“Ben Franklin is your dad?” Abby asked.
Sally smiled. “Did I not mention that?”
Abby and Doc shook their heads.
“Well, it’s true.” She took off the hat and glasses and held them out. “Here.”
Abby took off her goofy glasses and put on her good ones.
“So,” Doc said, adjusting his hat. “You did all this?”
“I told you I go to your school library sometimes,” Sally said. “I saw those pictures on the wall from Halloween and saw your costumes, Amelia Earhart and the Olympic champion. So I came up with this time twister, just for you!”
“Um … thanks?” Abby said.
“Mixing up people’s glasses and goggles and hats and wreaths,” Sally explained, “that’s easy if you know how to get around. I took the books back here and hooked them up to my father’s invention.”
Sally pointed to two books on the table—an Amelia Earhart biography and a book about the ancient Olympic games. Both had stickers that show where they go on the library shelf.
“Lightning struck and POOF!” Sally cried. “You’re off to ancient Greece! Then I couldn’t resist going, too. But I didn’t mean to break Kyniska’s chariot. Is she still mad?”
“No,” Abby said. “Thanks to Amelia Earhart.”
“Oh, good,” Sally said. “Switching my father’s hat with Lincoln’s—that was a little bonus. And you figured it out! Wasn’t it fun?”
Abby and Doc looked at each other and smiled. It was fun, actually. Tiring, but fun.
A slash of lightning filled the room with light. Thunder boomed a second later.
“Storm’s getting closer,” Amelia said.
“Allow me to apologize,” Ben said to Abby and Doc. “And to you, Ms. Earhart. I had no idea Sally was doing these experiments. But one must admit, they show a certain greatness of mind!”
“I suppose,” Amelia said. “In any case, it’s quite all right. Though I really should be getting back to my—”
“Excuse me,” Abe jumped in, “but it’s not all right. Franklin, you must promise to never do this again. You, too, Sally.”
“So you get to sail with pirates and ride with cowboys,” Sally snapped. “And I’m just supposed to sit around here learning how to sew?”
Ben chuckled. “She’s got you there, Lincoln.”
“I know, I know, I started this,” Abe said. “I am to blame. But it has to end, here and now!”
And he pulled the wires out of a tube filled with something green.
“Stop that!” Franklin ordered. “You’re not the president here!”
“Help me take this apart.” Lincoln grabbed a green jar.
“Put it down!” Franklin roared.
The jar fell and shattered. Green liquid soaked Abe’s and Ben’s shoes.
Franklin clenched his fists. “You come into my home! Order me around! Smash my custom glassware!”
“I’m sorry,” Abe said, yanking the wires from another jar. “It must be done.”
Ben charged, seizing Abe around the waist.
“I’m not the man to trifle with,” Abe warned, the wires still in his fist. “I’ll have you know, I’m in the Wrestling Hall of Fame.”
“Good for you,” Ben grunted. “I’m in the Swimming Hall of Fame!”
“You’re making that up!”
“Look it up, Lincoln!”
Abe wrapped his long arms around Ben’s thick chest just as—CRACK!!!—lightning struck the rod on the roof.
The room lit up and thunder echoed and the wires in Abe’s hands sizzled and sparked.
Both men tumbled to the floor.
The room filled with smoke and the awful smell of burning hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lincoln and Franklin lay on the floor in a tangle of limbs. Both were groaning.
Slowly, the smoke cleared.
Abe pulled his arm out from under Ben. He sat up. “Are you quite all right, Franklin?”
“I believe so, thank you.”
Abe helped Ben sit up and brushed the dust from his back. They were both okay.
Except for one minor detail.
Ben Franklin now had a beard—Lincoln’s famous chin beard. And on his head was Lincoln’s wild black hair.
Abe Lincoln had Franklin’s hair—bald in front, with long, wavy strands around the sides and back. No beard.
Neither had noticed. Yet.
Sally covered her mouth. Abby and Doc bit their lips to keep from cracking up.
“Stop staring, children,” Ben grumbled. “I’ve given myself worse jolts than that many times.”
“We were lucky,” Lincoln said. “But let this be a lesson to us—no more toying with history!”
Franklin waved away the idea. “Nonsense, Lincoln. We’ll have many more adventures. And from now on, I shall be one of the main characters!”
“You? Why?”
“You want children to like history—isn’t that how this all began? Well, who in history is more fun than me?” Turning to Doc and Abby, he said, “Did you know, I once wrote a scientific paper on farting!”
“Is that something to be proud of?” Abe asked.
“You know nothing of humor, Lincoln. I’ve heard your jokes.”
“Sorry to interrupt this important discussion, gentlemen,” Amelia Earhart cut in. “I’ve got an ocean to cross.”
“Yes, yes, bon voyage!” Ben said.
“Safe travels, Ms. Earhart,” Abe added.
Amelia, Sally, Abby, and Doc raced down the stairs, burst out the door—and exploded in laughter, giggling so hard they fell to the sidewalk.
The storm was moving off to the south. The sky was getting brighter.
