“On the count of three,” said Caitlin, positioned at the opening of the bright yellow tube next to his.
Sam put his hands on the bar above his red tube for extra momentum on the push off. He readied himself for Caitlin’s count.
“One….two…”
Sam tightened his grip on the bar.
“Go!” Caitlin yelled, shooting forward into her slide.
What? That wasn’t fair! She didn’t say three! Sam dropped awkwardly into the tube without any momentum. “Caitliiiiiiin!” he yelled, building speed through the tube. He could hear her screams through the tube next to him as they flew around the curves.
Sam burst out the bottom, arms waving as he splashed into the water. Caitlin was already paddling toward the side of the pool ahead of him. He wiped the water from his eyes and kicked his way to the wall. “You cheated!”
“What are you talking about? You didn’t hear me say three?” Caitlin giggled. “I warned you that you couldn’t keep up with a girl!”
“Whatever,” replied Sam. “You know you cheated. You’re worse than Derek.”
“Oh, now I’m really insulted!” Caitlin laughed.
After a few more rides down the slide, they dried off with their towels at the chairs. “Let’s go to the deep pool. Be careful. Meghan and Paul are over there,” said Sam, making a gagging face.
***
Sam and Caitlin sat on the concrete side of the large rectangular pool, legs hanging in the water. Half the pool had plastic ropes that marked swimming lanes under small diving platforms for races. On the side where they were sitting, the pool was open with the depth marked 8 FT in blue paint. It was far too deep for Sam to stand, but he’d been working on his treading water, and he knew he could swim there as long as he didn’t go too far from the side. Just in case, he glanced up at the lifeguard across the pool. She was swinging a whistle around in a circle but seemed to be paying attention.
Sam looked over and waved to Meghan. She looked right at him but didn’t wave back. She had on reflective sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes and was turned in her lounge chair so that Paul could rub sunscreen on her back.
Paul was different than Sam had expected. Although Sam wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected. Probably some kind of skater dude. Instead, Paul looked like a tight end on the New York Giants. But he had to be six foot four and looked like he worked out a lot. He was surprisingly nice, which didn’t seem to fit with what Sam knew of Meghan. Maybe she was nice to everyone but them.
“So how was Hollywood Cemetery?” asked Caitlin, kicking small waves of water from the edge.
Sam told her about seeing the Confederate monument, the graves of the presidents, and then about the bikers.
“Wow, that’s crazy,” said Caitlin. “What do you think they were doing there?”
“I don’t want to know. I told Derek that if they find out we’re Yankees from the North, they’ll kill us.”
“I’ll protect you, Sam,” Caitlin said, laughing as she slapped him on the shoulder.
Sam hadn’t been expecting the push, and slipped off the edge of the wall, splashing down into the water. He reached his arm up to the edge and pulled himself back to the surface, coughing some water out of his lungs.
“What the heck?” he yelled up at Caitlin.
“Whoops. Sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s actually refreshing, but if that’s you protecting me, I think I’ll be better off without you!”
Caitlin smiled. “Do you really think they put a mark on the statue in blood? That’s pretty weird.”
“Who knows. That’s what Derek said, but he might have been joking. Whatever they were doing there, it was not good.”
Caitlin stood up. “Move back and watch this.” She turned around, placing her heels right on the edge. “Prepare to be amazed!”
Sam wondered what she was doing. But before he could ask, she bent her knees and jumped backwards in the air, arching her back. Her hands came together over her head as her body straightened, and she gracefully slipped into the water with hardly a splash.
Sam watched in surprise while Caitlin kicked back to the surface. Her head popped above the water, a huge smile on her face.
“Ta-da!” she shouted.
“Wow!” said Sam. “I am amazed. That was sweet! What was it?”
“That was my back dive. I’ve been practicing it at swim team.”
Caitlin was full of surprises. Sam had known she was smart, but never realized she was such a good swimmer. He tried to remember how she bent her back in the air like that. Sam feared that his spine would snap in half if he tried it.
