Bell’s Breakthrough Read online

  “Sorry I tripped you,” Jacob said from somewhere beneath me.

  “I told you to tie your shoe,” Zack scolded Jacob. “Abigail could have broken her neck.”

  “No one got hurt,” Jacob told his brother. “I like it untied.”

  Jacob and I fumbled around a bit, but we finally managed to stand up in the darkness. I felt Jacob move away. I think he had his hands outstretched in front of him, because that’s what I always do when it’s dark.

  “Ouch,” Zack said. “Jacob, watch where you’re going! You just poked me in the eye.” Yep, he definitely had his hands straight out.

  “Sorry,” Jacob said. I could hear him dragging his hand along the wall looking for a light switch. “Were there lights in eighteen seventy-six?” he asked.

  “You aren’t going to find a switch,” Bo said. “They had gaslights.”

  “How do you turn on a gaslight?” Jacob asked, but before Bo could reply, there was a big crash. Then a smaller banging sound.

  A voice said, “Ouch.”

  Then Jacob said, “Uh-oh.”

  I had no idea who’d said “Ouch.” It was a female voice. I thought I was the only girl in the room.

  I stumbled in the darkness toward what I thought might be a window. It was.

  I pulled back the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room.

  We were in a bedroom. There was a young woman lying on the bed. She looked like she was just a few years older than CeCe, my sister. CeCe is sixteen.

  Then I saw Jacob. He was lying on the floor. A large bowl with flowers on it was upside down on his head. Jacob must have stumbled in the dark, bumped into the young woman’s small table, and fallen near her bed.

  “Oh,” the young woman said, looking at each of us in turn. Her eyes were wide, and her jaw was hanging open. She was surprised to see us in her room.

  “Oops,” Zack said. “We’re definitely in the wrong place.” He went to the door and put his hand on the knob. “We’d better go.”

  “Do you think the computer messed up?” I asked Jacob.

  Jacob took the bowl off his head and put it gently on the floor. Then he looked at the computer. He pressed a few buttons. “It says we’re in the right time. It’s March 10, 1876.”

  “But we’re not in the right place, so let’s get out of here,” Zack said, tilting his head toward the door.

  “Excuse me,” the young woman said from the bed. “If you are speaking to me, you must look at me. I am deaf. But if you turn toward me, I can read your lips.”

  Wow! I wanted to stay and talk to her more. I wanted to learn what it was like to read lips. But Zack was right: We didn’t have a lot of time. We had to find Alexander Graham Bell. “We have to go,” I said, making sure I was looking at her when I spoke.

  “Wait!” the woman called. “Please. Stay a few minutes.”

  Zack shook his head. He pointed to his wrist. He didn’t have a watch, but I knew what he meant. We didn’t have time to waste.

  I held up a finger to Zack and said, “Give me one minute.” I sat down on the side of the bed. “Hi, I’m Abigail. These are my friends.” I introduced the boys.

  “My name is Mabel Hubbard,” the girl replied. She was very pretty. And very pale.

  “Are you sick?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She sniffled and pulled a handkerchief out from under her pillow. “I have been in bed more than a week. I feel better, but Father will not let me travel to Aleck’s workshop until I am cured.”

  “I understand,” I started to say. “I had a cold once and I missed three days of school—” I stopped suddenly. “Aleck? Who’s Aleck?” I asked.

  “Alexander Graham Bell,” Mabel said, smiling. “The man I am going to marry.”

  I turned to Zack, who still had his hand on the door. And I winked. “We came to Boston to meet Alexander Graham Bell,” I said excitedly. “We have traveled a very long way to see him.”

  “Are you interested in the multiple telegraph?” Mabel asked, starting to cough. She pointed to a side table, where there was a pitcher of water and a glass. Bo came across the room and poured her some water.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking a sip of the water. She stopped coughing.

  “No. We’re not interested in the multiple telegraph,” Bo explained. He was so shy, I had to remind him to look up at her when he spoke. “We need to talk to him about the telephone.”

  “The what?” she asked.

