Washington’s War

by Stacia Deutsch

  All the clues came together. I finally knew who we were visiting. Yippee!

  I hustled out of the library and ran all the way to Mr. C’s classroom for History Club. When I flung open the door, I couldn’t believe my eyes!

  The green time-travel hole was already open. Glowing smoke covered the floor. Three backpacks were resting in a corner. Jacob and Zack were gone.

  Bo was standing at the very edge of the time-travel hole.

  “You’re leaving without me?!” I asked, mouth hanging open, totally stunned.

  Bo blushed. He was clearly embarrassed and explained in a soft, pained voice. “Jacob didn’t want to put the cartridge into the back of the computer. But Zack was worried. He kept complaining about how we weren’t going to have enough time for the adventure. We waited as long as we could.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The boys were going to time-travel without me!

  It was Zack’s fault that I missed the discussion in my favorite class. His fault that I’d had to play detective all day. And his fault that I’d almost missed time-traveling.

  I grabbed Bo’s hand. “Let’s go. Zack is not getting away with this!”

  The two of us jumped into the glowing green hole together.

  Valley Forge

  The first thing I did when I landed was look for Zack. My blood was boiling. I needed to talk to him—now!

  I dropped Bo’s hand and started searching. We’d landed in a large farm field. There were bales of hay stacked in neat rows. The area was flat, but rolling hills surrounded us. Clusters of trees grew on the hills. Fresh white snow dusted the ground.

  When a gust of freezing wind blew, I stuffed my hands under the bottom of my shirt to keep them warm. Suddenly I realized that in my rush to jump through the time-travel hole, I had forgotten to take off my backpack. I quickly pulled it off, shuffled my books to the side, and took out my jacket. It was a simple red raincoat, not great for a snowy day, but still warmer than hanging around in my turtleneck and jeans.

  I was on the prowl for Zack. I looked right and saw nothing but sheep and horses in wide pens. When I turned left, there he was! Zack was hurrying across the farm field at top speed. He seemed to be chasing after three men.

  I sped past Bo, who was busy zipping up the lightweight coat he was wearing.

  I hustled past Jacob, who was checking the settings on the computer. I heard him say, “Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. February 16, 1778,” as I rushed by.

  I noticed that Jacob had a jacket on too. The boys must have brought coats, knowing it was going to be cold. That made me even madder at Zack. I hadn’t known to bring a coat and might not have if I hadn’t accidentally brought my backpack along.

  “Zack,” I called out, my fists shaking with rage. “I can’t believe you left without me!”

  He didn’t hear me, or else he was ignoring me, because I heard him shout out to the men, “Hey, guys! Wait up!”

  Since Zack is the fastest runner in the third grade, he actually caught up to the three men. They stopped to talk. Perfect. Now I had him right where I wanted him!

  Ignoring the men Zack was with, I tackled him.

  “Oof,” Zack exclaimed with surprise as he fell back into the snow. I stood over him, hands on my hips, breathing hard.

  “What are you doing?!” Zack was shocked.

  “I’m mad at you,” I replied, narrowing my eyes and looking at him hard.

  “We don’t have time for this, Abigail,” Zack insisted, struggling to get up. “They’re going to get away! If they leave we won’t have any way to find—”

  Sure enough, the three men Zack had been chasing had moved away from us and were now trying to hide behind a small grove of thin, leafless trees. Through the branches, I could clearly see that the three guys were all wearing matching clothes: loose brown shirts with fringe along the bottom, brown leather pants, and some funky long stockings underneath. But everything they wore was torn and muddy. They didn’t have shoes on.

  I am usually super curious and normally I’d have stopped everything to ask about the men and their clothes, but I was going to deal with Zack first.

  “You made me look like a fool in class,” I told him. “I didn’t have any idea who Mr. C was talking about.” And just to show how mad I was, I growled at him.

