The Left Behinds and the iPhone That Saved George Washington (25 page)

them something to eat,” he says. “They’re probably starving.”

“As are we,” says Elizabeth, and takes the reins. “But we shall do what we can.”

Someone shouts at us from up the slope. It’s Captain Hamilton. “Let’s go!” he shouts. “We’re heading up the road we came down!”

“Already?” says Daniel.

“I’m afraid so,” I say. “General Washington doesn’t like it here. He thinks the entire Continental Army is too exposed. He won’t rest until everyone’s safely in Pennsylvania.”

“He must be mad,” says Elizabeth. “We couldn’t possibly walk that far. We’re too exhausted.”

“Maybe so. But he’s going to make you. That’s why he’s in charge.”

“Are you privy to the general’s thinking?” says Elizabeth.

“Kind of,” I say. “I’m privy to history, is more like it.”

“Hurry!” says Captain Hamilton. “You do not wish to be left behind, do you?”

No, sir. We do not. But this trip is not one Bev or Brandon or I will be taking.

We walk up the slope to Captain Hamilton, who is in a very big hurry. I think some of the Continentals—probably MacDougall’s New York Regiment—have found something besides Hessians and boxes of ammunition. Rum, namely. Things are starting to get a little rowdy.

“We must leave,” says Captain Hamilton. “We are to return to Pennsylvania without delay.”

“Understood,” I say. “Daniel and Elizabeth will join you, and bring back these horses. The three of us will … um … have other plans.”

Captain Hamilton looks me directly in the eye. “Are you quite certain?”

“We are. We will not be troubling you again. All will be well, Captain Hamilton. Trust us. From here on out.”

“Very well,” Captain Hamilton says. “Good luck to you.” He then rejoins his men.

They are nearly done forming the return column. It’s ragged, but orderly enough: 2,400 brave Americans, a thousand or so Hessian prisoners, six German cannons, cartloads of food, an ammunition wagon, and even a Hessian marching band. Then the whole thing starts to move out. They’re going to have to go back along the half-frozen and totally rutted roads they came in on, but this time they’ll be marching not as rebels, but as victors.

Next is Daniel and Elizabeth’s turn.

“Goodbye, Daniel,” I say, and shake his hand. “Goodbye, Elizabeth,” I say, and shake her hand as well. I don’t think kissing or hugging members of the opposite sex—especially those who haven’t been properly introduced to your parents—is something she’s quite ready for. So I don’t try. She takes my hand, and gives me a very delicate shake.

“I think you ought to stay,” says Elizabeth. “We’ve
unfinished business. The British are quite far from being defeated.”

“That is true,” I say. “But you will prevail.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I know. Believe me. But we don’t belong here, Elizabeth. Our mission is complete. Nothing good will come from overstaying our welcome.”

Daniel and Bev shake hands, and Brandon says his goodbyes. Then Daniel gets astride the chestnut shorty, and Elizabeth gets on the mare. “I do know how to ride,” she says, “and I will, whether anyone likes it or not.” Then the both of them are off.

That only leaves General George Washington. We make our way up the street, and there he is, astride his horse, yelling at his men to hurry.

It doesn’t take long. “General Washington,” I say. “We must leave now. Every success imaginable will be yours. We thank you for the privilege of serving.”

“You enlisted?” he says.

“Kinda sorta,” I say. “But not really. Speaking of enlistments, I know your men have only another week before their time is up. You’re going to need an army, General. Especially now. You might get another six weeks or so out of your men, if you ask.”

“So I shall,” he says. “So I shall. Well then. Off with you, and Godspeed.” He doesn’t offer to shake our hands. Instead, he gives us a salute, and we salute him back.

Then he goes up the hill, joins his men, and disappears.

T
HE FIRST THING
I do when all the troops are gone is show Bev and Brandon the leather satchel. “Check this out,” I say, and point to the initials stenciled on the bag:
T.G.W., INC.
“I have Kramm’s bag.” They peek in, see the extra Luger magazines, the Hershey bars, the maps. I read Kurtis’s note aloud.

“Who is Kurtis?” Bev says.

“You mean, who is Kurtis besides being the president of Things Go Wrong, Inc.? I have no idea who he is exactly, but I think I know what he’s up to.”

“Which is what?”

