Tesla's Time Travelers (18 page)

“Well now, young man. From his point of view the girls did aid two prisoners in an escape.”

“I think those punishments would be difficult for Mr. Greene to explain to their parents,” Victor said. “What would Mr. Greene say to the parents? Sorry about the lash marks on your daughters, but we were visiting the 18
th
century and things went a bit whacky. Gee, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, sorry about your sons. We’ll plant two trees on campus in their memory.” He thought that would be typical at Cassadaga Area High School: the school administration would plant two more trees with those little cheesy fake marble markers to note a deceased student’s passing. They would plant the trees in an area known to the students as The Grove of the Ghosts, the eternal Phantom mascots. Some students believed the ghosts of dead students haunted the hallways of the high school as surely as the ghosts of dead soldiers haunted the Gettysburg Battlefield as Victor had learned from the History Channel
.
Victor would have to remember to ask the Beards if they knew Bobby Freimuth, a friend of Victor’s who had died the year before of brain cancer. He hoped Bobby wasn’t spending eternity as a ghost on campus. Breakfast Club Hell, he mused.

“I think we’d better get back to Mr. Greene and tell him what is going on, Mrs. Beard.”

“Good idea,” Mrs. Beard agreed, “but when we get there I’m going to find Charles. I expect he’s at Carpenter’s Hall in the library again.”

Victor, looking around to make sure no one was watching him, took a peek at the time on his iPod. 3:57 P.M. They had little more than an hour before the portable classroom reappeared, then only a five-minute window for escape, and a teacher who couldn’t walk.

Before they were back at the Ross house, Mary Beard floated away in the general direction of Carpenter’s Hall. Victor figured she was going to rekindle the argument with Charles. Inside the Ross house, Betsy was with a customer in the front room and Victor found his colleagues. Mr. Greene was missing, but Bette told Victor the Anderson twins had carried Mr. Greene to an outhouse in the back and were waiting for his call of nature to be relieved.

“What gives?” Bette asked.

Victor spoke softly. “You have a dozen soldiers looking for you,” he said.

“See twins,” Bette scolded her classmates. “You’re in big trouble.”

“So are you,” Victor said.

“Me?” Bette replied, shocked. “Why me?”

“Both of you—Minerva too,” Victor said.

“Why, Victor?” Minerva asked, anxiety in her voice.

“For aiding the escape. They plan to whip you and Bette and hang the twins,” Victor added.

“Hang us!” Justin whined.

“Keep your voice down, Justin,” Victor cautioned.

“Boys! I need your help,” Mr. Greene’s echo reverberated in the room. The Andersons went out back to carry their teacher back into the house.

“Where are the soldiers, Victor?” Minerva asked in a nervous voice.

“I sent them off in the other direction. That should keep them busy for a bit, until they figure out I lied to them.”

“Then they’ll be after you too,” Minerva said.

Victor looked at her and felt his heart race slightly. She was pretty, he thought.

You don’t have time for that now, Victor, he reminded himself. Don’t even think about kissing her. But the more he told himself not to think of kissing her the more he thought about kissing her. Only the reappearance of Mr. Greene broke the enchantment of Minerva Messinger.

“Victor, fill me in on what is going on,” Mr. Greene said.

“There’s a militia patrol looking for the twins and the girls, and now me I guess.”

Mr. Greene looked concerned. Victor noticed worry lines in his forehead, something old people sometimes had. Mr. Greene
was
forty, he reminded himself.

“I sent them off in another direction, Mr. Greene,” Victor said. “They said they were going to whip the girls and hang the twins.”

Mr. Greene looked at the twins and shook his head. “You boys and I are going to have a little chat when we get back to school,” he said. “Look, kids, we have an hour before the classroom reappears and we’ve got to be there. Remember, it will only stay here for five minutes, maximum. If we don’t catch the classroom, we will be stuck here in 1776.”

“We’ll miss the Homecoming Dance,” Minerva said.

Victor looked at Minerva as if she were daft. The other students looked at her as if she had said the stupidest thing in the world. Her face flushed.

“That was a stupid thing to say,” she admitted.

“It certainly was, Minerva,” Bette said. “After what we’ve been through today? Gee whiz, girl.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Minerva said.