A whistle blew from the lifeguard stand, signaling that it would be adult swim time for the next ten minutes. Caitlin and Sam climbed up the ladder and walked over to where Meghan and Paul were now talking.
“Can we get snow cones?” asked Sam. Meghan didn’t stop talking but nodded her head toward the snack bar. She made a motion with her hand like she was writing something, so Sam assumed that meant he could charge the snow cones to his parents’ account.
“Great. Come on, Caitlin. Let’s go before the line gets huge.”
***
“Nice and refreshing,” said Sam, his rainbow snow cone crunching in his teeth. They had brought their treats to the chairs next to Meghan and were watching Paul swim laps.
“Is he in the Olympics or something?” asked Caitlin.
“I don’t know,” answered Sam, “but he motors through the water like a speed boat.” He took another bite of his snow cone. “Do you think they had Icees back in the Civil War?”
Caitlin laughed. “I doubt it. I don’t think they even had freezers back then.”
“Ice houses.”
Sam looked up, surprised to see that it was Meghan who had spoken. “What?”
“Ice houses. That’s what they used instead of freezers,” she repeated.
Sam thought about it for a second. That didn’t make any sense at all. “Why would they build houses out of ice? And how would you even know that, Meghan?”
“I’m not going to college to be a doctor.”
Sam paused again to think about what that could mean. Meghan was so weird sometimes. “A nurse?”
“What are you going to school for?” asked Caitlin.
“I’m studying American history.”
“You are?” said Sam, in disbelief. He couldn’t picture Meghan doing anything overly intelligent, but then he reminded himself that she was in college. If she didn’t get a job from studying history, maybe when she graduated she could be a prison guard.
“Wow, that’s super cool,” exclaimed Caitlin. “You probably know a lot about what Sam and I have been talking about then.” She nudged Sam.
“Um…” Sam tried to think of a question. He was sure he had a lot of them. He looked out at Paul swimming away from them and had an idea. “So…what happened to General Lee after he left Richmond?” There, that was a pretty good question.
Meghan sighed, peering over the top of her sunglasses as if Sam’s question was beneath her. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, don’t you know the answer?” said Sam, hoping to either push her to tell them or admit that she was a fraud.
Meghan sat up straight in her lounge chair. “Well, once Lee and his troops evacuated Richmond, they moved west of here to Appomattox Courthouse. They’d hoped to connect with another part of the Confederate Army, but it didn’t work. So he surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox.”
Sam remembered Mr. Haskins saying something about Appomattox. “He gave up?” That wasn’t what he’d expected from the famous General Lee.
“Sam,” said Caitlin. “You do know that the North won the war, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but it sounded like Lee was such a great general. I didn’t think that he’d be the one to surrender.”
Meghan raised her eyebrows and looked over at Sam. “Lee wanted to end the casualties. He really had little choice but to surrender.”
Sam scrunched his face, trying to remember what casualties meant.
Caitlin seemed to be reading his mind. “That’s the number of soldiers killed,” she whispered.
“Sometimes the greatest leaders know when to give up,” said Meghan. “Lee had seen enough bloodshed. Four long years of war had resulted in over 600,000 dead. Although there were actually more Union casualties than Confederate.”
“That’s terrible,” said Sam. “It’s a good thing that he surrendered then, I guess.”
“You two should go to the Civil War museum at Tredegar. That way I don’t have to be your encyclopedia.”
“That’s right next to Belle Isle where we rode our bikes,” said Sam. “Why didn’t you say something when you dropped us off the other morning?”
“How was I to know that you were a history buff?” said Meghan, “I just thought you wanted to ride bikes.”
“Maybe we can go tomorrow?” suggested Caitlin. “My mom can take us. It’s not that far from the bookstore. Do you think Derek would want to come?”
