Tesla's Time Travelers (3 page)

As Minerva sat down to drink her juice and eat a whole grain bagel, her mother handed her the signed field trip permission form. “I love your outfit, it looks so…”

“Colonial?”

“Yes, yes, that’s it. Colonial. Now, Minerva, just why are you joining this club?” Vesta asked her daughter.

“Princeton loves extracurricular, Mom.”

“Ah yes, it’s Princeton this week, isn’t it?”

Minerva hated when her mother became condescending. She sometimes wondered if her mom resented her success, if she had wanted a career. Had her mom been doomed from birth to be a housewife by having Vesta for a name—Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth? With a batty name like that, no wonder she saw that psychic once a month at the Cassadaga Hotel. Cassadaga, Florida, the “psychic capital of the world,” Minerva thought, the slogan in her mind. Her mom swore by the paranormal, as did a lot of other adults, but nothing even abnormal, let alone paranormal, ever happened to Minerva Messinger.

“Yes, mother, it is Princeton
this
week,” she replied after a moment of frosty staring.

“You don’t have to be snippy with me, young lady.”

Minerva held back a smirk. She liked her mother’s use of the word “snippy.” It didn’t bother her; rather, it amused her, like the mom in the reruns of
That Seventies Show.
“I’m not being snippy, Mom,” she replied. “Can I have some money for lunch?”

“I thought you were on a field trip today?”

“I’m sure we’ll have to buy our lunch.”

“How much?”

“Twenty dollars?”

“For lunch?”

“C’mon, Mom, it’s less than you pay for a half-hour reading at the hotel.”

“That’s true,” her mother replied and handed Minerva two tens, which Minerva quickly put into her reticule and closed its purse strings. A ringing doorbell interrupted their conversation.

“That’s Junior,” Minerva said. “Bye, Mom.”

“Minerva, finish your breakfast,” her mother said, but Minerva hitched up her colonial dress, grabbed her school backpack from the living room end table, swung it over her shoulders and was out the door to greet the smiling face of John Bridges Jr. standing on her porch, looking as handsome as heaven in his number three football jersey.

“Don’t you laugh, Junior Bridges,” she warned her date for the Homecoming Dance, an event that would occur after John and his team thrashed the Jensen Beach Falcons in the evening.

John Jr. didn’t laugh, but he did smile. “Who are you, like Betsy Ross?”

Minerva rolled her eyes. John Jr.’s torso was a feast for a woman’s eyes, but he had the brain of a pea. Minerva didn’t have time to explain to Junior about her class. Frankly, she didn’t really have much time for Junior at all, but he was attractive arm candy that made the other girls jealous, especially Betty Kromer, the Wicked Witch of the West. Showing up on the Friday morning of Homecoming weekend in the convertible of the captain of the football team did not hurt Minerva’s social standing. She just hoped she wouldn’t be bored with Mr. Greene’s field trip, and that they would be back in time for her pre-Homecoming Dance hair appointment.

As they rode the two miles to school, Minerva kept the conversation at “male ego boosting level,” assuring Junior the Fighting Phantoms would destroy the overmatched Jensen Beach Falcons, and that he, as quarterback, would lead the team to glory. Appealing to Junior’s narcissism made the ride go smoothly, although Junior had originally tried to put his arm around her shoulder like an octopus stretching out a tentacle; Minerva reacted with a quick shoulder duck and an admonition to Junior to keep both hands on the wheel or risk going stag to the biggest dance of the year. It was a bluff of course, but it worked. She didn’t want Junior to wrinkle her dress, for she hoped to garner extra credit from Mr. Greene for her seamstress work.

Junior Bridges in his football jersey drove into the senior parking lot with a girl dressed as a colonial woman, albeit a colonial woman wearing a school backpack: it was incongruous a display of styles as if Tim Tebow were driving Abigail Adams to school. Minerva leaned over and gave Junior false hope in the form of a peck on the cheek, then she hitched up her dress and scooted off to Mr. Greene’s portable classroom to check in for the field trip. Odd: the shades were down on the portable, she noticed.

