The Time Machine From Adams
Chapter One: March 1, 1799, Around 4 P.M.
I’m gonna be honest, being the stepson of James Madison, who I don’t know what he’s
famous for, isn’t how nice you think it might be. You just have a bunch of people putting a
blank piece of paper in your face saying, “Hey Payne! Can you please give this to your dad? I want his
autograph!”
Then after twenty minutes, you end up with your face in the trash can. In the first place
he’s not even my birth dad! Worst of all, you have people who are jealous of you, and once
they see you, you’ll have your face in the air conditioner. Then five minutes later, Principal
Wilmer thinks you went in there purposely, and you get grounded for a week.
This is all that I’ve been holding for my whole life. I’m John Payne Todd, call me Payne
though.I’m a seven year old boy in the worst school in the history of schools, Bishop John something
something boarding school. Life is miserable here, you only get family visits twice a year and
you have the worst kind of people around you.
School was finally over, I right away walked to my room and fell onto my bed. I looked into a
painting, a painting that I protect with all my life, the painting of my brother, William Todd.
He’s just one year younger than me, and he died at just three months. I feel like that’s when
everything became miserableAs I was staring at my brother’s portrait, I heard someone knock on the door, I right away
got up and opened it. Mr. Stane stared at me with his boring eyes.
“You have a message through the semaphore and a letter from Jackiel Adatusky.” Mr. Stane
told me with his grumpy, low voice.
“I don’t know any Jackiel Adatusky,” I explained to him.
“Well, it was from this guy,” Mr. Stane held the letter right in my face, it covered his
wrinkles on his face and his cold eyes. The letter said:
T0: John Todd jr.
From: John Adams
I took the letter and put it on my nightstand.
“Now come down for the phone call,” Mr. Stane said, urging me.
Chapter Two: March 1, 1799, Around 4:20 P.M.
Hi Payne! Happy birthday! I miss you so much! How is it going at school? Ma messaged
through the semaphore.
Going great! I’m loving it here! They got me a humongous cake! I responded, lying to Ma.
Awesome! Too bad Pa isn’t here, he’s at an important conference with Mr. Jefferson.
Okay! I have some homework, I gotta go.
Love you! Bye!
Love you too! Bye!
As soon as I messaged bye, I rushed back to my room, and opened the letter that Mr. Adams
gave me. Mr. Adams was John Adams, the current president of the U.S.A. He’s kind to
children, but I hear more about Mrs. Adams, his wife. Mr. Adams' children were around their late twenties and early thirties, Ma and Pa used to pay his third son, Thomas Adams to babysit me when I was around three.
Anyway, I opened the letter, it said:
Dear Payne,
Happy Birthday! I hope you have an exquisite day!
I stopped right after the first two sentences,
I’m seven, not King George III, does he really have to say exquisite? I thought for a while,
then I went back to reading the letter:
Mrs. Adams sent a president, it will come by Sunday. Anyway, I have had many i
nteractions with this school, I know how many things you are going through.
I have a top-secret discovery only me and Mr. Washington know about. I have
discovered a time machine. My father had known about it but he never told me. This
is my birthday present for you. I will give you a riddle to solve.
My owner lives rich but grumpy you see
He throws things out of the window everyday
He always wants more
He has rich in his name
They call me a wall
But I am not
But I guess I will have to live with that name for the rest of my life
Come next to me
Walk three steps
Kick the window
Good luck,
Mr. Adams
P.S.
Thomas says hi.
And when you find the time machine, your soul puts you in the future or past, and the current time.
I dropped the paper. Apparently, the president of the united states is really dumb because he gave me where to go. The Richard Wall House, and I don’t think Richard Wall was greedy.
I realized if I can find this time machine, it could change my life forever, I could finally have a great life. I wouldn’t have to think about my family getting worried. I packed bags, jumped out through the first floor window and set off.
Chapter Three: March 1, 1799, 5:23 P.M.
I actually have no idea where the Richard Wall House is. I do know that it’s in Jenkintown, but I don’t know the exact directions. I am in Radnock right now, I can’t find Jenkintown, and it feels really weird to be on the street by myself, especially because I’m a seven year old. I reached into my backpack and took out some money the school gave me weeks ago. It was about eighty dollars, it probably wasn’t enough. Then I heard someone shout, “Ride to Jenkintown, only for ten dollars!”
I turned around, and I saw a man who was wearing something that made it look like he was suffocating. I rushed to the horse and carriage he was standing next to.
“Here’s ten dollars,” I said to him.
“That’s twenty, but I’ll keep the change, kid,” He said in a mean voice. He swiped the cash out of my hand.
I sat on the carriage next to two men talking as if they were screaming. The ride was really long.
Chapter Four: March 3, 3:23 A.M.
Turns out there weren’t horses that were taking us there, it was oxen. It took two days, until we finally reached Jenkintown. I was asleep when the oxen driver or whatever woke me up. I borrowed a horse for forty five dollars. I was surprised people were selling horses at this time. I only had fifteen more dollars now. I jumped onto the horse. I don’t know how to ride a horse, so I nearly fell off many times. The Wall House was nearby, and the horse followed the direction to where I was pulling the saddle to. I was starving, we didn’t stop at all. I haven’t had food, or brushed my teeth, or drank water in two days. After a while I finally reached the Wall House. The horse owner said if I tap the horse three times it will go back to the store, and it knows its way back. I tapped thrice and it set off. Through my memory, the riddle said to walk three steps and kick the window, I walked three steps and kicked a window. Then I saw that someone beat me to the time machine.
