Sacagawea's Strength Read online

  Jacob chimed in, telling Sacagawea, “After you got healthy, you traveled to a place where two rivers came together. You knew the correct river to take. You led the Corps of Discovery to the Shoshone lands and to Camp Fortunate. Without you, they might have gotten lost.” He smiled at me and whispered, “That’s part of the computer game.”

  “Are you convinced how important you are?” I asked her. “Without your translation, Lewis and Clark cannot make their map. They’ll never reach the ocean.” I couldn’t believe I was honestly trying to convince Sacagawea to help make a map. My, how things had changed!

  A light glinted in her eyes at the word “ocean,” but it passed so quickly, I wasn’t sure if it was real or if I’d imagined it.

  “Don’t forget about Chief Cameahwait,” Zack added, scratching at his arms. “It’s also important that you convince your brother to stay at Camp Fortunate awhile longer. Even though the trade is complete, Chief Cameahwait still needs to help Lewis and Clark find a route over the mountains.” He winked and said, “It’s all about the map, right?”

  Without even thinking about our words, Sacagawea quickly replied, “All this makes little difference to me.” She opened her hand, revealing the bear-carved stone. “I am going to the buffalo grounds with my brother and my people. We are leaving as soon as possible.”

  I tried to be understanding about what it must be like for her to finally have a chance to be with her brother and her people after all these years. But still, my own hopes were squashed. Jacob, Zack, Bo, and I had given it our best shot, and failed.

  “I wish her brother hadn’t asked her to come with him,” I moaned to the boys.

  Sacagawea, still holding the bear stone in her hand, overheard me and said, “Chief Cameahwait did not tell me to come with him. I told him I wanted to go.”

  “What!?” Zack exclaimed.

  “Even though I was reunited with my brother, I had planned to stay with the expedition. But that woman over there”—Sacagawea pointed at a shadowy figure lurking between the trees—“convinced me to go hunt the buffalo with my tribe.” Sacagawea finally handed me her bear stone and went back to gathering her belongings for her trip.

  I looked over at the woman standing in the shadows. There was something vaguely familiar about her yellow hat and matching coat.

  I’d seen that coat and hat before. But where?

  Babs Magee

  “That’s the woman who opened the door to the Presidential Palace in 1862,” Bo exclaimed. “We saw her again in New York City in 1928.”

  “I remember her from Boston in 1876,” Jacob realized. “And—”

  “She was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965,” Zack finished. “I think she’s following us! Or are we following her?”

  “Definitely way too many coincidences.” I was bouncing on my toes, ready to run. “Let’s go get her. We have to find out who she is and what she’s up to!”

  Sacagawea was still packing as we ran, fast as we could, toward the woman. She saw us coming and took off. Darting through small trees. Ducking behind bushes.

  Zack was the quickest, so he was in the lead. Bo was second. I came third. And Jacob, desperately clinging to the computer, careful not to drop it as he ran, was bringing up the rear.

  I slowed slightly to jump over a pile of leaves. Coming too fast, Jacob crashed into me. Arms flailing, wrapped together, the two of us plowed into Bo. He slammed into Zack. And Zack . . . well, he cruised headfirst into the woman with the yellow coat and matching hat.

  “At least I managed to save the time-travel computer,” Jacob grunted from the top of our tangled-people pile. He held it high above his head. “Not a scratch on it.”

  I looked at the computer in his hand. “That’s not our computer,” I said, shaking my head. “Ours is black. The one you’re holding is blue.”

  “Give me back my computer!” came a shout from beneath Zack. It was the woman in yellow. Her hand shot up and snatched the computer out of Jacob’s grasp.

  “Excellent. Now I have two!” she cheered. And with that, Jacob, Zack, Bo, and I were shoved aside as the woman dug herself out from under us. “So long, kids,” she said happily as she tucked our computer into her pocket and began to fiddle with the buttons on hers.

  Jacob suddenly shouted, “She’s going to time-travel out of here!”

  “She’s taking our computer,” Bo added.

  “We have to stop her!” Zack cried.

