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American Patriotic Union of the Superheroes of History: Part Six

Mathew rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation. Earlier that day, he had been terribly, terribly angry, but now he was gleefully delighted. He'd show them all how smart he really was.

Mathew hated history, personally. He was a math student. Mathew couldn't care less whether Washington crossed the Delaware or not, or whether it was the U.S. who landed on the moon or the Russians. History was impure, and constantly being rewritten, anyway. He smiled. Now he was the one rewriting history.

Mr. Flemming had threatened to drop him out of the AP United States History class and into Standard. He would never had taken U.S. history, but he was required to have a history class to pass high school. Naturally he picked the AP course. He'd always passed history before easily by simply memorizing everything, like he could memorize hundred of math formulas. What was the difference between memorizing y=mx+b and July 4, 1776? So he didn't really give it much effort. He had begun making stupid mistakes. Mistakes like saying the time he'd forgotten to list Washington as the first president, or when he said the U.S.S.R (rather than just the U.S.; he was bad with acronyms) owned the moon.

Well, he'd show them all now. He had used his mathematical genius to build his very own time machine, using Einstein's theories, and some of his very own. He'd carefully thought out how he planned to change history, and all with two little vials of acid. They were specially designed vials, resembling Halloween glow-sticks. One part of the vial contained water, while the other half was corrosive acid.

The first bottle of acid went on Washington's boat. Once the acid was subjected to the freezing cold of the Delaware, the water froze and expanded, breaking the bottle and allowing the acid to eat the wood. Washington would never survive to be elected president.

The second one was carefully hidden on Lindbergh's plane. As soon as the icicles formed on the plan, the vial burst and ate through the wing's frame. Without Lindbergh's support of continued aviation and rocket science, American space exploration would start too late. The Soviet Union would be the first on the moon.

Now all that is done, and Mathew stood before his history book. How much would have changed? He couldn't wait any longer and turned quickly to the index, to the Presidential listings.

Presidents of the United States
1. George Washington (No Party)
1789-1797
2. John Adams Federalist 1787-1801

Nothing had changed. Mathew bit back a cry of frustration. It probably just was a miscalculation on his part. It was entirely possible that Washington was able to survive his boat sinking. Lindbergh, on the other hand, he knew Lindbergh couldn't have survived his trap. He turned his history book to the 1920s.

And there was the same picture of Lindbergh and his stupid plane. And there was the same paragraph describing his triumphant arrival in Paris.

Nothing had changed!

Mathew scowled as he read his book. All his work, all his planning, was for nothing! What had gone wrong?

"Someone tampered with my plans," he mumbled. "I know they did. And I'll find out who they were, and I'll make sure they were never born!"

"You'd have to change a whole lot more than one or two lives to keep me from being born," an amused voice suddenly says nearby. "You might delay it awhile, but I'll still be around, somewhere."

Mathew looked up, startled. "Who dares break into my... huh?!"

A tall, bearded figure in red, white, and blue stood before the bewildered high school student. At Mathew's dumbfounded look, he only smiled and nodded.

"I bet you didn't believe I exist," he guessed. "I'm the Chairman of the APUSH, but you might know me better as good old 'Uncle Sam.' "

"A-A-APUSH?" Mathew stuttered, trying to regain composure. "Isn't that a history class? Are you with the College Board?"

"No, no," Uncle Sam shook his head. "It stands for the American Patriotic Union of Superheroes of History. The College Board just liked how the acronym sounded."

"Superheroes of History, yeah, right," Mathew rolled his eyes, skepticism replacing fear. "This must be some hallucination brought on by my time-travel machine. Maybe it's a side effect of being stretch across time zones and jet lag and-"

"I'm not an hallucination, Mathew," Uncle Sam insisted firmly. "As I said, I'm in charge of APUSH, and it's our mission to preserve history. Usually we only deal with bad history teachers, but this is the first time someone's actually attempted to change the timeline itself. Quite impressive, really."

"Thank you. Now I command you to go away. You're only a figment of my imagination."

"Of course, we've fixed history now," Uncle Sam continued, "but we can't let you get off scott-free, you understand. I've been discussing this with Franklin, and he's agreed to take you on as an assistant in our history-monitoring station."

"I'm not going to ask what that is because you're not real," Mathew said. "I'm also not going to ask if you mean Benjamin Franklin, because it doesn't matter."

"Our history-monitoring station is where we monitor all the different history classes being taught, watching for anyone who might be trying to teach it incorrectly," Uncle Sam explained anyway. "You'll get to spend all day listening to nothing but history classes."

"All day...?" Mathew paled. "For, um, how long? Hypothetically speaking of course, since you're not real."

"For however long it takes you to learn history, correctly."

"Until I learn history...? But... that's not fair!" Mathew had a burst of inspiration. "Besides, I still have to finish high school. You can't deprive me of a well-rounded high school education."

Uncle Sam nodded. "True... but we could always come for you after you've passed all your other classes..."

Mathew's face became whiter than Taft's tub. "You could...?"

"Yes, we could, if you don't know history yet," Uncle Sam said firmly, then paused, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "However, if you could prove you know history in some way by then, then we rightfully couldn't detain you..."

"I'll pass all my history classes!" Mathew quickly promised. "I'll take time to study, and I'll listen to Mr. Flemming's boring lectures! I'll do it!"

Uncle Sam smiled. "And you won't tamper with history any more?"

"I won't! I swear!"

"Well, then, Matthew, I should be going now." Uncle Sam began to fade away before Mathew's eyes. "Remember your promises, or I'll be seeing you again very soon."

Then he was gone.

Mathew carefully picked up the battered history book. He held the heavy, thick book in his hands a few moments, then glanced at the time machine. Maybe if he tried on more time, he could fix the mistake he made on the World War II test, and they wouldn't catch him this time if he was really careful...

He flipped open a page of the book to World War II and began reading.

I WANT YOU!

A poster of Uncle Sam.

Mathew quickly shut the book.