Tesla's Time Travelers Read online

  “Sure, Dad, piece of cake,” John Jr. replied.

  “Atta boy,” John Sr. said and returned behind a wall of newsprint.

  Victor never could impress his father. He had rebelled early in his life against his father’s obsession with football, quitting Pop Warner and never again putting on shoulder pads after that. He preferred the world of books, although he did enjoy running alone Victor was faster than anyone on the Bulldog track team. But track practice conflicted with History Channelers after school, and nothing, not one thing, came before “H.C.,” as he’d nicknamed his group. “H.C.” was his raison d’être. How he could he tell his father that he ran so fast he’d nearly caught up with John Wilkes Booth’s horse in the alley after Lincoln’s assassin escaped? Heck, he’d almost caught Booth after Booth yelled the Latin phrase “Sic Semper Tyrannus,” but the assassin had hit him with the hilt end of his knife, knocking Victor off balance. Boy, had Mr. Greene been mad at him for chasing Booth. Had he stopped Booth from limping across the Ford’s Theater stage, he might have changed history and the Mudd family wouldn’t have anything to whine about, and no one would wish performers “break a leg” before they went on stage. The sad part was that Victor knew better, but it was just an impulsive act in the heat of the moment, or, as he later rationalized, a subconscious belief that Booth was part of a wider Confederate Government conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln, and if Booth were captured before he escaped, Jefferson Davis would have been implicated. Or maybe his pursuit of Booth was the result of seeing too many Nicolas Cage National Treasure movies. Heck, Mr. Greene said Nicolas Cage did as much to glorify historians as Indiana Jones did for “dirt diggers,” as Mr. Greene called archeologists. But whatever Victor’s true motivation, he had nearly violated his oath not to change history and unleash “the butterfly effect.” Victor looked at his family; they would never believe what he and The History Channelers did on their field trips. Certainly not his brother John, who had finished breakfast, grabbed his books and was headed out the door to drive to school.

  “Hey!” Victor shouted to his brother from the kitchen. “Wait for me!”

  “Catch a ride with the nerd herd,” John Jr. shouted in reply.

  Victor looked to his parents for support. “Dad, Junior left without me,” he said to the man behind the paper.

  “Uh huh,” said his father.

  “John, Junior left without Victor,” Zelda said to her husband.

  “Uh huh,” John Sr. replied.

  “What should he do?”

  “Take the bus. I pay school taxes, he can take the bus,” John Sr. said without lowering his newspaper.

  Some days, Victor felt like a Hogwarts wannabe living among the Muggles, but these “Muggles” were his nuclear family and he felt like the electron of the group. Even his mother was no help; the best she could manage was a sympathetic smile as she handed him a sack lunch for his “field trip.” He would have to ride with the “nerd herd”: the students who took the bus to Cassadaga Area High School. It wasn’t that his brother Junior hadn’t left him before, but this day, wearing colonial era regalia, Victor really didn’t want to subject himself to the teasing that his appearance on the bus was bound to elicit. Even at the bus stop, two blocks from his house, Victor stood away from the group of students as if he were a pariah and not a Patriot. He was the last to enter the bus, and the obese woman driver, whose blue uniform included the stitched in cursive name Doris Newkirk and whose posterior seemed to pour over the sides of her seat, looked at Victor and smiled:

  “Who you supposed to be, boy?” she asked.

  “An 18th century American Patriot,” Victor replied, trying not to blush, but failing miserably.

  “Well then, Mr. Patriot,” she said, shutting the doors behind him. “Take a seat.” She turned her head to the seated students. “Say hello to George Washington, students,” she joked.

  The laughter that followed mortified Victor. As he walked down the gauntlet-like aisle, one freshman stood up on his seat and tried to snag Victor’s tri-corner hat. Victor glared at the smaller boy and the freshman retracted his hand quickly.

  “Hey, George,” another boy said. “Where’s your cherry tree?”

  “Cherry tree, heck,” said another. “He’s the cherry.”

