CONTENTS

  Title

  Dedication

  1. A Ben Franklin in Every Pocket

  2. Marshmallows, Catapults, and Redcoats

  3. Show Us the Boat

  4. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

  5. Stuck!

  6. What Fool Does Not Know the Year?

  7. We Are So Out of Range!

  8. Moses

  9. Daughters of a Duke

  10. The Face on the Bill

  11. Twenty Lashes

  12. Ben Franklin’s Boots

  13. Playing Colonial

  14. Supper, Tongue, and Saved by the Pox

  15. Look Out, King George! Here We Come!

  16. Traitors

  17. Blood on His Cuff

  18. Topsy-Turvy

  19. Trust No One

  20. A Brother Comes to Call

  21. Wolf Hunter

  22. So Much Fuss Over a Few Leeches!

  23. Into the Lion’s Den

  24. Tar and Feathers

  25. The Bell, the Button, and the Spy

  26. After Midnight

  27. Huzzah!

  28. The Secret March

  29. All Aboard!

  30. Pox on the Boat!

  31. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

  Notes from the Author

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  George Washington’s Spy: Teaching Guide

  Acknowledgments

  Other Exciting Adventure Stories by Elvira Woodruff

  Copyright

  “THIS WILL BE OUR LAST MATH PROBLEM,” Miss Howard told her fidgeting fifth-grade class. “Please turn to page forty-seven.”

  It was Friday. Everyone in Miss Howard’s class was ready for the weekend. Matt Carlton looked down at his math book, but his eyes soon wandered from the page before him to the trees outside his classroom window. Meanwhile, Miss Howard’s soft voice droned on and on.

  “Three hundred and forty-six divided by …”

  Matt stared up at the cloudless sky. How was he supposed to be thinking about math when, not long ago, he and his friends had started a club, the Adventure Club. Together they had gone on the most hair-raising adventure of their lives — back in time, to the American Revolution!

  Matt looked around the classroom and saw the club’s scout, Tony Manetti. He was sitting at his desk, blowing spit bubbles while crossing his eyes and balancing a pencil on his nose. In the seat behind Tony sat Q, the club’s brains. He was reading a history book on his lap while the rest of his class struggled with Miss Howard’s math problem. Back in the last row sat the club’s strongman, big, softhearted Hooter. Hooter’s real name was Brian Melrose. But after he hooted like a mother owl for an entire summer while caring for a baby owl with a broken wing, everyone began calling him Hooter. And the nickname stuck. Hooter was silently chewing off bits of his new pink eraser and spitting them through a straw at the back of Hannah Morgan’s head.

  Matt’s friends Lily and Emma turned around in their seats and scowled at Hooter. They had no idea that Matt and his crew were part of a secret club that had traveled back in time. And that was just how they wanted to keep it. Secret.

  Matt closed his eyes and vividly recalled how it felt to fight in the war against the British and Hessian soldiers, and how they nearly froze to death on the cold march to Trenton — when suddenly, a piece of eraser stung the back of his neck. Matt spun around to find Hooter giving him the thumbs-up sign and nodding toward the front of the classroom, where Miss Howard had written today’s history lesson on the blackboard:

  Life in Colonial America

  What was it like?

  How was it different from today?

  Matt leaned forward in his seat and listened closely.

  “Life was very different in colonial America,” Miss Howard said. “Children didn’t have the kinds of things you have today. If you lived back then, what do you think you’d miss most?”

  Four hands instantly shot up in the air. Miss Howard blinked with surprise. “Well, nice to see you boys are paying attention. Tony, what do you think you’d miss most?”

  “Electricity and cars,” Tony said without hesitation. “Without electricity, people’s houses were cold and really dark. And if you didn’t have a horse, you had to walk everywhere you wanted to go.”

  “My computer,” Q said without missing a beat. “Life without the Internet would be an unbearable hardship.”

  “You want to talk about hardship,” Hooter added. “Try life without cheeseburgers, guacamole, or toilet paper. That is real hardship.”

  The class giggled.

  “I’m not kidding,” Hooter insisted. “Not having toilet paper is no joke. And life without cheeseburgers is hardly worth living, unless you had some guacamole to eat, and they didn’t.”

  The class roared with laughter.

  Miss Howard raised her hand for quiet. “I must say, toilet paper, cheeseburgers, and guacamole is a strange combination to focus on, Brian. But historically you are absolutely correct. Diet and personal hygiene were not what they are today.”

  “I missed my phone,” Matt said thoughtfully.

  Miss Howard’s eyebrows rose slowly in two perfect arches.

  Matt hesitated. “I mean, I would miss my phone.”

  “Yes, they didn’t have modern communication back then,” Miss Howard said, smiling with approval. “Well, you boys certainly have given us a lot to think about. Now, let’s go on to finish up the last of our oral reports on the Founding Fathers. Brian Melrose, will you please come up and give us your report?”

  Hooter opened his notebook and began furiously paging through it. “I know I have it somewhere,” he muttered. He unzipped his backpack and dug through the tightly-packed contents: books, loose papers, a half-eaten apple from lunch, a dirty pair of gym socks, a book on raising snakes for pets, and an assortment of old candy wrappers. He thought about taking a bite of the apple, but Miss Howard had begun to tap her nails impatiently on her desk.

