The Left Behinds and the iPhone That Saved George Washington (15 page)

As soon as Kramm sees Washington, he tries to get a shot off, but his Luger misfires. He tries again, and he misfires again. He yells something in German and rides off.

Then General Washington drops me, without ceremony, in another patch of snow twenty yards away. I’m pretty sure rescuing a kid wasn’t on his to-do list today, and I try to thank him, but he waves me off.

Daniel and Elizabeth rush over to see if I’m all right, leading their horse behind them.

“My Lord!” she says. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

I’m not hurt, and I am all right. She helps me get to my feet, and then Daniel sees something.

“He’s going back to the farmhouse!” Daniel says. “He’ll get reinforcements!”

We watch Kramm gallop across the field. General Washington pulls up beside us. “That man”—he nods over his shoulder—“is hit. Who shot him?”

“I shot him, sir,” Daniel says. “With Captain Powell’s pistol.”

“Captain Powell,” General Washington says. “He’s alive?”

“He is. He was shot in the shoulder, same as that one. If neither loses too much blood, I suspect both will live.”

“We will make sure of Captain Powell, at least. He did warn me. And Kramm?” General Washington asks, nodding toward the farmhouse. “Where to for him?”

“To the farmhouse,” Daniel says. “There are two, at least, uniformed men there. They have weapons”

“Have they horses?”

“Just the ones they rode in on, sir.”

“We have two,” the general says. “He has one. Where’s the other? Scattered?”

“I believe so, sir,” says Daniel.

“Can it be called?”

“By the Hessians? I do not know. It will likely return to the stable, however.”

The stable … the stable … the stable … oh no.

“What time is it?” I ask.

No one has a watch, but the general states the obvious. “It is morning, young man,” he says. “Almost noon, I should say. Have you someplace else to go?”

“The stable!” I say. “I have to be there right now! It’s urgent!”

“Urgent?” asks General Washington. “What could be urgent in a stable?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” I say, and General Washington lifts me onto his mount. Daniel and Elizabeth climb aboard the other horse, and five minutes later we are at the stable. Along the way I sneak a peek at my iPhone: as we arrive, it’s ten-fifty-eight. Which gives me two whole minutes to explain absolutely everything to the Father of Our Country.

I
TRY MY BEST
. “G
ENERAL
Washington,” I say. “We’re about to see something, and all I have time to say about it is this: do you believe in miracles?”

“I am afraid, young man, that I do not.”

Elizabeth seems even more skeptical than General Washington—she’s acting like she expects me to show her a magic trick. Which probably isn’t far from the truth.

“Well,” I say, “hold on to your hats, folks. Because I think in about thirty seconds or so you’re going to see something you’re going to have a hard time believing.”

We’re in the stable. There are no horses inside, but there are the stacks of hay, the saddles hanging up on a wall, the bunches of rope, and the by now all-too-familiar god-awful stench.

The seconds tick down. My iPhone is on.

And it starts to buzz.

It starts to shake, rattle, and roll.

It starts to tweet and toot and whistle.

And then before us, as if emerging from a mist, come Bev and Brandon.

Brandon’s wearing sneakers, jeans, and his red hat. The one that has a picture of a snarling wolf—I mean a snarling
lobo
—on it. Bev has on her pink jacket, and she’s wearing her earmuffs. Both of them are clutching their iPhones, which are blinking and buzzing like crazy.

Bev and Brandon jump back as if electrified.

General Washington, Daniel, and Elizabeth jump back as if horsewhipped.

There’s a standoff. Between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries.

I step into the breach.

“General Washington,” I say. “May I present to you my esteemed classmates, who visit us from another land: Miss Beverly, and Master Brandon. Everybody, say hello.”

“What land is this?” says General Washington.

“New Jersey,” I say. “Just across the river.”

It’s Bev who has the most presence of mind. She takes note of me, Daniel, and Elizabeth, and then General George Washington. Bev smiles, like she gets the whole thing.

“Why, General Washington,” she says, and curtsies. “How very pleased we are to meet you.”

