Washington’s War Read online

  Bo hummed as he skipped a little.

  “I mean the present dreadful situation of the army for want of provisions, and the miserable prospects before us, with respect to futurity.”

  A lot of words. Big words.

  “What does all that mean?” I asked the boys.

  “The letter means that we do not have enough supplies,” George Washington answered. I jumped at the sound of his voice.

  I was surprised he didn’t yell at us for being in his room, or seeing him in his nightie, or reading his mail—all things I’d have screamed about if I were him.

  I quickly and quietly asked Bo. Bo said that a lot of kids volunteered to help during the Revolutionary War. He was used to having people around all the time.

  “My men are freezing cold and starving to death,” George Washington told us. “The new American Congress has no money to send me. There are no supplies nearby because the British are taking everything first.” He shook his head sadly. “This letter means that I have no one else to ask for help.”

  He picked his ink jar up off the bed and wiped off the bottle with a rag. Then he got the quill pen. George Washington put both items in a nearby open crate before closing the lid with a slam. There were many similar crates lined against the walls of the room.

  “Thank you for waking me up,” he told us. In a move faster than I’ve ever seen, he leaped behind a fabric curtain and within seconds was dressed in full military gear.

  “I must leave now,” he said as he headed to the bedroom door.

  I was feeling bold and strong and wanted to be the first to try to convince him to stay. I stepped in front of our great American leader.

  “Sir,” I said, my voice loud and determined, “you can’t leave. America won’t be a free country unless you win the Revolutionary War. These men and women need you to lead them. Only you can keep the soldiers from deserting.” I could see he didn’t believe me, so I pressed on. “You must help them. Send the letter to your friend and don’t quit. You’ve gotta hang in there.”

  GW stepped around me. “Martha!” he called down the stairs. “Are the horses saddled?” I knew she probably couldn’t hear him, since she had gone to the kitchen.

  Before George Washington could call out again, Zack took a try. “I know all about quitting,” Zack put in sincerely. “Quitting feels good at first, but sometimes you wonder why you gave up.”

  George Washington made a noise that sounded like “hummph.” Then he called for Martha again.

  The more stubborn GW acted, the more courageous Bo seemed to become. I could tell that Bo really wanted to convince GW not to quit. “You can’t quit just because there aren’t enough supplies,” he said. “In the next few weeks, supplies will come along with a new quartermaster to help organize everything. A man named Baron Von Steuben is also on his way to help you train the troops.”

  George Washington turned to us. “The problem is greater than supplies and training troops. My men lost too many battles before we came to Valley Forge. The troops are tired. They do not think they can win.” He sighed. “When you stop thinking you can win, you have already lost.” Then he added, “I do not believe we can win either. Every battle I have led lately has ended in disaster.”

  “That isn’t true,” Bo said, continuing to gather his nerve to speak loudly to an adult—a really famous adult. “You had a big day when you crossed the Delaware.”

  “Yes,” GW said, a far-off look in his eye. “That was a fine morning. We surprised the British on Christmas at dawn and drove them back. But”—he looked directly at Bo; Bo was twitching his knee nervously—“that win was over a year ago.”

  George Washington looked sad. “If the British attacked us here”—he moved over to the window and glanced outside—“we would be crushed. My soldiers are too weak to fight.” He closed the curtains. “Before coming to Valley Forge, I had two chances to stop the British, at Brandywine and Germantown. Both times we lost the battles and had to retreat. Now my troops have no confidence in me.”

  “Yes, they do,” I insisted, although I knew it was no use. We were talking to a defeated leader. He was quitting and nothing we could do would stop him.

  Well, almost nothing. We were going to have to take him to the future!

  As GW called down the stairs, “Martha! Have the men bring the horses around to the front,” I quickly whispered my idea to the boys.

  “We only have forty-one minutes.” Jacob told us that Mr. C had added a new button to the computer that would let him change the settings as many times as he wanted. Now we could easily make multiple jumps through time if we needed to.

