The next Monday, I stumbled into school, all alone and a little scared… Katie found me, "Not so brave," she scoffed in my face, "Without your boyfriend, are you?"

"Ben wasn't my boy friend, he was my best friend."

"Well, you're still a little, scared without him, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not, not anymore." The two of us looked at each other; it almost became a stare down.

"All right students, since most of you aren't done with your reports; I am letting you do a little extra research time right now in class. Go ahead and get your computers." Mrs. Watson unlocked the computer carts.

Even though I had already finished my report, and I didn't figure that the computer would be much help, there wasn't much else to do for the next fifty minutes of class. So I pulled out my computer and Google searched "Benjamin Drake".

One website popped up, and I saw the clip of the article in question, "Benjamin Drake, Revolutionary War Drummer, born December 16th, 1761…." I clicked on the Link to: Unknown Historical Drake

Benjamin Drake, born on December 16th 1761, to William and Elizabeth Drake. Eldest of three children, his siblings named Annabelle and John Drake, lived to see the early 1800's. Benjamin, apprenticed to his father in the up keeping of the family shop, decided taking a break from his apprenticeship, would do him some good. Benjamin takes to drumming in the war at a feeble age of fifteen. Drumming was the only position in Washington's army that his mother, Elizabeth, would allow him to pursue, as it had almost certain safe return of her son. Benjamin did his civic duty, helping his general in charge. Benjamin paid with his life to save our first president; he died saving his general on June 22nd, 1776…

I didn't read the rest of the article. I felt sick; lucky for me (and the school) I was able to shut my laptop before I lost my lunch, right into Katie's hair.

"Mrs. Watson, may I please go to the nurse's office."

"I was going to send you there whether you asked to go or not. Katie, go to the bathroom so that you can wash out your hair."

Eric came to pick me up.

"I need to us the time machine."

"No, it's too much power, we, as humans should not have the power to change the course of history. To learn from it, we must, but to change it, we must not."

"Can you cut the moral crap, Yoda; I need to save Benjamin from death."

"Oh! Well in that case….definitely not!"

"Why do hate him so much?"

"I do not hate him. I strongly dislike him!"

"But why? He's nice, and funny, very vain I must admit, but he's a good guy."

"I just-I just don't ok?"

"Eric, why? What is wrong with him in your book?" I looked into my brothers eyes, we were stopped, and he looked at me straight in the eyes.

"His sister…."

"What about Annabelle?"

"I met her; I went back in time on a test drive. About a month ago. I stayed in the past for awhile because…I-I loved her. When she was older, I looked it up and Benjamin died when she was ten. I met her when she was seventeen. I asked her to come back with me, to the future, because I did love her. I believe that I still do. But she said no. She said that because of her brother's death, she didn't trust another boy not to hurt her, or to break her heart. She was close to Benjamin, but when he died, she was devastated, and it broke her, and because of him and his loyalty to his General, I lost the only girl that I ever cared about." Eric sighed, "That is why I do not like Benjamin."

"So you're saying that you would rather have lost the Revolutionary War, just so you could get a girl?"

"I love her. I would rather have her and be a Brit any day."

"Our independence, Eric?" Eric refused to look at me the rest of the way home, and when we pulled into the driveway, I bolted out of the car, and up to the lab. I started up the time machine and I left for June twenty-first, 1776.

I sat down in the bushes to wait, and at dusk, I laid down to sleep, if stayed up all night, then I would not be able to pay attention to watch out for Benjamin.

When I woke up, I saw at a distance, a drum, sitting on the ground, and I looked a little to the right of the drum, and I saw Benjamin, l sitting down, helping a man in a wig get his foot un-stuck from a gopher-like hole.

"No!" I shouted, jumping up….and I started to run across the battlefield, dodging shots and cannon balls. I saw a soldier clad in red, British. He could not have been much older than sixteen. He loaded his gun, the General stood up and after shaking Ben's hand, started to run, Benjamin, not seeing the soldier, started to stand up, the British man fired, right as Benjamin stood up straight. And the bullet hit him in the chest.

Benjamin collapsed. I finally reached him. His eyes were open, and when he saw me, he smiled.

