Read Tesla's Time Travelers for Free Online Page A

a holographic image of the portable is in place, but it can only be sustained for five minutes. I have programmed the classroom to return to this spot at precisely 5 P.M. So, even if we get separated, we need to meet here at five minutes to five. Find the location on your Dury map on your iPod and mark it. Also, watch for second floor chamber pots—but most likely they tossed their pots out last night. Still, look up from time to time. And before we go out into the Philadelphia air, let’s all remember the butterfly effect,” Mr. Greene said, turning his gaze to Victor Bridges.
    Victor hated “the stare,” the way Mr. Greene seemed to see through you with just a stare, like he could read a student’s mind. Victor tried valiantly not to think unclean thoughts when he was in Mr. Greene’s presence for fear Mr. Greene would learn his fantasies of Minerva Messinger, whom Victor secretly envisioned as a Victoria’s Secret lingerie model. Victor felt himself shrinking under the glare of Greene’s gaze. And what was worse, Mr. Greene was waiting for Victor to respond.
    “No butterflies from me, Mr. Greene, I promise,” Victor finally replied, returning the walking cane to Mr. Greene.
    Minerva Messinger raised her hand. “What is the butterfly effect, Mr. Greene?”
    “Ah yes,” he replied. “I forgot that we have a novitiate with us on this trip. The butterfly effect, Minerva, is based on an old Ray Bradbury science fiction story, The Sound of Thunder. Written in1952, I believe. Anyway, a group of hunters are sent back into the dinosaur days and inadvertently kill a butterfly—something that wasn’t planned—and when they return to their present time, things have changed because the butterfly died. So, in other words, we are not to do anything that might change history. I mean, don’t, for example, shoot Thomas Jefferson.”
    “Or chase John Wilkes Booth across a stage,” Heath Anderson added. He and his twin brother laughed at Victor’s expense.
    Victor suddenly wanted to slug Heath Anderson.
    “Enough, Heath,” Mr. Greene said, as if he sensed Victor’s discomfort.
    “We do have to retrieve Caesar Rodney’s riding crop to get back, however,” Greene added. “He may toss it in the air when he arrives from Delaware at Independence Hall.”
    “Pennsylvania State House, Mr. Greene,” Bette Kromer corrected.
    “Ah yes, that’s correct,” Mr. Greene conceded. “It is not Independence Hall yet.”
    Victor shook his head at Miss Know-It-All. He never had any Victoria’s Secret fantasies about Bette Kromer. It wasn’t that Bette Kromer wasn’t attractive—it was the way she used her “sugar voice” on him. Victor hoped somehow he could arrange a moment alone with Benjamin Franklin for some tips on how to get along with girls—for if anyone knew about women, it was Dr. Franklin. The old goat was a babe magnet, Victor thought. What was his secret? Kites maybe?
    Mary and Charles Beard, who were literally “spirit guides,” led Mr. Greene and the students out into the summer air of 18 th century Philadelphia. There were clouds in the sky, leftover reminders of the previous night’s rain.
    “Place smells like the agriculture students’ barn,” Heath Anderson observed.
    “You’ll get used to it,” Mr. Greene said. “Philadelphia was probably the cleanest town in the colonies, but by our standards, it’s the stinky cesspool city of brotherly love. The major reason for that is a stream called ‘Dock Creek’ that nearly bisected the city. It had a horrible stench because the stables and tanneries that flanked the stream used it as an open sewer. This probably led to the various Yellow Fever outbreaks that Philadelphia saw, the worst being the one in 1793, when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. And then of course if you were a visitor and you took a room at an inn, you would share the bed with fleas, bedbugs and roaches, especially on a summer day like today. As they say,” Mr. Greene