  Just then, Bo and Jacob caught up with us. Jacob was laughing that Zack and I were fighting. Usually he’s the one who fights with Zack. “Want me to hold him down for you?” Jacob offered.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I want him to apologize! Zack ruined my whole day.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Zack repeated, shivering in the snow. “If we don’t talk to those guys, we’ll never find—,” he began, then stopped suddenly. Zack paused and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Abigail. Really.” I could tell he was apologizing with his whole heart. “We should have never left without you.”

  A gust of wind blew. Goose bumps traveled up my spine. “What about distracting me in class?” I asked, a little calmer.

  “I’m sorry about that, too.” I could tell he really meant it. “I thought you would enjoy a good laugh. You usually like jokes.”

  I reached out and helped him up. “I accept your apology.” I thought about it for a second. “Listen. It’s fine with me if you tell jokes sometimes, but never, ever, ever do it during Mr. C’s class again.”

  “Deal.” Zack and I shook hands. Then he explained, “Remember I told you that when I came out of the bathroom, Mr. C was already coming down the hallway? He gave me the time-travel cartridge and told me to hang on to it until after school. So before class I knew who we were visiting because of the little picture glued to the front of the cartridge.”

  Zack went on. “When I found out who we were visiting, I felt like this History Club mission was really important. You know me. Usually, when stuff is serious, I get nervous and stressed.” Zack shivered, then grinned. “I decided that I’d tell jokes today instead of worrying so much.”

  “I think I like it better when you worry,” Jacob put in. He quickly glanced at the computer and reported, “We only have an hour and fifty-three minutes until our time runs out. We don’t have an extra second to spare for dopey riddles.”

  “There’s always time for a joke. Just wait and see,” Zack told his brother as he dusted the snow off his back.

  “Did anyone ever tell you who we are here to see?” Bo asked me, clearly wanting to be helpful.

  “I’m a pretty good detective,” I said. “I figured it out by myself. It’s February 16, 1778. We are in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. And”—I smiled proudly—“we’re here to find George Washington!”

  The only thing I still didn’t know was what George Washington was quitting. What did we need to convince him to do?

  I was about to ask Bo when Zack asked, “What was GW’s favorite tree?”

  “GW?” I wondered.

  “It’s short for George Washington,” Zack told me. “Come on. Guess. What was GW’s favorite tree?” Obviously Zack was going to finish his joke whether I wanted to hear it or not, so I shrugged.

  “The infantry!” His belly shook as he laughed. “Infantry means soldiers in an army.”

  I didn’t honor him with even a little giggle. The joke just wasn’t funny.

  “Speaking of infantry,” Bo said, looking all around, “where did those three soldiers go? We should ask them where to find George Washington.”

  I decided to ask Bo about our mission later. It seemed more important to find the soldiers first, so I looked all around the grove of small trees. The three men weren’t there anymore. I finally spotted them across the farm field. They seemed to be trying to hide behind a hay bale. Six arms and six legs were sticking out from the sides of the hay.

  “What are they doing?” Jacob asked.

  “No clue.” Zack raised his shoulders. “Let’s go find out!”

  “Hopefully they know where we can find GW,” Bo said, using Zack’s new nickname for George Washington.r />
  When we got close, Jacob called to the six arms, “Are you guys in the army with General George Washington?”

  There was a bunch of whispering. I think they were deciding whether they should talk to us. “We used to be,” the first man called out from behind the bale. His voice was nervous and shaky. One at a time, they each came out to where we could see them, but all three looked at us cautiously.

  The second man surveyed the area before answering in a soft voice. “We are running away. Every day more and more soldiers desert the army. Sometimes even whole regiments, entire troops of men, run away together.”

  These guys were young. My sister CeCe is sixteen. I think they were about the same age. Maybe even seventeen or eighteen.

  “We’d rather leave than die from cold or illness,” the third guy explained. “Aren’t you leaving Valley Forge too?”

  Bo silently shook his head.

  Zack said, “We just got here.”

