Ben Franklin’s Fame Read online

  It was nothing important. Someone below was reporting to the crowd the names of the representatives who had already signed.

  By the time we turned our attention back to the small table, Babs Magee was setting down the pen.

  “You’re too late,” Babs said to us with a grin. “You missed me coming in the back door. I’ve already signed my name.” Her yellow coat and matching hat looked completely out of place in the room full of men dressed in black.

  Mr. Caruthers had said we might face danger when we ran into Babs. Zack hates danger. So I was doubly surprised to see him lunging at her. “Where’s Ben Franklin?” Zack shouted as he bumped Thomas Jefferson to the ground in his attempt to get at Babs.

  Zack had her by the legs, but Babs didn’t seem to care. She didn’t even fight him off.

  “He’s not here,” she answered, quite pleased with herself. “Has anyone here seen Benjamin Franklin?” she called out to the gathering.

  There was a lot of muttering, but no one had even heard of him. Apparently, Babs had been living Ben Franklin’s life for a while already.

  “Release Miss Magee at once!” one of the men in the Philadelphia delegation called out.

  Zack let go of her legs and slid to the floor in defeat.

  There was no danger here. Babs had already signed the Declaration. There was nothing more we could do. Even if we found Ben Franklin, we couldn’t erase what she’d done.

  “Ben Franklin is gone from American history,” Babs said, smiling broadly from ear to ear. “I just signed the Declaration of Independence.” She pointed at the time-travel computer in Jacob’s pocket. “Go home and read all about it in your history books, kids!” And with that, she sat down at one of the desks reserved for the members of the Second Continental Congress.

  Jacob helped Zack up.

  I noticed that Thomas Jefferson was still sprawled out on the floor, right where Zack had accidentally shoved him. John Hancock rose from his chair and was headed purposefully across the room toward Thomas Jefferson, asking him if he was injured.

  “None the worse for wear,” Thomas Jefferson replied as he sat up.

  I gave Bo an encouraging nudge in the back.

  Bo knew that now was his chance to help his hero. He straightened his backbone, puffed out his chest, and stepped forward, hand outstretched. Thomas Jefferson took Bo’s hand and pulled himself off the floor. “Thank you, son,” he said to Bo.

  Bo didn’t reply. He just stared down at his hand. He was still gripping Thomas Jefferson’s fingers. I had to give Bo a little reminder to drop Thomas Jefferson’s hand. “Time to go,” I whispered.

  Bo let go of the future third president of the United States and said softly, “You’re welcome.”

  Once we were in the courtyard below, I smacked myself on the forehead. “What are we going to do now?”

  “How are we ever going to find Ben Franklin?” Zack half-grunted, half-sighed.

  Jacob suggested that we move to a quiet corner where no one could see us. Behind the State House, he said, “We need to find the exact moment Babs took over Ben Franklin’s life.”

  Bo was still dazed from talking to Thomas Jefferson. He shook his head to clear it and added, “Mr. C said to use my knowledge. So”—he paused to rub his chin—“we can time-travel forward to the signing of the United States Constitution. If Babs Magee was here, she’ll definitely be there, too. But if we want to catch her before she changes history, I think it makes more sense to go backward. Maybe we should go to the day he did his famous kite experiment.”

  “I vote for the kite experiment,” Zack suggested.

  “Me too,” I said, and when Bo agreed, I turned to Jacob. “Can you get us there?”

  He already had Mr. C’s small screwdriver in his hand. “I’m willing to try.”

  “June sixteenth, 1752,” Bo told him.

  Jacob took the cartridge out of the computer. Our green glowing time-travel hole opened in the ground nearby.

  “Don’t get too close,” Jacob warned us. “That hole will take us straight back to school. It isn’t the hole we need.”

  Jacob quickly unscrewed the back panel of the cartridge, just like Mr. C had told him. He peered inside and studied the wires for a long second. Then, he disconnected a wire and put the cartridge back together again.

  I braced myself for an explosion. Just in case. But there was nothing.

