bonjour mon amis. Thank the snow for giving you this update, which wasn't supposed to happen until Friday (I'm in the March for Life Wednesday and Thursday I go back to school.)

Several days passed without a word.

One of those days, it was after luncheon and Henri went looking for Sarah. James went looking for a box of checkers Mrs. Adams said were in Nabby's room, and so as they had often since the redhead had come to America they all ended up together.

Sarah was sitting in the younger girl's bedroom, writing a letter at the desk. She turned around and it occurred to James she could make a comment about their inability to knock. She didn't.

"What are you doing?" asked Henri, sitting down on the bed to play with his fingers. "I'm bored."

"So am I, and that's how this letter to my mother got to be three pages long." said Sarah, putting down her quill with finality. "I admit I have a tendency to carry on when I'm writing to her."

"What do you do all day in England?" asked James offhandedly, just as bored as the rest of them. Sarah blinked for a moment, seemingly surprised that he would ask, but nodded.

"Well, after breakfast until a little after lunch we were being tutored—English, French, Latin, German—I am absolutely terrible about German and cannot abide it—arithmetic, history, science...my mother thought my cousins and I should be educated—except Tom, who went off to school. And we had music lessons, riding lessons, dancing lessons, sewing lessons and house management lessons after all of that."

"Zhat sounds 'orrible." said Henri dramatically, clutching at his chest. "Worse zhen school, because you live zhere—except for French."

"Well than, what about you two?" asked Sarah, signing her letter with a flourish.

"Henri and I help around the print shop. Or I write. And he eats." said James.

"Moses tries to teach me to write. Or read. But I refuse." Henri turned up his nose. Sarah's eyes grew wide.

"You don't mean to say you can't!"

Henri looked at Sarah oddly. "How should I? I've never been to school."

"Neither have I." said James helpfully.

"But you want to be a journalist," said Sarah, turning her chair around so she was facing the foot of the bed James and Henri sat on. "how can you be a journalist if you're...er, illiterate?" she said 'illiterate' like James might find her using the word offensive.

"I'm not. I taught myself." said James nonchalantly. It was true. Moses and Dr. Franklin tried to help him, but there wasn't enough time to do so and to work during the day, and James had been desperate to prove himself to the two men—desperate for them not to cast him out.

Henri looked nonplused but Sarah raised her eyebrows, her highborn upbringing the last line of defense against any other impolite expression of surprise.

"I could teach you, if you like, Henri." offered Sarah, expecting the offer to be refused.

"No, zhank you." replied Henri predictably. "It's too hard."

Sarah smiled lightly. "You remind me of my youngest cousin. Georgina couldn't stand translations or mathematics. She just refused to learn them."

"I don't think she really needed to, did she?" said James. "I mean, she'll never use math when she gets married to a duke or something."

"Well, I suppose not in day to day life—but my mother always told me that learning breeds discipline."

"I hate discipline." said Henri. "Zhat is another reason I cannot learn to read."

"You could if you tried." said James. "You learnt English just by listening to me 'n Dr. Franklin 'n Moses."

"Well, I zhink it is too hard. Besides, one doesn't really need to know how to read." said Henri.

"I find it quite difficult to fathom how you can under the care of one of the greatest minds in the empire and say that." Sarah said, giving him a peculiar look both boys were beginning to associate with Sarah's particular brand of disapproval. Henri shrugged in response. Meanwhile, James' attention had wandered.

"Do you want to play checkers?" he asked suddenly. Both children looked at him.

"What?" said Sarah.

"Checkers. There's a box on the desk. Mrs. Adams told me. She said I looked bored."

"What is checkers?" murmured Sarah, glancing at the floor. Both boys turned towards her and James choked back a laugh. Sarah, who knew everything, didn't know what checkers was.

"It's a board game. Moses taught me to play. And I taught Henri. And now we can teach you. Henri, put the black pebbles on the other side." said James, pulling out a small sack of black and white pebbles and a board identical to a chessboard. He had taught Henri while the younger boy's English skills were extremely limited, and it hadn't exactly been easy for either of them to understand the other.