  “Telephone,” Bo said. “You know, the thing that makes voices go over wires.”

  “Oh,” Mabel said, and laughed. “Aleck is not working on that anymore. Father gave him a lot of money to invent the multiple telegraph. He told Aleck we could not get married until the multiple telegraph was finished.”

  My jaw dropped open. I couldn’t believe her dad was making Alexander Graham Bell quit working on the telephone.

  “Father did not force Aleck to quit,” she said defensively, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. “That is just one reason. Aleck is also very tired, and the—what did you call it?”

  “Telephone,” Zack answered.

  “Yes. The telephone.” She repeated the word in order to remember it. “The telephone was too much trouble. Aleck is a professor. He teaches deaf children and their teachers all day. Deaf children don’t need a machine that carries voices.” Mabel sat up in bed. “But everyone could use a multiple telegraph! And my Aleck is going to make one.” She started to cough again.

  In our time, no one on earth needed a multiple telegraph. But a lot of people needed telephones. Lots and lots of people used telephones all the time. Every day. There were even special telephones for deaf people.

  We needed to find Professor Alexander Graham Bell.

  “I guess we should go,” Zack said, his hand still on the doorknob. “But I don’t think we can convince Professor Bell in time.”

  “Why not?” Jacob asked his brother.

  “Because quitting is easier than trying. Sometimes you don’t like doing something, or it doesn’t work, or someone tells you that you can’t do it, so you just quit.”

  “You’re the expert,” Jacob teased his brother. “You’re the one who dropped out of Science Club, Theater Club, and the orchestra.”

  “Yeah. So what? I didn’t like any of those things. And I wasn’t good at them,” Zack said, and stomped his foot on the floor. “All I’m saying is that once I drop out of something, it’s almost impossible to convince me to try it again. Like, once I was in orchestra, I wasn’t going back to Theater Club. No way. Never. So if Alexander Graham Bell is working on something else now, it’s going to be super hard to convince him to go back.”

  Jacob checked his watch. “Zack, you’re talking crazy.” He laughed. “Besides, we have plenty of time to convince him. We’ve got one hour and forty-three minutes left. If you think it’s too hard, then we’ll convince him without you.” Jacob dared his brother to come along.

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help. I’m just saying it’s gonna be—” Zack started to say something, then decided not to argue anymore. “Whatever,” he mumbled softly. “It’s just too bad we don’t know where he is.”

  “Piece of cake,” Jacob said, turning his head in the direction of the bed. “Hey, Mabel! Where can we find Professor Bell?”

  “I’ll have my family’s driver take you to him in our carriage,” she offered. “But you must do me a favor.”

  I was worried that she was going to tell us we could have a ride if we didn’t mention the telephone ever again.

  But that wasn’t it.

  Mabel showed us a big, square, flat package that was leaning against the wall near her bed. It was wrapped in brown paper. “Please take this gift to Aleck. It is a portrait I painted of him,” Mabel said, smiling widely.

  “We’d be happy to deliver it,” Bo said. He went and got the package.

  “See?” Jacob said, and winked at Zack. “We’re already halfway done.”

  Tricked

  I h
ad never been in a carriage pulled by a horse before. I felt like a princess in a parade. It was fun to wave at people on the street as we hurried by.

  The carriage stopped in front of a tall, brown brick building.

  “Sir,” I asked the driver, “do you know where we can find Professor Bell?”

  “He lives upstairs,” the driver answered. “This is the boardinghouse at 5 Exeter Place.”

  “A boardinghouse is like an apartment building,” Bo told me.

  The driver took off his hat and pointed up toward the top of the building. “Professor Bell rents rooms thirteen and fifteen. He uses one for a bedroom and one for a workshop.”

  “Thanks,” Jacob said to the driver as he jumped out of the carriage. He patted the horse on the nose. “And thanks to you, too.”

  When we were all out of the carriage, Bo handed me Mabel’s package for Professor Bell. The four of us hurried up to the building.

  Jacob opened the door just as a woman in a yellow coat and matching hat rushed out. She almost crashed into Bo. “Excuse me,” she said as she hurried off down the street.