  “We’re waiting,” she said after another full minute had passed.

  “Got it!” Hooter finally cried. He pulled out a crumpled paper that was stuffed between his dirty gym socks and a moldy bologna sandwich. He hurried to the front of the room. Then he smoothed out the wrinkles in his paper as best he could against his knee and began reading aloud.

  “‘Ben Franklin was the greatest Founding Father. He lived over two hundred years ago. Ben Franklin wasn’t boring. Once he chased a tornado on horseback, and he loved to fly kites and tell jokes. He did many things that are still useful to us today. Because of Ben Franklin we have free libraries. Ben was a great talker. He talked the French king into helping us fight the British. He was also a great inventor. He invented many things like the Franklin stove, bifocal eyeglasses, and the lightning rod. He was generous, too. Ben never got a penny for his lightning rods. He said he didn’t want money for them. He just wanted to make people’s lives better. I think Ben Franklin was the best Founding Father our country ever had.’”

  Hooter put down his report and dug into his pocket. He had a big grin on his face.

  “My grandfather gave me money for my birthday last Saturday. It was just one bill, but guess whose picture is on it?” He pulled out a folded piece of tinfoil and carefully unfolded it. “It’s Ben Franklin!” Hooter beamed, holding up a one-hundred-dollar bill for everyone to see.

  “Wow!” Marco Diaz breathed aloud.

  “Hooter, you’re so lucky!” Sara Bender said.

  “Does your mother know that you’ve brought that much money to school?” Miss Howard interrupted.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hooter replied. “She said I could bring it in for my report, as long as I promised to keep it somewhere safe. I was going to put it in my wallet, but I thought it would be safer in the tinfoil. Nobody would think anything as important as a hundred-dollar bill would be wrapped in tinfoil.”

  Miss Howard frowned. “That doesn’t seem like the wisest choice, but go on with your report.”

  “‘So, as you can see,’” Hooter continued, “‘Ben Franklin was an amazing Founding Father who cared about people and making their lives better. In honor of Ben Franklin, I’d like to make your lives better, too.’”

  He reached into his backpack and pulled out a roll of green bills held together with a rubber band. “I am giving each of you a Ben Franklin to put into your own pockets. I have one hundred dollars for each of you!” Hooter grinned and waved the money in the air. He proceeded to place a bill on everyone’s desk.

  Matt was as flabbergasted as anyone. Hooter had never mentioned this part of his report. How had he done it? Matt wondered. Had Hooter’s parents won the lottery? Had someone died and left Hooter a millionaire? Whatever it was, there was now $2,500 in crisp Ben Franklin hundred-dollar bills in Miss Howard’s classroom. Everyone agreed that it was the best oral report anyone had ever given.

  Matt stared down at the green bill on his desk. Sure enough, Ben Franklin’s picture was on it.

  “Wow, I’m going to buy an iPod!” Finn Kenney shouted. “Hooter, you’re the best!”

  “I’m going to buy a trampoline,” announced Mia Hortez.

  “I’m going to buy a monkey and teach him tricks!” Jack Hutchinson cried. “Thanks, Hooter!”

  But as kids began turning their bills over, they were disappointed to find that they were all blank on the back.

  “Hey, they’re fake!” Marcy Chin cried out.

  Soon the class was in an uproar.
<
br />   “Settle down, everyone,” Miss Howard ordered. She picked up the bill from Matt’s desk and turned it over in her hand. “Brian Melrose, where did these come from?”

  Hooter smiled sheepishly. “I sort of made them,” he admitted.

  “You sort of what?” Miss Howard asked.

  “I used my dad’s color copier,” Hooter explained. “After my grandfather gave me a hundred dollars, I thought it would be cool to give some money to everyone.”

  “Good grief!” Miss Howard cried. “Don’t you know that copying money is against the law?”

  “It’s called counterfeiting,” Q spoke up. “An exceedingly illegal activity.” (Q loved words, and each week he had a new favorite. This week’s word was exceedingly, and he used it whenever he could.)

  Hooter swallowed hard. “I didn’t know I was breaking the law.”

  “Q is right,” Miss Howard said. “And unless you want to go to jail for counterfeiting, Brian, each of these phony bills must be collected and destroyed this very minute. Pass them forward, guys, right now.”

  This command was followed by a loud chorus of moans and groans, and Hooter’s wild popularity suddenly plummeted. Fortunately, Miss Howard did not have her heart set on buying a monkey, or an iPod, or a trampoline. After giving Hooter another lecture on counterfeiting and making him promise never to do it again, she gave him an A for his report.

  “Now for our class assignment,” Miss Howard continued. “Since we’ve been studying the Revolutionary War, we’ve studied the Patriots, who were the American colonists who revolted against British Rule.

  “We’ve also learned that the Loyalists, who were also called Tories, were the colonists who stayed loyal to King George. There were many Loyalists living in Boston in the winter of 1776.

