“So let’s assume there wasn’t anything in the wall where they looked,” said Derek. “If something was supposed to be under where Patrick Henry spoke, where else could it be?”
A loud bang came from the floor above them. The boys heard loud voices shouting from the reenactment. A cloud of dirt and dust rained onto their heads, and Derek started coughing. Sam looked up and scanned the ceiling. It was lower than a modern building, with wide wooden beams stretching from one side of the small room to the other. From down there, it was impossible to tell where Patrick Henry would have been standing.
Derek looked back up at the ceiling. “Maybe it’s not in the wall. Maybe it’s in the floor.”
“I think they’d have seen it if it was on the floor, Derek. And we can’t go up there! That’s where he is.”
“No, not on the floor, in the floor – like under a floorboard or something.” He moved over to the wall and looked up. “Come over here. See if I can lift you up to reach the floorboards.”
“What? No way! You do it! We need to get out of here. The reenactment is going to end soon.”
“Come on, trust me. I have a plan,” Derek said. Sam hated it when Derek had a plan. They often worked, but they were usually painful in the process.
He begrudgingly came over to where Derek was standing and lifted his foot up onto his brother’s clasped hands. Sam heaved himself up against the wall until his head was nearly touching the ceiling.
“Okay,” Sam whispered, “I’m up here. Now what?” He kept his voice low since he was just underneath the floor of the church. His left foot was resting on Derek’s shoulder while his right was propped against the stone wall. His head brushed against the coarse wood streaked with cobwebs and dirt.
“See if you can feel anything up there along the boards,” Derek said.
Sam looked around but couldn’t see much of anything in the shadows. He stretched his arm out into the empty space between the floor joists, feeling around with his hand. He tried one direction and then another, but all he felt were cobwebs and rough edges of wood.
Finally, he leaned all the way toward the basement wall’s edge. He positioned himself between the stone and the wood beams, right above where the men had been digging. Beneath him, Derek unexpectedly shifted his weight and Sam lost his balance. He frantically reached out and clung to the beam for dear life. Under his hand, against the beam, he felt something different – something soft.
“I think I’ve got something!”
The sound of clapping rang out above them.
“Great! Grab it and get down!” said Derek.
Sam gave the object a light tug, pulling it loose from its place against the wood. He drew his arm out and jumped down from the ledge.
In his hand was some kind of old scroll or tube of paper, like when he rolled up a poster in his room. The paper was yellowed and crinkly. It must have been up there for a long time.
“Is that parchment paper?” asked Derek.
“I don’t know, but it seems pretty old,” said Sam. “We can look at it later. Let’s get out of here before somebody finds us.”
Sam tucked the roll of paper into his jacket, and they hustled out into the daylight. The church bells were ringing and people were filing out the side door of the church. The boys scurried behind a gravestone and watched for their parents. Some of the performers were lined up along the back sidewalk, ready to shake hands and greet the audience.
Sam couldn’t see Jerry yet, nor was there any sign of their parents. Maybe Jerry had them cornered! He could be questioning them this very minute!
The bells quieted, and finally Mom and Dad exited the building. Sam let out a sigh as he took a few steps toward them. Jerry emerged from the doorway right behind them.
Sam stopped in his tracks.
“I’ll meet you by the car,” Sam said to Derek, starting down the hill. Derek hustled over to Mom and Dad to hurry them along.
Sam walked quickly down the sidewalk, through the gate, and out to the street where they’d parked. He started to move around a man working on the brick wall below the fence. The man scooted backward just as Sam passed by, and they bumped arms.
“Sorry,” said Sam, continuing on. He turned his head to look back at the man. It was one of the men who had been digging in the basement! Startled, Sam tripped on a crack and tumbled down onto the sidewalk.
The man looked up, and Sam knew he’d been recognized. “Hey, kid, I know you!”
Sam had to get out of there. He jumped to his feet and started running. He reached their minivan, but it was locked! He turned back, expecting for the man to grab him at any second. To his surprise, though, the man was going in the opposite direction. In fact, he was running up the steps toward the church. Where was he going?
Sam turned and saw Derek hustling Mom and Dad toward the van. They must have come around the other side of the block. Sam waved his arms wildly. “Come on! We have to go!”
“What is the big hurry?” Mom asked. “First you beg to come here, then you miss nearly the entire program. Now you want to race off like our house is on fire?”
“You boys missed a good program,” said Dad. “You could have learned a lot in there.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we learned a lot,” Derek assured them as he climbed into his seat.
“Shut the door, Derek! Come on, let’s go!” Sam shouted. He looked up at the church. The man from the sidewalk was pointing at their van with Jerry beside him. As both men started running toward the street, Sam ducked below the window out of sight.
“Step on it, Dad!”
The men raced down the steps as the van pulled away from the curb. They ran out into the road, but they were too late.
Derek leaned out the window. “I know your phone number, Jerry!” he screamed, shaking his fist back at the two men.
“What in the world?” called out Mom from the front seat. “Derek, get back in the car!”
Derek sank back into his seat with a smile.