  We went inside and immediately smelled something yummy. We followed the scent down a small hallway to a little dining room. There was one man sitting alone at a long table. He was drinking something from a bowl with a tall glass straw.

  “More soup!” the man at the long table shouted over his shoulder.

  A short lady came out of the kitchen wearing an apron. “Here you are, sir,” she said, placing the soup on the table. “Really, you must stop calling me at odd times. Lunch was served hours ago. I am cooking dinner now.” She shook her finger at the man. “If you live here, you must obey the rules. Everyone else eats at eight o’clock, noon, and six o’clock.”

  “I know,” the man said, wiping his beard with a napkin. “I get so busy, I lose track of time. But all that is going to change. As of tonight, I shall come to dinner when you call.”

  “And why is that?” she asked.

  “The one thing I wanted to create is too difficult,” the man answered with a long sigh. “I quit working on it.”

  “You have said that before. But you have so many other inventions to keep you busy. I think you will be late again tomorrow.” The lady put a bit more soup in his bowl and went back to the kitchen.

  “Quit?” Bo whispered.

  “He makes inventions, eats at odd hours, and loses track of time!” Jacob cheered. “We found him!” He rushed over to the long table first. “Excuse me, Professor Bell? We are from the future—”

  “Future, eh?” the man said. He took his straw out of his soup and set it on the table. The man had a funny accent. I guessed he wasn’t born in America.

  He laughed. “It is fun to pretend that you are from the future. But I do not have time to play with you. So, shoo. Go on home, now!”

  “But, Professor Bell—,” Jacob interrupted.

  “I am not Professor Bell,” the man said. “I am his assistant, Thomas A. Watson.” He tipped his hat at us and grinned.

  “Yikes!” I said with a shiver. We were bothering the wrong man.

  Zack gave Jacob a half-smile. “I warned you this was going to be hard,” he gloated.

  Mr. Watson explained, “Professor Bell is a smart man, but he is not very good at electrical gadgets. I am a machinist. I help him with the electric part of his inventions.” He paused to pick up his straw before continuing.

  “Electricity is about making energy,” Mr. Watson said. “Energy makes some things move. Energy can make other things get hot, light up, or make noise. I thought—I mean, Professor Bell thought—that electricity could carry sound on a wire. But he was wrong.” Mr. Watson shook his head. “We are going to focus our attention on perfecting the multiple telegraph,” he finished.

  “Can you tell us where to find Professor Bell?” Bo asked in a near whisper. If it might help us find Professor Bell, Bo was willing to talk to an adult (but not very loudly). “We have to tell him to stop working on the multiple telegraph. His most important invention is going to be the telephone.”

  “The what?” Mr. Watson asked.

  “You know—the thing you were just talking about. The thing that makes voices go over wires.” Bo held one hand to his mouth and another to his ear, like he was making a phone call.

  “How do you know about the electric speech apparatus?” Mr. Watson asked, rubbing the sides of his beard.

  I remembered from science class that “apparatus” is a fancy word that means “thing.”

  Bo opened his mouth to speak, but Mr. Watson cut him off. “Ah . . . yes, you are from the future.” He snickered.

  “Well, me laddies”—he looked at me and added—“and me lassie, there is no point in hanging around here. Professor Bell has quit working on electric speech. It doesn’t work. He will finish the multiple telegraph, get married, and then go on vacation.” He stuck one end of the straw back into his soup. “Now, if you will excuse me, I want to finish my lunch before it grows cold.”

  He turned away from us and began to slurp. We left the dining room without a clue as to what we’d do next.

  We had to talk Alexander Graham Bell out of quitting. Before it was too late.

  At the far end of a hallway, Bo noticed a long, tall staircase. The carriage driver had told us that Alexander Graham Bell rented rooms 13 and 15.

  Suddenly, Jacob took off running up the stairs two at a time. The boys followed closely on his heels. I was moving a little slower since I was carrying Mabel’s painting and it was starting to get heavy.