  And proud of it, Victor thought. He sensed this was not the proper time to correct the students’ belief in the George Washington and the cherry tree myth invented by Mason Weems in the first post-mortem biography of George Washington. No, not with these Neanderthals. There never was a hatchet or a cherry tree or “I cannot tell a lie.” It was just a story concocted by “Parson Weems” to inculcate morality upon America’s school children. Besides, Victor had been burned by that story once before, in the second grade when Miss Tripolitis told his class the Weems’ whopper and Victor raised his hand to correct her, resulting in a visit to the principal’s office. The following week, he’d corrected Miss Tripolitis on the fabrication of the Betsy Ross legend, and Miss Tripolitis, a native Philadelphian, had not only sent Victor to the principal’s office, but sent a note home to his parents as well, causing his father to react by signing Victor up for Pop Warner football. His father, who always wore his American flag lapel pin to Rotary, refused to believe Victor’s explanation that the Ross legend was created by her descendants to help pique interest in the nation’s centennial, which was being held in Philadelphia in 1876. Part of American history, Victor reasoned, was actually mythology, perpetuated by elementary school teachers who really knew no better. But he wasn’t about to stop and lecture the students on the bus—it would only be a waste of time. Thankfully, due to the short attention span of Victor’s peers, their laughter and teasing remained only until the next bus stop. But Victor sat alone in the back of the bus by the emergency exit, his thoughts on Thomas Jefferson…and Minerva Messinger.

  Chapter 2

  Minerva Messinger had misgivings. Should she have agreed to join The History Channelers? What a dumb name for a club. Did they name the group after The History Channel? Maybe she could come up with a better name. There were six members, if she included herself, and only one other girl, Bette Kromer—Minerva’s academic rival, whom Minerva cattily assumed to have been born with her hand in the raised position, because Bette was always ready to answer a question in every class. No matter the subject, no matter the question, Bette’s mitt was in the air. But Minerva smiled because the B had Bette Kromer earned in freshman P.E. for not “dressing out” was her only G.P.A. blemish; Unless Minerva faltered and didn’t make all A’s, Bette would be forever known as salutatorian, or, as Minerva said, “just second best.” Minerva’s only academic worry was Mr. Greene’s Advanced Placement class, because in Mr. Greene’s class a student didn’t put her name on essay exams, but rather the last four digits of her Social Security number, which Minerva thought was totally unfair, as teachers were favorably prejudiced when they saw her name on the top of a paper to give it an automatic “A.” There was no getting around Mr. Greene, no cutting corners, and because of Mr. Greene’s demanding curriculum it was a small A.P. class. But Mr. Greene had earned the grudging respect of Minerva Messinger, a respect that she gave to very few of her teachers—especially not the ones who fawned over her as if she were truly the Roman goddess of wisdom instead of a mere namesake. Still, Minerva had stitched and sewn her own period low-necked blue gown which she wore over a petticoat. After a Google search of dress patterns of 1776, she had, with her mother’s help, made the replica in the faint hope of extra credit and in a general repulsion of wearing hand-me-down costumes from the community theater. She did not go quite so far as to add a corset, the close fitting undergarment that was often reinforced by whalebone stays and was worn to support and shape the female’s waistline, hips and breasts, but she was proud of the bodice, the fitted part of the dress that extended from the waist to the shoulder. Since the bodice was open in the front she added a decorative stomacher with red embroidery. She was also proud of the tight elbow-length sleeves t
hat were trimmed with frills and ruffles, and the separate under-ruffles called engageantes that she had made of linen. Her neckline was trimmed with a lace ruffle and she felt as authentic as a Google search could get. A hand-me-down costume might be good enough for boys, but not for her. Her late grandmother had taught her to make dresses, and she thought “Nana” would be proud of the dress she’d made. She only hoped they’d have a dress contest.

  Minerva also intended to carry a “reticule”—a small string purse in a floral pattern, which more properly belonged to the 1790s, but she thought she could get away with it. The dresses of ’76 actually had a pair of pockets tied on a string around a woman’s waist, concealed beneath the gown. Access to the pockets was through pocket slits in the gowns themselves. Minerva marveled at the ingenuity of 18th century women and included the pockets for historical correctness should Mr. Greene ask her about her dress. Let’s see Bette Kromer match that! she said to the face in her bedroom mirror as she finished braiding her long blond hair. Minerva had read about “calling cards” for young women, and she’d bought some card stock at Office Depot and manufactured a dozen “calling cards” using a Bookman Old Style font from her computer. She turned to scan the Princeton pennant pinned to her bedroom wall. “I’m doing this nonsense for you, Princeton,” she said. Minerva had once thought only of Harvard, until a Newsweek survey ranked the Tigers ahead of both the Crimson and the Eli of Yale. Harvard was now her “backup school” should she not be accepted to Princeton.

