Sacagawea's Strength

by Stacia Deutsch

  Before Dr. Baker could reply, Jacob shouted out, “I did it! I broke into the computer! You aren’t going to believe it, but the password is the same as the one in that Internet computer game I was telling you about, LC Advent—”

  “LC Adventures?” Dr. Baker interrupted. “I invented that game. Do you like LC Adventures?” she asked Jacob.

  “I love it,” Jacob replied, noticing Dr. Baker for the first time since she’d entered the computer lab. He was looking at her all moony-eyed, like she was a huge celebrity because she had invented a computer game he likes. “Are you going to call security?”

  “And have us hauled off? Thrown out? Tossed in the street like garbage?” Zack added.

  “No. I’m not going to throw you out,” Dr. Baker said. Then she looked over at Sacagawea and asked, “Is that who I think it is?”

  Since Sacagawea was still holding the translation stone, she understood Dr. Baker, pointed to herself, and said her own name. It was in Shoshone, but sounded close enough that Dr. Baker was convinced.

  “Wow!” she exclaimed. Then she asked, “Where are you kids from, and how did you get Sacagawea here?”

  “Well, we have this teacher . . . ,” I started, then stopped. I had to make a split-second decision about how much to tell her. She was already a scientist, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt. I quickly explained about Mr. C and the time-travel machine.

  “Hmm.” Dr. Baker pressed her lips together. “I’ve read articles about time travel, but had no idea that someone got a machine to work. Mr. Caruthers must be a really great inventor.”

  “But Mr. C has a problem.” Jacob told her about Babs Magee and how we had to convince Sacagawea not to quit. “We think that if we can show her how the Lewis and Clark map will be important to the future, she’ll want to help them.” He also pointed out that we only had eleven minutes left to get the job done.

  “Well then,” Dr. Baker exclaimed, “let’s get to work!”

  She told us how scientists can make a topographical map by using the data collected by radar measurements. “Topography means the map shows the bumps on the earth, like mountains and valleys. It shows lakes and forests and cities. Plus, it pays attention to stuff that constantly changes, like volcanoes, earthquakes, and floods.”

  Sacagawea was really interested. Especially when Dr. Baker took over for Jacob on the computer and brought up some pictures. Even Zack leaned in to take a better look.

  I paid attention too. And didn’t even yawn one time. Dr. Baker was showing us some really cool stuff.

  “These pictures aren’t actually from the Space Shuttle data,” she told us. “These pictures are from satellite images.” Dr. Baker explained to Sacagawea about satellites in outer space, and what a photograph is.

  “I want you to see the pictures from the Landsat 7 satellite,” Dr. Baker said, pointing at the computer screen. “These are actual pictures of the Lewis and Clark Trail as seen from space.”

  She told us that by combining the Landsat 7 satellite pictures and the Space Shuttle data, the best maps of the earth’s surface are being created.

  Gathered around the computer screen, Dr. Baker showed us the Lewis and Clark Trail, focusing on the Camp Fortunate area. “On our maps, plants show up in shades of green. Rivers, lakes, and streams appear blue—”

  “What about the ocean?” Sacagawea asked. I translated for Dr. Baker.

  “Blue too,” Dr. Baker went on, but I swear I saw that glint in Sacagawea’s eye again. “Soil and rock formations are brown. Cities are purple.” Dr. Baker was excited to show us all the parts of the map. She clearly loved her job.

  Zack was studying Dr. Baker’s map so carefully, I gave him a curious look. “Lewis and Clark never would have thought the Rocky Mountains were just a big hill if they’d had satellite and Space Shuttle maps!” Zack exclaimed at last.

  Dr. Baker laughed and said, “They also thought that California was an island in the Pacific Ocean.”

  “It is not?” Sacagawea asked, quite seriously. That was an easy question. I knew the answer, but translated and let Dr. Baker reply.

  “No,” Dr. Baker replied, equally seriously. “It’s definitely attached.” She leaned forward to show the California coastline.

  Jacob tapped the face of his watch, and we knew, no matter what Sacagawea had decided, it was time to go back to 1805. We told Sacagawea that we had to leave, but she kept staring at the computer images.