  “Whew,” Zack said, relieved. “We’re still alive.” Then he muttered under his breath, “So far.”

  When Jacob put the cartridge back in the computer, the green smoke turned pink.

  “Jacob, you made it pink!” Zack exclaimed, carefully looking at the time-travel hole. “What did you do to the green smoke?”

  Jacob tapped his foot as he reviewed what he’d done. “I’m positive I disconnected the right wire,” he said. Then, after a pause, he added, “Well, I’m almost sure.”

  Zack took a step back. “I have enough concerns about jumping into a green glowing hole. There’s no way I’m going to be the first one to leap into a pretty pink fluffy one.”

  I took one last look at the Liberty Bell and suddenly felt very brave. “I’ll go first,” I said. I held my breath and jumped into the hole.

  One by one, the boys followed me farther back through time.

  1752

  It was dark, even though it was daytime. Black clouds surrounded the sun. And it was cold. Wind was blowing my hair into my eyes. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.

  “It looks like it’s gonna rain,” Zack said, just before the clap of thunder boomed across the sky.

  “You’re a genius,” Jacob told his brother. By his tone, I could tell he didn’t really mean it. It was totally obvious that it was about to rain. A gust of wind whipped through me as another crash of thunder echoed all around.

  “I am a genius,” Zack responded. “You just don’t accept that I am the smarter twin.”

  “Ha-ha,” Jacob snorted as he moved toward Zack with a threatening look on his face.

  It was Bo’s day to keep Jacob and Zack from fighting. Once again, he stepped between them. “Ben Franklin should be around here somewhere,” Bo said, then asked Jacob to check the date. It was June 16, 1752.

  “Great.” Bo motioned to an open field in front of us. “No one knows the exact date for sure, but many historians believe that today’s the day Ben Franklin is doing his most famous experiment. He’s going to prove that lightning is a natural form of electricity.”

  “I thought Ben Franklin invented electricity,” I said, pulling out my notebook and pencil.

  “Lots of people think that,” Bo told me. Bo explained that ideas about electricity had been around for a long time. By 1752, Ben Franklin had already studied electric sparks and electric shocks before he decided to check out lightning.

  A big gust of wind blew, and I slammed the cover of my notebook shut. I didn’t want the pages to get wet.

  Lightning flashed across the sky. I counted the seconds between the lightning and the sound of its thunder. “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three—” BOOM!

  “That lightning was close to us,” I told the boys.

  “Too close,” Zack said. “Dad told us that it’s dangerous to be in an open field when there’s lightning.” He pointed to a small wooden shack a short distance away. “Let’s go there,” he suggested.

  When another flash of lightning shot through the clouds, followed almost immediately by thunder, he didn’t need to convince us. We took off running toward the shack.

  It was empty. And small. Almost too small to fit all four of us. I didn’t even think the wood building could be called a shack. It only had three walls and a roof. One side was entirely open. And through that side, we could see it had begun to rain.

  “Awesome!” Bo suddenly exclaimed. “Look what I found.” Bo was standing in the back of the shack. In his hand, he was holding a kite.

  I moved closer to Bo, away from the open side of the shack, and flipped my
notebook to a blank page. I made a little sketch of the kite Bo was holding.

  “Is that Ben Franklin’s kite?” I asked, leaning in for a closer look.

  “I think so. Once I read a description of it.” Bo paused to rub his chin and gather his thoughts before continuing. “The kite was made of two crossed cedar strips.” Bo pointed to the two flat wooden sticks. “A large, silk handkerchief.” He showed us the diamond-shaped fabric of the kite. “It had a sharp pointed wire on top to attract the lightning.” There was the wire.

  “And,” Bo went on, “Ben Franklin’s kite had a key tied at the end of a long silk string. If the experiment was successful, when the kite was hit by lightning, the key would give off small shocks of electricity—”

  I saw the dangling key before Bo pointed to it.

  “This is Ben Franklin’s kite!” I cheered. My happy moment only lasted a second. “But where is Ben Franklin?”

  Bo looked down at the kite in his hand and shrugged.

