Running Out of Time (7 page)

Some of the children mumbled yeses. Any adult in Clifton would have reprimanded the children and ordered them to say, “Yes, ma'am,” promptly and crisply. But this Mrs. Spurning only smiled.

“Well, we have quite a treat for you today. This will be like going back in a time machine. When you left for school this morning, it was 1996. Here, it's 1840. The people here live without TVs, VCRs, stereos, refrigerators, freezers, or even running water—”

“How do they survive?” one boy with spiky yellow hair asked. Several around him laughed.

Mrs. Spurning ignored his smart-alecky tone.

“They survive just like many of your ancestors did. Some would say they live better than you, because they aren't weighed down with your possessions.”

“I doubt it,” the boy said. The others laughed again.

Mrs. Spurning forced a smile. “Why don't you wait and see?”

She continued, speaking dully, as though she'd said the same words many times before. She sounded like Mr. Smythe when he repeated poetry at school. But Mrs. Spurning was describing the history of Clifton as Ma had the night before. Mrs. Spurning kept calling it “Clifton Village.”

“Do the people here really think it's 1840?” a Negro girl with spectacles asked. She looked really smart. So Mr. Wittingham was wrong when he said Negroes couldn't think like white people.

Jessie listened carefully to Mrs. Spurning's answer.

“Oh, these people aren't crazy,” Mrs. Spurning said with a laugh. “Only the youngest children think it's 1840. All the others are let in on Clifton Village's little secret as soon as they are old enough to understand. No one speaks of it, though, because they are happy here. And they do get some benefits of the twentieth century—medical care, for example. It would be inhumane to let anyone die of the diseases that many died of back then, when antibiotics are available now.”

“But that's not—” Jessie started to protest. Everyone turned to look at her, and Jessie realized she couldn't call this woman a liar. Not now. No one would believe her.

“That's not, uh, authentic,” Jessie finished lamely. She cleared her throat. “I'm not saying I want anyone to die, but how do we know this is really what 1840 was like?”

“Now, that's a good question, isn't it, children?” Mrs. Spurning said in a sticky-sweet tone. She seemed to be making fun of Jessie. “We could never be 100 percent sure, and
things like twentieth-century medical care will always make Clifton Village a little different from any real village of 1840. But we've researched everything about this period, and Clifton Village is as authentic as possible. Now, do we want to talk about it or see it?”

She turned, obviously meaning for the children to follow her the rest of the way down the hall. As they trooped behind her, the girl with the spectacles came toward Jessie.

“She was sure mean to you,” the girl said. “And it was a good question. I've been reading a lot about this period—people lived in really filthy conditions then, but I doubt if we see filth today.”

“Oh,” Jessie said. She would have liked to tell the girl everything, and ask her all about 1996. And ask her if slavery really had been abolished. But after almost giving herself away, she knew she had to be careful. The guards weren't chasing her anymore, but there was still danger. She wasn't allowed to relax until she told Mr. Neeley about the diphtheria and got medicine for Katie and the others.

“My name's Nicole,” the girl was saying. “Nicole Stevens.

My parents didn't have any imagination—there are two other Nicoles in my class.”

“Oh,” Jessie said again. She had never met anyone named Nicole. It was pretty. “I'm Jessie.”

Mrs. Spurning saved Jessie from having to say anything else. She stopped the group and began explaining the system of mirrors and cameras that allowed them to see everything happening above ground. They were under the village square right now—she pointed to an image on a wide stretch of glass, and Jessie saw Mr. Harlow pull up his wagon to the
store. It was like the pictures back on the walls of the corridor, only Mr. Harlow was moving like in real life. One of his horses was missing a shoe, and Jessie had to stop herself from yelling out to him to get it fixed. He walked into the store, seeming unaware that thirty children were watching him.

“Off to the side, through each of these doors, you can see what's happening in the various shops and in each of the houses. Our monitors tell us”—Mrs. Spurning glanced at a box above the group's heads—“there's bread being baked at Dr. Fister's house, the potter is making bowls, and the blacksmith—oh, you should see this. Come along.”

She led the children to a door marked
JOSEPH KEYSER, ESQ., BLACKSMITH.