  When Minerva arrived in the kitchen, Vesta, her mother, handed her a glass of orange juice and nodded for Minerva to sit down. Her physician father was already off to make rounds at the hospital. Minerva was thankful that her father’s name wasn’t Apollo, as there were enough Romans in the family, even though she was an only child. The choice of “Minerva” as her moniker had been decided by her mother in some sort of odd sibling rivalry with Aunt Rhea, who named her children after Greek gods and goddesses. Minerva always felt sorry for her cousin Hermes, who was invariably saddled with the nickname of an STD. But there were her female cousins Persephone, Demeter and Athena as well, and Minerva referred to her family as the Roman wing and the Athenian wing.

  As Minerva sat down to drink her juice and eat a whole grain bagel, her mother handed her the signed field trip permission form. “I love your outfit, it looks so…”

  “Colonial?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s it. Colonial. Now, Minerva, just why are you joining this club?” Vesta asked her daughter.

  “Princeton loves extracurricular, Mom.”

  “Ah yes, it’s Princeton this week, isn’t it?”

  Minerva hated when her mother became condescending. She sometimes wondered if her mom resented her success, if she had wanted a career. Had her mom been doomed from birth to be a housewife by having Vesta for a name—Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth? With a batty name like that, no wonder she saw that psychic once a month at the Cassadaga Hotel. Cassadaga, Florida, the “psychic capital of the world,” Minerva thought, the slogan in her mind. Her mom swore by the paranormal, as did a lot of other adults, but nothing even abnormal, let alone paranormal, ever happened to Minerva Messinger.

  “Yes, mother, it is Princeton this week,” she replied after a moment of frosty staring.

  “You don’t have to be snippy with me, young lady.”

  Minerva held back a smirk. She liked her mother’s use of the word “snippy.” It didn’t bother her; rather, it amused her, like the mom in the reruns of That Seventies Show. “I’m not being snippy, Mom,” she replied. “Can I have some money for lunch?”

  “I thought you were on a field trip today?”

  “I’m sure we’ll have to buy our lunch.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty dollars?”

  “For lunch?”

  “C’mon, Mom, it’s less than you pay for a half-hour reading at the hotel.”

  “That’s true,” her mother replied and handed Minerva two tens, which Minerva quickly put into her reticule and closed its purse strings. A ringing doorbell interrupted their conversation.

  “That’s Junior,” Minerva said. “Bye, Mom.”

  “Minerva, finish your breakfast,” her mother said, but Minerva hitched up her colonial dress, grabbed her school backpack from the living room end table, swung it over her shoulders and was out the door to greet the smiling face of John Bridges Jr. standing on her porch, looking as handsome as heaven in his number three football jersey.

  “Don’t you laugh, Junior Bridges,” she warned her date for the Homecoming Dance, an event that would occur after John and his team thrashed the Jensen Beach Falcons in the evening.

  John Jr. didn’t laugh, but he did smile. “Who are you, like Betsy Ross?”

  Minerva rolled her eyes. John Jr.’s torso was a feast for a woman’s eyes, but he had the brain of a pea. Minerva didn’t have time to explain to Junior about her class. Frankly, she didn’t really have much time for Junior at all, but he was attractive arm candy that made the other girls jealous, especially Betty Kromer, the Wicked Witch of the West. Showing up on the Friday morning of Homecoming weekend in the convertible of the captain of the football team did not hurt Minerva’s social standing. She just hoped she wouldn’t be bored with Mr. Greene’s field trip, and that they would be back in time for her pre-Homecoming Dance hair appointment.