  When I reached the top step, I asked Jacob how much time was left on the computer. It was important to watch our time.

  “One hour, twenty-eight minutes,” Jacob answered.

  None of us knew what would happen if the cartridge ran out of time. And none of us wanted to find out. We had to be careful.

  We decided that the fastest way to find Alexander Graham Bell was to split up. Jacob and I went to knock on door 15. No one answered.

  Bo and Zack knocked on door 13.

  “Hello.” A man opened door 13 and stepped into the hall. He was a thin man with a short beard. He was wearing a coat and tie and holding a long piece of wire in his hand.

  “Are you Professor Bell?” Zack asked the man.

  “No,” he answered.

  Zack asked, “Isn’t this his room?”

  “Yes. This is his workshop, but I am Thomas A. Watson,” he introduced himself. “I am the machinist who helps Professor Bell.”

  “Huh?” Bo said. He scratched his chin. He did that when he was thinking really hard. “We met Mr. Watson downstairs. He has a beard and speaks English with an accent.”

  The man started laughing. He laughed harder and harder.

  “Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “I should have remembered! While you guys were reading about his inventions, I was reading about his childhood. Alexander Graham Bell was born and raised in Scotland!” I smacked myself on the forehead.

  “So, that means,” Bo said thoughtfully, “that Professor Bell would speak English with an accent.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Jacob asked.

  “Yes,” Bo said before Jacob finished. “This man is Mr. Watson. The real Alexander Graham Bell is downstairs drinking soup with a straw.”

  I groaned loudly. “We’ve been tricked!”

  Alexander Graham Bell

  We could still hear Mr. Watson’s laughter as we started running back down the stairs to the dining room. Out of breath, we arrived just as Professor Bell was wiping his glass straw on a napkin.

  “You again?” He shook his head at us and tucked the straw into his jacket pocket. “I thought you had left.”

  “We went upstairs for a minute,” I explained. “But we came back.” I cleared my throat and said loudly, “We came back to see you—Professor Bell.”

  “I am Mr. Thomas A. Watson,” he said, standing to leave the room. “You are mistaken.”

  “We met the real Mr.
Watson upstairs,” I said. Then I boldly blocked his way out of the room. “We need to talk to you, Professor. Just for a minute.”

  Professor Alexander Graham Bell didn’t look like he wanted to talk to us. “I am so tired of electric speech, I will pay you to go away and never mention it again.”

  “How much?” Zack asked with a twinkle in his eye. It was hard to tell if he was serious or not, so I shoved him hard. Taking Alexander Graham Bell’s money to leave was not an option.

  I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered the package. “We have a present for you from Mabel Hubbard.” I held out the big flat rectangle.

  That did it! Alexander Graham Bell stepped back and sat down in a chair. “How do you know Mabel?” he asked.

  “We went to her house looking for you,” Jacob explained.

  “How is she feeling today?” Alexander Graham Bell asked us.

  Jacob took the package from me and handed it to Professor Bell. “She’s feeling much better, but her father won’t let her visit you today. She asked us to bring you this gift.”

  Alexander Graham Bell smiled. “It must be the painting. Mabel has been working on a portrait of me.” He took the package from Jacob and tore off the paper.

  It was a painting, all right. But not of Professor Bell.

  It was a picture of a snowy owl.

  Alexander Graham Bell held the picture high and looked at it long and hard.

  Bo leaned over to me and whispered, “It’s a painting of him. Get it?”

  Mabel had said that Aleck worked with deaf students all day and invented all night. Owls are awake all night. She meant Alexander Graham Bell was like an owl. “I get it,” I told Bo.

  Alexander Graham Bell put down the painting. “Mabel likes it that I am going to quit,” he told us. “After I finish the multiple telegraph, I will not be up all night anymore. Maybe someday she will paint a real portrait of me.”

  Bo took a deep breath and stepped forward. “The painting is funny, but the world needs you to be an owl a little longer.”

  “We need you to invent the telephone,” I added.

  “The electric speech apparatus,” Jacob added, in case Professor Bell had forgotten the word “telephone.”