  “Will forty-one minutes be enough?” Zack asked.

  “It has to be,” Bo said confidently after a little chin scratching. “Let’s go.”

  In the blink of an eye, Jacob reset the computer and pulled out the cartridge. The glowing green hole opened in the floor of GW’s bedroom.

  In a flash of what I must say was brilliant planning, I screamed, teetering over the hole as if I was about to fall in. I flailed my arms and shouted, “Help me,” in my most pathetic voice.

  Just like I expected, being a general and a good man, George Washington couldn’t resist saving my life. He leaped forward and grabbed my hands in a single motion. Once his hands were around mine, I leaned back with all my weight. I’m not very heavy, but we were at the edge of the hole, so it worked. He lost his balance and we toppled into the time-travel hole together. The boys jumped in after.

  We were headed back to the future.

  Army, Navy

  We landed in the pathway of a huge armored tank.

  “Move!” Jacob shouted, grabbing my arm as the tank came barreling toward us. I leaped out of the way. So did Zack. And Bo. But when I looked back to where we had been standing, George Washington was still there.

  We didn’t have time to coordinate a rescue mission. All four of us jumped toward George Washington at the same time, knocking him sideways to the ground and away from the rolling tank wheels.

  “Whew.” Bo breathed a sigh of relief. “That was close.”

  “GW was almost flat as a pancake,” Zack said, laying his head back on the ground and sighing.

  I quickly stood up, realizing that GW was already on his feet. He was staring after the tank. “What was that? A metal horse?” he asked, looking confused.

  “It’s an armored tank. Army soldiers are protected as they ride in it,” Jacob explained as he dusted dirt off his pants. “We brought you to the future—I mean, to your future. It’s now for us.”

  We had brought George Washington to a modern army base. When I came up with the idea of bringing him here, it was to show him how the army worked in our time, to show him how people in America still fought for the freedoms of the Declaration of Independence.

  I thought that since he was a general, he’d like it, and I hoped it would inspire him to stay at Valley Forge. “When your soldiers win the Revolutionary War,” I said, “America will become an independent country.”

  “America needs a different leader. I am going home,” George Washington told us. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the tank.

  “America needs you,” Bo said with determination. “The British will admit defeat and sign a peace treaty in 1782. They will go back to Britain. From then on, America will be independent and free. In 1787 the thirteen colonies will unite into states. Today we have fifty United States of America.”

  As the tank rolled farther away, I told George Washington everything I knew about the United States Army, which wasn’t much. “The United States Army defends our land,” I said. “They protect America and help to keep people in other countries safe too.”

  “Today’s army does basically the same thing in our time as it did in yours,” Jacob added. He also explained that similar to 1778, there are officers and infantry soldiers, and that everyone gets paid—even generals.

  Suddenly we heard the sound of marching feet.

  “Hup, two, three, fou
r,” a man’s voice called out nearby. “Hup, two, three, four.” A group of soldiers in finely polished shoes and clean, crisp uniforms marched by.

  “Our modern troops are well supplied,” I told George Washington, pointing out the soldiers’ clothing as they passed. I thought that at least one of the soldiers would have turned to look at some guy dressed like George Washington and a bunch of kids standing in the middle of the army base, but not one man or woman glanced our way. They stared straight ahead as they passed us by with rhythmic steps.

  “Interesting,” George Washington said. He began to walk away, heading to where the tank had turned a corner and disappeared. “I like your army. I see that men and women soldiers are training together. Martha would also enjoy the warm climate here.”

  I had asked Jacob to take us to an army base in California. I was tired of being cold at Valley Forge.

  “I will remember this fondly when I am resting comfortably at Mount Vernon,” George Washington said over his shoulder to us. “Take me back to Valley Forge. I need to load the wagon.”

  I looked to Zack to see if he wanted a turn convincing GW, but he was busy thinking about something else.