I did say
curtsies
. And a very well-executed one, I must
say. I didn’t know she had it in her, but then again, no matter how hard she tries to hide it, Bev’s got more than a little of her mom’s actress gene in her blood. She extends her hand.

General Washington has no choice—being a gentleman, born and bred—but to step forward and take her hand. “As am I,” he says. “Though these circumstances are most peculiar. I should like to have a word with your parents.”

“My mother is in California,” says Bev. “In a play.”

“Dude,” says Brandon. “Like, my mom’s out west, but you’re one heck of a realistic reenactor. Man, this is one great show! And I thought I had hit the wrong button or something on my phone and was going to be in for it. It’s all part of the setup, isn’t it?” Then Brandon holds out his fist. “Pound me, brother!”

General Washington does not, alas, fist bump Brandon. He frowns instead, as if the impertinence is beyond the pale. “Why does your … your hat … have a picture upon it? Is it a wolf? What is the explanation for this?”

“It’s a
lobo
, man. It means ‘wolf.’ In Spanish. It brings us luck.”

“It brings
who
luck?”

“New Mexico.”

“What need does a distant territory have for luck?”

“He’s joking, right?” Brandon asks me.

“I don’t think he is,” I say, but by now it’s obvious the general is not pleased.

“How can it be,” he says, “that you all … appeared,
if you will … out of nothing more than thin air? Is this some kind of parlor trick? At a time such as this?”

“Well, General,” I start to explain. “Let me put it like this. We are friends of yours. The kind of friends you may not be used to, but maybe the very best friends you could ever have. We kind of know stuff that nobody else has a way of knowing. Which is why we stopped you in the road. And if we hadn’t? It’s quite possible that they would have shot you dead, right here in one of the stalls. And the implications of that, sir, are quite enormous. The word would spread like wildfire. And without you, the Continental Army might become nothing more than a savage band of pillagers looting their way through the countryside.”

“Oh man,” says Brandon. “Don’t be such a downer, dude! It’s only playacting!”

“I demand to know,” says General Washington, drawing himself up to his full height, “what exactly is going on at this moment. Do you take me for a fool, lad? You bring me to this stable and then you conjure up”—he gestures dismissively at Bev and Brandon—“these—these—court jesters? Dressed in—these costumes, and each of them holding—what is it they are holding? And you as well? What is that infernal contraption in your hands? I demand answers!”

I
T WOULD BE NICE
to explain everything to both sides—the eighteenth-century people and the twenty-first-century people—and have them understand, accept, agree, move forward—but A) that’s not happening anytime soon, and B) remember the German dudes—Kramm, and the two Hessian soldiers back at the farmhouse? Funny thing is, they haven’t forgotten about us. Or rather, they haven’t forgotten about General Washington. And now they’ve got him right where they want him, which is in the horse stable, where they intended to kill him in the first place.

They’ve taken up positions. One soldier is at each end of the stable, ready to shoot any of us who try to get out.

And Kramm is holding, high above his head, a flaming torch.

Bev and Brandon still think this is some kind of
reenactment
.

Daniel and Elizabeth are properly horrified, but General Washington?

He’s mad.

As mad as I’ve ever seen a man. Madder than I’ve ever seen my father get, and that’s saying something, because Dad’s got that volcanic, shouting temper thing, which I truly hate. His face contorts, turns red, his lips twist into a growling grimace, and out it flies.

The general’s anger takes a different form. His face is stone-cold set. I don’t think you could pry his lips apart if you had a crowbar. And his eyes are black with fury.

And you know who he’s mad at? He’s mad at
us
. For leading him
here
. Which, he soon tells us, is completely
indefensible
.

“I shall shoot myself, should they not,” General Washington says, “for allowing myself to be led by a bunch of
children
into this position. My second great mistake in one day!”

Mr. Kramm touches the torch to the roof on the right side.

Then he torches the bottom of the wall on the left side.

Now it’s just a matter of you know what.

Time.

“W
HY
,”
SAYS
B
RANDON
, “are those reenactor dudes, like, torching the place? What’s up with
that
?”