Minerva had laughed at the stories about “old man Greene” and his portable classroom. It was haunted, students said, but then what was the big deal there? This was Cassadaga, after all, the “Psychic Capital of the World.” People swore there were ghosts channeling in Cassadaga, especially during the winter “season” when the population of psychics and mediums was at its apex. Some students believed Mr. Greene’s portable was actually the “The Flying Dutchman,” but Minerva assumed the “Flying Dutchman” rumor began about the same time as the release of the third
Pirates of the Caribbean
film. Others said the portable was a “port,” an entrance to a data network, and that data was “time.” But the thought of a dilapidated old trailer as a time machine made Minerva laugh; she was certain that a ‘time trailer’ would positively embarrass H.G. Wells in its ugliness.

Minerva entered the rickety old portable classroom, a classroom that sat alone in a circular grove of oak trees draped in Spanish moss a good distance from a group of portable classrooms that the students lovingly referred to as “Trailer Park Nation.” The Anderson twins, Justin and Heath, looking like Revolutionary War re-enactors right off the set of the HBO series
John Adams
, were dressed as militia men, down to the breeches, stockings and black shoes with faux silver buckles. Minerva was surprised the boys had actually gone to such trouble to be accurate in their fashions.

By the bulletin board, her back towards Minerva, stood her nemesis: Bette Kromer, alluring in a rust-colored gown, her braided brunette hair stacked upon her head like Keira Knightly in
The Duchess.
Nuts, Minerva thought, Bette is wearing a corset; she had to be, for she showed off more cleavage than Minerva knew she had, the corset pushing things upward. Minerva gathered her courage and her civility and walked over to Bette, who was looking at an original John Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence.

“Hello, Bette,” Minerva said in her most cordial voice.

“Hello, Messinger,” Bette replied, in her odd habit of calling her female peers by their last names. “It’s real, you know,” she said, nodding to the Dunlap broadside. “It’s priceless. Mr. Greene bought it for a piece of eight from the
Atocha
on last year’s trip to Philadelphia. Only twenty-five Dunlap broadsides of the Declaration of Independence are known to exist, as Dunlap only made between two hundred and five hundred of them. One went for $8 million at auction.”

Minerva didn’t believe Bette’s figure for the Dunlap broadside, but she had always been intrigued by anything dealing with treasure salvage, especially the
Atocha
. “Mel Fisher’s treasure ship?” Minerva asked.

“Yes. Spanish silver was used as money in the colonies, Messinger. Past the revolution and even up until the 1830s at least.” Bette looked at Minerva’s outfit. “Reticules are so 1790s, Messinger. Mr. Greene will notice right away. I hope you sewed pockets into the dress?”

“I did.”

“Well, put your reticule in your book bag then. It’s not period. It’s post-Revolutionary War.”

Why was Bette Kromer being nice to her? Minerva wondered. As if Bette had read her mind, Minerva’s rival said:

“Look Messinger, let’s have détente today. You and I are the only girls on this field trip and things may get a little rough in Philadelphia, with chamber pots from second floor windows and splashing from carriages and all of that. If you had asked me, I might have suggested a darker color for your dress. It’s going to get a little rustic.”

“Rustic?” Minerva said as she removed the two tens from her reticule and slipped them into the pockets inside her blue dress. She put the reticule into her backpack.

“Well, duh, Messinger, we are headed to Philadelphia in 1776, you know.”

“The mock continental congress, yes I know.”

“There’s nothing ‘mock’ about it, Messinger. We’re really going there to the
real
Continental Congress, although it is the
Second
Continental Congress, but that is the important one now, isn’t it?”

“Bette, I know you think I’m naïve,” Minerva began, thinking Bette Kromer was pulling her leg, but Bette wasn’t looking at her, she was staring, dewy-eyed, at the tall young Patriot who had just entered the room: Victor Bridges.

“Hello, Victor,” she purred.

“Hello, Bette,” he said matter-of-factly. “Is Mr. Greene here yet?”

“No, Victor,” Bette smiled, her voice up an octave. “He hasn’t come in yet.”

Hello, what am I, chopped liver? Minerva thought. She was unaccustomed to being ignored and a bit peeved that Bette Kromer had shifted her attention elsewhere. Minerva looked at the boy whom Bette Kromer was fawning over—Junior Bridges little brother? Minerva hadn’t paid attention to Victor Bridges. She thought he stuttered and was a bit slow; but then, so was his big brother. But standing there, ramrod straight in colonial dress, Victor seemed suddenly more mature, manlier than he had been only the day before when he’d sat slouched across the aisle from Minerva. What did Mark Twain say: “Clothes make the man?” Then Minerva blushed when she remembered the rest of the Twain epigram: “Naked people have little or no influence in society.” Minerva knew she was blushing and turned her face away from her peers. Why are there seat belts on the desks? she wondered. Why were the desks bolted to the floor? What was that about?

