The Wells Bequest

by Polly Shulman

  Jaya grabbed my arm. “Look, Leo! Isn’t that the cutest thing ever? Even cuter than the steam engine! I didn’t know they still had them this late!” She was practically squealing.

  Turning to look at where she was pointing, I saw a carriage the size of a minivan coming up the street, pulled by three white horses. The driver—a man in a conductor’s cap—sat on a little platform at the front. He held a long whip in one hand and the reins in the other. The carriage had a rounded roof with another, bigger platform on top and benches where people were sitting. On the side, in fancy gold letters, it said Fifth Avenue.

  “What’s so cute about it?” I asked. The back wheels were much bigger than the front ones, which was sort of amusing, I guess, in an old-fashioned-tricycle kind of way—but it sure wasn’t anything to squeal about.

  “It’s a bus! A horse-drawn bus! Come on, we’ve got to take it!”

  “Really?” I said. “We only have a few more blocks, and that thing looks kind of—shaky.”

  But there was no stopping Jaya. She practically ran in front of it, waving and calling to the driver. He pulled on the reins and the horses clomped to a stop, shaking their heads and bracing their shoulders against the carriage’s momentum.

  Jaya handed the driver a nickel.

  “That’s ten cents, miss.”

  “Oh, sorry,” said Jaya. She took back the nickel and found a pair of dimes in her purse. “For both of us,” she said. The driver put the coins in his belt and waved us aboard.

  I held out my hand to help Jaya up the steps, but she didn’t wait. She scrambled up to the top bench. I climbed after her.

  The seats had hard, slippery leather cushions. The whole thing felt very precarious. What was wrong with me? Okay, I admit I’m naturally cautious. But I shouldn’t be this nervous on some stupid bus. It was as if the trip backward in the time machine had left me with a gigantic load of extra dread.

  The bus felt even more precarious when the driver flicked his whip at the horses and the three big animals lurched forward over the uneven cobblestones. The carriage bumped, rocked, and swayed.

  “Isn’t this fun? I wish he’d go faster!” said Jaya. Strands of hair were squiggling out from under her hat.

  Since there were no traffic lights, pedestrians went dodging in and out of traffic and carriages crossed in front of each other without waiting. “I liked the Terror better,” I said.

  She laughed. “You’re just scared of horses.” Then she looked at me seriously. “You really are worried, aren’t you?”

  I nodded, wishing like crazy the dread would go away. “Not about the horses. About the death ray. About a maniac running around loose in our time trying to destroy our city. And my mom and dad and sister and the Empire State Building. I mean, I know it’s kind of corny and touristy, but I really love the Empire State Building. What if I never see it again? It hasn’t even been built yet here. And my sister can be totally irritating the way she always tells me what she thinks is wrong with me, but she’s my sister.”

  “I know! Believe me, I know all about not wanting evil maniacs to destroy irritating sisters. Is your sister irritatingly perfect? Because mine is.”

  “Disgustingly perfect.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I mean, I know you have to—you wouldn’t be Leo if you didn’t—but try not to, okay? I have lots of experience rescuing sisters from evil maniacs. Just ask my sister someday. Anyway, Simon’s never going to win. We have way more going for us than he does.”

  “He has the death ray,” I pointed out.

  “Not necessarily. He says he has it, but he might not. Whereas we—” She counted on her fingers. “We have the time machine. We have the shrink ray. We have the librarians on our side. We have justice on our side. We managed to make it back to 1895, and we’re on our way to meet Tesla. And we have the smartest, most kick-ass Wells Bequest page the repository has ever known.”

  “Don’t be so modest!”

  She gave me a hard nudge with her shoulder that almost knocked me off the omnibus and said, “Modest yourself! I’m talking about you, silly!”

  The compliment shut me up. I was too pleased and embarrassed to say anything. I held onto the seat as the bus clattered up Fifth Avenue and we intersected with another wide street.

  “Hey!” I said. “Wasn’t that Broadway? We missed our stop!”

  “It can’t be—where’s the Flatiron Building?” said Jaya.

  “It must not be built yet. Come on!”

