Abraham Lincoln, Pro Wrestler

by Steve Sheinkin

  Doc nodded. “We like him.”

  “But it would be better with the beard,” she said. “You’re an actor, I’m guessing?” she asked Lincoln.

  “I’m a lawyer,” he said.

  “Makes sense,” Mrs. Martin said. “Can’t be much money in being an Abraham Lincoln, oh, what do they call it? Reenactor?”

  “I also served one term in the United States Congress,” Lincoln said.

  “Good for you,” Mrs. Martin said. “I’ll just need to see a picture ID.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Driver’s license, please.”

  Lincoln looked at Abby and Doc.

  “I don’t have one,” Lincoln said.

  “How’d you get here?” Mrs. Martin asked.

  “Hard to explain.”

  “How do you get around?” she asked Lincoln.

  “Old Bob,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That’s my horse,” Lincoln said. “His name is Old Bob.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Martin said. “And what is your name?”

  “Abraham Lincoln,” Lincoln said. “No middle name.”

  Mrs. Martin wasn’t smiling anymore.

  Lincoln started to spell his name: “A-B-R-”

  “I know how to spell it,” Mrs. Martin cut him off.

  “It sounds weird,” Doc said. “But he really is Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Of course he is,” Mrs. Martin said. “I still need a driver’s license.”

  “Okay, fine, he’s an actor,” Abby said.

  “And he’s wearing a costume,” Doc said. “That’s why he doesn’t have his wallet. He forgot it in his real clothes.”

  “Now that I believe,” Mrs. Martin said.

  “So he can go in?” Abby asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Principal Darling stepped out of her office. She folded her arms across her chest and said,

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So, to review,” Doc said, “our plan to fix history: total failure.”

  “Check,” Abby said.

  After kicking Lincoln out of school, Principal Darling had sent Doc and Abby straight to their classroom. They were sitting at their desks. Class was about to start.

  Abraham Lincoln was in the parking lot. Or somewhere out there.

  After the usual morning announcements, Principal Darling reminded everyone about the wrestling tournament. “This is our big fundraiser for the year, and several famous wrestlers have agreed to donate their time. Can you believe that a man by the name of, I have it here somewhere, ah, yes, Gigantic Phil—”

  Kids cheered. He was a pretty popular wrestler.

  “—will be here in our very own gym tonight? It’s going to be an exciting evening, and I hope to see you all there! Oh, and one more thing,” she said. “All fourth-grade teachers and classes, please make your way to the library to meet a very special surprise guest. Have a great day, everyone.”

  “What’s going on?” Doc asked.

  Ms. Maybee was smiling. “You’ll see,” she said.

  About a hundred kids crowded together on the library carpet in front of a Smart Board. The teachers sat in folding chairs behind the kids.

  Ms. Maybee stood in front of the room with Ms. Ventura.

  “We have a real treat for you,” Ms. Maybee said. “A very special guest.”

  “That’s right,” Ms. Ventura said. “I’ve been hearing all about the history book you’ve been reading. How Abraham Lincoln just sits in his chair, doing nothing. But the real Lincoln is a lot more exciting. I can assure you—because I’ve just met him!”

  Abby leaned toward Doc and whispered. “They must have let him in, after all.”

  “He’s a clever guy,” Doc said.

  The librarian glared at them. They stopped talking.

  “I know you’ll show our guest respect by sitting quietly and raising your hand to ask questions,” Ms. Ventura said. “Now, would you please welcome the greatest president of them all, Mr. Abraham Lincoln!”

  Everyone clapped. Doc and Abby stood and cheered.

  In walked a man in a black suit and a top hat. And a beard. He looked kind of like Abraham Lincoln.

  But it was obviously Mr. Biddle, the gym teacher.

  Doc and Abby sat down.

  “Greetings, boys and girls!” Mr. Biddle called in a deep, booming voice—a voice that sounded nothing like Abraham Lincoln. “My name is Abraham Lincoln! And I am here to tell you about my life! How awesome is that?”

