Assassin (20 page)

Lucy Hale interested me a great deal. I wonder if she and John Wilkes Booth would ever have married if he had lived. I imagined most of the scenes between Lucy and Booth, but she really was a friend of Robert Lincoln’s. Booth did dine with Lucy and her parents the evening that he shot the President. I was touched by the fact that Lucy wrote down the lines from the poem “Maud Muller” and gave them to Booth. “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these. It might have been” certainly fit the relationship between Lucy and Wilkes. How shocked and hurt she must have been after the man she loved fired those terrible shots.

Did Booth really catch his foot in the flag, causing him to land badly on the stage and injure himself? Most books I read said he did. A recently published one, however, contained the theory that the injury came later. We will probably never know for sure.

We do know the words Booth wrote in the little book he carried. We know he did think he would be praised in Southern papers for what he had done. In reality he died
just as he did in this story, after saying, “Useless. Useless.” He was buried secretly by the government, but eventually his body was returned to his family and was put in the family plot in a Baltimore cemetery. People often throw pennies on his grave because that coin has Lincoln’s picture on it.

Research for this book also taught me a great deal about Abraham Lincoln and his family. Things have certainly changed in Washington since the days when Mr. Lincoln often rode down the dirt streets alone and anyone could wait in line to see him at the White House. He really did have the dream about his death, and reading about his account of that dream brought tears to my eyes. I enjoyed learning more about Elizabeth Keckley, the former slave who became dressmaker and friend to Mary Lincoln.

The Lincolns had lost their second-born son, four-year-old Edward, before they went to Washington. As in this book, Willie died during his father’s presidency at the age of eleven. Tad, the youngest of Lincoln’s four sons, died when he was eighteen. Only Robert, who became a lawyer and statesman, lived a long life. What I wrote about Lincoln’s sons was true. I imagined the poem for Bella, but Willie Lincoln did write the one about Colonel Baker and have it published in the newspaper. Willie and Tad did have a black-and-white goat named Nanko, and Robert Lincoln actually was saved by Edwin Booth from being killed by a train.

Before that night in Ford’s Theatre, no American
president had ever been assassinated. The country was shocked. Even in the South, where people did not like Lincoln, most realized that the former Confederate states would have had an easier time coming back into the Union if the president had lived. In the frenzy to find and punish all the conspirators, even Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, was brought to trial, but he was found to be innocent.

Arabella Getchel is a fictitious character, but she became very real to me. She is the mirror that reflects the people, events, and surroundings of that memorable period of history. Ernest Hemingway once said, “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened, and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you.” I hope
Assassin
makes you feel that you lived in Washington City with Bella.

ANNA MYERS has written numerous books for Walker & Company, including her most recent novels
Wart
,
Confessions from the Principal’s Chair
,
Hoggee
, and
Tulsa Burning
. She has earned many accolades for her work.
Tulsa Burning
was selected as a New York Public Library’s Book for the Teen Age, and
Assassin
won Anna her third Oklahoma Book Award for Children’s Books. Anna lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Visit her Web site at
www.annamyers.info
.

Red-Dirt Jessie

Rosie’s Tiger

Graveyard Girl

Fire in the Hills

Spotting the Leopard

The Keeping Room

Ethan Between Us

Captain’s Command

When the Bough Breaks

Stolen by the Sea

Tulsa Burning

Flying Blind

Hoggee

Confessions from the Principal’s Chair

Wart

EXPERIENCE THE LIGHTER SIDE OF ANNA MYERS . . .

What would you do if you had two days in the principal’s chair to rule your school?

When, after a little mix-up, Robin is mistaken for the substitute principal at her new school, she has big plans to turn the place around—starting with cutting that queen-bee clique down to size and getting the hottest boy in the eighth grade to notice her. By the time her very brief term in office is over, the school will never be the same. Don’t miss this hilarious middle-school mix-up,
Confessions from the Principal’s Chair
.

And coming soon . . .

Experience laughs of magical proportions in Anna Myer’s forthcoming novel
Wart
. . .

Wanda Gibbs is no ordinary substitute teacher—from the moment she arrived, Stewart has had a bad feeling about her. He soon finds out she might be a witch and is threatening to use her magic on him! Can they strike a truce before Stewart ends up as a frog?

Praise for
ASSASSIN

“One of the greatest difficulties is writing convincingly from both an adult’s and child’s point of view, but [Myers] carries off the project credibly.” —
Booklist

“Through the device of a fictional young woman interacting with historical figures, Myers provides readers with a glimpse of the people, events, and surroundings of a dramatic time in history. . . . The novel offers a good opportunity for discussion.” —
SLJ

“Although most Americans know that John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln, few know the details surrounding one of the most significant events in U.S. history. . . . Myers brings all of the characters to life, and readers will get a sense of the conflicting loyalties that many Americans experienced during the Civil War and its aftermath. This exciting historical novel will be popular.” —
VOYA

Praise for
Tulsa Burning

★ “In this emotional page-turner, Myers expertly captures an era of poisonous racism while conveying the strong, true voice of a courageous young man. . . . Compassion and hope prevail in a powerful novel.” —
Booklist
, starred review

Praise for
Hoggee

“Fine, simply told historical fiction.” —
Kirkus Reviews

Copyright © 2005 by Anna Myers

All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in September 2005
by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
E-book edition published in November 2012
www.bloomsburykids.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from his book, write to
Permissions, Walker BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request LCCN: 2005042275
p. cm.
Summary: In 1970s Florida, eleven-year-old Violet’s world is upturned by the arrival of a girl from Detroit who seems bent on stealing Violet’s best friends, but by summer’s end, Violet’s relationships have only gotten better.
[1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Neighbors—Fiction. 4. Summer—Fiction. 5. Lightning—Fiction. 6. Florida—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H31365Vio 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007049129

Book composition by Coghill Composition Company

Book design by Ellen Cipriano
Book composition by Coghill Composition Company

ISBN: 978-0-80272-380-2 (e-book)