Living History by Ben Essex (free children's ebooks pdf txt) 📖

process we used to bring you here, I admit, was experimental. It might not have been perfect. Given your… behaviour… I thought I should ask if you feel at all… strange?’

‘Strange?’

‘Different. Not yourself. Mentally compromised.’ Greuze smiled. ‘If you should find yourself feeling any of these things, it is important that you let someone on staff know as soon as possible.

The meek little Yes Sir, trickled to the front of my mind-but something stopped me. He’s calling you out, I realised. He’s testing you. I admit, I didn’t have much reason to think that. I just had a lot of anger and frustration pent up, and it sounded like this man was dangerously close to blowing my cover. I felt awful.

So I spoke up.

‘Are you questioning my integrity?’ I asked, coldly and with volume. My anger helped me stay in character-it made me feel strong and smart. For a second, I genuinely thought that I was right and he was wrong. ‘Are you suggesting that I am in some way blunted? Addled? Damaged? Less than a man? Is that what you mean to say, sir, because if it is then I appeal to you to come straight out and say it. I may have lost some of youth’s sharpness, and I may be stranded in an alien world, but I am no fool. I am myself, I am fully in possession of my faculties, and I do not appreciate the implication that I could be otherwise. Do I make myself clear?’

Greuze seemed taken aback. I’d never seen the Fat Man cowed. For a second I thought: Oh, shit, I’m gonna get in trouble. Then I remembered-I was the honoured guest here. And I puffed my chest out accordingly.

‘Of course,’ Greuze said quickly, ‘I wasn’t at all implying-‘

‘I should think not,’ I cut him off. I cut him off.

‘Well then. That, uh, that will be all.’ Greuze nodded briskly. ‘Mr. Franklin.’

‘Hmmph.’

I strode out of the room, not giving the Fat Man time to regroup.

My brain was arush. Endorphins were flowing. I felt good.

I’ve never liked helicopters.

They hover and buzz, like bluebottles. They look unpleasant in the sky and I’m fairly sure they’re not a safe; they tend to shake.

I was sitting in a helicopter, on the edge of my seat. Natalia was opposite me, dropping pills into a glass.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I despise flying,’ Natalia replied, pulling a flask from her pocket and filling the glass with whisky. ‘You want some?’

‘Thank you, no.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Natalia shrugged, downing the glass. ‘Wake me when we get there.’

Soon after, she was asleep. I was left alone but for the pilot, who wasn’t exactly talkative.

The side of the helicopter held a single window. I peered outside, squinting in the sunlight.

America Large. Only a few minutes after crossing the border, and the landscape was already undergoing a massive shift. Grey hills and canyons were subsiding, flattening into the ground. Grass became rock and rock became sand. Everything started to look beige.

We were drawing into the desert.

A few miles later, and we reached the Oil Fields.

For a thousand kilometres, the oil rigs stretched. Built under bright blue sky and over stone-baked sand, the great metal pumps looked like huge overturned hammers-rocking gently back and forth. Steel wells reached down into the Earth, oil barrels lined up beside them. Little figures, tiny as ants, crawled around gigantic drills. Workers, sweating out the day.

The helicopter chose to dip low, for some reason. Maybe the pilot wanted me to see it all up close; we flew right by the nearest pump, rotor blades practically kissing the rusted metal frame. I saw the size of it; the unfathomable scale that would make giants seem small and skyscrapers tiny. I saw the depth of the well, and I heard the miners’ call. Work harder. Work faster.

A man in an iron helmet was standing high up on the rig. He waved at my helicopter. One of his arms was a hook.

I waved back.

The pilot took us a little further up-so I could be reminded that this Field went on forever.

A burst of flame flew up on the horizon. A controlled venting, I hoped. This was no place for untamed fire.

We flew on.

Eventually, we reached the border town of Louisian.

From the air it looked more than a little ramshackle. A wooden clock-tower comprised the shoddy town hall, surrounded on all sides by shanty huts trying to pass for houses. Rickety old cars and jeeps chugged along rocky roads.

We landed just outside of town, and the moment the rotor blades stopped I truly felt the overwhelming heat. Like a wave of shrapnel, digging into my skin-I had to take my jacket off. I suddenly felt very self-conscious of my pudginess.

‘No more frosting!’ Natalia yelled with a start, shaking herself awake. She looked around for a minute in obvious confusion, before remembering herself. ‘Ahem.’ She straightened her shirt, standing up. ‘I take it we’re here?’

I nodded.

‘Well then. Let us go.’

The two of us stepped out of the copter-the silent pilot chose to stay with his ship, which was presumably his only friend.

‘Exactly what was wrong with the frosting?’ I couldn’t help asking.

‘Excuse me?’ Natalia blinked.

‘You yelled it out, just before waking up,’ I told her.

‘I don’t know. It was just a dream.’

‘For some reason, I expected that you’d dream in Russian,’ I said

‘Why? I don’t speak Russian.’

I gave her an odd look. At that moment, we were interrupted.

‘Greetings!’

The man doing the interrupting was a fine and fearsome specimen. Tall, broad, handsome, dark skin and glittering eyes beneath the brim of a cowboy hat. His clothes were mostly coloured white; I wondered how he managed to keep them clean. He spoke with a strong southern drawl.

‘Good to see y’all. Right on time, too.’ The man made a show of checking his watch. ‘That’s somethin’ I approve of.’

