The Underground Railroad Read Free

dried his head and cleaned his glasses. “It rains a lot there, you know. That’s why I asked Miss Pepper to make sure you came prepared.”
    The professor returned to the teleporter cloud then looked at us. “Put on your raincoats and follow me.”
    â€œNo,” answered Tamika. “I’m afraid.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to be afraid of, my dear,” the professor said kindly. “I’ve already taken a look at where we’ll be going. It’s perfectly safe.”
    Tears flowed down Tamika’s face. “I’ve read about slavery and how awful it was. My great, great, great, great grandparents were runaway slaves who escaped by going to Canada. Their masters treated them very poorly. I don’t think I can even face someone who was a slave. I’m scared.”
    â€œTamika,” I said, as I put my hand on her shoulder, “we don’t have to do this. We can tell Miss Pepper that it was just too dangerous.”
    The professor looked at us kindly. “I understand your concerns, but I wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger. Every slave who even tried to escape had to be very brave and very smart. We can learn a lot about their courage and wisdom by visiting with Mr. Douglass.”
    The green teleporter cloud glowed and crackled in the background. The professor paused a moment before continuing. “If you decide to go back in time and you get scared, we’ll return right away. Okay? It’s up to you. We can go or stay.” Then the professor held out his hand to us.
    Tamika slowly nodded her head, then hesitated a moment before saying, “Let’s go.”
    We quietly joined hands and walked through the green cloud and into the past.

Looking for Mr. Douglass
London—1846
    S oon after entering the teleporter cloud, everything turned upside down and we began tumbling head over heels. I could tell that Tamika didn’t like it one bit. She was really scared. My friend squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. After the upsetting ride, we made a soft landing in a park. It was cool and foggy outside, and a steady rain was falling. The professor quickly opened his umbrella.
    â€œI don’t ever want to do that again,” Tamika said as she shivered in the rain.
    â€œWe’ll have to go through the teleporter in order to get back home,” the professor noted. “I’ve been through it many, many times. But I admit, it is a little scary at first.”
    Tamika and I huddled beneath the umbrella with Professor Tuesday. We looked around, but it was hard to see anything because of the rain and fog. The professor spoke softly. “There are no slaves or slave chasers in London in the 1840s,” he said. “I should tell you that we have traveled to a place where cities and people are very different than they are in our time.” He turned to Tamika and said, “But there is absolutely no reason to be afraid.”
    â€œThat’s good,” I said. Tamika agreed.
    The professor continued. “We will be walking into a city that will look like it came out of a Charles Dickens novel.”
    â€œCharles who?” Tamika asked.
    â€œCharles Dickens,” answered the professor. “He was an author in the 1800s who wrote several famous books. Many of them have been made into wonderful movies.”
    Tamika and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. “We have no idea who you are talking about, professor.”
    â€œI know a movie you may have heard of,” the professor said. “How about A Christmas Carol—you know, the movie that has Ebenezer Scrooge in it?”
    â€œI didn’t like that movie,” Tamika said with a sour look. “It’s got a kid named Tiny Tim and some scary ghost things.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said the professor. “Charles Dickens wrote several books and all of them took place in the middle 1800s. If you’ve seen older