  We yelled to the driver, scrambled down from the bus, and walked back toward the wedge-shaped block at 23rd Street, where the Flatiron Building should have been. The Flatiron is one of my favorite buildings. It was one of the earliest skyscrapers in the city. It’s a tall, wedge-shaped tower that looks like an ocean liner sailing into the sky. In our time it stands by itself, taking up its whole pie-slice-shaped block. I always thought of it as really old. It’s way older than the Empire State Building, anyway.

  Somehow, the Flatiron Building’s absence made the city feel more alien to me than anything else had so far, even horse-drawn buses and men in top hats. New York just didn’t feel like New York without the skyscrapers.

  In its place, three or four low buildings filled the pointy end of the triangle and a taller building stretched across the wide end. Awnings and banners covered with writing flapped from the haphazard collection of buildings. It looked like a cross between Times Square and a sailboat.

  “Check out the wall spam,” said Jaya, pointing at the tallest building.

  It was covered with ads. On the uptown side, block capital letters testified that BENSON’S CAPCINE PLASTER contains Medical Ingredients not found in Allcock’s Porous Plasters, hence they are Superior to those of Allcock’s. Other signs, awnings, and canvas billboards advertised Swift’s Specifics, the Turkish Bath at the Windsor Hotel, the Erie Railway, and Seabury and Johnson’s Mustard Plasters.

  “What’s a mustard plaster, anyway?”

  “It’s like a wet cloth thing they put on your chest. It stings,” said Jaya. “Your parents never gave you one for a cold?”

  “No, did yours?”

  “Not after the first time.” She headed the wrong way down 22nd Street.

  “Where are you going?” I hurried after her. “The Electric Club’s on the east side.”

  “I know. I need to fix my clothes first.” She opened her bag, fished around, and drew out a small box and a gray scarf made of thin silk. It had a pattern of flowers woven into it with silver thread.

  “Wow! Where did that come from?” I asked.

  “Chomalur.” She wrapped it around her shoulders. Suddenly she looked a lot more like a princess.

  She opened the box and took out a gold pin set with a big red stone.

  I stared. The red stone glowed in the sunlight like transparent lava. It looked alive. “Is that from Chomalur too?”

  Jaya fastened the scarf at her shoulder with the gold pin. “Yeah. I borrowed it from my mom. It’s the famous Chomalur Ruby.”

  “Won’t she kill you? What if you lose it?”

  “I’m not going to lose it.” Jaya handed me her bag. “Here, you’d better carry this. Ranis don’t carry their own bags in 1895. And remember, you’re my servant, so act deferential.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “You mean, ‘yes, Your Highness.’”

  We walked the block to the Electric Club. From the outside it looked like the other brownstones, with a high stoop. “Go ring the doorbell,” said Jaya.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” I walked up the stoop and looked around for a bell.

  • • •

  To my surprise, the door swung open all by itself before I’d reached the top stair.

  A doorman sat in a little office to the left. He stood up when I got to the door. “Yes?” he said. He was wearing white gloves and a yellow jacket, with lightning bolts embroidered on the sleeves.

  “Her Highness, the Rani of Chomalur, is here to attend Mr. Tesla’s lectur
e,” I told him as pompously as I could. I hoped I sounded like a princess’s servant.

  Jaya ruined the effect by running up behind me through the open door. He frowned and said, “I’m sorry, but ladies are not permitted in the clubhouse.” He had an Irish accent.

  “They are today, Jim,” said a gentleman standing near the door. “Ladies are always allowed at Mr. Tesla’s lectures. He supports the rights of women.”

  “Yes, Mr. Latimer.” The doorman said to Jaya, “I beg your pardon, miss. Come back in half an hour.”

  “Really, Jim! You’re not going to turn an Indian princess out into the cold! Surely she can wait in the library?” said Mr. Latimer. He was a middle-aged African American man with little round wire-framed glasses, a cleft chin, and skin about the same tone as Jaya’s.

  “That must be Louis Latimer!” Jaya whispered to me excitedly. “He was a big deal in Edison’s company. Is, I mean.”

