by Henry Clark
“More likely, it would be worse. We’ve already seen the trouble an eraser can make. I think the only reason we were able to fix that was because it was such a tiny thing. But a riverboat blowing up is big-time. I don’t want to sound cold or anything, but my family knows more about time travel than anybody. We have to limit ourselves to saving Dwina and Seth. If the Beauty exploded, and people were killed, it was a tragedy, but it could be a bigger one if we stopped it.”
“Does the tablet say anything about it?” I asked, suddenly remembering we had future tech with us.
Frankie gave me a look that said she had forgotten about it, too, and she pulled the tablet from her apron. We huddled around her so no one could see what we were doing, and she tickled the screen to life.
“Fortunately,” she said, “the thing does have a built-in encyclopedia. But that doesn’t mean it has information on every—wait, here’s something…” She read aloud. “‘Buckeye Beauty, stern-wheeler built in 1848 in Marietta, Ohio… one hundred ten feet long… under the command of Captain Cyrus Mishrag…’ blah, blah, blah—ah! ‘Boiler exploded at ten minutes to six on the evening of August 12, 1852, resulting in—’”
The tablet’s screen went black, except for a small box containing the words:
BATTERY CRITICAL.
RECHARGE IMMEDIATELY.
SHUTTING DOWN.
BYE.
Then that, too, winked out, and we were left with a shiny, black, totally useless piece of glass.
“Ten to six,” I said. “That’s, like, ninety minutes from now!”
I pressed the dead tablet to my face and stared into the darkened glass, trying to see the future. Frankie immediately understood what I was attempting. After a moment she asked, “Anything?”
“I see a cross-eyed guy with a squashed nose,” I reported.
“That would be you, and it isn’t the future,” she said glumly. “Scrying never works when you’re trying too hard. It may take years of practice before you can do it at will.”
“Is that a canoe?” Tom asked, off topic as usual.
He was staring into the river. Frankie and I followed his gaze and I climbed up a bale of cotton for a better look.
“No,” I said. “It’s an uprooted tree, with some kind of knobby thing down one end. It looks like the Lesser Gustimuck’s got it.”
The Gustimuck River split in two when it hit the spit of land where the town of Freedom Falls was located. The larger, calmer part of the river—the Greater Gustimuck—flowed southward along the west side of town. The narrower, more turbulent part—the Lesser Gustimuck—flowed southward along the east, until it became a forty-foot waterfall that tumbled down into a rocky pool that knocked it so senseless, it split into numerous streams and wandered off in all directions. In modern times, only boats equipped with engines used the docks on Freedom Falls’ east side; canoes and kayaks used the west side docks. In 1852, it was steamboats to the east, and unpowered flatboats, like the one we had seen near the cooperage, to the west.
“Clear the way, ladies!” a tall, bearded man carrying a trunk bellowed as he stepped around Frankie and Tom and proceeded across the gangplank. I jumped down from the cotton bale and tripped over my skirts as I landed. Floor-length dresses were not designed for an active lifestyle.
Passengers were starting to arrive. Two women with parasols followed the man with the trunk, and a family of five came up behind them. The town clock said 4:40. I turned my back, made sure no one was watching, and punched seventy minutes into my phone’s timer. It would count down to the boiler explosion.
Two young boys from the family of five argued over a toy pistol; they settled it by doing rock-paper-scissors. “I invented that,” I told them, pleased it was catching on so quickly. The kid who had won the pistol ran off with it, and the one who had lost made the sign of “rock” at me and then chased after him.
In all, we counted fourteen passengers getting on the boat. There was no sign of Dwina and Seth.
“That’s a phaeton!” said Tom enthusiastically, identifying a large-wheeled carriage drawn by a single horse that had stopped at the end of the dock. “Phaetons were built for speed. And, do you hear that?” A sound like somebody strangling a cat drifted through the air. “That’s a barrel organ! Probably with a warped barrel! Isn’t that great? Man, I would love to live in this town!”
“You do,” I reminded him.
“No, I mean in 1852! It would be so cool!”
“You really think so?” I said, aghast. “We’ve had nothing but trouble since we got here!”