  Kids laughed and hooted.

  Mr. Biddle’s beard was held on by a string that looped around his ears. A Chicago Cubs T-shirt was clearly visible under his white dress shirt.

  A photo of a log cabin appeared on the Smart Board.

  “Thanks, Jenny,” Mr. Biddle said. “I mean Ms. Ventura. What marvelous technology you people have these days!”

  He pointed to the screen. “As you may have heard, I was born in—” Mr. Biddle glanced at an index card in his hand. “In 1809, in Kentucky, making me the first president to be born outside the thirteen original states! We lived in a log cabin with just one room and a dirt floor. Ever try sweeping a dirt floor? You sweep for an hour, and there’s still dirt on the floor!”

  That got some laughs.

  “Next slide, please.”

  Ms. Ventura hit a button on her computer. The screen showed a drawing of a boy lying in front of a fireplace, reading.

  “We moved to Indiana when I was about seven,” Mr. Biddle said. “Farm chores kept me busy all day, but at night I would read by the light of the fire. It was my fondest wish to attend school, but the nearest schoolhouse was far away. So I got up before dawn each day and walked fifteen miles, through snowdrifts high above my head!”

  “Come, now!” a voice called out. “Next you’ll tell us it was uphill both ways!”

  “I asked you to raise your hands,” Ms. Ventura said.

  But the comment had not come from one of the students. It had come from Abraham Lincoln.

  The real one.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kids turned around to watch Abraham Lincoln walk through the library toward Mr. Biddle.

  “This man is telling you one of those old Lincoln myths, walking fifteen miles to school,” Lincoln said. “The truth is, I did not attend more than a year’s worth of school in my entire—”

  Lincoln tripped on the legs of seated kids and stumbled to the front of the room and crashed into the Smart Board.

  “You all right, pal?” Mr. Biddle asked.

  “Fine, thank you,” Lincoln said, straightening his hat. “I am Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Me too,” Mr. Biddle said.

  They shook hands.

  Lincoln turned to the kids and said, “But you see, I truly am Abraham Lincoln.”

  “You don’t sound like him!” a kid shouted.

  “Like who?” Lincoln asked.

  “Like Lincoln,” the kid said. “Your voice is too high.” He pointed to Mr. Biddle. “He sounds more like Lincoln.”

  “Why, thank you, sir,” Mr. Biddle said in his fake deep voice.

  “How do you know what I sounded like?” Lincoln asked. “There are no recordings of my voice. I died about ten years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. The exact year of that invention slips my mind—which reminds me of a forgetful fellow I knew back in Illinois. One night he put his suit to bed and threw himself over the back of a chair!”

  Lincoln laughed. No one else did.

  “Good one,” Abby said.

  The room was silent.

  “Um, does anyone mind if I continue?” asked Mr. Biddle.

  “Please do,” said Ms. Ventura.

  The screen switched to a picture of young Lincoln chopping wood with an ax.

  “I grew tall and strong in my teen years,” Mr. Biddle said. “Look at those arms! You don’t get pipes like that from sitting on the couch and playing video games!”

  Mr. Biddle flexed like a bodybuilder. Kids laughed and cheere
d.

  Lincoln stepped in front of Mr. Biddle. “I was always eager to leave home,” he said. “My father and I, we never did get along. So at nineteen, I took a job on a boat on the Mississippi River. I traveled all the way to New Orleans, which is where I saw slavery up close for the first time. Seeing that evil—human beings bought and sold—had a profound impact on my life.”

  Doc and Abby looked proud. Everyone else looked really confused.

  Ms. Ventura said, “Who is this person?”

  Doc jumped up and pointed to Lincoln. “He’s really the real Abraham Lincoln!”

  “It’s true!” Abby said. “Ask him anything!”

  “Where’s your beard?” asked a boy up front.

  “Beard, beard!” Lincoln moaned. “Does anyone care about anything but the beard?”

  “It does seem a shame,” Ms. Ventura said. “You’ve gone to the trouble of buying the whole Lincoln costume. Why not get the beard?”