  Those three months Zack spent in tae kwon do really paid off when he gave the woman a swift side kick, forcing her to her knees. The summer he spent as a magician’s apprentice taught him how to pick our computer from her pocket. And baseball camp scored with a pitcher’s perfect toss to Jacob.

  Jacob caught our computer easily and declared, “Way to go, Zack. You’re a stud.”

  “I know.” Zack grinned. But he didn’t have time to take a bow because the woman was back on her feet, preparing to run.

  There was no way I was going to let her escape. Without thinking, I leaped onto her back and hung on.

  She couldn’t work her own time-travel computer because she was busy swatting at me. And I wasn’t going to let go. “Who are you?” I demanded to know. I wrapped my arms tightly around her neck.

  Bo and Zack jumped in, grabbing the woman’s arms. Jacob kept his distance so she couldn’t break free and take our computer again.

  She suddenly stopped fighting and stood defeated, breathing heavily. “My name is Babs Magee,” she coughed out. I was choking her. I loosened my grip, but wouldn’t let go or get off. “Have you heard of me?”

  “No,” I said. “Should we have?”

  “That’s the whole problem.” Babs sighed. “No one has ever heard of me. But someday I will be very, very famous. Everyone will know the name Babs Magee.” She straightened her back. I had to hold on more firmly so I wouldn’t slide off.

  “Many years ago, I was Mr. C’s assistant,” she explained. “I helped him create Big Blue.”

  I remembered that a while back, Mr. C told us he had invented an earlier model of the time-travel computer. He’d painted the front blue and named it Big Blue. Mr. Caruthers thought that Big Blue had been lost on his way back from 1776. He’d invented a new and better computer to replace it. We used this new computer.

  “Mr. C didn’t lose Big Blue. You stole it,” Jacob accused.

  “Yes, I did!” she shouted proudly. “I took it because Big Blue is the key to my dream. I want to be famous. To make my dream come true, all I have to do is convince just one famous American to quit for good. Then, I’ll finish up his or her work and take all the glory. Very soon, you’ll read about ME in your history books at school!”

  “You actually go back in time, telling people it would be better if they gave up?” Bo’s jaw was gaping open. I could see that he was totally shocked.

  “Exactly,” Babs admitted as if this were the world’s most perfect plan. “Quitting is much easier than trying again and again.”

  Now I understood why everyone in Mr. C’s little black book of names was quitting. She must have a copy of that list and was going down it, visiting one name every Monday, trying to convince him or her to give up so she could take over. I’d never met anyone like Babs Magee.

  “You’re lazy! You can’t get famous by taking someone else’s dream,” I insisted.

  “Why not?” she asked me. But before I could answer, Babs said, “I thought I did it once. No one has ever heard of the Smacktell because I convinced the inventor, James Smooter, to quit. Thing is, I couldn’t figure out how to work the stupid Smacktell myself. I didn’t get the fame for that one. But now, if you kids will just stop meddling, I know I can become famous today.” She tossed her shoulders a bit, trying to throw me off. I hung on tightly.

  Babs kept talking. “Since Sacagawea doesn’t have a dream of her own, it was simple to convince her to quit the expedition. I spent a whole month learning how to say ‘Go with your brother’ in Shoshone. And it worked! Now, I will
lead Lewis and Clark across the Rocky Mountains. In the future, you’ll see my face on a gold quarter.”

  I mumbled, “One-dollar coin,” just as Jacob and Zack shouted, “Get your own life!” in twin-time.

  “No!” Babs screamed, and then she twisted her body around with all her might. Bo and Zack lost their balance and both boys tumbled backward. Babs Magee swung her body right. Then left. Then right again. And I fell off her back.

  She dashed away into the shadows, and called out from a place we could not see, “Someday, everyone will know the name BABS MAGEE!”

  “What should we do?” I asked the boys. “Should we try to find her?”

  Checking his watch, Jacob warned, “We only have twenty-two minutes left before we have to go back to school.” He looked really concerned. Twenty-two minutes wasn’t very much time!