She didn’t have time to ask, for Mr. Nathan Greene entered the room carrying a hickory cane. Their portly middle-aged teacher filled his breeches to the bursting point. Minerva could detect the smell of baby powder, which she assumed Mr. Greene had used to powder his wig, which rested a bit askew underneath his tri-corner hat. The buckles on his shoes glistened with a silver shimmer and the frames of his glasses were reminiscent of colonial spectacles, save for the faint but telltale bifocal line that creased across each lens and the plastic tips at the ends of the armatures.

“Everyone take a seat please,” Mr. Greene instructed. “Seat belts please.”

“Mr. Greene?”

“Yes, Victor?” Greene replied.

“We have a new initiate to History Channelers.”

“Yes, Victor. I’m sorry. It slipped my mind. Minerva Messinger, come forward. Victor, our sacred book please. Bette, a candle, if you would.”

Victor Bridges brought forth a hard copy of Howard Zinn’s
A People’s History of the United States
as Bette Kromer stood beside Victor, a lit candle in her hand. Minerva looked at her teacher and her two peers as if they were daft.

“Minerva Messinger,” Mr. Greene intoned. “Place your hand on the sacred volume of Zinn and repeat after me, the oath of The History Channelers.”

What in the world? Minerva wondered. Was this some kind of cult thing? Were they putting her on? Am I
that
gullible? she wondered.

Greene continued. “What I see today and what I hear today does not leave this room today or any day in the future.”

Minerva repeated the sentence.

Greene continued. “I swear by the ghosts of Charles and Mary Beard that I will not divulge to anyone the secrets of The History Channelers.”

What secrets? Minerva wondered, but she kept telling herself: Princeton. Think of Princeton, she told herself, and repeated the rest of the oath.

Mr. Greene smiled when Minerva finished the oath and said, “Welcome to The History Channelers. Everyone, please welcome Minerva Messinger. Where’s Jacob, he’s the only one missing.”

“His father’s in the hospital, Mr. Greene,” the Anderson twins replied in stereo.

“Sorry to hear that,” Mr. Greene said. “Victor, hand everyone a piece of eight please. This is more for Minerva’s benefit. The silver pieces of eight that Victor is passing out are, of course, ones I bought at Mel Fisher’s museum in Key West. In the colonial period they were legal tender along with British coins. So, in case our group gets separated, you have some “mad money” for food or what have you. Anderson twins, stay close to me. You never know—you might get commandeered by a militia officer looking for AWOLs. And of course, look out for chamber pots into the streets and horse droppings when crossing a street. The smell is going to get to you. It’s July in Philadelphia and people don’t bathe regularly. The first thing you’re going to think is: ‘What the smell is going on?’” Mr. Greene half-smile was a signal to his students that he had just punned. They groaned appropriately.

What is he rambling about? Minerva thought, a furrow creasing her brow.

Mr. Greene noticed it and responded. “Minerva, I notice your confusion…”

“Skepticism, Mr. Greene,” Minerva said.

Mr. Greene smiled and the other students chuckled. “Well, students, this is Minerva’s first field trip. Remember yours?” Bette Kromer’s hand was already in the air. “Bette?” Greene said, calling on her.

“Yes. I was just like Minerva last spring on the trip to Ford’s Theater.”

“When Victor tried to be a hero and almost tackled Booth,” Heath Anderson said.

Minerva looked at Victor quizzically. He blushed. Do I make him blush? Minerva wondered in a moment of feminine ego.

“Yes,” Bette said, frowning at Heath for interrupting her. “I didn’t believe any of it was possible, that the boys and Mr. Greene were teasing me, until I arrived there.”

“Where?” Minerva asked.

“Ford’s Theater, the night Lincoln was assassinated,” Bette replied in a matter-of-fact manner.

“Now, really, Bette, you expect me to believe that?”

Bette shrugged and said, “Not really, but by the end of the day you will.”

Minerva Messinger rolled her eyes.

Bette Kromer shrugged and went on. “Tell her about the pre-Columbian Native American midden and the ghost historians.”

“Ghost historians, right,” Minerva said sarcastically.

Mr. Greene smiled and intervened. “I understand your skepticism, Minerva,” he said. “Not much else I can say at this point. But I will try. Let me explain. You are a native Central Florida gal, aren’t you, Minerva?”