Читать книгу Dangerous Hilarity: The Great Adventures of the Jackson Twins, Their Family and the Dogs in Their Lives, A Novel for Teens and Young Adults and All Those Who are Young at Heart - Sioux Dallas - Страница 10

Chapter Three

The next morning Irene had blueberry pancakes and sausages ready for breakfast. Everyone ate, laughed and talked, happy to have Herb back with them. After breakfast Herb waited for the children to brush their teeth and then called the twins to him.

“I bet you guys can’t guess what I’ve planned for your birthday,” he grinned, pleased with himself.

“But Dad, our birthday was yesterday,” Tom giggled. “It’s okay, Dad. You do a lot for us all the year.

“I know it was yesterday, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be here. I owe Anna a special day, also. That won’t make your surprise any less exciting though.”

He grinned at them as he put an arm around each twin’s neck and hugged them close. He gave Irene a quick kiss and hugged Anna.

“What surprise, Dad?” Tim questioned as both boys danced around him. Galena jumped with them sure she was part of whatever was going on.

“Let’s go outside and you’ll see.” Herb placed a hand on each twin’s back and went toward the front door. Tom and Tim jumped out the door ahead of him and stopped in surprise. In front of the house was a chartered bus filled with friends who were yelling at the twins out of the windows.

“Hurry up, slowpokes”

“You’re holding us up.”

“Will you get a move on.”

“Come on the day is rushing by.”

“Why? Are you expecting us to get on that bus with you?” Tim yelled half laughing and half serious.

“Happy birthday,” eighteen voices chorused.

“But all of you were at our party yesterday and none of you said anything about this.” Tom said looking at his dad with a puzzled expression. Looking past Herb the twins saw Irene and Anna waving at them.

“Ole big mouth, Dan, almost spilled the beans yesterday,” Mark yelled out of a window. We knew it but were all sworn to secrecy.”

“Get on board my suspicious sons. We’re off on an adventure. It’s part of your birthday surprise.” Herb laughed and urged them to board the bus so he could get on.

“Yip! Yip! Yipee!” the twins clambered aboard the bus calling goodbye to Irene and Anna.

“Come get Galena,” Herb called. “She thinks she’s going, too.”

Anna ran and took the protesting Galena by the collar. Galena cried all the way back to the house and drug her feet trying to convince Anna that she should be on that bus. Once she was in the house with the door shut she calmed down and ran over the place on her inspection tour.

Twenty boys sang, told jokes, wrestled and laughed loudly on their way to Washington, D.C., their nation’s capital, fifteen miles away.

“Hey, Timmy, your dad is the greatest. None of our dads would have thought to bring our crowd into D.C. for the day.” Jimmy Dodd spoke loudly as he walked through the Smithsonian Museum with their group.

“None of our dads would have been brave enough to try it,” Mark Tully laughed and hurried over to see the furniture used in Archie Bunker’s house in the famous television show, ‘All In The Family’ and the set of ‘Star Trek’. Fonzie’s jacket from ‘Happy Days’ was there, also.

“The rest of our dads probably couldn’t have afforded it,” Alan Begley muttered, but no one paid any attention to his comment. Truthfully, he was having a fabulous time.

“Yep, isn’t it rad? I’ve always liked the Smithsonian but never had time to see as much as I wanted to,” Tim answered.

“Maybe your dad’s doing this to make up for dragging you off to Alaska,” Alex said with a crooked grin.

“Maybe,” Jason Horn interjected, “but dude! I was totally wiped out to see Lindberg’s plane and all that first exploration stuff. And I never thought I’d get to see a real space ship. Besides,” he turned to Tom, “you guys are going to have a great life and be back before you know it.” In the Natural History section they were all standing beside the huge stuffed elephant looking up with open mouths and wide eyes.

“Dad always does something special for us and our sister on our birthday,” Tom explained

Herb gathered the boys and took them out to the sidewalk where he had made arrangements with food venders to have their carts there at noon. A young woman stood with a calculator and totaled the price for Herb to pay.

“Whoo hoo!” Herb laughed with hands over his ears. “It sounds like feeding time at the zoo,” he laughed as the boys shoved and shouted their selections. Herb thanked the vendors, and the girl, as he took time to grab a sandwich, chips and a soft drink. He paid the bill and included a generous tip.

The boys wolfed the food down and boarded the bus again for a tour of the city. They were impressed with a big statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair at his monument. The statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his little dog were admired. Some of the cherry trees still had late blooms on them. The boys were surprised to learn that the first trees had been a gift from Japan.