  “So,” she asked at last, “if we cross these mountains”—Sacagawea pointed at the screen—“will we find the ocean?”

  I translated her question. “Yes,” Dr. Baker confirmed. Sacagawea was looking at the Pacific Ocean.

  “I want to see the ocean!” Sacagawea suddenly cheered so loudly, I was surprised she didn’t wake up Pomp. “The water looks so beautiful from outer space.” She reached behind her and patted Pomp on the head. “I cannot wait to see it up close.”

  “Guess what?” I told the boys. “Sacagawea finally has a dream!”

  “Sacagawea wants to see the Pacific Ocean,” Zack chimed over and over like song. He even made up a dance.

  “Look who’s singing and dancing now!” I exclaimed.

  We were very happy, but Sacagawea wasn’t finished dreaming. “I want to translate for Lewis and Clark. I want to travel over the mountains. I want to help them make their trades. I want—” She paused. And then, with a huge smile, she said, “I dream of helping Lewis and Clark map the West.”

  “We did it!” Bo said happily. “Now, instead of no dreams, Sacagawea has lots of them.”

  We thanked Dr. Baker. As we prepared to leave, Dr. Baker asked, “Can I see the time-travel computer?”

  I didn’t know if we should show her . . . she was a scientist, after all. She might want to come with us. Or she might decide to try to make her own time-travel computer. So before we showed her, Jacob made Dr. Baker promise not to try to invent a time-travel machine. We already had a problem with Babs Magee.

  Dr. Baker promised, and Jacob handed her our computer.

  Dr. Baker took a quick look at it and gave the machine right back to Jacob. “It’s amazing, but I don’t want to time-travel,” she declared. “I make maps!”

  “And, of course, computer games,” Jacob added, referring to LC Adventures.

  “I wanted to make a game that teaches kids about the exciting adventures of Lewis and Clark,” she told him. And then she said, “If you have trouble winning the game, try asking the Sacagawea character for help.” She turned to Sacagawea and said with a wink, “She always knows what to do.”

  Jacob smiled big and thanked Dr. Baker for the hint.

  No one had come into the lab yet, so we decided to go ahead and leave from there. We only had nine minutes left and had to get Sacagawea back to 1805—and us back to school.

  Jacob put in the computer cartridge, and the time-travel hole opened in the floor right beside Dr. Baker. She peered down through the green smoke and wished us luck on our journey.

  Bo, Zack, and Jacob jumped in. I was going to go with Sacagawea, but before we left, Sacagawea turned around and said to Dr. Baker, “Your map will be the best map in your time. Lewis and Clark’s map will be the best map in my time.” I quickly translated.

  Dr. Baker simply grinned. And without another word, Sacagawea and I blasted to the past.

  Making Maps

  Before I’d even steadied myself from landing, Sacagawea was off and running. We followed as best we could, but she was fast. Zack is the fastest runner in the whole third grade and even he was having trouble keeping up with her.

  She went structure to structure, teepee to tent, looking for something. Or someone. Only when she found her husband did she finally stop. We were tired and my feet hurt.

  “It’s hard to run in moccasins,” Zack said, wiggling his toes in the thin leather slippers. “I don’t know how the Native Americans do it. If we ever come back here, we should bring extra tennis shoes. I bet we can trade one pair for four horses.”
>
  I laughed, imagining what Mr. C would say if we brought horses back to school.

  Sacagawea was crouched low to the ground, speaking softly to Toussaint Charbonneau.

  “Please, go tell Lewis and Clark that Chief Cameahwait is leaving Camp Fortunate,” she said in a calm but urgent voice. “They must catch up to him and get his help with the map.”

  Charbonneau nodded, but didn’t get up from where he sat in the shade of a willow. Sacagawea explained to him once more what she knew, but Charbonneau still didn’t move.

  “We’re in trouble,” I told the boys.

  “It’s worse than you think,” Jacob said, studying the computer screen. “We only have six minutes.” We decided to speed things up and look for Lewis and Clark.

  “What’s the deal with Charbonneau?” I asked Bo as we headed off.

