly, we shall need to discuss my fee. Upon successful completion of the task you’ve given me, Franklin, I shall expect no less than two guineas.”
“I shall give you one, Topping,” Dr. Franklin says. “And you shall be happy with it. If not, away with you, and I will find someone else to do it for half the price.”
Mr. Topping shrugs. A high chair is brought to him, and so is a small glass of rum. He takes some tools out of his leather bag, and thirty seconds later the front cover is off and the iPhone lays exposed.
“Ah,” says Dr. Franklin. “The thing’s entrails. Most interesting.” He picks up his magnifying glass, and the next thing I know Mr. Farrington is taking wires out of a box. And I didn’t even know they had wires in 1776.
“Tell me,” Dr. Franklin says, “what call you the differences? Between charges, that is. When I began my investigations into the nature of electricity, I had the most vexing time referring to things, or indeed discussing my findings with anyone else. Nothing was named, you see. No common terms. Of course I did what I could—I called the one end the positive charge, the other end the negative—poor terms, perhaps, but they were the best I could devise. What call you these things? In … your day?”
“We call them the same,” I say. “Positive and negative.”
“Well,” Dr. Franklin says, and smiles. “I can’t say I am displeased, though I should have thought to patent the terms.” So then he asks: “How is the current from the wall outlet regulated?
“Are the positive and negative charges channeled to corresponding poles in the device that plugs into the bottom of the iPhone?
“Are there positive and negative receptors inside the iPhone which accept the corresponding positive and negative charges from the charging device?”
I’ve never thought about any of these questions—I just plug the thing in—but I try to answer as best I can. Then Dr. Franklin says, under his breath, “This wire here, Topping, will be the negative conductor. I ask you not to question my judgment, but merely to affix the end of the wire to that … to that … curved portion … there. Can you do it, Topping? Without argument? And when you are quite done, repeat the process, with the other wire, to the similar curved portion on the other side. When you are finished, we shall be able to convey electricity into the device.”