  “Forget about Babs for now,” Bo said, making a quick decision. “I have a plan.” He turned to Jacob. “Can you program the computer to take us to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in our own time?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather go to NASA?” Jacob replied, clearly in sync with whatever Bo was thinking.

  Bo brushed off Jacob’s idea with a swipe of his hand. “NASA already sent most of the SRTM data to USGS EROS.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” Jacob looked down at the computer. Bo said he was positive, and Jacob began pressing buttons.

  I glanced down at the translator stone in my hand. I shook it. Jacob and Bo were speaking English, and yet I didn’t understand one single word.

  I turned to Zack. “Did you get any of that?”

  “Only that we’re going to South Dakota.” Zack raised his shoulders. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Jacob and I share the same mom and dad. He’s a mutant geek.”

  “That makes Bo a mutant geek too. He understands me better than my own twin,” Jacob said with a laugh. Bo blushed. There was a hot pink stripe across his cheeks.

  Taking pity on Zack and me, Jacob explained, “NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They’re the part of the government that leads space exploration.”

  Bo chimed in, saying, “In 2000, the Space Shuttle Endeavor carried a special type of radar that could take measurements of the earth. As the Shuttle traveled around the earth, it collected information called data.”

  “I thought the data was still at NASA,” Jacob picked up from there. “But Bo swears that the information from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, SRTM, is now being analyzed in South Dakota. It’s at a United States Geological Survey site called the USGS EROS Data Center. EROS stands for Earth Resources Observation System.”

  “So,” I asked, “how will showing Sacagawea the SR-thingy convince her to translate for Lewis and Clark?”

  “Trust me,” Bo said. “Remember, it’s all about making maps.”

  “Okay, I trust you,” I replied as we hurried toward Sacagawea.

  “I don’t know why we need to show Sacagawea someone making maps,” Zack began. “Seems to me she sees William Clark draw boring maps every single day.” He paused, then added, “But I don’t have a better idea. And you aren’t leaving me here with Crazy Babs Magee.”

  We rushed over and caught up with Sacagawea just in time. She was ready to meet up with her brother and the rest of the Shoshone tribe.

  I grabbed her hand and shoved the bear carved stone in her palm, saying, “We need you to come with us.”

  “No,” she replied. “It’s time for me to go.” The baby on her back was wide-eyed and awake. “The buffalo—,” she began.

  “Are big and fat and move slowly,” Zack finished.

  “They’ll still be there when we get back,” Jacob put in. And without waiting for her response, or even going to a private spot, Jacob quickly removed the cartridge from the computer. The green glowing hole opened in the dirt, right beside us.

  Sacagawea stepped back, a look of fear on her face.

  I took her arm, saying, “If you can jump into a freezing river, this will be easy.” She let me lead her toward the hole.

  Bo took her other arm.

  “We will come right back?” Sacagawea asked us. “Very soon?”

  “Yes,” I promised. And before she could change her mind or run away, Jacob and Zack joined hands with us.

  On the count of three we jumped and on four we landed.

  Because time travel is really fast.

  Mapmaking

  We landed in a long hallway at the United States Geological Survey EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

  When we told Sacagawea where we were, her eyes darkened. “I am afraid,” she admitted.

  “Is it the time travel?” Jacob asked. “Are you scared about the future?”

  “Native Americans believe in all the mysteries of the world. If you say we passed through time, I believe you.” Sacagawea wrapped her arms around her waist and shivered. “It is the Sioux Indians I fear. I have never met the Sioux, but I hear they are a mighty tribe.”

  I would have laughed had she not looked so serious. “Sacagawea,” I explained, “yes, the Sioux are a tribe, but we aren’t visiting them. We are at a special place in a city called Sioux Falls.”

  She nodded, still cautious, but her face appeared calmer. “We cannot keep my brother waiting,” she said at last. “Show me this special place in Sioux Falls.”

  I turned to Bo and asked, “Where exactly we are going?”

  “I’ve never been to the USGS before,” Bo said as we headed down the hall. “I was hoping for a big door marked ‘Shuttle Radar Topography Mission’ or ‘SRTM’ or something like that.”