  Now it was pouring hard. Even though we were standing in the shelter, we were still getting wet from the windswept rain.

  Jacob checked the computer. “There’s one hour and one minute left.” He tucked the computer under his shirt to keep it dry.

  Bo suggested we hang out for a minute or so. Maybe Ben Franklin was running late.

  I crossed my fingers that today was the right day and that he’d show up. I started to count to sixty.

  We had stood in silence for twenty-two seconds when Zack decided he’d entertain us. “What did the lightning bolt say to the other lightning bolt?” he asked.

  Jacob wasn’t going to play. Neither was Bo. They turned away to check out the kite and talk about how it was made. Something about how important it was that the string was made of silk. And that the string didn’t get wet.

  I yawned at them and said to Zack, “I give up. What did one lightning bolt say to the other?”

  “You’re shocking!” Zack laughed so hard, he stumbled backward. “Want to hear another one?” he asked as he steadied himself.

  “Sure,” I said. The minute was almost up, but there was no sign of Ben Franklin. If he didn’t show up, I wasn’t sure what we’d do next.

  “What’s worse than raining buckets?” Zack asked.

  I said I didn’t know.

  “Hailing taxis,” Babs Magee answered the joke as she stepped into the shelter. There was water dripping off the brim of her yellow hat.

  “What are you doing here!?” I yelled, startled by her sudden appearance. “And what have you done with Ben Franklin!?”

  Babs didn’t answer. She snagged the kite, string and all, out of Bo’s hand. “Ben Franklin isn’t coming today,” she replied casually as she straightened the string.

  “What do you mean he’s not coming?” Zack demanded to know. I could see that Zack was about to pounce on her again. I put my hand out to stop him.

  As mad as I was to see her, it wouldn’t do us any good to attack her. She might time-travel away and we’d never have a chance to find Ben.

  Maybe, if I asked the right question, she’d accidentally give a clue to where we could find him. I always had a lot of questions . . . all I needed was one really good one.

  “Why isn’t he coming?” I asked. This was the best question I could think of.

  “You’re too late!” Babs echoed the words she’d said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And with that, she tossed the kite up and out of the shelter.

  The wind caught the kite and carried it up and up.

  Babs was careful to keep her body under the shelter of the shack with us, keeping the bottom part of the string dry.

  Bo leaned over and said quietly, “If the string in her hand gets wet, when the lightning hits the metal wire, electricity will travel past the key and Babs will be zapped.”

  “Hmm,” I replied. As horrible as it sounds, I have to admit I considered the possibility. No Babs. No more trouble with history.

  Too bad we were such good kids.

  No, we couldn’t hurt her. In fact, we needed to trick her into giving us a clue to find Ben Franklin.

  It was then I realized that Babs had given us a clue. She’d said, “You’re too late.”

  And she was right, 1752 was simply too late. We were at the wrong moment in Ben Franklin’s life. Babs must have knocked him off track before today. We had to pop backward again.

  “Forget about Babs,” I said, and told the boys that we should get going. “There’s nothing more we can do here,” I whispered so Babs wouldn’t hear. “We have to go to an earlier point in Ben’s life and hope to find—”

  I was interrupted by a clap of thunder tied with a flash of lightning. They happened together. At the exact same moment. The lightning had struck right above our heads.

  The key! Suddenly the key tied to the kite started buzzing. Humming. And shooting off small sparks of light. Like mini bolts of lightning.

  “I did it!” Babs cried out. “Another feather in my famous cap.” She carefully held up the string with the key dangling in front of her. “Who wants to share my glory?” she asked, turning slightly to hold the key right in front of Jacob. “Go ahead,” she teased him. “Put your knuckles against the key. You’ll feel a light shock, proving once and for all that lightning is electric!”

  I could see Jacob’s fist trembling. He wanted to touch it. He really did.

  “You can’t do it, Jacob,” Zack pleaded with his twin. “It’s Ben Franklin’s experiment. If you touch it, it’ll be like it’s okay that Babs took over.”

