I found it hard to sleep that night. I tried watching television, but all I thought about was the king. I decided to start working on the draft of our paper. I finally fell asleep around 12:30 that night. I think it was sheer exhaustion. When I woke up the next morning, Tommy was sitting on my bed with my laptop on his legs reading our report.
"I know we can't, but I wish we could tell some of the actual things that happened to us," he said when I rolled onto my side to face him.
"Did I do him justice?"
"Yeah," he says softly. "Enkidu too."
"I thought he was mostly responsible to making the king a good man," I told him.
"Thanks for putting my name on it," he says looking at me now. I know you don't have to do that."
"We couldn't have done any of what we did without you. You saved us from the very start. You got King Gilgamesh to trust us and like us," I said honestly.
Tommy finished his reading then put the computer back on my desk. "Did I forget anything important?" I asked.
"I don't think so, but I didn't read the real story. What was it called?"
"The Epic of Gilgamesh," I said. "I read a few versions of it on the Internet last night. I made sure everything I added was from the story of history. I had to get details about what happened after we left too."
"So he found a wife and had a son?" he said, as a smile came on his face.
"That's what history says. His son and grandson both ruled Uruk after he died, and the people all mourned him," I told him.
"Do you think we helped him obtain some of that?" he now asked.
"I hope so, I think so," I said just as mom called us for breakfast.
Later that day, Nicky read the paper and made a couple of minor suggestions and found a typo that we fixed. We decided to print it and have both of our parents read it as well. Mom was shocked that we put Tommy's name on our paper, but I told her he really helped with the research as much as we did so it was only fair. Nicky's dad was impressed with what we had done.
"You guys did a really good job on this paper," he said. "Regardless of your grade, I'm proud of all three of you."
"Me too," my mom added. "I think we should go for ice cream to celebrate."
"Let's go," Tommy said running for the door.
We turned our paper in the next day, even though it wasn't due for a whole week. We told Mr. Reed why we put Tommy's name on the paper as well, and he was okay with it. We hoped he would grade it that day, but he didn't say anything for two whole days. When he was ready to hand it back, he asked us to read the report to the class first. I was mortified. The last place I would be comfortable would be standing in front of the class. Nicky on the other hand was totally ready to stand there and show off, so I stood there while he shared our report with everyone else. Of course we got laughs when he read about the king's womanizing and a couple of kids loudly expressed doubt about his godliness and all that went with it. Over all, the class thought King Gilgamesh sounded interesting and would have been fun to hang around with. They had no idea, but we couldn't tell them that.
When we got home that after noon, Tommy was waiting for us excitedly. "Guess what," he said, as soon as we hit the porch.
"You got a pub hair," Nicky said giving him a hard time.
"Shut up, you don't have any either," Tommy said which embarrassed Nicky, but I figured that since Nicky started it, it was his own fault.
"What?" I asked trying to get back to why my brother was so excited.
"Your teacher sent my teacher a copy of our report. I got to read it out loud for the whole class. My friends couldn't believe you let me help and gave me credit on a seventh grade report," he said.
"That's awesome," I said giving him a hug, as we went inside to do homework.
"So are we going to do this again sometime, I mean go back in time and experience history," Nicky asked.
"That's why you copied the pages, isn't it?" I asked with a smile.