  “You can’t quit Valley Forge,” Jacob said as we all caught up with George Washington. GW had really long legs. Even though he was walking, we had to run to keep up. “You have to go back and fight for freedom so America can exist. Without you”—Jacob waved his arms around the base—“there would be none of this.”

  George Washington seemed to be considering Jacob’s words. At least he stopped walking. It was possible that he stopped because he couldn’t find the tank. No matter why, I was glad he was standing still. It was hard to convince him of anything while we were moving.

  Out of the blue, Zack cheered, “I’ve got one!” He’d been so quiet the whole time since we’d landed. I was surprised to hear his voice. “Knock. Knock.”

  “Zack, now’s not the time for jokes.” I glanced over at GW. Bo was still being courageous. He was peppering GW with army facts.

  I heard Bo say, “After you win the Revolutionary War, we’ll continue to need a strong army to protect us. Today’s American Army has more than four hundred thousand enlisted soldiers and seventy-six thousand officers.” He was sharing statistics about the number of bases in both the United States and other countries when Zack said, “Come on, Abigail. Let me tell you a joke. You don’t want me to start complaining and worrying, do you?”

  Joking or whining. Hmm. I wasn’t sure which Zack I liked better. I gave up and said, “Who’s there?”

  “Tank,” Zack said with a smile.

  “Tank who?” I asked.

  “Tank you!” Zack said, holding his side and laughing.

  I didn’t laugh. “Jacob and Bo,” I called out to where they stood, shaking my head at Zack’s dopey joke, “this United States Army visit isn’t working. Anyone got another idea?”

  Bo did. Seconds later, Jacob’s thumbs flew over the computer’s buttons as he reprogrammed the settings. The glowing time-travel hole opened in the ground. Bo, Jacob, and I caught the father of our country off guard by shoving him into the hole together. Zack followed us in, still laughing.

  A second later, we landed somewhere new.

  “Batten down the hatches!” a man’s voice rang out. His command echoed through the narrow chamber we’d landed in. We were crammed into the radio room on a submarine. Two chairs sat in front of a switchboard lit up with small red bulbs. We were lucky that no one else was in the room. It was a really small area.

  Suddenly the submarine tilted downward and I crashed into GW.

  “Where are we?” he demanded to know. “Where have you taken me?” He seemed pretty stunned, so I asked Bo to explain. It was his idea to come here, after all.

  “We are on a navy submarine,” Bo said, adding that the navy is the second-largest branch of the United States military.

  “Ah yes. Together with John Barry, John Paul Jones, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, I started the Continental Navy in 1775,” George Washington told us. “We decided to gather together army officers and soldiers who knew something about the sea.”

  “The Continental Navy had about fifty ships by the end of the Revolutionary War,” Bo told him. “Today, the United States Navy has about two hundred eighty-one ships and over four thousand operational airplanes.” Bo pointed around at the control panels in front of us. “We are on a navy submarine.”

  “What is a submarine?” GW asked us. I could tell he had a lot of questions brewing. I totally admire people who are as curious as I am.

  “A submarine is a special kind of boat that can travel under the water,” Jacob told him.

  “And what is an airplane?” he wondered.

  Before I could explain what airplanes were, a woman in a blue uniform rushed into the room.

  “Oh no,” she gasped when she saw us. “Didn’t you get off with the tour group? We are headed out to sea on a training mission!”

  “It’s okay,” Zack said with a wink. “We can just pop out of here anytime we want. No problem.”

  “No problem?!” she was nearly shouting at us. “This is a huge problem. The captain will have my head when he finds out I didn’t sweep the sub for civilians before descent.” As she said it, the submarine tilted again. I could feel us going down lower and lower into the sea. From somewhere outside the room, I heard a man’s voice call out, “Up periscope!”

  The woman looked frazzled. “All right,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’ll get you out of here soon enough. First I need to check the radio equipment to be sure it’s working.” The woman turned away from us and put on a pair of headphones. She began pressing buttons on a nearby control panel.