The bus driver talked over the speaker as he drove them around. “On July 16, 1791, Congress approved a location for Federal buildings. As soon as George Washington agreed, Major Pierce Charles L’Enfant, a French engineer, laid out the plans for the new city. L’Enfant was a friend of Washington’s and had fought with the Americans during the American Revolution. On September 18, 1793, the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid, but the government didn’t move to D.C. until 1800. He drove on and stopped at the Mall.”

“Whoa. Are we going to walk all the way up there?” Benji Morrison leaned back, with his mouth open, to look at the top of the Washington Monument.

“You can if you wish,” Herb answered. “The monument is five hundred fifty-five feet tall and has eight hundred ninety-eight steps to the top. There’s an elevator if you don’t want to walk up.”

A chorus of, “I’m walking,” came from all of the boys.

About half way up Herb had to sit down because he was laughing too hard to continue. About a dozen of the boys were gasping for breath and three of them had gotten down to crawl up on hands and knees.

At the top they were welcomed by a Park police who told them, “The Washington Monument is made of white marble from Maryland. Construction on it began in 1848 when James Polk was President and was completed in 1884, but it wasn’t opened to the public until 1888. George Washington had died on December 14, 1799, so, he never knew of this dedication to his memory.”

“Why did it take so long to build it?” Aaron Langley asked.

“The marble was mined and polished by hand which took a lot of time. Then it had to be transported by mule-drawn wagons and put in place. This naturally caused the work to go slowly. In 1848 James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. A lot of the workers went west with the dream of becoming rich. Can anyone tell me what happened in 1861?”

“I can,” several voices rang out at once. “The War Between The States.”

“Right,” the policeman was pleased. “There was no work going on during those four or five years.”

“Don’t you mean the Civil War?” Alex asked.

“No,” the policeman said. “They gave the correct answer. Here young man read this card from the Library of Congress. It’s official. Please read it aloud.”

Alex reluctantly took the card and read. “The Congressional Record of March 2, 1928 reports Senate joint resolution No. 41 wherein Congress recognized the title, War Between The States as proper. A war was waged from 1861 to 1865 between two organized governments. The United States of America and the Confederate States of America. These were the official titles of the contending parties. It was not a Civil War as it was not fought between parties in the same government. It was not a War of Succession because the states, who had seceded, did so without a thought of war. The right of a state to secede had never been questioned. It was not a War of Rebellion for sovereign, independent states, co-equal cannot rebel against each other. It was a War Between The States because twenty-two non seceding states made war upon eleven seceding states to force them back into the Union. It was not until after the surrender of 1865 that secession was decided to be unconstitutional.”

“But I thought it was fought over slavery,” Charles Bloomingdale said.

“Oh, no,” the policeman answered. “It was never fought over slavery. The question of slavery didn’t enter into discussion until the third year of the war when Lincoln decided to use it to force the south to surrender. They overlooked the fact that there were slaves in the north in factories and homes. There were more working in the south on farms and plantations.

And not all of the slaves were black. Some were Asians and quite a few were poor whites who owed money to the plantation owners.” He continued, “What most people don’t know is that there is an aluminum cap of the tip top of the monument with the words, ‘Laus Deo’ on it. This means Praise be to God.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go down to my horse and go on duty in the park area,” the policeman said.

“A horse! Can I ride him?” several boys yelled.

“Afraid not. Sorry. He’s on duty just as I am and he’s a working animal. Have a good day, fellows. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your party. Gotta go. My horse is waiting.”

“What’s his name?”

“What kind is he?”

“What color is he?”

The questions came fast and loud. “How do you know the horse is a he?” Herb laughed.

The policeman laughed. “Yes, it’s a he. His name is Ebony Warrior - called Warrior. He’s a black Morgan stallion and is highly trained. He can walk quietly through traffic or a crowd of people and he can walk sideways and push a crowd back. There are several others out there.” With a smile and a wave of his hand over his head he turned to go down on the elevator.

“Wait,” Herb called. “May I send some of the boys down with you? The elevator is not large enough for the entire group.”

As some of the boys crowded in with the policeman, Herb cautioned them. “Please don’t annoy the officer with more questions. Stand right at the bottom and don’t move until I get there.”

When Herb and the remainder of the boys reached bottom, the policeman was standing with those who had come with him. He saluted smartly, made a square turn and briskly walked to a jeep. He turned the vehicle and drove toward the stable. The boys looked after him with open admiration.