“I think he’s the dude who invented the iTime app. Do you remember what it says when you open it up? That thing about “the aim is to play, to mess about, who says
things have to be this way and not another?” Remember that?”

“Kind of,” says Bev. “What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know if I want to tell you what I’m thinking, Bev,” I say. “ ’Cause what I’m thinking is pretty weird. Though I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

“Mel has a theory,” says Brandon. “Don’t you, Mel? What is it?”

“Like I said, it’ll sound weird.”

“Out with it, Mel,” Bev says. “What could be weirder than anything else we’ve gone through in the last twenty-four hours?”

“You have a point,” I say. “All right, here goes: this guy Kurtis? I think he invented the iTime app for one thing—to go back in history and screw things up.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Bev says. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“Just for the fun of it,” says Brandon, as if he understands Kurtis perfectly, and maybe he does. “Just because everything seems so … so … perfect.”

It doesn’t make a bit of sense to me. But then I remember this birthday party I was invited to when I was about six or seven. It was at a Chuck E. Cheese’s, and everyone was going haywire. Then a kid named Alfred, who was going bonkers with all the noise and commotion, decided to tip over the birthday cake.

Everyone screamed.

Except Alfred, who laughed like a hyena. He had just
ruined the party, and nothing could have made him happier.

“All right, guys,” I say. “You ready? I think we should stand in a circle.” We all take out our iPhones and tap on the iTime icon.

“Make sure the date is changed,” I say. “To yesterday. Christmas Day, remember? But put in the right year.”

Everyone puts in the right date, and the right time. To make sure, I go around and check. “On the count of three,” I say. “We’re going to hit the
Submit
button, okay?”

“Okay,” says Bev.

“Roger,” says Brandon.

I count down. We hit
Submit
and stare at our screens. Then, the magic begins.

The spinning thing first. Then it feels like we’re going up a long, long roller coaster in the dark. And finally we come crashing down, until we land, with a thump, thump, thump, in the basement of the general store.

In our own time.

We can tell. The first thing we see is the MacBook that got us here in the first place.

The second thing we see is Mr. Hart, our teacher and present-to-past texter.

And the third thing is the old man. The one we noticed before, scurrying away from the basement of the general store. Now he’s stooped over the MacBook, clacking away on the keyboard, and he seems very, very annoyed.

“I
T
’
S ABOUT TIME
,” the old man says, glaring at us.

Mr. Hart rushes forward and nearly knocks us over, he’s so happy. Bev is definitely not in any mood to be hugged. Same deal with Brandon and me. But I guess from Mr. Hart’s point of view, it kind of fits the occasion. We’ve only been missing for, like, over two hundred years.

Once the hugs are out of the way, it doesn’t take long for Mr. Hart to go from relieved to aggrieved. “Guys, are you kidding? I was scared out of my mind. Do you have any idea what could have happened to me? I could have lost my job, for starters. And then there’s no telling what misery your parents could have put me through.”

“We’re happy to see you too, Mr. Hart,” Bev says. “How’s your day going?”

“Awful,” says Mr. Hart. “Most incredibly awful. It’s not every day you lose three kids … just like that.”

“It wasn’t,” says the old man, “just like that. One of you must have done something to this computer. It was set up perfectly—just not for any of you.”

“And you are who?” says Brandon.

“This is Professor Moncrieff,” says Mr. Hart. “He worked very closely with Albert Einstein, at Princeton. Professor Moncrieff has invented an application that is able to transport people through a tunnel in the space-time continuum. I think you may be familiar with it.”

“Oh yeah,” I say.

“I’m not sure I really believed,” Mr. Hart says, “that such a thing could even
work
.”

“Of course it worked,” Professor Moncrieff says. “Have I not explained it to you, Mr. Hart? Have I not allowed you to
text
your student there, of all things?”

“Well, yes, you did,” says Mr. Hart. “But …”

“But nothing,” Professor Moncrieff interrupts. “I have spent the last thirty-five years of my life seeing to it that it would work. And, if I do say so myself, it worked to perfection. Now tell me: Physically, do you feel disoriented? Nauseated? Light-headed?”

“I feel hungry,” says Brandon.

“I feel like I could use a shower,” says Bev.

“Never mind any of that! My observations are that you are all intact, and in perfect working order. Now then: who messed about with the computer?”