Mom turned around in her seat and looked at the road behind them. “Who are you yelling at? Is that one of the actors from the program?”
“Boys, sit back and buckle your seatbelts right now!” Dad ordered. “Derek, no more outbursts. That’s no way to speak to anyone.”
Sam turned and frowned at Derek. “Did you just say you know his phone number?”
Derek just smiled.
“Do you?”
“No, I don’t know why I said that!” Derek said, chuckling. “I wanted to scare him and that’s just what came out.”
Sam started laughing so hard he ended up coughing. “Oh, I’m sure you scared him with that! Next time you can tell him you’re going to send him an email!”
Sam exhaled loudly. It felt good to laugh again. He reached inside his jacket, relieved to find the rolled-up paper still safely tucked away. He couldn’t look at it with Mom and Dad in the car, so he sat back and closed his eyes. It could wait until they got home.
SIX
The Letter
It was already dinnertime by the time they arrived home. Sam ran up to his room and placed the rolled-up paper under his bed. He hustled back downstairs, trying to look casual. He didn’t want Mom and Dad to get suspicious and make him confess to having a document from the American Revolution hidden in his room. They may not understand.
As the family ate dinner, Dad described the rest of the program that they missed. “Patrick Henry was really the founder with the passion that inspired the other members of the Virginia Convention to join the war effort. It was pretty exciting to be sitting right there in the same room where it actually took place and have him talk about joining the revolution.”
“Why would anyone not want to join the revolution?” asked Derek. “Didn’t they want America to be its own country?”
“Well, it wasn’t quite that simple,” explained Mom. “A lot of people didn’t like the fact that we’d be at war with England. Remember, America was originally an English colony. Many of t
he colonists had recently come from England and still considered it to be their homeland.
“Some were scared that if the colonies declared war on England, they would be crushed. Many thought there weren’t enough guns, bullets, or trained men to fight. The British had the greatest military might in the world at that time. The colonies were really just made up of a scattered collection of farmers and common folk who didn’t know how to fight a war.”
“But we had George Washington! Wasn’t he the general?” asked Derek.
“Yes, he did lead the American troops,” Mom replied. “He was also from Virginia and was played by one of the actors. He stood up and said he would support joining the revolution, offering to be their military leader.”
“Was Thomas Jefferson there too? Didn’t he write the Declaration of Independence?” asked Sam.
“That’s right,” said Dad. “A lot of the great Founding Fathers were from right here in Virginia.”
“How about George Wythe?” asked Derek. “We saw his grave out in the cemetery. It said he was one of the signers of the Declaration.”
“I don’t know a lot about him,” answered Mom, “but I think you’re right that he was a signer. There’s a house in Colonial Williamsburg named after him, and I think he was a professor at William and Mary.”
“William and Mary who?” asked Sam.
“That’s where she went to college, dummy,” yelled Derek. “Duh, Sam!”
“Hey, don’t call me a dummy. You didn’t even know how to pronounce George Wythe!”
“Okay, okay,” said Dad. “Stop arguing. I think you knew that Mom went to the College of William and Mary, Sam. You probably just forgot. It’s the oldest college in the country.”
“The second oldest,” corrected Mom. “Harvard’s the oldest.”
“It’s the second oldest college in the country,” restated Dad. “So several of the Virginia founders were associated with it.”
“Yeah, the gravestone said that Wythe taught Thomas Jefferson and a few other guys,” said Sam. “That’s pretty cool. We should go visit Williamsburg again sometime. Mom, you’re always wanting to go back and see your old college. What was that place you lived in called – your fraternity house?”
Dad choked on his drink of water and Mom laughed. “It was a sorority house, Sam. Boys live in a fraternity house.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be taking any more family history trips for a while after the attention that you two paid to the reenactment today,” said Dad, wiping his mouth. “Your mom and I enjoyed it, but you hardly saw any of it.”
“I’m sorry, Dad, that was my fault,” said Sam. “I was really feeling sick all of a sudden. I think it was those benches with the high walls all around. They were making me feel catastrophic.”
Derek smacked his forehead and laughed, “You mean claustrophobic!”
“Yeah, that too.”
“We’ll think about it,” said Mom. “It would be fun to get back on campus. We could stop and see your Great-Aunt Karen too. She lives right there in town next to the colonial section. She’s been asking to see us since we moved to Virginia.”
Sam wasn’t sure how fun that would be. He had only met old Aunt Karen a few times, but as far as he could remember, fun was not a word he would use to describe her. She lived in one of those old houses where everything was an antique. Everybody had to walk around carefully so they didn’t break something important. He wondered if her house might actually be part of Colonial Williamsburg. The last time they were there, he and Derek had just played outside while Mom and Dad talked to her.
“And,” continued Mom, “we could show you where your dad and I were married. You were too young to remember the last time we went by the Wren Chapel. It’s where everything started for our family.” She looked off into the distance as if she were remembering some grand event like winning the World Series or the Super Bowl.
“As long as there’s no kissing. Please, no kissing,” Sam said.
“We’ll try to keep the romance under control, Sam. Don’t worry,” Dad laughed.