Herb had kept a very nice surprise until last. On the bus the driver, James Richardson, listened patiently as several boys tried to tell him what they had seen. Herb called for attention. “I have made arrangements for the Senators and the Representatives from Virginia to meet with us at three-thirty this afternoon in the Capitol Building.”

A cheer went up. The driver playfully hunched his shoulders at the noise but grinned in the rear-view mirror at the boys.

On the way up Pennsylvania Avenue, Miguel Perez suddenly shouted. “There he is! Oh, look there he is.”

“Who?” the boys rushed to one side of the bus. “Where?”

Miguel could hardly speak in his excitement. The boys looked in the direction he was pointing.

“It’s him,” Danny yelled.

“It is he,” Herb corrected. “Oh, well.”

“There’s the cop on his black horse,” Jacob Solomon yelled.

“Are you sure it’s the same person?” the driver asked.

“No,” Aaron Langley said disappointed. “It isn’t him. It isn’t even a man. It’s a woman,” he said disgustedly.

The mounted policewoman smiled and waved at the exuberant boys as they called to her through open windows. The horse looked in their direction but went quietly on his way.

The Congressmen had arranged to meet the boys in a room that was reserved for news interviews. The boys had studied how laws were made and bills were passed, therefore, they were able to converse intelligently with the politicians and to ask sensible questions.

Leaving the room they were walking down a ten feet wide hall when Pat Sinaguglia gave a strangled gasp. “Is that who I think it is?” he whispered loudly. “Look.” he shakily pointed to a man coming toward them followed by several people with cameras.

“Is it the President?” Alex blurted.

“No, even better,” Dan Baxter spluttered tripping over his own feet and stepping on Herb’s feet as he leaped forward. “It’s Arnold Swartzie-who’s-it.”

An embarrassed Tim spoke up. “Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hello, sir. I’m sorry. My friend didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that we admire you so much and are impressed to see you in person.”

“Young man, you’re surely a diplomat.” Arnold said with one of his famous smiles. Being a gentleman and one who loves children, he could understand the attention the boys were giving him. He graciously sat on the floor with his back against the wall and motioned for the boys to join him. He talked to them and listened a lot. He answered questions about his movie career, his family and his job as Governor of California. For about fifteen minutes the cameras whirred and reporters frantically made notes. Additional politicians, secretaries and other workers were drawn to the group. The reporters asked Herb for information about the group.

Getting to his feet, Arnold smiled widely and said, “Goodbye, fellows. Have a great time and happy birthday to the twins. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to join you on the birthday next year.” He waited patiently while the twins explained where they would be the next year. Herb was pleased that the twins seemed to be feeling better about the move. At least they were telling others about it in an enthusiastic manner.

“Boy,” Arnold exclaimed, “that sounds like a lot of fun. I would love to go with you. Good luck to you and your family. I’d like to hear about your adventures. Bye now.” He waved to all of them and walked away with the entourage following. Ben Dyang, being a very polite boy, followed him to thank him again. The politicians, who had gathered, were as amused as Herb was embarrassed.

“I need to apologize for taking so much time -- and all this space. Thank you for your kindness in meeting with this motley crew and thank you for your patience. I’m sure the boys enjoyed the visit as much as I did.”

“Thank you. Thank you,” the boys called out as they trooped off.

“We enjoyed it as much as the youngsters did, Senator Warner smiled.

“Yes, we need to thank you. I can hardly wait to tell my own children about this,” a Congressman grinned. “It was a treat for us, too.”

Tired, but animated, the boys boarded the bus again and later followed Herb into the Roy Rogers Beef House for dinner.

They rode home, high with the excitement of the day, but as the miles slipped by, they began to feel sad. The day for the Jackson family to leave was so close. Subdued and sleepy boys slumped in their seats as they traveled over Key Bridge and home to Fairfax.

Bursting into the house, the twins talked at the same time telling their mother and sister about the day. Anna was thrilled that they visited with Arnold Schwarzenegger. “It isn’t fair,” she moaned, “I would have been there all day and wouldn’t have seen anyone interesting.

“Don’t whine, darling.” Irene put an arm around Anna. “You do and see a lot of good things and have met a lot of nice people. Boys, did you go to the White House?”

“No, Mom,” Tim answered. “We’ve been there. We wanted to see places we haven’t seen or had not seen enough.”

“Benn there, done that,” Tom said over a yawn and thought I wonder if dad really did take us as a bribe to go to Alaska? No. Shame on me. He does for us all of the time. What difference would it make anyway?