"Who's better?" teased Sarah with a smile on her face.

"I am." both boys said in unison.

"Hmmm." said Sarah.

The two boys, merrily interrupting one another, explained the fairly simple game to her as they played, and she quietly watched them play after they finished their lecture, the silence broken only by the occasional verbal disagreement by her and James, or James and Henri.

Afterwards, the game was terminated with an extremely victorious Henri heading downstairs to look for something to eat. James laughed and began picking up white pebbles. Sarah reached for a black one.

"Did you let him beat you?" she asked offhandedly, reaching for the little bag to drop in a few black pebbles.

"I wish I had." remarked James wryly. "But no, I wasn't really concentrating."

"Oh." Sarah said, dropping the last few small stones in the bag. "I didn't make you sick, did I?"

"What? No. I'm fine. Well, I'm...fine. But...thinking, a lot, and..." he looked at his hands for a moment and then became extremely interested in folding the checkerboard in half. "Sarah, you're mostly smart—"

"Mostly?"

"What do you think would happen to me and Henri if Dr. Franklin went to prison? Or worse?"

"Henri and I."

"Sarah..."

"Sorry! Anyway, I'm sure Moses would take care of you—he wouldn't just throw you out—"

"If Dr. Franklin goes to prison, then the Gazette has to close. If the Gazette closes, Moses won't have a job anymore either, and Henri and I...I don't know about us. And what about you?" James was clattering the checkerboard around in the box trying to get it to fit, and Sarah reached out and held onto the board and some of his fingers in the process.

"I don't say this often, so you'd best listen." she said to him quite seriously. "Nothing is going to happen to Dr. Franklin, nothing is going to happen to Moses, or any of us. The Crown is not the enemy, and there are is a practically-endless supply of intelligent, unbiased people living there, all of whom will ensure his safety. And ours. So stop thinking."

Carefully, she slid the checkerboard that he was still holding into the box and handed it to him.

"How am I supposed to do that?" asked James as he stood up with the box in his hands. He placed it on the desk.

"Do something else. Play checkers. Write. Wrestle with Henri. Actually, don't. You'll break something and this isn't your house. My father's been gone for a year and no one's heard from him in months. What do you think I do—imagine everything that can be happening to him?"

She picked up her letter and folded the pieces in half and around, deftly creating the envelope. "I'd go quite mad." she sniffed, turning up her nose slightly.

It was two more weeks before Henri ran, yelling joyfully ('shrieking like a heathen' was how Sarah put it when she scolded him for the noise) through the house and straight into James. Both boys were knocked down and James did not have to be a journalist to ask what was going on.

"We have a letter! From Dr. Franklin! I'm going to find Zharah!"

"What?" James said as Henri raced away. It took him a few seconds to realize what the younger boy had said, and then he was trying to catch up to Henri.

Unbeknownst to the both of them, Sarah had been downstairs playing with the Adams boys at the time of the letter and she was still there, standing next to Moses and Mrs. Adams as they discussed the contents of the letter. Even if she hadn't been, Henri's broadcast throughout the house and probably the ones next door to them would have given her enough information to find the two adults.

It was at this point that James and Henri came downstairs. Sarah looked up from Thomas, who was sitting in her lap in the armchair she was residing in, and then expectantly at Moses.

"Read it, Moses!" said James, who, to Sarah's eye, looked more relived than excited. She was too, wasn't she?

So Moses held the letter up and read.

"'Dear Moses, James, Henri and Sarah,

I am sending this letter to Boston because I hope you will at least have considered the advice I gave you. It will be safer for everyone there, most especially the children.

By now, I am sure you have all heard of the reason for my arrest—I obtained private letters of Oliver and Hutchinson, the governor and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts Bay colony and sent them to America. The letters encouraged the Crown to punish patriots and I have been deemed contrary to the cause of loyalty to England.

Fear not, I was not harmed or imprisoned. However, I had been placed under house arrest. As I write this letter I am sitting in my apartments in London, and I have just come out of the Privy Council.