“Maybe. We can ask him,” said Sam. “Is that okay, Meghan?”
“Works for me. The less time I have to watch you two the better.”
“Isn’t that your job, to watch us while Mom and Dad are away?” asked Sam. He’d been thinking it all week, and it was about time someone said it. “They’re paying you, aren’t they?”
“I’m watching you now, aren’t I?” said Meghan.
The whistle blew again and kids started jumping back into the pool. “Let’s go,” said Sam, hopping out of his chair, happy to be done talking with Meghan.
“She’s not very nice, is she?” asked Caitlin. “Why did your parents leave you with her?”
“Well,” answered Sam, sliding back into the water, “she is our cousin, so I think they must trust her. And it’s only for a few days. It could be worse.”
“How could it be worse?” asked Caitlin.
“We could be Paul!” Sam laughed, making a silly kissing face before diving under the water.
EIGHTEEN
“Is this going to be a boring museum?” Derek moaned from the back seat of Mrs. Murphy’s car. He hadn’t been overly enthused when Sam had told him that they were going to the Civil War museum with Caitlin and her mom.
Meghan had said he didn’t have a choice, since she was spending the day with Paul. Derek said it was going on his list of complaints to his mom and dad. Meghan asked him if he’d like to walk to soccer practice in the afternoon in that case. Derek had said no, and the conversation ended. She was tough.
“Now what kind of attitude is that?” Mrs. Murphy asked Derek from the driver’s seat. “I’ve never seen a museum that was boring, only bad attitudes from the visitors.”
“Get ready to be surprised,” mumbled Derek, staring out the window.
Caitlin turned to Sam. “Mom used to be a teacher. That’s how she knows so many things. She thinks I’d be a good teacher someday too. What do you think?”
Sam thought Caitlin acted like the teacher in class half the time already. “Sure,” he replied. That seemed like a safe answer. He thought about the museum. “There’s something I don’t get about the Civil War.”
“Just one thing?” Mrs. Murphy laughed. “You’re doing pretty well if that’s all. The war was a complicated thing. There’s a lot that folks don’t understand.”
“What I mean is, how come there isn’t a statue on Monument Avenue for Abraham Lincoln? He was the president, wasn’t he?”
“That’s a good observation, Sam,” said Mrs. Murphy.
“Sam’s very observant,” added Derek, nodding his head obnoxiously.
“We didn’t see it, because there isn’t one,” said Mrs. Murphy as the car turned off the highway.
“How could there not be a statue of Lincoln?” asked Sam. “He was the president! He freed the slaves, right? That seems worthy of a monument to me.”
“Yes, he was the president, and he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which officially ended slavery,” replied Mrs. Murphy.
“Then why isn’t there a statue?” asked Sam. Caitlin’s mom seemed to know her stuff, but maybe she was wrong about this one.
“Well, it likely has something to do with the fact that Richmond was part of the Confederacy that was defeated by the Union Army,” Mrs. Murphy explained.
“But it was a good thing to end slavery,” said Caitlin.
“Of course, honey, but no matter how good the end of the war may have been in the long run, many people in the South were not too happy about it at the time. Setting up a statue of the leader of the opposition was a little too much to ask.”
“Kind of like putting up a statue of Derek Jeter in Fenway Park,” suggested Derek.
“Sure, kind of like that,” Mrs. Murphy laughed.
“Except a lot more important, Derek,” said Caitlin.
“Tell that to a Red Sox fan.”
The car turned into the museum parking lot and everyone piled out. Derek pointed across the river. “Look, there’s Belle Isle.”
Sam saw the suspension bridge and thought again about the mural in the hydro plant. He wondered if there were any Confederate Ghost bikers at the hideout right now. He tried to shake those thoughts from his mind and turned back to the building they were walking toward. “Where’s the museum? All I see is that old factory.”
“That is the museum, Sam. Duh,” said Caitlin, following her mom along the sidewalk. “It’s built into the old metal factory that they used during the Civil War.”