Two of us take a step to the rear, leaving Brandon up front, and alone.

“Why is this not surprising,” says Mr. Hart.

“I thought there would have been some kind of password,” Brandon says. “I just started hitting some keys to get the thing to wake up. How was I to know it would send us back in time?”

“You couldn’t have,” Professor Moncrieff says. “That much is certain. But why were you in this basement? It is the only place I could find on such short notice that had an available supply of electricity.”

“Fooling around,” Brandon admits. “We were upstairs and saw you leave. And we wondered what you were doing down here … and you know.”

“One thing led to another?”

“Exactly.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “Wait just a minute here. Who is Kurtis? And just what is Things Go Wrong, Inc.? Are you part of that?”

“Calm down, Mel,” Mr. Hart says. “There’s no reason to fly off the handle.”

“No reason to fly off the handle? There’s
every
reason to fly off the handle. How do you explain this?” I show them Kramm’s leather satchel, with the initials
T.G.W., INC.
stenciled on the side. “Do you know what he did? This guy Kurtis? He
paid
a guy to assassinate General George Washington!”

“You didn’t mention that,” Mr. Hart says.

“Of course I did not!” Professor Moncrieff says. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I would trust you or any man with information like that? The very point of this entire exercise has been in jeopardy the moment these … these … these
children
interfered with my computer!”

“Mr. Hart, we need to call the police,” I say. “This guy is trying to mess around with … with
history
itself!”

“Not I!” roars Professor Moncrieff. “Not I, you
child
! I am attempting to save history, not destroy it! And you lousy kids are getting in my way!”

“Tell it to the cops,” Bev says. “I’m sure they’ll love to hear it.”

“Don’t call anyone!” Professor Moncrieff shouts. “Especially not the police! They cannot be trusted! I warn you! You do not know the danger!”

“We almost got our heads shot off,” Brandon says. “So we know all about danger. Let’s give him two minutes, guys. He explains everything or we call the police.”

Professor Moncrieff manages to take a deep breath and closes his eyes for second, as if he’s trying to keep a lid on it.

He’s old. I mean,
way
old. He’s got the stoop, the liver spots, the wrinkles, the snow-white hair, the huge ears—but his eyes are as sharp as anyone’s. They’re dull blue, those eyes. They narrow their focus a little. Then become hard as cobalt.

“Well. I will explain this much to you: I was a very
young man when I studied with Dr. Einstein. And he himself was a very young man when he made his most important discoveries regarding the nature of time. I only fleshed out his ideas, carried them to their logical, if extreme, conclusions. You are by now familiar with the app called iTime. I am its intellectual father, but, sadly, only its co-inventor. I required the services of an advanced programmer. I did not, unfortunately, possess the necessary—how is it phrased these days—the necessary
skill set
.”

“Okay,” I say. “And?”

“And what?” says Professor Moncrieff.

“Well, are you going to tell us why we were zapped back to 1776?”

“No. This is classified information.”

“Classified by the
government
?”

“Classified by
me
, young man. I don’t trust the government. Never have. Never will.”

“You have to tell us more than that. We only just risked our lives to save George Washington. We did it, by the way. In case anyone is wondering.”

“And you’re welcome,” says Bev. “Boys, let’s call the cops. He hasn’t told us a thing.”

Professor Moncrieff holds up a hand. “Very well,” he says. “It is my co-inventor who has betrayed us. It is the Kurtis you speak of. He decided our program was worth somewhat more than what I could pay him. Kurtis has gone, as they say, off the deep end. Quite a bit off. He has stolen the code for the iTime app.”

“And not only that,” I say. “He also formed a company: Things Go Wrong, Inc. Of which he is the president.”

“And the sole employee,” Professor Moncrieff says. “He intends to make a billion dollars. Or possibly ten billion dollars. Among other things.”

“How is he going to make a billion dollars?” Bev asks.

“Two ways. He can sell iTime to anyone who is willing to pay, and they can do what they wish with it. And second, Kurtis believes that he stands to profit if he can rearrange the
outcome
of things. He can place
bets
, if you will. On an outcome that will be entirely of his own making. But most dangerous of all, Kurtis is not
primarily
motivated by money. He merely requires a great deal of money to further his most fundamental desire. Kurtis is, I fear, a practitioner of the darkest art of them all.”