  “Thirty-seven minutes left on the computer,” Jacob announced. He looked at GW. “Pretty impressive, eh? Today we can fight battles, make sneak attacks, and protect America from under the sea.”

  “There are nearly half a million men and women serving in the U.S. Navy,” Bo added, “all thanks to you for realizing the importance of defending our waters.”

  “It’s time to go back to Valley Forge and stay there,” I told GW. “Now do you understand why? The ideas that we love and protect came from you and your friends.” I stood on tiptoe to boldly get my face closer to George Washington’s. “You were already fighting when the Declaration of Independence was signed. You led the army and helped invent the navy.”

  “The Continental Congress will appoint another leader to lead the fight at Valley Forge!” he announced. “I want to sit in my favorite chair and warm my feet before the fire at my beloved home.” GW headed over to where the woman was sitting. “But before we go,” he added, “I’d like to learn more about this underwater boat.” He searched for the right word, then said, “I mean, submarine.” He stood behind her as she twisted dials and pressed knobs, watching her every move.

  “Speaking of submarines,” Zack said, raising his eyebrows at me, “what did the ocean say to the submarine?”

  I sighed loudly. I was getting really tired of Zack and his jokes. Jacob was busy with our computer so Bo saved me and took this one. “What?” he replied.

  “Nothing. It just waved!” Zack said.

  It wasn’t funny. Not even a tiny bit. Zack’s jokes were getting worse as the day went on. I made my decision. Jacob had been right, a worried Zack was a lot better than a joke-telling one. I hoped he’d run out of jokes soon.

  “I’ve got a new idea!” Jacob looked up from the computer and everyone turned toward him. The woman turned around too.

  “I’d almost forgotten about you,” she said. “I better go alert the captain. We’re going to have to return to shore.” She set down her headset and hurried from the room.

  Without another word, Jacob pressed wildly at the computer buttons, changing the settings. The time-travel hole opened in the middle of the radio room floor.

  “Where are we going now?” I asked.

  “Another place to convince George Was
hington,” Jacob said. “It’s time to hit the skies!”

  I thought I knew what he meant, but before I could ask, George Washington’s voice boomed in the small room. “Skies? What does that mean? I insist that you take me back to Valley Forge now. I must saddle my horse and begin my journey!” He stood tall and shouted, “That’s an order!” Clearly GW wasn’t going to be tricked or pushed into going anywhere else.

  I pinched my lips together, trying to figure out how to get GW into the hole before it closed.

  “If you can’t bring GW to the hole,” Jacob said, frantically pushing buttons on the computer, “maybe I can bring the hole to GW.” Jacob is so super-duper smart at computers. If there was a way, I knew he’d find it.

  The time-travel hole was beginning to shrink. So far, none of us had leaped into it. I was starting to feel nervous, when suddenly, the hole started to move. It was slinking across the floor like a snake.

  “It’s working!” Zack gave his brother a big thumbs-up.

  Bo slapped Jacob heartily on the back.

  And a second later, the hole crept right under George Washington, gobbling him up. I heard him shout, “No!” as he fell in.

  “Way to go, Jacob!” I gave him a high five as I jumped in following GW. The boys leaped in after me.

  Air Force

  “Grab your parachutes, airmen. It’s time to go.” A commanding officer in a jumpsuit was speaking to rows of men and women lined up on benches.

  “Jacob,” I cried. “Tell me you didn’t bring us to—”

  “Yep.” Jacob smiled, showing all his teeth. “We’re flying high with the United States Air Force. If seeing the air force doesn’t amaze GW and convince him to stay at Valley Forge, nothing will.” He looked at the computer and groaned. “We only have thirty minutes left.”

  We’d landed in the back of an airplane. It wasn’t like any regular plane I’d taken on vacation. There were no nice cushy seats or flight attendants with drink carts. Basically it looked like the whole plane had been emptied out, leaving rows of benches and nothing else.