“Who are you?” I asked the stranger.
He didn’t reply. He had a hood on which made it hard to see him. He turned around.
I looked in shock. “Pa?”
Chapter Five: March 3rd, 1799, 5:54 A.M.
By pa I didn’t mean James Madison. I meant my birth father, John Todd. He died when I was just one. That same year William, my grandpa, grandma, Uncle William, and Uncle Isaac all in one year. Uncle Walter died before I was even born. Now I’m stuck with three grumpy aunts who are jealous of ma for marrying a Revolutionary War hero. Well, technically two grumpy aunts. Aunty Lucy not jealous because she married Mr. Washington’s nephew. I think she should be jealous though, because her husband’s middle name is Steptoe.
Aunt Lucy is really thoughtful, Uncle George says he's expecting Aunt Lucy to become pregnant soon. Once when I was at their house last month, around my bedtime I heard Uncle George telling her about it. She said, “If our child’s full name isn’t William Temple Washington, I’m leaving you, and I won’t care if people see me as an untouchable woman or not.”
Anyway, I was still looking at my birth father. I remember how he looks because we have a portrait of him in our house. He looks like hasn’t aged after six years.
“Who’s pa?” He shouted. “And who are you?”
“I’m your son,” I explained.
“William?”
“No.”
“John!”
“I prefer Payne.”
“Payne!” He threw his arms around me. “What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Adams wrote me a letter about the time machine.”
“Who’s Mr. Adams?”
I froze. I was thinking what would happen if I told him Ma married someone else. About William. He would be extremely disappointed.
“You know, I never met William,” He said, “Tell me all about him.”
“No, I won’t,” I protested, “You tell me about why you faked your death.”
“Okay, okay. I faked my death, but I really did have yellow fever.”
“Then how did you fake your death?”
“I was really sick, my legs were paralyzed. The doctor said there was no cure. Then I got this letter from a woman named Deborah Franklin. She claimed that she discovered a way to duplicate the body and a strange thing called a vaccine on yellow fever.”
“I get the vaccine, but why duplicate your body?”
“I thought I could have some me time-”
“ME TIME FOR SIX YEAR!!!!!!!!?!?!!?!?!?!” I shouted.
“Shush! Someone’s gonna hear us.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Ok, I told you about why and how I faked my death, you tell me about William, how is that kid.”
“How come you never met William?” I asked him.
“Your Ma was pregnant with him before I faked my death,” he told me.
“About William…” I began.
“Yeah?”
“The same year you faked death, William got yellow fever too, and in three months, he died.”
Pa stared at me, in shock. He probably couldn’t believe me.
“What!”
“Yeah,” I responded in a guilty sounding voice.
“And Dolley-,” He began, “She married again, didn’t she?”
Chapter Six: March 3rd, 1799, 6:02 A.M.
Pa looked really disappointed. “I can’t believe it, all because of my selfishness, my life is
ruined.”
“How do you know about the time machine?” I asked him, trying to change the subject.
He held out a letter in his hand that said: TO: JOHN TODD jr. and From: John Adams.
“I sort of got into pickpocketing, you liked my oxen driver disguise?” He asked.
“You were the oxen driver?” I questioned in shock.
He nodded. “Now, who did Dolley marry?”
The guilty look ran back down to my face. “James Madison,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Did James Madison become president yet?”
“No, it’s John Adams, and you must have had zero contact with humans.”
“You guessed it.”
“Do you want to come onto the time machine with me?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said.
“How can you just say “sure” like that?”
“After crouching down for twenty hours a day for the past six years really makes you wish
you were in a different time.”
“True.”
“Okay, let’s go in.”
We went in.
Chapter 7: October 21, 2015, 3:43 P.M.
It’s been seven months since me and pa came out of that time machine. We were in a meat
factory. We escaped through this really cool thing called an elevator, trust me, it’s the
coolest thing ever! We blinded the security guards in front of the meat factory with this
other cool thing called a lightbulb, it’s really cool. You turn a switch on and a humongous piece of light burns out. I’m surprised they were blinded. Now me and pa are living in an apartment. There are so many cool things, a cell phone iPad, Macbook, computer, iMac, iBook, iPod, iSight, iPhone, iCloud, iDisk, iTunes Store, iCal, iChat, iDVD, you know what I’ll show you a list, yeah that’s right, I have a list. The coolest thing of all? An air conditioner! Who knew there was something like that, and you better tell me what a TV is, I’ve never heard of it.
Every cool device I need to see:
Macbook
Computer
Android Phone
iMac
iBook
iPod
iSight
iPhone
iPad
iCloud
iDisk
iTunes Store
iCal
iChat
iDVD
iLife
iMessage
iMix
iMovie
iOS
iPadOS
iPhoto
iSync
iTunes
iWeb
iWork
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