“But it wouldn’t always be trouble! Things would calm down eventually. And it would be better than practicing piano, and going to medical school, the way Puma Ma has planned for me. I would get to San Francisco somehow, and I would blend right in!” He stopped and looked pleadingly at Frankie. “Are you sure I have to go back with you guys?”
“You can’t be serious,” I said, watching an approaching wagon. It was full of barrels, and the fancy lettering on its side said DAVISON ROAD COOPERAGE. “Even if you could survive here, think of your family. They would go nuts if you disappeared.”
“Puma Ma would still have Dorcas and Yvette. She always liked them best, anyway. Maybe I could write her a message and you could take it to her.”
“She’d hand me my head!”
“Nobody stays behind,” Frankie declared. “You saw the trouble just leaving a pencil here caused. Leaving a twenty-first-century person behind could be so much worse!”
“But—”
Frankie held an imperious finger in front of Tom’s face. “We do not even discuss this!”
The cooperage wagon stopped at the Buckeye Beauty’s gangplank. Mr. Collins and one of the men from the Friends Meeting jumped down from the driver’s seat and began unloading barrels. A crewman on the boat hollered at them to “stow ’em in the boiler room—we’re full up on deck!” and we watched as the two men rolled a dozen small barrels up the gangplank. The town clock said five to five.
The final two barrels were bigger than the others, and Collins and his friend were more careful taking them down from the wagon.
“Those are hogsheads,” said Tom.
“What? In the barrels?” I pictured it. “Eww!”
“A large barrel is called a hogshead,” Tom muttered, like it was something I should have known.
Collins lost his grip, and the first hogshead struck the deck.
“OOF!” said the hogshead.
That oof sounded awfully familiar. “Dwina is in that barrel!” I whispered.
Instead of rolling the hogsheads, Collins and his friend carried them upright. The boat whistle was blowing and the crew was preparing to cast off as the two men finished their last-minute delivery and climbed back on the wagon.
Collins picked up the reins but paused to stare up at the boat’s wheelhouse. He shook his head. “Captain Mishrag’s family owns slaves in Kentucky, and he’s friends with Killbreath and that lot. If he knew he was transporting contraband, he’d be real put out. It’s a good thing we’ve got a friend on the crew!”
“Sure is,” agreed his companion. “I always did like Clarence.”
Collins made noises at the horses and the wagon backed up. The gangplank swung away, and the boat began to pull into the river.
“We gotta get aboard!” I shouted, and broke into a run.
I hiked up my skirts and leaped the widening gap between the dock and the boat. A crewman had just jumped aboard after undoing one of the heavy ropes that had been holding the Beauty in place. He bellowed at me but I ignored him, turning to catch the Shagbolt case that Frankie tossed before she, too, crossed the gap, and then we both turned and caught Tom as he jumped and almost missed.
“Hey, you kids!” A second crewman joined the first and came running at us.
We sprinted in the opposite direction, dodged into a passage, and ran until we were on the other side of the boat.
“Split up!” Frankie ordered as she jackrab
bited up a stairway.
Tom pelted toward the stern and threw himself into a pile of ropes. I flipped myself over the railing, dropped down, and hung off the side of the boat with one hand, clutching the Shagbolt with the other. The river lapped at my feet.
Our two pursuers popped out of the passage, looked around, and scrambled up the stairs. I hauled myself back to the deck, hoping Frankie had a big enough lead, and gave my phone a quick glance. It was six minutes past five.
We were on a riverboat that was going to explode in forty-four minutes.
CHAPTER 20
Something Going Ka-Boom
Do we have a plan?” Tom asked two minutes later as we wedged ourselves between some crates on the foredeck in a desperate attempt to stay hidden.
“Don’t get caught,” I answered, wondering what had happened to Frankie. “If they catch us, they’ll hold us as stowaways. We won’t be able to save Dwina and Seth.”
“We won’t be able to save ourselves,” Tom added, beginning a familiar series of coin flips. I watched the quarter warily each time he tossed it in the air.
“The hogsheads are in the boiler room,” I said. “We should find them, get Dwina and Seth out, and tell them they have to get off the boat.”