Mary and Charles floated through the walls of the house and reappeared in the back room with the students and Mr. Greene. Victor was surprised to see them so congenial, transparent arm in transparent arm, smiling at one another like the happy dead couple in the movie
Beetlejuice.

“Mr. and Mrs. Beard, could you float over Philadelphia and see where the militia soldiers are at present?” Mr. Greene said.

“We can do that for you, Mr. Greene,” Mary Beard replied. “Come, Charlie,” she cooed. “Let’s fly away together.”

“Yes, my little turtle dove,” Charles replied.

Victor felt like gagging. He liked the Beards better when they were fighting.

Chapter 14

Ten minutes later the Beards returned to the back room of the Ross house with a reconnaissance report. The soldiers had broken into six groups of two militiamen each and were going house to house, south to north, on the numbered streets from 2
nd
Street to 7
th
Street, knocking on doors and asking questions of the inhabitants. It would only be a matter of time before they made it up to Arch Street, as most of the militia was either already at Locust Street or Walnut Street, and Walnut Street was only three blocks from Arch Street.

“Those bayonets look rather sharp,” Mrs. Beard offered, and suddenly Minerva felt fear run through her veins; ever since she was a little girl, when she was frightened she would have to pee. Fear seemed to have a hold on her bladder, and the more she thought about it, the more she had to really go—and she wasn’t sure she could hold it all the way back to the 21
st
century. She examined her choices: either she used a chamber pot and everyone could hear her tinkle or she could face up to the outhouse and do her business there. She tried in vain not to remember the privy experience at summer camp, but as she walked out to the 18
th
century outhouse behind the building she could see the flies circling outside the wooden door with the carved crescent moon on its entrance. As she opened the door, the stench made Minerva throw her head back and flap a hand as if to move the smell elsewhere. It was a vain gesture. She had nothing with which to wipe the seat either. An inadvertent glance brought the image of the putrid sump beneath her and she felt as if she were going to regurgitate. She ripped another bit of petticoat and wiped the rim of the wooden seat, then dropped her petticoat and her drawers to do her business. When she was finished, she looked around for toilet paper and saw only a few corncobs. Again, she used a patch of petticoat in lieu of toilet paper. She could never make it in the 18
th
century, she realized. No way, no how. How did these poor women ever put up with all of this?

When she returned to her friends, Bette Kromer said, “Minerva, are you alright? You’re as white as a ghost…oh, excuse me, Mrs. Beard.”

“That’s perfectly fine, dearie,” Mrs. Beard chirped.

“I don’t think I could live here, Bette. We’ve got to get home. Mr. Greene, what are the corncobs for in the outhouse?” Minerva asked her teacher.

“18
th
century toilet paper,” Greene replied.

“Gross,” Minerva said. She was able to stop herself from visualizing the business usage of the corncobs and said nothing more about her experience. Why was Victor Bridges staring at her like a moonstruck calf? Minerva wondered. Was something showing? Oh, please, not that, she told herself.

“Victor?” she asked.

“Yes, Minerva?” Victor replied.

“Why were you staring at me?”

“Hold still,” Bette Kromer said, and smacked a bug from Minerva’s bonnet.

A cockroach scurried across the wooden floor until Justin’s foot came crunching down on him.

Cockroaches didn’t bother Minerva; only spiders and mice.

“Just like home,” Minerva said to her Florida classmates.

“May I have your attention?” Mr. Greene asked. “I’m going to need a little help with walking. Do you kids think you can appropriate a sedan chair for me?”

“Sure, Mr. G,” Justin said enthusiastically. “Heath and I can get one for you.”

“Not on your life, Justin,” Mr. Greene said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. Victor, why don’t you and Minerva find me a sedan chair? It may take four of you kids to lug me to the field.”

“Sure, we’ll find one if Mrs. Beard will help,” Victor replied.

“I’d love to, young man,” said the ghost.

Mrs. Beard and her husband Charles floated out of the back room through the wall onto and above Arch Street, searching the city for an unused sedan chair. Victor and Minerva followed behind on Arch Street. Suddenly Victor said:

“Hold my hand, Minerva.”

Minerva was startled. “Why?”

“So we don’t look suspicious, but look like a colonial couple out for a walk,” he said.