  “You don’t understand.” Jacob’s hand crept a bit closer to the key. “This experiment led Ben Franklin to make up many words we still use today when we talk about electricity. Words like: battery, minus, plus, charged, conductor, condenser . . .” His knuckles were right next to the buzzing key.

  “The thing is,” Jacob went on, “this experiment in electricity, more than any other, was the beginning of all the scientific discoveries leading up to that thing I love the best—the first computer!”

  Now I understood why Jacob wanted to touch the key so badly. If he touched the key, he’d be touching history.

  “Please, Jacob,” Zack began. “Don’t touch it. Ben Franklin should be holding the key, not Babs Magee.” Even when he was seriously begging, Zack could rhyme.

  With a heartfelt groan and a huge sigh, Jacob let his hand drop. “You’re right,” he told his brother. “Maybe you are a genius after all.” He stopped for a second, then added, “Nah. Just kidding.” Jacob laughed. Instead of touching the key, he used his knuckles to give Zack a noogy on his head.

  Babs snatched the key toward herself, muttering, “More fame for me.”

  Jacob was clearly disgusted with Babs. In a lightning-fast move, he whipped out our time-travel computer and asked Bo privately where we should go next.

  Bo told him we should go to 1751 to see the first public hospital. Jacob pulled out the cartridge and the green time-travel hole opened in the back of the shed. Quickly, Jacob opened the cartridge, tweaked the wires, and slammed the cartridge back into the computer. The green hole changed to a glowing dark blue.

  The boys eagerly jumped in. Even Zack.

  I hesitated. Babs was standing with the kite, touching the key with her closed fist, feeling the little electric shocks, rejoicing in her stolen discovery.

  I couldn’t help it. Really. My arms acted entirely on their own.

  I took a quick step forward and shoved her. Hard. Babs fell back into the pouring rain. She stumbled. Babs Magee landed with a splash in a very large mud puddle. Her kite broke in half. The key buzzed its last electric buzz.

  “That’s for Benjamin Franklin,” I shouted. “Wherever he is!” And with that, I jumped into the time-travel hole.

  Searching

  There’s so much that happened next.

  We were jumping in and out of history at the speed of light. One minute here. Two minutes there. Since the kite experiment in 1752, we’d been
to 1751 and witnessed Babs Magee design the first public hospital. Instead of medical care being only for the rich who could afford it, this hospital was for everyone. One more good idea stolen from Ben Franklin.

  From there we went to 1750 and saw Babs Magee invent the lightning rod, another of Ben’s famous experiments involving electricity and lightning. Babs hoisted a long rod to the roof of her Philadelphia home. A crowd had gathered to see what she’d created.

  Babs told everyone, including Jacob, Zack, Bo, and me, that the rod was made of iron. It attracted lightning and, when struck, the electric charge would travel directly to the ground and fizzle out instead of hit the roof and start a big fire.

  The crowd cheered for Babs’s invention, and we left 1750 feeling totally bummed.

  In 1741 Babs invented a stove called the Pennsylvania Fire-Place. Old stoves did nothing to heat the room. Most of the warmth from a small fire escaped up the chimney. The Pennsylvania Fire-Place solved that problem, making the room nice and toasty. This new invention immediately became a bestseller, especially during the winter, when Philadelphia was freezing cold and covered with snow.

  When Babs first lit a fire in the new stove, I hoped the whole thing would blow up in her face, but it turned out that Babs had studied history and knew not just when but how things were done. The stove worked perfectly.

  Bo told us that the invention should have been called the “Franklin Stove,” but the people we heard out on the street were cheering the greatness of the “Magee Stove.” At that, Zack complained he was going to throw up.

  After we saw Babs become the first postmaster of Philadelphia, set up the first fire department, and establish the first public library, we finally stopped for a short break. Time travel can make you really tired.

  Besides, there were only forty-six minutes left on the computer and we needed to ask Bo where to go next.

  It was 1729. Babs was about to buy the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper, just like Ben Franklin had done. We were across the street from a small print shop. The sign said: MAGEE PRINTING OFFICE.