“Boys,” says Bev. “I think we need to think of something. Now would be a very good time.”

“Silence!” commands General Washington. “I must think. Your constant babbling is of no help!”

The general is the kind of guy you pay attention to, so we shut up. Under his hat his hair is turning gray, but it isn’t as white as you might think. I know he never wore a wig. Around this time he’s in his forties, if I’m not mistaken, though his hat and his uniform make him appear, at a distance, a lot older, like in his late fifties or even early sixties.

But he is younger. You can tell by his face: relatively
wrinkle-free. The wrinkles he will have in the future are being created as we speak.

And I know what you’re thinking: what’s the deal with the dude’s teeth?

Well, let me tell you: they are not, contrary to popular belief, made of wood.

Not to say they appear completely natural. They’re kind of oversized, maybe, sort of like a pair of too-big dentures, but they are definitely not made from wood. Maybe some other more toothlike substance—mother-of-pearl, or whalebone—but for sure not wood, or real teeth.

At the moment, he doesn’t seem overly self-conscious about his teeth, real or unreal. At the moment, he seems more rightly concerned about the fact that the roof of the stable is aflame, as is the wall at the left corner. Both fires are on a flight path to meet in the middle, and the whole dang thing is going to come tumbling down.

So I get the basic idea: burn down the stable, make us run out, shoot us dead.

The thing is? It doesn’t happen exactly
instantly
.

Fire’s funny, like it has a mind of its own. The stable is completely made of wood, and there’s hay everywhere, but it takes a while for the fire to decide to get really going. Which gives us time to contemplate our situation.

It’s not good. And every time we try to think of something together, General Washington tells us to be silent.

Which doesn’t sit so well with Bev.

“Listen, mister,” Bev says, and puts her hands on her hips. “Have you noticed that it’s getting a little warm in here? You want us to just stand around until you think of something to do?”

“Bev,” I say. “This is
General
Washington, remember.”

“Yeah?” she says. “So what’s your point?”

“Be silent!” General Washington says, with a little less conviction than before. I think the problem is that he doesn’t know what to do any more than we do.

“Well, I for one am not just going to stand here. Who
are
those people, for one thing? And two, what do they want? Mel? Is this totally crazy or what?”

We start to argue. Which isn’t cool, you know, to be arguing among ourselves right in front of George Washington, but this fire thing is really starting to pick up.

And whatever time we might have had to devise a plan is, uh, up in smoke.

The fires meet in the middle, and we run out right before part of the roof falls on top of us. And I mean
run
. You might be surprised by how every single cell in your body screams at you with one simple instruction: run! Run now, as fast as you can!

So we run, even though I am fully expecting Kramm and his men to have their muskets loaded and ready, and to shoot to kill.

The thing is, I feel kind of
responsible
here. I shouldn’t just be worried about saving my own skin, should I?

What should I do about General Washington? About Daniel and Elizabeth? About Brandon and Bev?

Fire and flame; the colors orange and red, leaping from white snow; smells of smoke, burning planks, and horse manure; sounds of crackling timber, falling roof beams; the taste of charred wood upon our lips and tongues; and pure dumb, blind fear in the pits of our stomachs as we exit the stable and face another kind of fire.

I can’t see anyone else at first. Though I hear horses neighing.

I’ve lost everyone, and I don’t know how to find them. Then I hear the crack of musket fire—seven, eight, ten shots.

I throw myself into the snow to avoid musket balls and to put out whatever flames might have gotten me.

I look up.

Elizabeth and Brandon, who barely know each other, who met, like, what,
two minutes
ago, are holding on to each other like they’re long-lost lovers.

And while I’m trying to process
that
, I see before us a ring of soldiers on horseback, loading and firing their muskets, and then loading and firing them again.

Soldiers from the Continental Army of these United States.

Propped on one horse, with his shoulder in a makeshift bandage, is the general’s aide, Captain Powell, who seems to be in charge.

“The cavalry,” says Brandon, “has come to save us. Huzzah, right?”