“Whoa, look at the cannon!” yelled Derek, running over to a big metal gun that guarded the building. He stood behind it, pretending to aim at Sam’s head.
Mrs. Murphy stopped when they reached the front door. “You know, Sam, I forgot to mention that there is one statue of Lincoln in Richmond.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Sam. He knew there had to be one. “It’s probably huge, right? Is it at the state capitol building?”
“No, it’s actually right here, at the museum.”
“It is?” Sam glanced around but didn’t see anything.
“Yep, see if you can find it.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll bet it’s in a big display,” said Sam.
Derek ran past his brother. “Ten points to whoever sees it first, Sam.”
“You guys are always competing about something,” sighed Caitlin. “Why don’t you look around and try to actually learn something?”
“That’s why we have you around,” shouted Derek, bolting into the lobby.
“Wait up, Derek!” yelled Sam, chasing him through the doors.
Caitlin turned to her mom and shook her head slowly. “Boys!”
NINETEEN
After an hour of walking through the museum, Sam felt like he’d seen almost all there was to see. He’d viewed dozens of soldier uniforms, weapons, and maps of the different battles, but couldn’t find anything close to a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
Mrs. Murphy and Caitlin were reading an illuminated map depicting General Lee’s march to Appomattox when the boys walked up to her with discouraged faces. “Okay, we give up,” said Sam.
“We can’t find the statue anywhere,” said Derek. “Where is it?”
Mrs. Murphy looked up from the map. “Why don’t you go out behind the museum and see if you find anything.”
“Outside?” said Derek. “Why didn’t you tell us that in the first place?”
“Because I wanted you to see the rest of the museum, of course,” said Mrs. Murphy, smiling.
“Oh,” moaned Derek. “Thanks a lot.”
“Anytime, boys!”
Sam beat Derek and Caitlin out the back door. He looked for a huge monument honoring the former president. He scanned the grassy hill all the way to the parking lot but didn’t see anything.
“Look! I found it!” Caitlin suddenly shouted, running over to a small stone area behind the building. The boys hustled over to where she was pointing.
&
nbsp; Sam stopped short. “That’s it?” He saw a life-size, dark bronze statue of President Lincoln sitting on a bench next to a young boy. “That is not what I was expecting.”
“It’s so small,” said Derek.
Sam read the inscription on the stones in the wall behind the bench. “TO BIND UP THE NATION’S WOUNDS. How can a nation have wounds?”
“He must have brought a huge box of Band-Aids,” said Derek.
“Probably because it was torn apart by the Civil War,” suggested Caitlin.
“Right,” said Derek. “That was my second guess.”
Mrs. Murphy walked out toward them. An older man was next to her, but with the bright sun shining in his face, Sam couldn’t tell who it was.
“Hello there, kids!” the man shouted.
Sam immediately recognized the voice. “Professor Evanshade! What are you doing here?” They had met the professor in two of their previous adventures. He’d given them a reward for finding the lost coins in the creek behind their house, and when they tracked down an early copy of the Declaration of Independence in Williamsburg with Caitlin, the professor had helped authenticate it.
“Oh golly,” laughed the professor. He was always saying golly. “I make stops at several of the museums around town to keep things in tip top shape. I saw y’all running out the rear entrance a few moments ago and wanted to say hello. I guessed this might be where you were headed.” He nodded at Mrs. Murphy. “Your chaperone here tells me that you’re learning about the Civil War.”
“We’re trying to, but it’s pretty confusing,” admitted Sam.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place.” The old man gestured to the statue of Lincoln and the boy. “What do you think of it?”
“It’s pretty small,” said Derek. “What’s the deal with that?”
“Is the boy President Lincoln’s son?” asked Caitlin.
“Yes it is, young lady,” answered the professor. “It’s his son, Tad, who was with Lincoln when he visited Richmond.”
The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 Page 24