"Hello, Alyssa." His brown eyes sparkled with recognition; I noticed that as I knelt down next to him, the deep maroon blood stain at his chest grew steadily larger. Hoping to use it as a bandage, I ripped off Benjamin's uniform shirt. I ripped off a medium-sized piece that was not blood stained, and ripped it into strips, and wrapped them around his upper chest. As I was doing so, I noticed why the rash guard had clung to his stomach so nicely, he had a well-formed six-pack with very nice muscle tone; I guess lifting bags in Daddy's shop had paid off.

"Alyssa," Benjamin said, interrupting my thoughts, "What are you doing?"

"I'm bandaging up the wound until we can get you to the hospital."

"You-" Ben's breathing was getting very raspy, "And I both know that they can't do anything for this."

"Yes they can, we'll go just as soon as bandage it up to help the bleeding."

"You and I both know that I'm not going to make it through this."

"But you will, I promise that you will!"

Benjamin laughed a very raspy laugh, "You can't promise that."

"You're going to make it! I promise!" I started to cry, tears fell in large drops onto Ben's chest.

"So, this is how it's going to end, huh? On the battle-field, wrapping up a bandage?"

I remembered how a week and a half ago, Ben had been tying up my arm wound. I looked at my arm; there was a scar of about three and a half inches.

"Ben…"

"To die-" Ben took a last raspy breath, "Will be an awfully big adventure." He smiled, and his head went limp in my arms, and his body became dead weight. As I held his heavy, dead body, I looked down at his face; I noticed he had lovely, thick, long eyelashes, like a rock star's, which would forever remain closed. I remained to hold him in my arms, crying and sobbing, until the young British soldier came up to us.

"You!" I pointed to the British soldier, "You killed Ben!"

"Who?" The boy asked my in an extremely snotty tone.

"Him," I pointed to Ben's dead body, "Benjamin Drake! You killed him!"

And then, I must admit, I said a few very nasty, four-letter words to the soldier, and then, I threw my fist into his face, and he fell to the ground with a broken nose.

Eric eventually came and found me, carried me home, and put me into my bed.

I skipped the rest of the week, and went in the next Monday to give my report.

Benjamin Drake

A Biography by Alyssa Diamond

Benjamin Drake, haven't heard of him, have you? Well, I've met him, and I definitely know him.

Eric Diamond, my brother, built a time machine, and I went with him to 1774, where Benjamin saved my life from a bomb. He was fifteen years old and he was a drummer in the war. His family included his parents, William and Elizabeth Drake, and his siblings, Annabelle and Lucas Drake.

Where is he now, you ask, you all saw him, just about three weeks ago. We sent him back to his own time, and Benjamin saved our country, and I witnessed it.

The General was a man down on the battlefield. A British soldier was loading up his gun; Benjamin looked up, and ran to save his General. He helped him up, and the General ran away from the British soldier. Benjamin stood up, right as the soldier fired. Now Benjamin was the man-down on the battlefield, but his foot wasn't caught, as the General's had been, Benjamin Drake was dying. In just a few minutes, he was dead.

Benjamin Drake was a man, despite his age, or what anyone else said. He risked his life, and lost it, for his commanding General, and that General became the first president of the United States, George Washington.

As I said before, you might not have heard of him, but Benjamin Drake, my best friend, has saved our country, paying with his life.

I sat back down in my seat, and I saw a girl lean over to me, "you saw your friend die?"

"Yes, I did."

"What did he look like?" I pulled one of the pictures I had taken at Disneyland out from my backpack, the one of us and Peter, and I showed it to her.

"Wow," she told me, "You had to see him die? I would have died myself!" she laughed, and handed me back the picture.

A few months later, while working on a team project with a kid in my class….

"Hold on Alyssa, I'll be right back…" we were working up in the attic, and I saw a box out of the corner of my eye…

"What's in there?" I thought to myself, as my class mate had gone downstairs to retrieve more supplies. I lifted up the flaps, and I saw three books, seeming to be extremely old, used, and weathered. I lifted one out with care, the title, Peter Pan, was barely visible now. I opened up the inside cover, inside, it said:

Property of Benjamin Drake