  We all glanced around. There were a few doors. But no signs.

  “For a place that houses mapping data,” Zack said with wonder, “they sure could use a map.”

  I laughed.

  Jacob looked at his watch. “We’re down to seventeen minutes before this cartridge runs out of time. We’d better hurry.”

  Just then, a door opened to our right and a woman wearing a white lab coat over a long, flowered skirt entered the hallway. A group of kids about our own age were following her.

  “The tour continues this way,” she announced to the kids. “Next we will walk past a computer room where our scientists review satellite and Space Shuttle data.”

  “Space Shuttle data!” I cheered. “Let’s follow.”

  We snuck in behind the group. We tried hard not to be noticed, but we were wearing old-fashioned U.S. Army uniforms that were too big and we were walking with a young Native-American woman with a baby strapped to her back. Kids in the class kept turning their heads to stare at us, and the woman leading the group began giving us suspicious looks.

  We pretended not to notice their stares and walked along, heads held high, as if we belonged.

  “So far, so good,” Jacob leaned over and whispered in my ear. “But it won’t be long before someone calls security.”

  “Hopefully before they do that, we’ll find something that will convince Sacagawea,” I whispered back, noticing that Sacagawea was playing with the beads on her dress again. Not interested at all in our surroundings.

  The guide was wearing a name badge that said DR. LIZ BAKER. We followed Dr. Baker and the tour farther down the hall.

  To our left, through a glass window, I saw rows and rows of computers on matching desks. Dr. Baker pointed at the computers and said, “This is a computer lab. Today, our data-gathering equipment is much more advanced than the tools Lewis and Clark had on their expedition.” Suddenly interested, Sacagawea tilted her head to listen.

  “In fact,” Dr. Baker said, and looked directly at Sacagawea, “the United States Geological Survey was established in 1879 to continue the fine mapping and surveying work of Lewis and Clark.”

  Dr. Baker and Sacagawea locked eyes and held each other’s gaze. They might have stayed there, staring into each other’s eyes forever. But Pomp let out a mighty wail.

  As hard as Sacagawea tried to quiet the baby, Pomp just kept cr
ying. We couldn’t keep pretending we were part of the tour. We had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  I grabbed Sacagawea’s hand and we all dashed into the computer lab. It wasn’t private, but at least the baby wasn’t shrieking in the hallway anymore. The door closed solidly behind us.

  While Sacagawea bounced on her toes and sang a soothing chant, lulling Pomp to sleep, we watched as Dr. Baker led the tour farther down the hall, away from us.

  “We totally lucked out,” Bo said, looking around the empty room. “I don’t know where the scientists are. But I’m sure that someone will be back soon. Let’s show Sacagawea the SRTM data.” He turned to Jacob and said, “If you can get a computer to work, I think I can explain to Sacagawea what the numbers mean.”

  Jacob sat at the closest desk and pressed a few buttons on a computer keyboard. “Uh-oh. I need a password to get into the system,” he said, scratching his head. He pressed a few numbers. “Nothing.” He tried a few more.

  “We’re running out of time.” I begged Jacob to work faster.

  “I’ll help,” Bo said. He went to stand next to Jacob, the two of them working together to crack the computer password code. While they were banging away at the computer keyboard, I explained to Sacagawea how, in our time, people rocket into space.

  Zack told her all he knew about the Space Shuttle Endeavor and the SRTM mission to map the earth. Which wasn’t much.

  I always have a ton of questions, so when Sacagawea had a question about radar, my chest swelled with pride. The thing was, though, I didn’t know how to answer.

  “Do you know how radar works?” I asked Zack.

  “Not even the smallest bit of an idea,” Zack replied. “I try not to think about anything that has to do with cartography.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when a voice behind us said, “Radar is a signal that bounces off objects. It is then measured for strength and how much time the signal takes to return.” I turned around to discover that it was Dr. Baker who’d spoken.

  “Please don’t kick us out,” I begged. “We’re only going to be here a few more minutes.” I was panicked.