Sally waved to Amelia Earhart’s red Vega as it rose above Philadelphia. She watched the plane go into a barrel roll—and disappear.
Moments later, Amelia brought the plane in for a soft landing on the soccer field outside Abby and Doc’s school.
The door opened. Abby and Doc stumbled out.
Amelia slid her cockpit window open. “Remember,” she said, shouting over her spinning propeller.
“We won’t!” Doc yelled.
“Thanks, Amelia!” Abby shouted. “For everything!”
Amelia Earhart waved and slid the window shut. Her plane sped down the soccer field, took off, climbed, and went into another barrel roll—
And was gone.
Abby and Doc stood for a minute, gazing up at the blue sky.
Then they went inside to find their mom. She was in her classroom, sitting at her desk.
“Ah, finally,” she said, shoving aside a stack of papers. “Good to see you found the glasses, Abby.”
“And my hat,” Doc said.
“Right, Doc, the hat,” their mom said, smiling. “Can we please go home now?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Abby and Doc slept through most of the weekend.
On Monday morning, before class, they took their history books from their desks and flipped to the page about Amelia Earhart.
“She made it across the Atlantic,” Abby said. “Landed safely in Ireland.”
Doc read aloud:
“Sounds right,” Abby said with a sigh of relief.
“We did it again,” Doc said. “Fixed history!”
“Did we?” Abby asked. “Check Lincoln.”
Doc flipped to the section about Abraham Lincoln.
The president was locked in his bedroom in the White House. He was refusing to come out.
“Guess he’s still got Franklin’s hair,” Doc said. “Poor guy.”
“It’s not the best look,” Abby agreed.
Ms. Maybee stood in front of the class. “All right, guys, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Now, before we get started, I want you all to give a warm welcome to a new student who’ll be joining our class!”
Ms. Maybee pointed to the back of the room.
Everyone turned to see the new girl.
“Hi, I’m Sarah,” she said.
UN-TWISTING HISTORY
Amelia Earhart did a lot of amazing things. Competing at the ancient Olympics was not one of them.
But there’s a lot of stuff in this book that really is true.
As I’m sure you know, Amelia Earhart really was a famous pilot. She really did fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928, becoming the first woman to do it. As she tells Abby and Doc in Chapter Twelve, she was basically a passenger—“a sack of potatoes,” as she said at the time. Always pushing herself to take on new challenges, she flew the ocean again in 1932—this time solo—becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic alone.
Amelia’s conversation with reporters in Chapter Three is directly based on the kinds of things she said all the time. Some of her lines are word-for-word quotes, including the classic: “Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.”
That quote sums up Amelia Earhart’s approach to life. It explains why she’s such a huge hero to kids, including Abby—and my own daughter, Anna. And to adults, too, like me.
It wasn’t the safest way to live, though.
In 1937, while attempting to become the first pilot to fly around the world along the equator, Amelia Earhart disappeared. What happened? That’s one of history’s all-time great mysteries. Most likely, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were unable to find the tiny Pacific island they were planning to land on. The plane probably ran out of fuel and went down at sea.
But people are still looking for Amelia Earhart, still coming up with theories to explain her disappearance. More importantly, I think, people are still celebrating her life and achievements. As soon as I thought of the idea for Time Twisters, I knew she’d play a starring role.
Now, on to the ancient Olympics.
Doc’s gross details about Olympia—the smells, the lack of bathrooms, boxers swallowing their own teeth—that’s all based on historical accounts of the ancient games. And yes, athletes did compete naked. The explanation Doc gives in Chapter Six is based on a legend that may or may not be true. But we know it’s true that the chariot racers were the exception—they wore robes because racers got thrown from their chariots all the time, and the robes offered some small protection. The details about women being excluded from the Olympics are also true. They could not compete, or even enter the arena to watch.
Which brings us to Kyniska, a real-life Spartan princess who refused to be told there was something she couldn’t do. As the owner and trainer of a chariot team, Kyniska won the Olympic chariot race in the year 396 BCE. Then she won it again four years later. Just as she told Doc and Abby, there were poems in her honor, and parades, and a statue at Olympia with the inscription: “My ancestors and brothers were kings of Sparta. I, Kyniska, victorious with a chariot of swift-footed horses, erected this statue. I declare that I am the only woman in all of Greece to have won this crown.”
What about Sarah Franklin? Sally, as her family called her.
We don’t know very much about Sally’s childhood, but we know that she loved to read the books in her famous father’s library. We know Benjamin Franklin bragged in letters about Sally being very smart and very funny. And we know she was nine years old at the time of her father’s famous kite experiment. Nine—the same age as Abby and Doc! I decided she’d be the perfect person to be the brains behind this time-twisting adventure.
Finally, a few words about Ben Franklin’s electrical experiments. In Chapter Twenty, he was telling the truth when he said, “I’ve given myself worse jolts than that many times.” Franklin loved to experiment with electricity and early versions of batteries, and he had a few dangerous accidents. In the famous kite experiment, conducted in June 1752, he and his twenty-one-year-old son, William, flew a kite as a thunderstorm was rolling into town. Franklin wanted to show that lightning was electricity, and that it could travel from object to object. As the kite neared the storm cloud, an electrical charge traveled down the wet kite string to a metal key—and jumped from the key to Ben’s hand.