  I nodded. We’d done a unit about Latimer in science class last year. I thought he was really cool. His parents escaped from slavery, and he joined the navy at sixteen to fight for the Union in the Civil War. After the war was over, he taught himself mechanical drawing and worked his way up from office boy to draftsman in a patent law firm. He went on teaching himself—science, engineering, languages. He patented a bunch of inventions, including a better carbon filament lightbulb and an improved toilet for trains. He spent years working for Edison as a draftsman and electrical engineer. And he played the flute and wrote poetry.

  “If you say so, sir,” said the doorman. He stepped aside disapprovingly. Apparently he didn’t like the idea of ladies in the lounge, not even princesses.

  Jaya and I walked past him and the automatic door swung shut behind us. Mr. Latimer gave it a satisfied look, as if he expected us to be impressed. Evidently automatic doors were still new and exciting here.

  The place was super-fancy. On the right was a long double room with gold-and-white wallpaper and furniture upholstered in yellow. On the ceiling, painted angels were waving lightning bolts around their heads. The lightning forked and zigzagged, and the angels’ hair stood out in sparky halos. You could almost hear it crackling with static electricity.

  “Are you an electric angel?” I whispered to Jaya. “They have your hair.”

  “Shh!” she hissed. “Servants don’t make personal remarks.”

  Mr. Latimer came over to us. “May I introduce myself? I’m Louis Latimer,” he said.

  “Jaya Rao, Rani of Chomalur,” said Jaya in her best Auntie Shanti accent, holding out her hand. “And this is my . . . servant, Leo.”

  Mr. Latimer raised an eyebrow and shook her hand. “An Indian princess, are you? We don’t get many of those here at the Electric Club.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. He doesn’t believe her. And as Edison’s patent guy, won’t he be on Edison’s side of the great current rivalry—against Tesla?

  “Even in faraway Chomalur we have heard of this country’s great electrical scientists and their inventions,” said Jaya. “Our palace is lit with American technology. I wanted to learn about it for myself. Am I right that you are the author of Incandescent Lighting?”

  “Oh, you know my book?” Mr. Latimer looked pleased. Good one, Jaya, I thought. “Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind my saying—you remind me a little of my elder daughter.”

  That was promising. Latimer had to face plenty of prejudice himself and so did his daughters, probably. Even if he didn’t believe Jaya about being an Indian princess, it sounded like he sympathized.

  “And you remind me a bit of my royal father,” said Jaya.

  He looked amused. “Do I?” he said. “Well, well. Perhaps we’re related somehow.”

  “Oh, we’re all related somehow, if you believe in the theories of Mr. Darwin—or in Adam and Eve, for that matter,” said Jaya, way too pertly. “Tell me, Mr. Latimer,” she continued. “You’re in charge of Mr. Edison’s library, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” he said, surprised.

  Uh-oh, I thought again. Where was she going with this? Latimer was a key figure in nineteenth-century technology. Without him, Alexander Graham Bell would never have filed his patent for the telephone in time to beat Elisha Gray. Latimer had worked on a lot of Edison’s most important patents too. What if Jaya said something to him that changed the course of history?

  “Your Highness,” I hissed.

  Mr. Latimer glanced at me.

  “Later, Leo,” she said dismissively. “And are you involved with the New-York Circulating Material Repository?” she asked Mr. Latimer.

  “I think I’ve heard of it,” he said.

  “Jaya!” I hissed as quietly as I could, “what are you doing?”

  She ignored me. “I imagine you would find it very interesting. I believe you could make an important contribution to the scientific collections,” she said. “The repository provides study materials for workmen who are trying to better their condition. Physical objects—laboratory materials and so on.”

  Jaya was going way too far. How could I stop her? I couldn’t kick her. Servants don’t kick their bosses, and besides, even if I did, it wouldn’t shut her up. Dragging her out by the hair wouldn’t work either. Jaya would just march back in. If she didn’t, we would lose our chance to talk to Tesla.

  “Oh, that does sound interesting,” said Mr. Latimer. “I’ve been teaching immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement. They could use some hands-on experience. I’ll look into it—thank you.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to start an important collection of electrical technology?” said Jaya. “I’m sure the librarians at the repository will be open to it.”