“Dwina can’t swim.”
“Seth can, and he can get her to safety. Should I be thinking of a question?”
“I’m wondering what’s going to happen next,” said Tom, using his pencil to draw the sixth and final I-Ching line—a broken yin—on the side of the crate next to him. “The same thing you’re wondering.”
The completed hexagram looked like this:
“Two yins above four yangs.” Tom consulted his book. “Page one oh eight.”
I read over his shoulder.
HEXAGRAM 34
GREAT POWER.
A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH. THUNDER MEANS LIGHTNING.
EXPLOSIVE ENERGY. IS THAT A VACANT LOT OR THE HOME OF CONSOLIDATED ANTIMATTER? HOW COULD YOU TELL?
“Sounds like something going ka-boom, to me,” I said uneasily. “What’s the Morse?”
“Four dots, three dashes, and a final dash,” said Tom. “It spells hot.”
“Great power? Hot? It’s telling us the steam boilers are going to explode. It’s telling us stuff we already know! What good is it?”
“If Dwina and Seth are in the boiler room, they’re at ground zero. It’s telling us we have to hurry!”
I raised my head above the crates. The coast was clear. We squeezed out of our hiding spot and, crouching low, headed for the sound of machinery.
I glanced toward the water and stopped.
“Something’s wrong,” I said.
We weren’t going in the right direction. The boat had entered the Lesser Gustimuck instead of the Greater. It was a dead end. I swept my gaze toward the bow, and then I understood. The boat was maneuvering to intercept the floating tree we had seen earlier. The enormous log was closer, and I could see that the knobby thing down one end was a man, clutching the tree’s roots and waving frantically for attention.
“That’s—” said Tom.
“Archie Killbreath. I guess he figured out a way to get back across the river from wherever it was Ganto dumped him and his boys. And the boat’s going to pick him up. And he’s friends with Captain Mishrag. One more reason we can’t afford to get caught!”
More and more of the Beauty’s passengers and crew were gathering at the bow, waving at the bedraggled man on the log and shouting words of encouragement. One crewman had a long pole with a hook on the end; another was waiting for his chance to throw a rope.
“Come on,” I said, “while they’re distracted.”
We headed for the stern and the loud thumpa-thumpa that cried steam engine. Just before we got to the paddle wheel, we found a long room open to the air on both sides, full of machinery and two enormous boilers. A man with his back to us was throwing logs into a furnace. Two huge pistons went alternately up and down, turning iron wheels attached to rods that stretched through the back wall and connected to either side of the paddle wheel. Scattered here and there were the barrels Collins had delivered. We found the two hogsheads together near the back wall.
“Hello?” I rapped on the top of one. Close up, I could see holes drilled in the sides for ventilation, cleverly made to look like knots in the wood. I decided this wasn’t the first time the barrels had been used to transport people. I hoped that meant there was some easy way to open them.
“Hello!” I shouted again, trying to make myself heard above the racket of the engine. “It’s okay! It’s me, the kid who pulled Dwina out of the water when the pier collapsed. You have to get off the boat!”
The top of the hogshead dropped two inches, then twisted sideways out of the way. The sweat-streaked face of my great-great-ancestor Dwina looked up at me. “Are we there already? Steam is so fast! It’s not natural!”
Seth climbed easily out of the other barrel, ignoring the hand Tom offered him, and helped me lift Dwina from the cocoon of quilts that surrounded her.
“What’s goin’ on?” Seth asked warily.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “You have to trust me. This boat is going to blow up in half an hour. We have to get off!”
Seth looked like he was going to argue. Dwina stopped him with a touch to his chest.
“Rose has the Sight. If he says get off, we get off!”
“HEY THERE!” a new voice shouted, and I spun around to see the guy who had been feeding the fire coming at us, clutching a piece of wood. Seth stepped in front of me with his fists clenched.
“Get back in those barrels!” the man cried. “We ain’t nowhere near Jordan yet!”
I leaned around Seth. “Is your name Clarence?”
“Yes, yes, Clarence Whiffletree! They can’t be seen! It’ll cost me my job! And who are you? Are you with them? How many people did they stuff in them barrels, anyway?”
