The Measure of a Patriot

At Whit's End, classmates Wyatt Perkins and Sophie Hatcher can't agree on their history assignment: write about the American patriot who inspires them most and the one characteristic that made that person great. Wyatt wants Benjamin Franklin, mostly because he already studied him in second grade and figures it's an easy A. As he jokes, Franklin inspires him "to get an A-plus without having to do much research." Sophie, a devoted history buff, insists on Caesar Rodney, a lesser-known patriot she says cast a deciding vote for the Declaration of Independence. To settle the argument, Wyatt leads Sophie - who has never used it and doesn't trust computers with history - into the Imagination Station. With Mr. Whittaker away, Wyatt turns to the machine's adventure companion, a computerized guide named Isaac, and asks to see both men's stories.

They land first in London in December 1772, where Benjamin Franklin greets them warmly, since the Imagination Station has cast them as his landlady's children. Franklin delightedly shows off his newest invention, the glass armonica, a musical instrument made of spinning glasses played with wet fingers. Sophie is starstruck, and Wyatt decides Franklin's inventiveness is the characteristic he'll write about - though Sophie points out that being clever doesn't make someone a patriot. Then two anxious visitors arrive, and a troubling story spills out: Franklin arranged for private letters to be taken from a dead man's estate and published in newspapers across Massachusetts. The letters came from Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, and show he believes Americans shouldn't expect the same rights as British people. Franklin argues the public deserves the truth and that exposing a few self-centered men will actually repair the friendship between England and the colonies. His visitors predict rioting instead. Some time later, while Franklin is showing the kids how to link Leyden jars into a battery, worse news arrives: two men named Temple and Whately have fought a duel over who stole the letters, and Whately - brother of the man whose letters were taken - lies wounded at the surgeon's. Riots have broken out across half of Massachusetts. Sobered, Franklin resolves to confess publicly, saying, "I need to tell people the truth before anyone else is hurt." After he leaves, Wyatt is shaken. His hero looks like a thief whose scheme got an innocent man hurt, and he's no longer sure Franklin was such a great patriot.

The kids jump to Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 1, 1776, expecting to watch Caesar Rodney cast his famous vote - but Rodney isn't there. John Adams and Franklin explain that Delaware's two present delegates split their vote while Rodney stayed home at his estate, so the vote for independence has fallen short. Sophie is mortified; she hadn't finished her research. With Congress willing to vote again the next day and Dover eighty miles away, the kids have Isaac whisk them to Rodney's estate at midnight. In the rain, they pound on the door until a servant named Elias answers, and then Rodney himself appears, his face wrapped in a scarf. Hearing that the vote failed and Delaware needs him, Rodney ignores Elias's worries about the storm and his poor health - his doctor has told him not to travel - and prepares a light, fast, nearly roofless coach. On the way out he explains why he was absent: he was commanding his militia unit against an uprising of British sympathizers and trusted the other delegates to manage without him. Elias kindly brings a basket of apples and biscuits for the journey, and Sophie declares him her new favorite person. Then Rodney remarks that Elias is "a good slave," and Sophie goes still. She refuses to ride along, and after Rodney drives off she tells Wyatt she has read about slavery but never had to look it in the face before. "I'll never be inspired by someone who thinks they can own another person," she says. Caesar Rodney is off the list.

Wyatt suggests John Adams instead, promising that Adams owned no slaves, and Sophie brightens at the thought of writing about Adams and his wife Abigail as a founding power couple. Isaac drops them at Boston's Liberty Tree in February 1770, where they find not a parade but an enormous funeral. Adams tells them the mourners - perhaps two thousand of them - have gathered for Christopher Sider, a boy about their own age who was shot by a British official during a dispute, and he grimly warns that Boston is no longer safe for anyone. A week later, on the night of March 5, 1770, the kids catch up with Adams at a home in Boston's South End just as alarm bells begin to ring. Adams runs out expecting a fire and orders the children to stay behind, but Sophie refuses to miss anything and drags Wyatt after him into the streets. There they find an angry mob hurling oyster shells and rocks at British soldiers. "There is no fire!" Adams shouts. "This is a riot!" Then gunfire cracks through the crowd - the soldiers are shooting. Adams spots an alleyway and hurries the children toward it, yelling at them to run, and the adventure breaks off with the three of them fleeing into the chaos, the story to be continued.