“And we can see George Wythe’s house while we’re there, too, right?” asked Derek. “I really want to see it since we saw his grave today.”
“Really? You think that would be interesting?” asked Dad, raising his eyebrow in surprise. “I thought you’d be too busy having long talks with Aunt Karen about her antique collection.”
“Dad!” the boys yelled in unison.
“Actually,” continued Dad, “I thought you might be more interested in stopping by, oh, I don’t know, maybe the waterpark on the way home?”
“Waterpark! Yeah, that would be awesome! Sweet! We should definitely do that, too,” shouted Sam. “Can we really?”
“Let us talk about it,” said Mom.
Sam could already tell that she was going to say yes. She still had that faraway look in her eyes that said she really wanted to get back to her old college.
***
After dinner, Sam and Derek ran up to their room and shut the door. Derek brought his desk lamp over to the middle of the rug, and they pulled the old paper out from under the bed. As Sam carefully unrolled it, Derek gently rested some of their small baseball trophies on each corner to hold it down.
In addition to the letter, there was another object rolled up inside the paper. It was shaped like a rectangle, about the size of a ruler. It felt thin like a piece of cardboard, but it wasn’t cardboard. Sam decided it must be some slender type of wood, like the kind for model airplanes. The wood framed a clear center section with a strange series of holes and tiny lines.
“What is that thing?” asked Sam. “The middle looks like plastic.”
“It can’t be plastic. I don’t think that was even invented back then!” said Derek.
They turned and stared at the paper. It was old and thin. Words were written across it with a slanted-looking cursive like what Sam had been practicing in Mrs. H’s class. It was hard to read, and Sam worried that it would tear if they touched it too much. Derek began to read the letter aloud.
June 25, 1806
Dear Sir,
It pains me greatly to learn only too late that you have left this life, my teacher and friend. My only encouragement is the earnest belief that you are presently in a place much greater than this. I shall do everything in my power to track down the truth about that ne’er-do-well, Mr. Sweeney, who has disgraced the Wythe family name. Even in this time of sorrow, it does my heart well to remember the courageous fight for liberty we all have undertaken and has since become manifest. I give back to you now, even in death, this key to the marvelous device that you demonstrated in your study. You’ll remember that it leads to the early version of our great declaration, the one I sent with you upon your return to Williamsburg before the great signing. I trust that it shall rest safely in its own shallow grave to commemorate our greatest achievement. May you find peace with the Almighty.
Your friend and servant,
Thomas Jefferson
After Derek finished reading the letter, the boys were silent. Sam didn’t understand some of the fancy words, but he followed the general idea. It was a letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe. Jefferson must have written it after Wythe’s death, but it was still over 200 years old.
“Wow,” Derek exclaimed, breaking the silence. “A real letter from Thomas Jefferson! That is heavy stuff!”
Sam held up the rectangular object. Their lamp light flowed through the tiny holes, making lots of sparkles against the wall. They looked like the stars on the ceiling of a planetarium.
“Does this seem like a key to you?” Sam asked.
“Not like any key I’ve ever seen,” said Derek. “It must somehow work together with a device in Wythe’s study.”
Sam looked back at the letter. “It talked about that Sweeney guy again, just like the men in the basement. What did it call him?” He looked back at the letter. “A ‘ne’er-do-well.’ What’s that?”
“Beats me! B
ut whatever a ‘ne-er’ is, Sweeney’s not doing it well.” Derek laughed at his own joke. He did that a lot. He walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out the big dictionary. He flipped to the ‘N’ section and ran his finger down the page.
“Let’s see… Ne’cessitously, ne’er, here we go, ne’er-do-well – an idle, worthless person; good-for-nothing.” He looked up from the book. “Sam, you ne’er-do-well!”
“Ha ha,” muttered Sam. “Wow, I guess that Sweeney guy is a real creep. At least Thomas Jefferson thought so. We need to find out who he is. But if we ask Dad to use his computer, he’s going to ask us why.”
“You should call your girlfriend,” Derek suggested with a smile.
“Who?” asked Sam, his face flushing. Whenever he got embarrassed, his face turned as red as a tomato.
“You know, that girl in your class who was on your field trip. You said she knew all about history. Maybe she can help us with this.”
“Caitlin?” said Sam in disbelief. “I can’t call Caitlin on the phone! And she’s NOT my girlfriend! I don’t even like her. She was just in my group on the trip. She is totally annoying.”
“Well, we have to do something. We’re sitting here in our room with Thomas Jefferson’s letter. This is an emergency!”
Sam thought about Derek’s idea. “She did say she wanted to do some research,” he admitted.
“Perfect!” shouted Derek. “What’s her phone number?”
“Why don’t you ask Jerry? You seem to know his number.”
“Very funny, Sam. Seriously, what’s her number? You need to call her.”
“I don’t have her number memorized, Derek. Let me go find the school directory.” Sam coolly walked downstairs and scanned the bookshelf next to the microwave. He pulled out the thin red directory with one hand and grabbed the phone with the other. Then he hustled out of the kitchen and back upstairs before his parents could get suspicious.
The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 Page 10