  “I’ve got the beard,” Mr. Biddle said, rubbing his chin.

  Lincoln took a deep breath. “Okay, the beard story,” he said. “When I was a candidate for president of the United States, I got a letter from a girl of eleven named Grace Bedell. Grace wrote that her father supported me, and that she was trying to persuade others to—well, I have the letter here somewhere.”

  He took off his hat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He pointed to Maya, a girl sitting up front, saying, “Read this part here.”

  Maya stood, took the paper, and read:

  If you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.

  The whole class laughed.

  Doc and Abby smiled at each other. The plan was working!

  “I was elected,” Lincoln said, “and by February of 1861, when I set off for Washington, DC, I had the beard. My train stopped in many towns along the way, and I even met Grace Bedell in western New York, where she lived. I bent down to show her…”

  Lincoln bent toward Maya, touched his chin, and said, “You see, I let these whiskers grow for you, Grace.”

  The class laughed again. Kids called out:

  “That’s hilarious!”

  “What happened next?”

  Lincoln smiled. “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah!” lots of kids called.

  “Forget history, let’s talk about wrestling!” Mr. Biddle said. “How many of you guys are going to the big match tonight?”

  “Wrestling?” Lincoln asked. “I’ve always loved to wrestle. I’m even in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame!”

  “No way,” Mr. Biddle said.

  “Honorary member,” Lincoln said. “Look it up.”

  Turning to the kids, he said, “Back when I first moved to Illinois, there was this gang of town bullies. Everyone was afraid of them. But I challenged their leader, the toughest of the bunch, to a wrestling match. And I thrashed the man with the whole town looking on!”

  That got a massive cheer.

  “In this school, we prefer to use our words,” Principal Darling said.

  She was standing in the doorway, arms folded. She was glaring at Abraham Lincoln.

  Doc said, “Uh-oh.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “So, to review.” Doc said, “Our plan to save history: complete disaster.”

  “Probably,” Abby said. “Almost definitely.”

  It was after school. Doc and Abby were in the storage room. They hadn’t seen Abraham Lincoln since Principal Darling threw him out of the school for the second time. They’d searched the parking lot and playground. No luck.

  “Any chance he went back?” Doc said. “You know, to history?”

  “One way to find out,” Abby said.

  She pulled a history textbook from the shelf and flipped to the section about Lincoln.

  “Listen to this,” she said, and read aloud: “November 6, 1860, was Election Day. It was perhaps the most important election in the nation’s history. Abraham Lincoln, however, was missing. Mary Lincoln looked for her husband in his office in town. She checked the barbershop where he liked to talk with friends and the alley where he often played handball. He was nowhere to be found.”

  Abby closed the book.

  “Yep,” Doc said. “Disaster.”

  Abby was putting the book back on the shelf when the door flew open. Abraham Lincoln darted in and kicked the door shut. He bent over, hands on knees.

  “I—” pant, pant “—don’t think—” pant, pant “—the mean principal saw me.”

  “Where were you?” Abby asked.

  Lincoln held up an enormous cup from a fast-food place. He sipped through a straw and said, “You guys have better drinks than we do.”

  “They’re looking for you in Springfield,” Doc said.

  “Never mind Springfield,” Lincoln said. “That fake Lincoln was right!”

  He lifted his hat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was a poster for the wrestling tournament at the school that night.

  “I had no idea it was possible to earn a living as a wrestler,” Lincoln said. “This is my big chance—don’t you see?”

  “Not at all,” Doc said.

  “I can meet these wonderful athletes, find out how it all works. Find out how I can try out myself!”

  “Wait,” Abby said. “Try out for what?”

  “To be a professional wrestler!” Lincoln practically roared. “Far more fun than sitting around in my living room. And you and your friends will finally care about me!”

  “What about history?” Doc asked.

  “What about it?”

  “History needs you,” Abby said. “We all need you.”