  “The British had taken over the city, and things didn’t look very good for the Patriots. But George Washington came up with a plan to outfox the British. It happened on the hills outside of Boston, in a place called Dorchester Heights. I want you to learn all you can about what happened there in March of 1776 and how it affected the Loyalists who were living in Boston. Imagine, if you can, what it must have been like to be either a Patriot or a Loyalist during that time. Then choose a side and write your paper from that point of view.”

  “Why would anyone want to be on the other side?” Hooter asked.

  “That’s what I want you to find out,” Miss Howard told him. “Your assignments are due on Monday.”

  “Monday!” the class moaned in unison. The four Adventure Club members looked at one another in dismay. There went the weekend. How would they ever finish their assignments and still have time for the campout in Tony’s backyard that they had planned for that night?

  “Homework,” Matt muttered under his breath. “I’d rather fight the Hessians.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Q warned. “The way things are going with our club, you never know what might happen.”

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, ALL FOUR MEMBERS of the Adventure Club were huddled for a private meeting in a tent in Tony’s backyard. Matt was so happy, he could hardly sit still. His parents were going away that weekend to attend a wedding. His pesky little sister, Katie, would be staying overnight with their friends, the Capells, who lived next door to Tony. And Matt would be spending Friday night at Tony’s house with Hooter and Q.

  “You really had everybody fooled with that fake money, Hoot,” Matt said.

  “Good thing Officer Yee wasn’t in school talking about safety today, or he probably would have arrested you,” Tony added.

  “How was I supposed to know it was against the law?” Hooter mumbled through a mouthful of marshmallows. He licked his fingers and closed the bag.

  “New sneakers again, Hoot?” Tony asked, eyeing Hooter’s puffy purple sneakers.

  Hooter nodded. “My mom says that this is the last pair she’ll ever buy me. She said if I lose one more pair of sneakers, I’ll have to pay for them myself out of my allowance or go barefoot.”

  “You’re the only person I know who loses their shoes,” Matt said.

  “Why’d you take them off in the first place?” asked Q.

  “I can’t watch a movie with my shoes on,” Hooter explained. “Besides, how was I supposed to know someone would reach under my seat and steal them?”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about anyone stealing those sneakers,” Matt said. “They’re about two sizes too big for any of us. And they’re purple!”

  “I’m going to sleep with them on tonight, just in case,” Hooter decided.

  The others laughed, and Tony gave Hooter a friendly shove.

  “It’s great that we get to camp out together,” Matt said. “I just wish we didn’t have so much homework to do.”

  “It will be simple,” said Q. “All we have to do is some reading and find out what happened at Dorchester and what it was like to be a Loyalist.”

  “Why would anyone want to be a Loyalist and not be allowed to choose their own laws?” Hooter asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tony said. “The Loyalists must have been really stupid.”

  “All five hundred thousand of them?” Q asked.

  “Five hundred thousand!” Matt repeated. “Are you sure there were so many?”

  “Yes. And that was about twenty percent of America’s population in 1776,” answered Q. He dug into his backpack and pulled out the leather-bound history book his uncle had given him. “I read that in here.”

  “So what happened in Dorchester?” Matt asked.

  “Let’s look it up and read about it,” said Q as he flipped through the pages.

  But before he could find Dorchester, Tony pulled from his pocket the antique brass spyglass that he had bought at a garage sale for fifty cents. He opened the tent flap and pointed the glass at the big oak tree in his yard.

  “Does that thing really work?” Hooter asked.

  “It’s got a big crack in the glass,” Tony said, handing Hooter the spyglass. “But take a look at that squirrel in the tree.”

  “Cool!” Hooter exclaimed, looking through it. “I can see his whiskers twitching.”

  Everyone jumped up to take a turn looking.

  “Hey, you guys,” Q interrupted. “We still need to be thinking about our homework assignment.”

  “First we have to discuss club business,” Matt said.

  “How about candy? That’s club business, isn’t it?” Hooter asked. “We’ve got one bag of marshmallows, but has anyone got any good candy?”

  Matt and Tony shook their heads no.

  Q shrugged. “I’m not allowed to eat candy. My dad is a dentist, remember? Besides, the tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself. That, and people’s out-of-control candy consumption will pay for my college education.”

  “So that’s a no?” Hooter sighed, his shoulders slumping.

  “We’ve got more important club business than that,” Matt told them.

  “What about our homework assignment?” Q tried once again. He held up his history book. “We could read up on Dorchester in here.”

  “Q, the campout just started, and already you want to do homework?” Tony said, shaking his head in disgust.

  “But this homework could be fun,” Q said.

  “About as much fun as getting a wart removed,” Hooter groaned.

  “Hoot’s right. Tonight is for fun,” Matt declared. “And I checked the weather online. It’s going to get colder, so it’s good we’ve got warm sleeping bags.” Then he hesitated. “And there is going to be a three-quarter moon….”

  His voice trailed off and everyone grew quiet. They were all thinking of the last time they’d gone camping under a three-quarter moon. They weren’t supposed to go near the lake at night. But it was on their last campout that they’d found the old boat that sent them back in time, on the most harrowing experience of their lives.