He was lucky not to be hurt. If lightning had struck the kite—as often shown in inaccurate drawings of this event—whoever was holding the string would have been killed. Several people died doing the same experiment.
Seriously, don’t try this at home.
And yes, it’s absolutely true that Franklin once wrote a scientific essay called “Fart Proudly.” It was his way of goofing on scientists who took themselves too seriously.
Oh, and one more thing. Benjamin Franklin really is in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
CREDITS
STEVE SHEINKIN, Author
NEIL SWAAB, Interior Illustrator / Designer
OLIVIA ASERR, Cover Illustrator
MIKE BURROUGHS, Cover Letterer
CONNIE HSU, Executive Editor
JEN BESSER, Publisher
ELIZABETH CLARK, Creative Director
TOM NAU, Director of Production
JILL FRESHNEY, Senior Executive Managing Editor
MEGAN ABBATE, Assistant Editor
Questions for the Author:
STEVE SHEINKIN
What did you want to be when you grew up? My younger brother and I spent most of our childhood writing stories and making “shows”—comedy sketches that we’d videotape. I’ve seen some of the tapes recently. They’re not that funny. But we thought they were, and I became convinced I was going to be some kind of writer.
What’s your most embarrassing childhood memory? I cried pretty much the entire first day of first grade. It was a new school, and I really didn’t want to be there. A lot of kids, even my friends, never let me forget that day …
What’s your favorite childhood memory? I once got a metal detector as a present, and it was so exciting to use it in my yard. I was absolutely sure I’d find buried treasure! I didn’t. But still, to this day I can’t resist any story about buried treasure.
What was your favorite thing about school? When a teacher would tell us stories. I didn’t care if it was a fictional epic like The Odyssey, or something from history, or just a true story from the teacher’s own life. Almost any story at all held my attention.
Did you play sports as a kid? I always loved playing sports with friends, but was never super serious about being on teams. In middle school and high school I was on the cross-country team, because that was one sport that welcomed the very skinny.
What was your first job, and what was your “worst” job? I’ve had so many terrible jobs, far too many to list, and that’s one reason I’m so happy now being a writer. I started with the usual lawn mowing. To me, the worst jobs were in restaurants, where you had to act happy in front of the customers. My bosses kept telling me, “You don’t smile enough!”
How did you celebrate publishing your first book? The day I found out my first book was going to be published was the exact same day I found out my wife and I were going to have a daughter. So the daughter news sort of won out, and rightfully so.
Where do you write your books? I used to go to my public library. I’d sit in the exact same seat and stay there all day. After I had a few books published, I was able to afford to rent a tiny office. I like getting out of the house, because I feel like I’m really going to work.
What sparked your imagination for the Time Twisters series? Well, I don’t like to admit it, because I’m afraid kids will get mad, but I used to write history textbooks for a living. I always felt sorry for the historical figures who were stuck in those boring books, doing the same thing over and over. That led to the idea of letting them escape and go on adventures in other times and places.
What challenges do you face in the writing process, and how do you overcome them? As much as I love my job, I do think the writing process is pretty hard. It takes a lot of discipline to put in the hours needed to write something good.
What’s the best advice you have ever received about writing? “Keep going.” It sounds so simple, but it’s the hardest part. Jus
t keep working, no matter what.
What would you do if you ever stopped writing? At this point, I’m not really qualified to do anything else.
If you could live in any fictional world, what would it be? I’d want to be on a pirate ship of some kind, like in one of my favorite books, Treasure Island. I know real-life pirates were cruel and disgusting, but in fictional adventures it seems like a lot of fun.
If you could travel in time, where would you go and what would you do? This fantasy is such a key part of the Time Twisters. I get to send my characters to meet people like Abe Lincoln and Amelia Earhart, to ride with cowboys and see the ancient Olympics. A big part of making up the stories is asking myself, “Where would you like to go next?”
If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be? Funny you should ask, because my daughter and I have been talking about this over breakfast and we came up with a great one. And by “great” I mean hilariously lame. It’s Non-Fiction Man! He has the power to convince kids history is exciting! At least, he thinks he does. He and his daughter set out on adventures, and of course things go terribly wrong …
OH NO! FAMOUS FOLKS FROM HISTORY
KNOW THEY DON‘T HAVE TO DO THE SAME
OLD THING ANYMORE—AND EVERYTHING IS
TWISTING OUT OF CONTROL!
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THE OTHER
TIME TWISTERS ADVENTURES:
KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRO WRESTLER …
CHAPTER ONE
Ms. Maybee said, “Okay, guys, let’s get out our history books!”
The whole class groaned.
Doc tilted his head back and started snoring.
“Very funny,” Ms. Maybee said. “This is going to be fun, trust me. Abby? How about if you get us started.”
Abby—she’s the one who broke history. It was Abby and her stepbrother, Doc.
Amelia Earhart and the Flying Chariot Page 5