She looked at Victor for a moment to gauge his true intention. She didn’t believe his motive; he wanted to hold her hand because he wanted to hold her hand, not because of suspicious Philadelphians. Yet she didn’t say anything. She took the hand he offered and slipped her fingers between his and her heart began to race and her body began to tingle. He breathed deeply and Minerva realized that it had taken Victor quite some time to gather the courage to offer his hand, but she was glad he had asked her. Now what were they trying to find? Her heart was confusing her head, and she didn’t need that at this moment.

“Do you watch
Jeopardy!
, Minerva?” Victor asked her.

Well that certainly wasn’t, “Are you available Saturday night?” she thought.

“Yes, I watch it a lot,” Minerva replied as they walked down Arch Street.

“Me too. I watch nearly every night. I’d love to watch it with you.”

Wait a minute, Minerva thought. What am I, a cheap date? She wanted to say, “Victor, your brother is taking me to the Homecoming Dance and you want me to watch
Jeopardy!
with you. What do you think I am, a nano-nerd?” But she smiled, for that was exactly what she was underneath her Homecoming court façade: she was a nerd. Victor was a nerd. What am I doing going out with Junior? she wondered. I’m just using him, basking in his popularity. Is that what you want, Minerva? Is it? Suddenly, the Homecoming Dance didn’t seem very important to Minerva Messinger.

“Well?” Victor persisted.

Minerva realized she hadn’t answered Victor and he was expecting a yes or no to his question about
Jeopardy!.

“That might be fun,” she replied, surprised how deeply she meant it.

“Tonight when we get home?” he asked.

“I’ve got a date with your brother Junior, Victor.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” he smiled.

She looked at Victor and thought,
Sure you did, Victo
r. “You’re a lousy liar, Victor,” she said, adding, “But that’s a good thing.”

Victor blushed. Minerva felt a sweetness in his presence, a gentleness she hadn’t found in any boy before. Is this what the word
gentleman
really meant? It was refreshing, it was invigorating and it was infatuating.

“I’ll break the date with Junior,” she finally said. Relief came over her. She felt like she had broken the chains of a façade, the false face she wore around school. With Victor she could be herself and not try to be someone else. With Victor it wasn’t important to be popular, it was only important to be herself. That, she realized, was a form of women’s liberation. This wasn’t just a field trip, she told herself—this trip was a self-discovery.

Minerva’s thoughts were interrupted by Mary Beard, who returned and started chattering about what she had found.

“There’s a sedan chair in back of Christ Church only a block or so away,” Mrs. Beard said. “The bearers left it unattended. I think their master or mistress is in church praying and the bearers went to City Tavern for a snort.”

“Snort?” Minerva said.

“A drink,” Victor explained, and Minerva nodded.

“Follow me,” Mary Beard said, and floated away down the street to Christ Church.

“The church of the American Revolution,” Victor said as he and Minerva stood on the sidewalk outside the house of worship.

“Over here!” Mary Beard called.

Minerva chuckled. The ghost was inside the sedan chair, pretending to be sitting on the chair. The chair had a little door with a window and a pair of parallel poles that lifted the device.

“Front or back?” Victor asked Minerva.

“Back I guess,” she said. “You realize we are stealing, don’t you, Victor?”

“Yes, but I would rather use the term ‘borrowing,’ because we aren’t taking it back to school with us.”

“Wasn’t stealing a capital offense?”

“In England I think, but I’m not sure about the colonies. Probably just a stay in the Walnut Street Prison.”

“Great,” Minerva said, but she felt a rush of adrenaline. I am doing something
bad
, she thought. I never do anything wrong. This is fun!

Minerva was surprised by how light the actual chair was, but then Mr. Greene wasn’t sitting in the little coach. They would probably need four students to carry chubby Mr. Greene to the portable’s landing area in the wheat field on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

It was nearly 4:30 P.M. when Minerva and Victor returned to the Ross home with the sedan chair; Mrs. Beard waved a ghostly arm from the sedan chair window as if she were a fairy tale princess on her way to the ball. The twins had carried Mr. Greene onto the sidewalk in front of the house and Bette Kromer was holding Caesar Rodney’s riding crop. Ben Franklin’s cane was helping Mr. Greene stand up.