The Left Behinds and the iPhone That Saved George Washington Read Online Free Page A

cold. My feet are, like, frozen solid.”
    “Maybe,” says Brandon, “we should go back to the stable. It was a lot warmer in there.”
    That’s Brandon for you. He’s always for the easiest way, but not necessarily the best way.
    “The stable’s a dumb idea, Brandon,” says Bev. “They’ll corner us in that place. Then what?”
    “Then I don’t know,” Brandon says. “Mel, what do you think?”
    “I think these guys,” I say, nodding to the Germans still arrayed in front of us, “must be the guys who killed Washington.” It occurs to me—and probably to Bev and to Brandon—that if these are the guys who killed George Washington, they probably have it in them to kill us as well.
    “Maybe they did,” Bev says. “So do we stay here? Do we run for it? Plus, I have something else on my mind. If you have to know.”
    “Which is what?” I say.
    “Um. I’m wondering if there’s a bathroom anywhere nearby,” Bev says.
    Brandon gives her the bad news. “There aren’t any, Bev,” he says. “Bathrooms with flush toilets haven’t been invented yet. They use outhouses.”
    “Or pots and pans,” I say. “Next to the bed.”
    “Terrific,” Bev says. “Just terrific. Can someone tell me what we’re doing here? And how do we get back?”
    No one can. But then our English-speaking, spyglass-holding German friend starts waving a flag. A white one.
    As if
those guys
are surrendering to
us
.

SEVEN
    N OW SOME OF THIS is starting to come back to me. Our school closes down for the Christmas holiday from December 22 to January 2. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the kids go home—or go someplace, anyway—for the holidays.
    Every year—so we’re told—a handful of kids can’t go home. ’Cause their parents are, you know, too
busy
. Too
successful
. So they make
arrangements
. To have the school take care of the kids from December 22 to January 2.
    They didn’t tell me who else was going to be left behind—and I sure as heck didn’t ask anyone—so when the big day came, for a while I thought I was going to be the only one. Parents came and got their kids, andeveryone was so Christmassy with hearty good cheer and season’s tidings, it made me want to puke.
    I was told to wait in my room.
    Then—after the place cleared out, so no one would notice—I was told to go to the Dining Hall.
    And there was Bev.
    Somewhat
peeved
, as usual. In a theatrical kind of way. Because Bev can’t just sit there and be peeved like anyone else, you see. The whole
world
has to know. And thanks to her mom, and her gene pool, Bev is a complete natural when it comes to letting the world know how she feels about something.
    But—to be completely honest here—seeing that Bev was a Left Behind sort of … sort of … sparked things up a bit, at least from my point of view.
    I mean, like,
everyone
at school knows who Bev is. She hadn’t so much as said two words to me all year, though. We weren’t in any of the same classes. Though I kind of was aware of her schedule. I mean, when I had English, Bev had math. When I had American history, she had biology. Look, I just happened to know this, so don’t start reading into it. I have a good memory, all right? And I’m a guy who notices stuff.
    But I will say that when I saw Bev in the Dining Hall, I wasn’t a hundred percent disappointed.
    Okay, for a second, a split second, and no longer than that, I thought,
How utterly convenient
.
    Together at last.
    I tried to start a conversation. I said something lame, like “Stuck here too?”
    And Bev said: “Yeah. What’s your point?” Which pretty much ended that effort, dead on the spot.
    Fifteen minutes later Brandon rambled in, and our little group was complete. Mr. Hart laid out the program for us. Fun trips, here and there.
    One day we went to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Which was fun, except we’ve been there, like, fifty times already.
    One day we went to an indoor water park.
    And then