The Left Behinds and the iPhone That Saved George Washington (10 page)

“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!”

B
EFORE 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 they 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.

“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!”

B
UT
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?”

“T
AP 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.”