  “Too late for that now,” Lincoln said. “You two did try, I’ll give you that. It didn’t work out. And to be honest, I’m not sorry, far from it! I feel free from the stress and worry of my usual responsibilities! Free to get into the ring and wrestle!” Lincoln put his ear to the door. “Voices. The coast isn’t clear! Never mind, I’ll go out the window!”

  And he did.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Doc paced back and forth. Abby rested her chin in her hands.

  Five minutes passed.

  “Any great ideas?” Doc asked.

  “Not yet,” Abby said.

  Through the door, they could hear Ms. Ventura and Mr. Biddle talking and laughing.

  “What’re they laughing about?” Doc said. “This is all their fault!”

  Doc flung the door open.

  Mr. Biddle was handing Ms. Ventura books from a little cart, and she was shelving them. The gym teacher was still in his Lincoln outfit, but with the beard dangling on his chest like a hairy bow tie.

  “Thanks for nothing, Abe!” Doc shouted.

  Mr. Biddle looked over. “Huh?”

  “And you, too, Ms. Ventura, with your very special guest,” Doc said, making air quotes around the last three words. “Now the real Abraham Lincoln is quitting history to become a pro wrestler. I hope you’re happy!”

  “What on earth is he talking about?” Ms. Ventura asked.

  “Sorry, Doc,” Mr. Biddle said. “I can’t help it if I’m a better Lincoln than that guy.”

  “That’s a lie!” Doc said. “Right, Abby?”

  But Abby had stopped listening. Her eyes were huge. If lightbulbs really appeared above people’s heads when they had great ideas, you’d have seen one up there.

  “You okay?” Doc asked.

  Abby nodded. She walked up to Doc and whispered in his ear. “Mr. Biddle thinks he’s such a great Abraham Lincoln. Let’s let him prove it.”

  “How?” Doc asked.

  “You know,” she said. “The cardboard box.”

  “I don’t get—” he started to say. But then he said, “Ohhhhhhhhhh. Clever.”

  And then he said, “Mr. Biddle, could you come in he
re? We just found something really cool.”

  Mr. Biddle walked into the storage room. “What’s up, guys?”

  “It’s, um, it’s this big box,” Doc said.

  “What about it?”

  Abby pushed a chair up against the side of the cardboard box.

  “It’s just …” she started. “We found something really interesting in there.”

  “Yeah,” Doc said. “Dodgeballs.”

  “Dodgeballs?” Mr. Biddle asked.

  “Tons of them,” Doc said.

  “Those should be in the gym,” Mr. Biddle said. “Let me see.”

  He stepped onto the chair and opened the flaps of the box. He leaned over to look in. “I don’t see any dodgeballs. It’s just a bunch of—hey, let go of me!”

  “Sorry!” Doc yelled.

  And he and Abby lifted the gym teacher’s legs off the chair.

  “Seriously, guys, I’m gonna fall in!”

  “It’s for a good cause!” Abby yelled.

  Grunting with effort, they lifted Mr. Biddle higher. He tilted forward and fell, screaming, into the box.

  Then the room went quiet.

  “I better go with him,” Doc said.

  Abby agreed. “Just make sure he messes up history.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard.”

  “And I’ll make sure Lincoln sees it.”

  “Think that’ll get him to go back?” Doc asked.

  “Worth a try,” Abby said.

  “Okay. Good luck.”

  “Good luck.”

  Doc stepped onto the chair and dove into the box.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Abby raced through the library and down the hall to the cafeteria, which was also the gym. The lunch tables were gone, and in the middle of the room was a wrestling ring. Teachers and parent volunteers were setting up folding chairs. The smell of fresh popcorn floated out from the kitchen.

  Abby looked around the big room. Think, Abby. Think.

  On one side of the room was a stage, where they did concerts and plays. And sometimes they pulled down a screen and showed movies.

  The screen! That’s it!

  No one noticed as Abby climbed onto the stage and dashed into the corner where there was a laptop on a cart. She was pretty sure the computer was hooked up to the screen.