‘Mr. Franklin, this is Colonel Parker Harland-Mayor and Military Viceroy of Louisian. Colonel Harland,’ Natalia’s tiny palm was consumed by the Colonel’s gigantic paw. ‘This is Benjamin Franklin.’

‘So I’ve heard!’ Harland bellowed. ‘It is an honour to meet you sir! A real honour! Should I-‘ Harland looked to Natalia. ‘Should I bow? Am I supposed to bow or salute or-‘

‘None of that will be necessary,’ I said firmly. ‘A handshake will suffice.’

My own hand was crushed by the Colonel’s.

‘Truly sir, this is one of God’s finest miracles.’ The way Harland was looking at me-the adoration-it was almost frightening. ‘One of his very finest.’

‘Um. Thank you.’

‘I understand you’ve arranged a suitable program of events for tonight?’ Natalia asked, as we strode into town.

‘Oh, yes,’ The Colonel nodded quickly. ‘We have a whole evening based around your arrival, sir and ma’am. The entire town should be turning out. It’ll be quite a party.’

I was already drawing attention. I could feel gazes on my back; people peering out from between curtains, stealing glimpses through letterboxes. The town was little more than a single main street, bordered by shops and houses. Few pedestrians were about, but all those who were chose to stare. We passed an open bar, and a couple of patrons even came out to wave. I couldn’t help waving back.

‘I admit, we were all surprised that you chose to come here,’ the Colonel said. ‘We expected you’d want to appear in Boston or Philadelphia or the like.’

‘We considered it,’ Natalia answered before I could. ‘But since Boston’s still essentially underwater and Philadelphia is… well, Philadelphia… we thought we’d go somewhere calmer. Somewhere more appreciative.’

‘We are that, ma’am.’ Harland said briskly. ‘Oh my, yes. We are certainly that.’

The Colonel took us to what he optimistically termed ‘the finest hotel in town. It was a bit… rustic. Wooden floors, wooden walls, wooden chairs… it was like the whole place had been carved from pine, with only the occasional cushion to break things up. So strange in comparison to my city of metal.

The hotel lobby was small and low ceilinged, with a single reception desk dominating everything. A staircase rose up and around in the background, surrounded by landscape paintings that were probably supposed to look snazzily post-modern but were actually rather bad.

‘I take it this place is more suited to your antique sensibilities,’ Natalia said dryly.

Uh… maybe, I thought. ‘Somewhat,’ I said.

There was a bellboy to show us upstairs. The little brown kid never once looked me in the eye, nor spoke a word to my face. He handed us our door keys, then darted off.

Natalia and I stood in the plywood corridor, outside our respective rooms.

‘They really do believe in history here,’ I observed. ‘It’s… overwhelming.’

‘The backwards are often obsessed with the past,’ Natalia shrugged, opening her door.

‘Natalia,’ I had to ask. ‘You really don’t speak Russian?’

‘Why would you assume that I do?’

‘Well…’

‘My accent?’ She asked-and just like that, her voice changed. The low vowels dropped away, high tones slipped in. She became a city girl, just like any other.

I blinked. ‘How-‘

‘I am Russian,’ she said, simply. ‘But my parents did not like this. They would not teach me their language. Still, I do not like to hide what I am. The world has had enough of that.’

‘Right.’ I couldn’t think of a decent response. ‘Very… admirable.’

‘Perhaps.’ Her accent returned. Somehow, it seemed to suit her a lot more. ‘Or perhaps I am simply being stubborn.’

She disappeared into her room.

A few minutes later, I did the same.

The Colonel hadn’t been exaggerating. The whole town really did turn out to party.

I made my appearance on an improvised stage (made from plywood… where were they finding all these trees?) outside the town hall, at the stroke of midnight.

There were maybe three hundred people present. A far smaller crowd than the New Hampshire stadium, yet somehow far more intense. Some of them clearly weren’t locals. A lot of extra cars were parked around the town-cameras and notebooks were in evidence. The Press were showing in force. I felt the pressure.

Natalia was behind me, wearing a Don’t screw this up expression.

‘Listen,’ I hissed at her, ‘would you please leave me alone for five minutes?’

‘It’s my job to make sure things go smoothly,’ she replied.

‘Well, things’ll go a lot smoother if you’re not leaning over my shoulder. Go and make sure from over there.’ I pointed vaguely off-stage. ‘Go on. Shoo.’

Natalia fixed me with an irate glare, then made a show of sauntering off. Left alone on stage, I fought off images of my last live performance. This would be different. I’d spent the entire afternoon practicing my speech.

Okay. Deep breath.

‘Hello.’ It wasn’t the strongest start in the world, but it was a classic. ‘It’s nice to see you all.’

Somewhere off-stage, Natalia was rolling her eyes.

‘No, really.’ I ran my gaze over the crowd. Psyching myself up, getting fully into character. ‘It is nice to see you all. It is nice to be reminded that people remember.

‘And I don’t mean that they remember me. I’m not the thing you should be remembering. I am merely a man, no more valuable than any other. But your remembrance of the history, the past, the events shepherding you all the way through yesterday toward today-that is important. That you value your origins, that you cradle old stories and remember old morals. That is important. I have looked around this strange new world, and it is full of wonderful things. Technology I had never dreamed of, miracles I can barely understand. But for