  “He was a good translator,” Bo replied. “But he was really useless to the Corps. To be honest, Lewis and Clark didn’t like him very much. Sacagawea did not choose to marry Charbonneau. The Hidatsa tribe sold her to him. Lewis and Clark wrote in their journals that he was lazy and mean to Sacagawea.”

  I imagined my own sixteen-year-old sister traveling with a husband she didn’t know very well, a man whom Lewis and Clark disliked, and carrying a baby through the wild. She’d keel over and die the first day. Sacagawea was a true hero!

  We quickly changed back to our own clothes, then found Lewis and Clark standing near the river.

  I handed Captain Clark the pile of army uniforms and moccasins. He put them away, then said, “Chief Cameahwait instructed us to meet him here. He said he will draw a map in the sand showing us how to cross the great Rockies.”

  Captain Lewis looked so excited that he was about to finish this section of his map, I really, really wanted to break the bad news to him.

  Bo shot me a look that meant I could NOT tell Lewis and Clark the chief was ditching them. “It’s up to Sacagawea,” Bo said just to me. “She has a dream now. Or two. Following one’s dreams takes hard work. For Sacagawea, convincing Charbonneau is part of that hard work. We can’t solve this problem for her.”

  I knew Bo was right, so I bit my tongue. Literally.

  William Clark was digging around in a nearby supply box. He had his journal in one hand, a compass in the other. He handed me the journal, Bo the compass, and went back to searching through the box.

  He gave the two-pole chain to Zack. A triangle-shaped object with a telescope-looking top went to Jacob. William Clark explained that the tool was called a sextant and was used for judging our exact location.

  They were ready for mapping. Only no one else had arrived. Not Chief Cameahwait. Not Sacagawea. Not Charbonneau.

  Jacob looked at his watch. “Two minutes and counting.” Over my shoulder, I saw a flash of yellow.

  “Somewhere in those bushes,” I told the boys, “Babs is spying on us.”

  “She still hopes Sacagawea will quit.” Jacob shook his head, totally disgusted.

  “Babs is wrong,” Zack said, punching his hand in the air. “Way wrong.” He pointed and said, “Because, look—Sacagawea’s coming.”

  Sacagawea was running. The baby was bouncing on her back. Next to her was Charbonneau. He wasn’t exactly sprinting, but he was walking fast enough. Sacagawea had brought François Labiche with them too.

  In rapid-fire French, Charbonneau explained to Labiche, who then explained in English that the Shoshone chief was leaving. He was not going to help Lewis and Clark make the map.

  Lewis asked Sacagawea what they should do.

  Sacagawea turned to us and said quietly, “After all these years, I am happy I found my brother, but I am choosing to stay with Lewis and Clark and make the map. They really do need me.”

  She told the explorers, through the translators, that they must go to a mountain area where the Native Americans were secretly gathering. If they hurried, they could stop Chief Cameahwait.

  I almost laughed when Sacagawea told William Clark, “In the future, the USGS EROS Data Center will build on our map using SRTM and Landsat 7 imagery.”

  William Clark asked François Labiche to repeat the translation twice before he gave up trying to understand.

  Lewis and Clark took the equipment from us before dashing off to find Chief Cameahwait. Charbonneau followed slowly behind, obviously in no hurry to keep up.

  Before she left, Sacagawea turned to us and said, “Thank you. I now walk strongly with the spirit of the bear beside me.” She smiled. “Let the animal spirits guide you as you continue on your many journeys through time.” Then, she handed me her stone and went to stop her brother.

  It was over. We had done our job and succeeded. Sacagawea now had a dream, many dreams, and it was time for us to go back to school. We knew history was back on track.

  As we moved to a private place between two trees, Bo said, “Even with the directions the Shoshone will give them, it will take the Corps eleven days to cross the mountains. They will nearly die. Hunger will hit them so hard, they’ll have to eat two of the Shoshone horses just to survive.”

  I wished the route across the mountains would be easier. But I knew that Sacagawea was so determined to help make the map and to see the ocean, nothing would stop their success.

  Jacob pulled the cartridge out of the back of the computer. The time-travel hole opened, and we were ready to go.