  The guy looked surprised. “Do you have any idea what it is like in the American Continental Army?” He didn’t wait for our response before saying, “We knew we would be spending the winter at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. I thought we were going to a large military fort, but this place is a gathering of farms in a cold, bitter valley.”

  The first man lifted one foot to show us the bottom. It was all scarred and scabbed. “To get here we had to march miles and miles in the snow. There were not enough boots for everyone. I walked barefoot.” He looked down at my feet. I felt guilty for wearing my clean white tennis shoes.

  The second man also showed us his sore foot before saying, “The British have been ruling the thirteen American colonies for too long. They are unfairly taxing us and making us follow their rules. I joined the Continental Army to help kick the British out of our land. But the British troops are strong and powerful. They have plenty of food and clothes. Our American troops are weak, and hungry, and dirty.” He paused before adding, “This Revolutionary War has been going on for two and a half years already. There is no hope. I am certain we are going to lose.”

  The third soldier didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his hands around his belly. He was so thin, I could see the outline of his ribs through a big tear in the front of his shirt.

  The boys and I fell silent. I bet we were all thinking about how hard things were for these soldiers.

  After a few seconds, Jacob glanced down at the time on the computer screen and reported, “We only have an hour and forty-one minutes. Do you guys know where George Washington is?”

  The first man raised his eyebrows, cautiously looking over our modern clothing. “We cannot give that information,” he answered, looking really scared. He quickly grabbed his buddies and the three of them started to run up the hill, into the trees.

  “Wait!” I called.

  “Stop!” Zack and Jacob called out together.

  But to my total surprise, it was Bo who got their attention. “We won’t tell on you,” Bo said calmly, in a loud voice. There was something special about the bold way Bo called out to the men. He reminded me of, well, me.

  The men stopped running and took a few steps back toward us. “You swear you won’t report us to General Washington?” the first man asked very seriously.

  “We won’t even mention you at all,” Zack promised.

  “We heard he is leaving Valley Forge,” the third man informed us. “Talk in the camp is that he believes that he has failed.”

  I suddenly knew why we had come to 1778. It was our job to keep history on track, and that meant that George Washington could not quit and leave Valley Forge. All of American history would change if he left.

  “We have to find him immediately,” I told the boys and the soldiers at the same time. “We must convince him not to leave Valley Forge.”

  The third man put his arm around Zack. “Good luck trying to convince him to stay. The general is a very stubborn man.” He paused, then added, “And he has no sense of humor—at all.” I glanced over at Zack and hoped in my heart he wouldn’t try to tell George Washington any of his lame jokes.

  The soldiers took turns giving us directions.

  “Go past those sheep.” The first man pointed at the sheep I’d seen earlier.

  “Turn right at the cows,” the second continued. “And go straight until you find a few tents. Beyond the tents, you will see log cabins, and behind that, a stone house. That is the Pottses’ home. General Washington has been using the house as headquarters.”

  “You best hurry if you plan to catch him before he saddles his horse, gathers his wife, and rides away,” the third man finished. Then, without another word, he nodded to his buddies.

  They took off up the hillside, running and ducking between trees until they were out of sight.

  We hurried in the opposite direction, toward the sheep. We had to find George Washington.

  I crossed my fingers that we weren’t already too late.

  MW

  “Was it a right or a left at the cows?” I asked Bo, because Bo remembers everything.

  “Right at the cows, then straight past the tents,” Bo informed me.

  “We should keep our eyes peeled for Babs Magee,” Jacob said as he hopped over a hay bale. Babs Magee was Mr. C’s old apprentice, the one who stole his first time-travel computer. Now she was popping through history trying to convince people to quit.

  “If George Washington is quitting, you can bet she’s around here somewhere,” Zack warned.

  For some strange reason, probably just bad fashion sense, Babs Magee always wears a yellow coat and matching hat. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find her,” Zack added, surveying the white snow all around. “Just keep your eyes peeled for a human banana.” He started to laugh. “Get it? Peeled? Banana?”

