Read Online The Left Behinds and the iPhone That Saved George Washington by David Potter - Free Book Online Page B

brown. “Here you are,” he says.
    “What’s this?”
    “A twopence.”
    “A twopence?”
    “A twopence!” he shouts, and slams the door and locks it. “Now good day to you, young man! Be off!”

TWENTY-FOUR
    H AVE YOU EVER SEEN a twopence? He called it “tuh-pence,” by the way, not “two-pence.” I have no idea what a twopence could get you in Dr. Franklin’s Philadelphia, but I doubt it could be much more than half a loaf of bread. A twopence, for an iPhone? You’ve got to be kidding me.
    Rap, rap, rappy rap rap rap
. “Hey!” I shout. I rattle the doorknob, and kick the bottom of the door while I’m at it. Dr. Franklin may not be aware of this, but he is certainly about to learn: no one messes with a twelve-year-old and his iPhone. I mean no one, not even a world historical figure. Not even the guy who invented electricity.
    “Hey!” I shout. “Open up the door, will ya?”
    “Be kind, Mel,” Daniel says. “A stir shan’t be of help to anyone.”
    “But he has my phone! He just … he just … he just took the thing! What a jerk!”
    Elizabeth takes offense. “You are referring to Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He is our most esteemed scientist and philosopher. Who also signed the Declaration of Independence. Which means he has put his life on the line—he’ll be hanged along with the rest of them if the British should prevail. So I think your choice of words ought to be more respectful, if you please.”
    “But he took my phone! Which happens to be the reason we came here in the first place.”
    “To have your phone taken?” she asks.
    “To have my phone
examined
,” I say. “Because I think it’s the thing that brought us here. Somehow or other.” I give five more knocks on the door by way of exclamation. And, at the bottom, one solid kick.
    We have, by now, attracted some interest from people in the street. And I remember that Dr. Franklin isn’t in this house near the end of Market Street by
accident
. The old lady had told us that he was … 
hiding out
. I have a hunch that the good doctor does not want to be
seen
by anyone. So the longer I stay here knocking and kicking on his door, the worse it’ll get for him.
    Advantage: Mel.
    “I’m not going away,” I say, through the door. I try to modulate my voice so that only he can hear me. “And acertain amount of attention has been generated. People want to know what’s going on. At the house at the end of Market Street. Your best course, sir, is to let us in. Forthwith.”
    I think it was the
forthwith
that got to him. A pretty fancy word, isn’t it? I didn’t even know I knew it. Certainly I had never said it aloud to anyone before. But either that or something else did the trick, because we hear shuffling again, unlatching again, and then the door swings open.

TWENTY-FIVE
    D R . B EN F RANKLIN STANDS before us. He’s definitely old, and he’s definitely … stout. “Well?” he says.
    “We want to come in,” I say. “And talk.”
    “Talk?”
    “Yes. Five minutes is all we ask.”
    He notices my Nikes. “Whatever are those things on your feet?”
    “They’re called
sneakers
,” I say.
    “Sneakers?”
    “Yes.”
    “I have never heard of or seen such things. Are they made in a shoemaker’s? Have they … some useful function?”
    I knew these Nikes were going to be a problem.Elizabeth steps in to help. “We have more urgent business, sir,” she says, “than what our friend wears upon his feet.”
    Dr. Franklin shakes his head, then steps aside. “Five minutes,” he says. “And hurry before you let the cold in.” He waves us inside, closes the door, and peers through the window, to see, presumably, what kind of commotion we stirred up.
    The house is very small, the hallways are very narrow, and the ceiling is very low. We stand in the foyer. Now that we’re in the actual presence of the Great Man, we have all, collectively and simultaneously, lost our tongues.
    “Come now,” he says, and leads us