Black to the Past

Chapter 45

Five minutes later Wilson, Jalen, and Halle rushed through the door.

"Omg! You're here," Halle said with a half laugh, half crying. She collapsed onto Meredith's lap in the swivel chair she was sitting in and they held each other. Wilson wished he could do something just that simple, hug, and be held and comforted. He was petrified at their current situation.

Sitting down in a chair of his own Wilson started talking. "What did you all send in that telegram?" Wilson asked as he swirled around to face Michael and Meredith.

"Just what you said to," Michael said, taking an instant offense.

"We saw the look on his face when he read it," Wilson told them.

"Whatever you said, scared the shit out of him," Jalen said, highlighting the word shit.

"I promise! We stuck to just what Halle had written out. We sent it to a reporter from The Plain Dealer. We figured that would be the easiest way to get the telegram to him today," Meredith said honestly. "Wait. How do you guys know it scared him?"

"Well it worked. He got the telegram. We saw a reporter handing him the paper. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. I guess the only way we'll know if we were successful in saving him from assassination is by returning home."

"I'm ready," Halle said as she stood up and stretched. They entered the time machine resetting the instruments to the exact second they'd left.

Wilson ensured everyone was strapped in before hitting go.

They waited for the waves of nausea to ease before they attempted to unclick themselves from their seats. Halle was still having the worst time of time jumping than anyone else. She almost collapsed again but this time Wilson was right there ready for her. He led her out of the time machine, sat her in the same chair she'd been sitting in with Meredith just a few moments ago, only in a different decade.

"Let's get out of these clothes and go change," Jalen suggested.

Before they could do that they heard a commotion outside the door. It was as if someone was banging and yelling only they couldn't hear what was being said.

"Should we take a look," Michael asked.

"I don't know. Who would it be?" Jalen told him.

"Help! Help!"

The kids could make out the words help but only very faintly. Pushing through the group. Wilson pulled open the cement door, went up the stairs, and pressed the button that led to the recreation room. Brooke was standing at the bookcase in tears.

"You guys are alive," she said as she rushed into Wilson's arms.

"Brooke? What are you doing in here," Wilson asked.

"Hurry up! Take me wherever you just came from. We have to hide," Brooke said frantically. She grabbed Wilson's arms and headed back through the door she'd just seen him leave.

"Close it!"

Wilson followed her directions and waited for her to elaborate.

"I snuck into the house. Whoever lives here heard me and said they were getting their gun and was going to blow my head off if I didn't turn around and leave. But I couldn't leave because I had to find out what happened to you. They were on the first floor, I could hear them, looking for me. I'm so glad you opened the door. Where does this lead?"

"Down, come on," Wilson grabbed her hand and led the way.

Sealed off into the lower sub basement, they found the other kids in the vast closet changing. Wilson was ready to get out of the constricted clothing himself.

"Meredith, Halle, I've never been so glad to see you two in my life. Michael," she rushed over to Michael and wrapped her arms around him. She loved the smell of him. She thought she'd melt when she felt his arms go around her.

"You guys took so long, I thought you were dead," Brooke told him as she squeezed tighter.

The other kids all stared in amazement. It was crystal clear that Brooke held Michael in high regard and might even be madly in love with him. Jalen was ecstatic, Meredith thought it was funny and rolled her eyes as she tried to hide the chuckle that was about to gurgle forth.

The one thing they were all happy about was to be back in their own time period. Now that their mission was accomplished, they could go home.

"I'm starving," Meredith said out loud. Her stomach rumbled and everyone laughed. It was hard to imagine someone as petite as Meredith getting that hungry.

"Let's go, please," Jalen said, rubbing his stomach in agreement.

"We can't," Brooke told them as she let Michael go.

"What?!"

"Wait, why not," Halle asked.

"Upstairs, whoever owns this house, they're looking for whoever just broke in. That was me! I broke in to try to find you guys. If Wilson hadn't come up I'd be as good as dead," she explained.

"Who was it?" Michael asked.

"I don't know. Don't you know whose house this is?"

"It was the professor's when he left," Jalen said. "But we took him back, so maybe he didn't buy it again."

"Or maybe it passed on to his children. He wanted to watch them grow up, remember," Michael told him.

"But, he couldn't go back and be their dad anymore," Jalen reasoned.

"He said he was going to integrate himself back into their lives some kind of way," Michael reminded him.

"Okay, okay, so we can't go racing back upstairs. Let's let some time pass then he'll forget about you. He'll think you ran out," Wilson reasoned.

"There's one more thing," Brooke said as she pulled out her phone and showed them that an unknown caller had rung her phone ten minutes ago.

"Okay, so, you had a random caller," Jalen said. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is what the random caller told me. He said that whatever you guys did. you changed the future and you need to go back and undo it or else there'll be another civil war that starts tonight. Look!"

Brooke handed the story that was time stamped exactly twelve minutes ago that showed that martial law had been declared all over the U.S. Blacks were turning on whites. Militant groups had begun to set up perimeters to take back "their" lands. The current president had determined that the U.S. would best be run as a dictatorship and the entire world was up in arms! Race relations were no better than they had been in the '60's. Blacks were tired of being treated as second-class citizens and their cities had been growing in numbers, stature, and power all led by none other than the protege of Malcolm X himself.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Wilson said as he took the phone with the article and sat down on the floor where he stood. Reading aloud for the entire group to hear Wilson could not believe his own ears.

"No one knows what would have happened had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. remained a loyal activist in the civil rights movement. His program of nonviolence and passive resistance to segregation was aimed to disarm his opponents, Dr. King often said. His message was to wear down those who caused segregation by enduring through their suffering. The world will never know if Dr. King could have brought about true change in the world if he had continued in his work. Although none of us knew why Dr. King left Cleveland, OH after being questioned about his thoughts on the threats to his life, we do know that his non-violent leadership was greatly missed.

Way back in 1957, when the police commander uttered the words, 'no man should have that much power,' no truer words have ever been spoken.