Inside was a room with about fifty chairs, more than could fit in Pa's shop. But against one wall, full-length, was a clear image of Pa bent over a horseshoe glowing red. Jessie could hear the crackle of the fire behind him and see the sweat flowing down his face. For a minute, Jessie forgot she wasn't standing in the shop herself, perhaps having stopped in after school to see Pa. But she couldn't feel the heat of the fire, and all these strangely dressed future children surrounded her.

Some were snickering.

“Couldn't he find an easier way to do that?” one boy asked.

“Shut up!” Jessie said. “He's the best!”

W
ell,” Mrs. Spurning said as everyone stared at Jessie. “I see the blacksmith has a fan.”

Jessie bent her head, afraid she would say more and betray who she was. She wondered what the wood-vented fan in the corner of Pa's blacksmith shop had to do with what she had said. She concentrated on listening to Mrs. Spurning. And don't say
anything!
she warned herself.

“It's true,” Mrs. Spurning continued, “that by 1840 standards, our blacksmith here is quite talented. It's just that you're used to seeing the products of much more advanced techniques.”

Jessie heard mumblings around the boy who'd made fun of Pa, something like, “touchy, touchy.” But she didn't look at him. The vision of Pa, now staring at another horseshoe, swam in front of Jessie's eyes.

“Don't mind them,” Nicole leaned over to say. “They're stupid. If it's not on MTV, they don't know what it is.”

Jessie nodded without understanding. She wished everyone would leave so she could step into Pa's shop and have everything be normal again. She wouldn't even mind being scolded for skipping school. But she had to think about Katie….

“Hey, why are you with our group? I've never seen you at Oakdale,” Nicole said.

“Oh, I don't go there. I, uh, got separated from my classmates,” Jessie said, not really lying.

“Hope you don't get in trouble when you get back.”

“Me too.” Absolutely, Jessie thought.

Nicole was still looking at Jessie a little strangely, and Jessie was afraid she might guess Jessie really didn't belong. She crowded forward, pretending to be very intent on Mrs. Spurning's explanation of how vital a blacksmith was to an 1840s community. Mrs. Spurning couldn't say enough about how important Pa was, Jessie thought. She clenched her teeth to keep from adding things.

But in a few minutes, Mrs. Spurning had finished with Pa, and she led the group to the next room. There, the image was of Mr. Wittingham making barrels. He got a couple minutes of explanation, the children stared, and then it was on to the next room.

To Jessie, everything they saw looked achingly familiar. Many of the women were standing outside in their yards boiling their laundry, while others tended cooking pots over their fireplaces. The maid at Dr. Fister's polished his silver tea service. Mr. Seward measured out flour, sugar, and salt for Mrs. Green on his dented scales.

But the children around Jessie poked fun at almost everything.

“Hasn't she ever heard of a washing machine?” the girl called Heather said as they watched Mrs. Morrow expertly wring out a pair of long underwear.

“Look at that hat! Ug-ly!” another girl said about Mrs. Green's stylish bonnet. “She looks like a duck.”

Jessie and her friends had made fun of Mrs. Green themselves—and she did look like a duck. But Jessie gritted her teeth to keep from saying something mean back. Didn't these girls know how silly they looked, wearing pants like boys?

Mrs. Spurning told Heather, no, in 1840 there was no such thing as a washing machine, and she should be glad they existed now. Jessie wondered what a washing machine was. Was it easier? She hated laundry.

When they had seen most of the rooms for the houses and shops, Mrs. Spurning brought the group back to the open area in the middle. Jessie saw several other groups behind them, working their way through the rooms Jessie's group had seen. All of them had guides like Mrs. Spurning, wearing what Jessie thought of as the right clothes. How many people watched Clifton every day?

“All right, kids, we're almost done,” Mrs. Spurning said. “Before we see our last place, I want to remind you Clifton Village is open on weekends, so you can bring your parents back with you sometime when you want to stay longer. We also have special events, like the Fourth of July celebration and Christmas at Clifton. The next event is the revival on May 25, 26, and 27. I'm sure you'd enjoy that.”