  As they rode the two miles to school, Minerva kept the conversation at “male ego boosting level,” assuring Junior the Fighting Phantoms would destroy the overmatched Jensen Beach Falcons, and that he, as quarterback, would lead the team to glory. Appealing to Junior’s narcissism made the ride go smoothly, although Junior had originally tried to put his arm around her shoulder like an octopus stretching out a tentacle; Minerva reacted with a quick shoulder duck and an admonition to Junior to keep both hands on the wheel or risk going stag to the biggest dance of the year. It was a bluff of course, but it worked. She didn’t want Junior to wrinkle her dress, for she hoped to garner extra credit from Mr. Greene for her seamstress work.

  Junior Bridges in his football jersey drove into the senior parking lot with a girl dressed as a colonial woman, albeit a colonial woman wearing a school backpack: it was incongruous a display of styles as if Tim Tebow were driving Abigail Adams to school. Minerva leaned over and gave Junior false hope in the form of a peck on the cheek, then she hitched up her dress and scooted off to Mr. Greene’s portable classroom to check in for the field trip. Odd: the shades were down on the portable, she noticed.

  Minerva had laughed at the stories about “old man Greene” and his portable classroom. It was haunted, students said, but then what was the big deal there? This was Cassadaga, after all, the “Psychic Capital of the World.” People swore there were ghosts channeling in Cassadaga, especially during the winter “season” when the population of psychics and mediums was at its apex. Some students believed Mr. Greene’s portable was actually the “The Flying Dutchman,” but Minerva assumed the “Flying Dutchman” rumor began about the same time as the release of the third Pirates of the Caribbean film. Others said the portable was a “port,” an entrance to a data network, and that data was “time.” But the thought of a dilapidated old trailer as a time machine made Minerva laugh; she was certain that a ‘time trailer’ would positively embarrass H.G. Wells in its ugliness.

  Minerva entered the rickety old portable classroom, a classroom that sat alone in a circular grove of oak trees draped in Spanish moss a good distance from a group of portable classrooms that the students lovingly referred to as “Trailer Park Nation.” The Anderson twins, Justin and Heath, looking like Revolutionary War re-enactors right off the set of the HBO series John Adams, were dressed as militia men, down to the breeches, stockings and black shoes with faux silver buckles. Minerva was surprised the boys had actually gone to such trouble to be accurate in their fashions.

  By the bulletin board, her back towards Minerva, stood her nemesis: Bette Kromer, alluring in a rust-colored gown
, her braided brunette hair stacked upon her head like Keira Knightly in The Duchess. Nuts, Minerva thought, Bette is wearing a corset; she had to be, for she showed off more cleavage than Minerva knew she had, the corset pushing things upward. Minerva gathered her courage and her civility and walked over to Bette, who was looking at an original John Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence.

  “Hello, Bette,” Minerva said in her most cordial voice.

  “Hello, Messinger,” Bette replied, in her odd habit of calling her female peers by their last names. “It’s real, you know,” she said, nodding to the Dunlap broadside. “It’s priceless. Mr. Greene bought it for a piece of eight from the Atocha on last year’s trip to Philadelphia. Only twenty-five Dunlap broadsides of the Declaration of Independence are known to exist, as Dunlap only made between two hundred and five hundred of them. One went for $8 million at auction.”

  Minerva didn’t believe Bette’s figure for the Dunlap broadside, but she had always been intrigued by anything dealing with treasure salvage, especially the Atocha. “Mel Fisher’s treasure ship?” Minerva asked.

  “Yes. Spanish silver was used as money in the colonies, Messinger. Past the revolution and even up until the 1830s at least.” Bette looked at Minerva’s outfit. “Reticules are so 1790s, Messinger. Mr. Greene will notice right away. I hope you sewed pockets into the dress?”

  “I did.”

  “Well, put your reticule in your book bag then. It’s not period. It’s post-Revolutionary War.”

  Why was Bette Kromer being nice to her? Minerva wondered. As if Bette had read her mind, Minerva’s rival said:

  “Look Messinger, let’s have détente today. You and I are the only girls on this field trip and things may get a little rough in Philadelphia, with chamber pots from second floor windows and splashing from carriages and all of that. If you had asked me, I might have suggested a darker color for your dress. It’s going to get a little rustic.”