A number of people shouted “Huzzah!” from the front of the boat, cheering something, and I feared it was Killbreath’s rescue.
“There’s been a change in plan,” I said. “We weren’t in the barrels. Mr. Collins sent us. Seth and Dwina have to leave the boat now.”
“Are you crazy? We’re in the middle of the river!”
Raucous laughter, barely audible above the noise of the engine, came from the bow.
“What on earth?” Clarence Whiffletree gave in to his curiosity and walked out to the railing. He leaned over and looked to the front of the boat. I followed.
“It’s Archibald Killbreath,” I said. “He just got pulled from the water.”
“What, that slave-catcher varmint?”
Clarence walked farther up the deck for a better look. I stayed behind him, allowing him to shield me from view.
“You know him?” I asked.
In answer, Clarence spat in the river. I thought I felt the boat pitch to one side from the force of it.
“Lowlife!”
“Killbreath knows there are runaway slaves on board,” I lied, seeing it as a way to get Clarence to help us. “He’s figured out the trick with the hogsheads. He’ll tell your captain—”
Clarence spat again, this time causing a definite lurch.
“—and they’ll search the boat. This is why Dwina and Seth have to jump ship.”
“Well, they can’t do it here. Don’t matter how good they can swim—this here’s the Lesser Gustimuck; current’s too strong. They’d be over the falls and dashed to death on the rocks afore they could as much as blink. The BB’s gonna swing around—and it better start doin’ it mighty soon—and head the other way. When that happens, it’ll come in real close to the far bank. Shallow water, current not as swift—that’d be the time to jump.”
“IT WAS A GIANT APE!” Killbreath’s voice rang out, and I peeked around Clarence to see what was going on. Clarence took a few steps closer, and I quickly closed the gap.
“It had EYES O’ FIRE ’n’ musta been FORTY FEET TALL!” Ki
llbreath stood shakily in the center of a circle of crew and passengers, dripping like a rain cloud. The log he had been clinging to was hitched to the side of the boat. His clothing hung in tatters. Beneath his suit and pants, he was wearing a nineteenth-century woman’s frilly corset and pantaloons. A day earlier, I would have found that funny.
“It had GREAT, BIG”—the crowd leaned in close, so as not to miss a single terrifying word—“FLOWERS ON ITS SHIRT!”
One of the women fainted. Her male companion caught her and lowered her gently to the deck.
I craned my neck, looking for some sign of Frankie. She knew Dwina and Seth were in the boiler room. With everybody’s attention focused on Killbreath, I figured she would have used the diversion to get to us. But there was no sign of her. I was seriously worried.
“Wait a minute, Kill,” said a man in a captain’s uniform. “The giant ape was wearing a shirt?”
“An’ short pants DOWN TO ITS KNEES! Hadda be escaped from a menagerie or a circus! Left the boys stranded on Chubb Island an’ me on Fidget’s Point!”
The man I assumed was Captain Mishrag glanced at the river, raised a megaphone to his lips, and shouted, “Mr. Bixby! Bring her around! Get us out of here!”
From overhead there was a cry of “Aye, aye, sir!”
The boat shuddered and began a turn that I could see would be a wide one. I cupped my phone in my hand and checked the time. It was nineteen minutes until the boilers blew.
“Cap’n!” shouted a new voice from the overhead deck. “We caught one of the stowaways!”
Everything inside me turned to ice. I leaned out over the water and looked up. One of the crewmen had Frankie by the scruff of the neck and was holding her against the upper railing, waggling her back and forth like he was doing a puppet show.
“Good work, Stevens!” Mishrag called back.
“That there’s my property!” Killbreath declared. “She’s a runner! We had her all caught fair an’ square, her an’ her two friends! That’s Dorothy Gale! Don’t let her go!”
Mishrag raised the megaphone to his lips, and even though they were separated only by ten feet, bellowed at Stevens, “Take her to the wheelhouse! We’ll be up in a moment. This requires privacy.” He aimed the megaphone at the crowd. “Break it up, please! Crew, back to work! The rest of you, give this man some breathing space! He’s been through an ordeal! Shipwrecked! Hallucinating!”