General Solicitor Wedderburn was not the most honorable of men during the trial. Sarah, your mother attended and stayed all of the serval drawn-out hours, for which I am most grateful. Thankfully, however, I am not harmed. In fact, I am sure I am coming out of everything remarkably well—I have not been sentenced to Treason.

I am no longer to be postmaster general of the Colonies. But I also have decided most firmly that if anything in my Power can be done by me or any associated with me to further the cause of Independence it not only should but Will be done. Accommodationist policies have proved unsuccessful.

I received news that the British seized the print shop and therefore again was prepared to reiterate my request that you stay at the Adams' until they withdraw. However, I have happy news—some information not present at the Privy Council has helped my sentence's leniency, prevented my apartments and places of residence from being seized. One such place of residence is the print shop. It appears that by the time the letter has reached you, it will be safe to go back. I am dearly hoping you are at the moment with the Adams.

Regards,

Doctor Benjamin Franklin'"

The excitement in Mrs. Adams' parlor was palpable, but quiet, except for Henri, who started started jumping up and down. Charles and John didn't know what was going on, but made a show of happiness—the jubilation was contagious. Sarah, still sitting in the back of the room, smiled and handed Thomas off to a slightly puzzled Laura so she could stand up and embrace Henri before retiring to the back of the room again. Even the reserved Mrs. Adams and normally-stoic Moses looked quite happy.

"Aren't you excited?" James asked Sarah above the slight chaos.

"Of course I am." she demurred.

James and Henri had wanted to leave within the half-hour, something Moses responded to with a resounding 'no' and Sarah pretended not to hear, as to not have an opinion.

The two adults discussed important things such as the possibility of hostilities by Loyalist neighbors and how long it would take to reach Philadelphia by wagon. James, Henri, Sarah, and Nabby sat on the floor of the parlor playing with Nabby's little brothers.

By nightfall, they were ready to leave. Sarah gave a very respectful reply to Miss Adams for the use of her room. She then thanked Mrs. Adams for her hospitality, and through meaningful looks she emotionally blackmailed her two companions into doing the same, albeit more clumsily. Moses thanked Mrs. Adams as well, the children climbed into the back of the wagon, and it started moving.

For a long time they didn't say anything. Even in March it was cold in Boston—the three children had their outerwear protectively wrapped about them and they sat together leaning against the back of the headboard: James on one side, Sarah on the other, and Henri in between them. But eventually, startling both of his companions who had thought he was asleep for his quiet, Henri asked, "Do you zhink tearing up zhe letter was what helped Dr. Franklin?"

"I'm not sure." replied Sarah softly. "I doubt we're ever going to find out."

"It helped, though." said James. "Don't say that it couldn't have."

"As I said, we don't know." said Sarah through gritted teeth.

Quiet. Something clattered in the distance, and an owl hooted.

"I'm sorry. You're right, James, I'm sure...it helped." said Sarah.

"Zharah?" asked Henri.

"Yes, Henri?" asked Sarah.

"Why do you help us if you are a loyalist and we are patriots? When we were in Boston last time, you burnt zhat flyer. And you ripped up zhe letter."

More quiet.

"I do seem to spend most of my time here destroying things in the name of friendship, don't I?" said Sarah dryly. "But—well, that's what you are, friends. And even if we are on opposing sides..." James could practically hear the rueful smile on her face. "Even if the patriots are being rash and ungrateful in some situations, they're not really sides, are they? A disagreement that can't lead to too much."

The two other children made affirmative sounds, even if they didn't quite believe her.

"I'm still loyal to the King." she said. "I'll never change my mind about that."

The air between them soured slightly and no one said anything after that, but when Moses looked back at them as soon as it was light enough to do so (they still had three days before they reached the print shop) they were all leaning against each other, asleep.

fin.

So, yeah. that's that. Unfortunately there wasn't really too much action, because it's set in real life so there isn't very much anyone can do that's too interesting. Anyway, this was more about the relationships between the three characters then anything else. It was lots of fun to write. Thanks for reading, reviewing, and for some reason liking this story.

I should get an Epilogue posted in the not-to-distant future.