  Maybe if I started to choke or something, Jaya would have to stop talking and help me?

  Then Jaya shut up all by herself. The automatic door had opened and a very tall, very thin man walked in.

  It was Nikola Tesla.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Two Geniuses and One Very Long Lecture

  I recognized Tesla right away from pictures in history books, but no still photo could capture the man’s intensity. With his flashing blue eyes, gaunt build, and spiky limbs, he looked like a walking lightning bolt. The room changed when he came in. The corners seemed to crackle.

  Mr. Latimer strode over to greet him. “Good evening, Tesla. I’ve been looking forward to hearing you talk,” he said.

  “Latimer! I’m glad you could make it,” said Tesla, shaking his hand. He spoke quickly, with a Serbian accent—he sounded like my uncle Dragomir. I was relieved that he didn’t seem to hold Mr. Latimer’s association with Edison against him.

  Jaya hurried over too. “Mr. Tesla! There you are,” she began.

  Tesla trained his electric eyes on her, taking in her silk scarf, her ruby, and her Jaya-ness. “Madam,” he said.

  “Nikola Tesla—the Rani of Chomalur,” said Mr. Latimer.

  Tesla bowed over her hand and kissed it. “Enchanted, Your Excellency,” he murmured.

  “Mr. Tesla, I need to talk to you about . . . about a very important matter relating to your research,” said Jaya.

  “Nothing would give me more pleasure, Your Highness. Now I must prepare for my lecture, but you will do me great honor if you will be my guest for dinner afterward.”

  Jaya mastered her impatience. It looked like it almost killed her. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Can I help you set up, Tesla?” asked Mr. Latimer.

  “You are very kind. If you’ll excuse us, Your Excellency.” Tesla bowed at Jaya, Latimer winked at her, and the two geniuses walked upstairs, leaving us alone in the room.

  “Jaya,” I growled, trying to keep my voice down, “what did you think you were doing, telling Latimer about the repository? You could change history! What if he interferes with the collections?”

  “But that’s exactly what he’s going to do. It’s what he was always going to do! Who do you think started the repository electro-technica
l collections in the first place? It was Latimer! He was a big friend and patron of the repository. Mr. Steel was so impressed with those collections that he left us the Wells Bequest. We wouldn’t be here—you and me—if it weren’t for Latimer! Ask Dr. Rust if you don’t believe me.”

  “But maybe he was supposed to find out from somebody else, and now he’ll never start the collections, and Steel will leave his stuff to the library in Pittsburgh or someplace, and none of this will happen, and you and me—maybe we’ll never even meet!”

  “Calm down, Leo. We did meet, didn’t we? You’re standing right here. It’s the other way around. Maybe if I hadn’t said anything to Latimer, he would never have started the electro-technical collections and then we wouldn’t meet.”

  The automatic doors swung open. “Shh—someone’s coming,” I said.

  A man walked in, swinging a cane. He had shaggy hair and a big, bushy mustache. His eyebrows bristled in opposite directions, like a pair of push brooms trying to get away from each other. He paused to take off his coat and joke around with the doorman.

  I had definitely seen his picture somewhere. Where?

  After a second I came up with it: on the back of a book.

  “Oh, quark! Top quark! Is that who I think it is?” whispered Jaya.

  “You mean Mark Twain?” I whispered back. “Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain? Huckleberry Finn and the telelectroscope?”

  She nodded. “Samuel Clemens—Mark Twain is his pen name. But what’s he doing here?”

  “He’s best buds with Tesla,” I whispered. There was a picture of Mark Twain in my Tesla book, I remembered, taken in Tesla’s lab, with Twain holding a glowing orb and looking a little like Einstein.

  Jaya said, “Cool! I always wanted to meet Mark Twain.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to him about his books!” I said.

  “You goofball—writers love it when you talk about their books. Look at Latimer.”

  “I know, but it’s too dangerous. You could mess up and talk about the ones he hasn’t written yet.”

  “Oh, he wrote all the important ones years ago,” said Jaya airily.