  “Can you be serious for one whole minute?” I asked.

  “But, Abigail,” he fake whined. “I have another joke. A really good one. I swear you’ll like it.” We made a right turn behind a rather large black stinky cow. Zack patted the cow on her back. “Where’s a cow’s favorite place to go?”

  “BLAH BLAH BLAH!” I screamed, covering my ears and running across the field toward the tents in the distance. Unfortunately, since Zack is such a fast runner, he easily caught up with me.

  I had my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help. I could still hear him.

  “The mooovies,” he said with a snort and a chuckle.

  I had to admit, that one was a teeny-weeny bit funny. I would have laughed, but I didn’t want to encourage him to tell another, so I held my breath until the giggle went away.

  When the runaway soldier said to look for log cabins behind a row of tents, I expected a small campsite. But what we found was more like an enormous log cabin village. There were tons of cabins. And they were pretty big. Bo told me that each one was large enough to sleep twelve soldiers.

  Bo explained that some people called the camp ground at Valley Forge a log city.

  “Fighting in the Revolutionary War was different from fighting wars today.” Bo rubbed his chin as he recalled the facts he’d read. “When it got cold, everyone took a break. Both sides of the battle would stop, build a campsite, and hang out until spring. Then, when it got warm, they’d start fighting again. During the six months the soldiers were in Valley Forge, more than twelve thousand American soldiers, officers, and volunteers stayed here.”

  “Wow! That’s a lot of people,” Jacob exclaimed. “No wonder they called this place a city!”

  “You there,” a young man called to us as we walked through the camp. He was tall, with a brown mustache that bounced as he talked. “Go, gather wood. Then come stoke the fire. My soldiers are cold.” He indicated a gathering of thin, shivering soldiers standing around a fire pit. There was a tiny little fire going. It wasn’t big enough to keep anyone warm.

  He was acting pretty darn bossy for a guy who didn’t know us at all. Who’d he think he was? I tapped myself on the chest. “Are you talking to me?”

&
nbsp; “No,” he said directly. “I am not speaking to you.” He took a long look at my blue jeans and raincoat. “You are a girl, aren’t you?”

  I started to get upset at his question. “Of course I’m a girl. Can’t you tell a boy from a girl?” I couldn’t believe how rude he was. I was just getting going when I felt Bo give me a small warning kick on the side of my shoe.

  “Mellow out, Abigail.” Bo leaned in toward my ear and whispered, “Check out the medals on his uniform.” I saw a few pinned to his shirt. His uniform wasn’t nearly as torn as the clothes the runaways were wearing. “He’s a commanding officer,” Bo said. “He has mistaken Zack, Jacob, and me for soldiers. He thinks you are a female volunteer.”

  “But you and the twins aren’t soldiers,” I grunted. “And I’m not a volunteer.”

  “He doesn’t know that.” Bo bent his head toward a group of women nearby. “Look over there.”

  About ten women were gathered around a river’s edge. Some were on the shore. Others had hiked up their skirts and were standing in the stream. They were doing laundry, scrubbing at soldiers’ clothes with the icy water. I could see soapy bubbles floating downstream. I shivered just watching them. It must have been freezing.

  “You belong with the women,” the bossy commanding officer informed me. “You may go either to the laundry or to the hospital area to nurse the sick.” I stared at him. “Choose,” he said, all tough and snotty. “That’s an order.”

  My cheeks turned red. It’s nearly impossible for me to take orders from anyone.

  “We shouldn’t make trouble,” Bo said to us softly. “Abigail should go to the laundry. We’ll quickly stoke his fire and then sneak off together.”

  “But—,” Jacob argued. He lowered his voice so Mr. Bossy couldn’t hear us. “We have to find GW.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Bo said softly. He turned to me. “Abigail, go on. Maybe the women know where to find GW. Zack, Jacob, and I will check around here. By the time we come get you in a few minutes, we’ll know exactly where we are headed. That way, we won’t waste any time at all.”