Jessie stared. Even the annual revivals—when Reverend Holloway rode in and preached for three hours a night, so vividly that Jessie always dreamed afterward of hellfire and brimstone—even those had an audience. Was there anything the tourists weren't allowed to see?

“You can pick up a schedule of special events at the ticket window,” Mrs. Spurning continued. “And if you want to spend a day just watching Clifton, you can rent out spots on the town square.” She pointed to a covered opening in the ceiling. “We put stairs there.”

“Don't the Clifton people see you?” a boy asked.

“No. You're inside one of the three hollow trees we have up there. It's quite an experience.”

Mrs. Spurning went on, but Jessie's mind blanked. Hollow trees … She meant the haunted trees! So they were haunted, in a way. Jessie shivered. She would have preferred ghosts.

“… You have to reserve the lookouts way in advance, because anthropologists are beginning to flock to Clifton for those spots. It's a wonderful perspective on a primitive culture,” Mrs. Spurning said.

Jessie glowered. Primitive culture! She'd like to see Mrs. Spurning work like Ma or any other woman in Clifton. As far as she could see, all Mrs. Spurning could do was talk. Jessie wanted to yell at Mrs. Spurning, as she had at the boy in the blacksmith shop. Think of Katie, she told herself. You can't because you have to get help for Katie. And Betsy. And Abby. And Jefferson. And …

Repeating the names calmed her, but she almost missed hearing a voice from behind her.

“Isn't this whole concept a little, well, a little voyeuristic?” Nicole asked.

Jessie didn't know what voyeuristic meant, and, from their puzzled expressions, it seemed a lot of the other children didn't either.

“Aren't we invading these people's privacy?” Nicole continued. “I mean, if they want to live like it's 1840, that's fine, but why should they let us watch them?”

Mrs. Spurning gave Nicole the same “Oh, aren't you precious” look she'd given Jessie when Jessie said the village wasn't authentic.

“When they moved here,” Mrs. Spurning said slowly, “they agreed that they would be watched. In exchange, they are not bothered in their lifestyle. They have total privacy except in the common areas we've seen, and they know that. And, of course, they're free to leave whenever they want.”

Nicole shrugged, giving up. But Jessie bit her tongue so hard she could taste blood, holding back from telling Nicole and Mrs. Spurning and everybody else the truth.

“Any more questions? No? Good. Because now we're going to see the school,” Mrs. Spurning said.

Jessie hung back as the others surged through the door Mrs. Spurning held open. She didn't want to see these children make fun of her friends. But finally she had to step through because the other woman was staring at her again. The woman had told Mrs. Spurning she was a chaperon, not the teacher. Did she have a bigger name because she was meaner?

The chaperon glared as Jessie looked around. Jessie turned her gaze to Mrs. Spurning.

“This school focuses entirely on memorization and rote recitation,” Mrs. Spurning said. “Pupils study and then repeat back what they have learned. That was considered the best way to educate a child in the early 1800s.”

Jessie wondered how else someone could learn something, besides memorizing it.

“Listen now,” Mrs. Spurning said. “I believe it's time for the first graders to recite.”

The little children at the front stood. “Cat,” they said, “c-a-t. Dog, d-o-g.”

“Ant, a-n-t,” Jessie muttered, so softly she was sure no one would hear. Katie had recited those words for Jessie just a few days ago, while Ma was busy listening to Bartholomew's geography recitation. Katie stood by the fire, because she was always cold, and the light glowed around her blond pigtails. Her little voice was clear and sure.

Now tears threatened in Jessie's eyes, and she forced herself to stop thinking about Katie. She scanned the seats for new absences. They might be important to remember, she told herself sternly.

Sadly, there were plenty to notice. Miranda Simpson was gone now, too, and Harlan Brill, Letitia Wittingham, James Benton, and Malcolm Steele. There were almost as many children missing as present.

Jessie wondered what excuse tourists got if they noticed all the absent pupils. Wait—she didn't have to wonder. Everyone thought she was a tourist. She might as well play along.

“Why are there so many empty seats?” she asked when Mrs. Spurning paused and seemed ready for questions. Jessie
kept her voice innocent, the way she did when she teased Hannah.