  “What’s that?” Zack asked, looking off into the distance at another area between some trees. Green smoke was swirling over there. The same green smoke that was swirling on the ground near us.

  “Babs!” Jacob, Bo, and I all said at the same time.

  Our green hole was closing. We had to get back to school.

  When we jumped back through time, we knew that Babs Magee was time-traveling too.

  I swear, really swear, that as my feet left the ground and I began to fall through the hole, I heard a loud noise come from Babs Magee. I recognized the sound as the squeaking cry of an animal I’d only ever seen at the zoo.

  It was the call of the weasel.

  Excited

  We landed near the creek behind our school.

  “Whew,” Zack said happily. At least this time we didn’t land in the water. My socks are still damp from 1805.”

  “Mine are too,” I said, but I was so excited to tell Mr. C about our adventure, the soggy socks didn’t really bug me too much.

  We hurried over to join the rest of our class. Mr. C was collecting team journals.

  “We had fun,” Eliana Feinerman said as she handed him her group’s book. She quickly showed the class how they’d drawn the map in the dirt, then carefully copied it into their journal.

  Once Sacagawea caught up with her brother, this was exactly how Chief Cameahwait would make the map for Captain Lewis to copy.

  I couldn’t wait to hear more about their map in social studies class.

  Shanika’s group had made Eliana’s map by correcting old maps from the library. I wondered how old mapmakers recorded facts about the creek. Were they right? Or way wrong, like the trapper maps that Lewis and Clark had to use and corrected? I was anxious to see Shanika’s class presentation.

  It was our turn to hand over our team journal. I knew our book was mostly blank. I started to sweat.

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. C said with a wink. “I already have your team’s journal.” Pushing up his glasses, he asked, “How did it go?”

  “In the end, we succeeded. But when we first got there—” I was about to tell him about Sacagawea’s dreams, meeting Dr. Baker, and the sneaky dream-thief Babs Magee when Jacob, shoving me, said, “TMI.”

  I stopped talking immediately. We’d have to tell Mr. C everything later, after the field trip. When we were all alone.

  Mr. C was glad our special project went well. He gathered the class to return to school together.

  We hung back while the other two groups rushed on ahead. “All right, Abigail,” Mr. C said to me. “Now I’d like to hear the details. What happened on yo
ur trip to 1805?”

  I finally got to share TMI. I told Mr. C everything. Way more information than he needed. It felt good to tell it all.

  When I finished, Mr. C sighed and said, “I’m worried about what Babs is doing. Maybe I should give up my new invention and time-travel myself instead. Now I finally understand why everyone on my list is quitting!” He smacked his thigh and exclaimed, “I can’t believe she copied my list of famous people and stole Big Blue!”

  “You can’t quit too,” I told him. “Someday we might be talking about what the world would be like if Mr. C never finished his new invention.” As I said it, I wondered what he was working on.

  “Please,” Jacob begged. “We can handle this. We can convince all those people on your list not to quit.”

  “And someday,” Zack added, “we’ll catch Babs and get Big Blue back.”

  Mr. C was silent. He seemed to be thinking about whether we should still have History Club meetings. We were almost at school when he finally said, “All right, I won’t cancel History Club. But watch out for Babs Magee. She’s gone to the dark side, eh?”

  “But the Force is with us,” Zack said with a laugh.

  “More than one force is protecting you kids,” Mr. C said, glancing over his shoulder toward the trees.

  I swear I saw something, or some things, moving out there by the creek. But this time I wasn’t scared.

  At the back door to the school, Mr. C told us that History Club would meet again next Monday in the school cafeteria. He held the door open, but Zack blocked our way into the building.

  “Mr. C,” Zack said, “Jacob and I are supposed to walk home today, but I don’t want to go yet. Can I use the office phone to call my mom and tell her I’ll be late? I’m going to finish our team’s map.” Mr. C looked at him sideways. “Well, I mean, I’m going to start our team’s map. And then I’ll finish it.”

  “But your team doesn’t have to make a map. Your team is going to report on Sacagawea,” Mr. C reminded Zack.