High Time for Heroes
Page 6
When they came to the other side of the river, Mustafa pulled the rowboat up onto the bank, then helped Jack and Annie climb out. Nearby, Ali was talking to some travelers who wanted donkeys. He called to his grandfather.
“Wait, please,” said Jack. He fumbled in his pouch for their Egyptian money. He pulled out their coins and offered them to Mustafa. “These are all for you, please. You helped us a lot. You saved us, actually.”
The guide shook his head. “No,” he said. It was the first word Jack had heard him speak. “I helped you not for money, but because you needed help. It would be wrong for me to accept payment for a simple good deed.”
“Oh, yes. I understand,” said Jack. He put away his coins. “Thank you very much.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Annie. “And please tell Ali good-bye from us.”
The old man nodded, silent again, and headed toward his grandson and the new travelers. Day after day, Mustafa and Ali help people, Jack thought, and always with gentleness and dignity.
“Come on, let’s go, quick,” Annie said, “while no one’s looking.”
“Righto!” said Jack.
Using her crutch, Annie hobbled to the sycamore tree. Jack followed her. When they slipped under the canopy of spreading branches, Annie grabbed the rope ladder.
“Oh, man, can you climb up with your sprained ankle?” Jack asked her.
“No big deal,” she said. “But what about you, with your hurt shoulder and arm?”
“No big deal,” said Jack.
Annie propped her crutch against the tree trunk. Then she grabbed the sides of the ladder and stepped with her good foot onto the bottom rung. Moving slowly and carefully, she started up to the top. “Oww … oww … oww,” she said under her breath as she climbed.
Jack watched as Annie pulled herself inside the tree house. Then he grabbed a rung of the ladder with his left hand. At least this sycamore tree isn’t as tall as the oak tree in Frog Creek, he thought. Keeping his right arm still, he slowly pulled himself up, teetering this way and that on the rope ladder. Finally he painfully heaved himself into the tree house, too. He was exhausted. He had no idea how they were going to climb back down.
“Ready to go?” Annie asked. She had already opened the Pennsylvania book to the picture of Frog Creek.
Jack sighed. “Yeah, but I don’t know how we’re going to explain your ankle and my shoulder to Mom and Dad.”
“We’ll solve that problem when we get home,” said Annie. She pointed at the picture. “I wish we could go there! Good-bye, Thebes!”
The wind started to blow.
The tree house started to spin.
It spun faster and faster.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.
Jack’s arm sling was gone. He moved his shoulder carefully. The pain was gone, too! He breathed a huge sigh of relief. He was happy to be wearing his own clothes again, and even happier that his arm and shoulder were perfectly fine.
“No more bandage!” said Annie. “No more sprained ankle!”
Jack and Annie looked at each other in wonder. “Cool,” they said together.
“I guess what happens in Thebes stays in Thebes,” said Jack.
Annie laughed.
“Okay! We have the third secret of greatness now,” said Jack. He took out his pencil and picked up the piece of paper from the floor. Under the words humility and hard work, he added,
meaning and purpose
“Isn’t that two secrets?” said Annie.
“No, in this case, I think it takes two words to say one thing really well,” said Jack.
“I’m glad to know Florence’s life will have meaning and purpose,” said Annie. “I didn’t want to tell her this and freak her out, but she’ll go to nursing school in Germany. And she’ll be a great nurse in the Crimea, and eventually she’ll be the founder of modern nursing.”
“Whew,” said Jack.
“Yeah, whew,” said Annie.
“And you know who else I think had meaning and purpose in his life?” said Jack.
“Who?” said Annie.
“Mustafa,” said Jack. “He worked so hard. But he wouldn’t take money for doing the right thing. And I could tell he really loved his grandson.”
“That’s true!” said Annie. “Mustafa’s life definitely had meaning and purpose.”
“I’ll bet Ali grows up to be just like him,” said Jack. He took the tiny bottle of mist from his pack and put it on the paper. Then he looked at Annie. “Your ring, m’lady.”
“Oh, I forgot,” she said. She pulled the Ring of Truth off her finger and put it on the paper next to the bottle.
“Okay! Let’s go home,” said Jack.
“I’m ready,” said Annie. She led the way down the ladder.
Jack followed. “Wow,” he said. “This ladder is a lot easier without a hurt shoulder and a sprained ankle, isn’t it?”
“No kidding!” said Annie.
Jack and Annie started walking together through the Frog Creek woods.
“Hey, do you think our lives have meaning and purpose?” said Annie.
“I guess so …,” said Jack. “We help people.”
“And animals,” said Annie. “Horses, pandas, penguins, polar bears, dogs, elephants, kangaroos, koalas, baby baboons—”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Jack interrupted. “Right now, my life has only one purpose.”
“What’s that?” asked Annie.
“To go home, sit on the front porch, read my book, take notes, and drink lemonade,” said Jack.
“Home, sweet home,” said Annie.
“Home, sweet home,” repeated Jack.
And he and Annie hurried home through the summery, good-smelling, bird-singing, shadowy Frog Creek woods.
Florence Nightingale traveled through Egypt as a tourist in 1849 and 1850 with her friends Selina and Charles Bracebridge. At that time, she was confused about what she should do with her life. Her wealthy, upper-class family wanted her to marry and become “a proper society lady,” but Florence wanted to help others and become a professional nurse. In those days, very few women worked in hospitals, and if they did, they were treated as maids.
While traveling on the Nile, Florence became convinced that she should follow her dreams. On her way home, she visited an institute in Germany that taught nursing practices. Soon after, she trained at the institute, then got a job in London working as a nurse.
A few years later, Florence became famous for her heroic medical work during the Crimean War on the Black Sea. She returned to England and spent the rest of her long life working to help others by improving conditions in hospitals, organizing patient care practices, and training nurses. Today it is often said that Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing.
Excerpt copyright © 2014 by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce.
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Sal Murdocca.
Published by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks took a Montgomery city bus home after working all day as a seamstress. When the bus filled up, the driver ordered her to give her seat to a white man. Rosa, who had been a longtime worker for civil rights, made a brave decision. She knew if she stayed in her seat, she’d be arrested for breaking the law. Rosa refused to move. Her simple protest began a new chapter in the long history of the struggle for equal rights between blacks and whites.
The police took Rosa to jail and fined her fourteen dollars. Rosa kept fighting for civil rights the rest of her life. After she died in 2005, her coffin was brought to the U.S. Capitol so that people could pass by and pay their respects. She was the first woman ever to have this honor. Today Rosa is known as the mother of the civil rights movement.
Coming in May 2014!
Don’t miss Jack and Annie’s soccer adventure at the 1970 World Soccer Cup in Mexico City!
Score a GOOOALLL with
Jack and Annie!