Michael Shaeffer looked up at the stern bronze statue towering over him and stifled a yawn.

"Yeah, Dad. I guess."

"Oh, John," his mother said, gently patting the back of the sleeping toddler in her arms. "It is getting late. It's past eleven, and it's been a long day for the kids."

"I know," her husband nodded, fiddling with the camera. "But as long as we're here I wanted the kids to see the memorials."

"Okay, so we've seen it," Mike sighed with all his eleven years of accumulated knowledge. "He wrote the Declaration of Independence, like, ages ago."

"That's right..."

"Okay, so, he's just some guy - not like he's a hero or anything."

"Oh, really now?" a voice said pleasantly. The family jumped as a tall woman in a long parks service coat strolled toward them.

"The Memorial will be closing in twenty minutes, folks."

"We just got here," John said. "We drove down from Cincinnati to see the heroes tomorrow."

"Oh-h-h," the woman nodded. "Well! That sounds pretty exciting."

"Yeah!" Mike brightened. "They're they're the coolest!"

"Hmm. I take it you don't think this," she gestured around her, "is `cool'."

"Well, yeah, I know it's kinda important and stuff, but it's so... old."

The woman clasped her hands behind her.

"You happen to notice where ol' Tom is looking?"

Mike sauntered over directly below the statue's gaze.

"Hey - you can see the White House!"

"That's no accident," the woman nodded.

"President Roosevelt, FDR, thought so much of this memorial that had trees removed between here and the White House, so that he, and all the future Presidents, would have a great view of the memorial and draw inspiration from it."

"Oh."

"See, before people had television and movies, they built monuments, like this, to people they really admired. That way folks would remember who they were and what they did."

"And Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence..." Mike's voice trailed off in a query of sorts.

"Yes, that is what he is best known for, I suppose, though he wrote a great deal more. Jefferson, you see, was a man who really believed that Americans could best govern ourselves, instead of being told what to do by some king across the ocean. So he, with the help of some other men, wrote all this down in a document that told the world how we felt and why.

"Now, this took a lot of guts. That king over there ruled the most powerful country in the world, and had lots and lots of soldiers and ships to back him up. So when Thomas Jefferson came up with this Declaration - "

"He was dissing the king!" Mike exclaimed proudly.

"Uh, yes, I suppose you could say that," she smiled.

"Who were the other men?" A girl of around nine stepped from behind her mother and peered over her glasses at the guide.

"Hmm?"

"Who helped him."

"Oh. Well, let's see now," the woman said, ticking off names on her gloved fingers, "In addition to Thomas Jefferson, who lived down in Virginia, there was John Adams from Boston, Ben Franklin from Philadelphia, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, and Robert Livingston from New York.

"Because Jefferson was strongly for independence, and was a darn good writer, he did most of the actual writing."

"That was so they had representatives from the major cities of the Colonies, right?" John asked.

"That was one reason, sir," the woman nodded. "The other reasoning behind that particular grouping was philosophical. Jefferson, Adams and Franklin represented the radical, pro-independence views; Sherman the moderate, undecided vote; and Livingston the conservative, anti-independence viewpoint."

"Was the king mad?" Mike wanted to know.

"Ohh, boy, was he ever!

"Now, Jefferson didn't come up with the idea of breaking away from England. For years a lot of the Colonists had been getting more and more fed up, but many others still thought of themselves as good Englishmen.

"What Jefferson did was to take all the frustrations and arguments and desires and put it all together.

"It was a brave thing to do. He was a fairly wealthy man, pretty well-off, with a lot of property to lose if the king won."

"Wasn't some of that property..." the woman with the toddler hesitated, noting the darkness of the woman's skin. "I mean, he owned slaves, right?"

The other woman frowned slightly and ran a finger behind her ear.

"Yes, well, that is one of the great mysteries about Jefferson," she said slowly. "That the man who wrote `all men are created equal' would own slaves... especially given that in many of his writings he rails against that practice."

She strolled over to one of the four inscriptions carved on the wall, and began to read:

"'God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate that these people are to be free."'

She turned to the family that had followed her.

"Though Washington freed his slaves, Jefferson never did," she said sadly. "Why, we may never know."

The woman in green knelt on one knee in front of Michael.

"That's the thing, sometimes, with heroes. They aren't perfect, but you can still choose the good things to admire about them."

"Look up there," she pointed.

"'I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of Man."

"That sounds like a hero to me."

The guide stood and brushed off the coat.

"If you have some time tomorrow you might want to poke around a little. I bet you'd like the Air and Space Museum - they've got all kinds of planes and rockets and stuff like that."

Mike brightened. "Neat."

"Oh, I think so.

"They have the plane Charles Lindbergh flew across the ocean, all by himself. Back then no one was even sure if you could do that! All day, all night ....

"And take a look into one of the space capsules - I bet your room is a lot bigger! The astronauts climbed into those little things, perched on top of what was really a big stick of dynamite, got shot into space... no one was sure you could do that, either."

"Cool."

"And you really ought to stop into the American History Museumif you get the chance; it's just a few doors down. In the foyer they keep the original Star Spangled Banner. It's only in view for a few minutes at a time."

The girl screwed up his face. "Why?"

"Well, it's so old that even a little bit of light damages it. It's so precious that they keep it in an airless, armored vault beneath the floor. But when they bring it up, slowwwwly, with the music and all - it's awesome."

"Plus," she winked, "Down in the basement they have a real working old soda fountain that makes really great strawberry sodas."

"Thanks. We'll try," John said, holding out his camera. "Say, can I ask you to take a picture with me, Deb and the kids?"

"Sure, I'd be delighted."

"All you have to do -" the man began, then stopped as the woman's long fingers danced around the camera, almost absently adjusting the lens and the exposure.

"All right, everyone - smile! There we are!"

She handed John his camera.

"Enjoy your stay in Washington folks." She tapped the brim of Mike's Reds cap. "Just remember not all heroes wear funny costumes, okay?"

"'Kay."

She turned to go.

"Uh, wait a minute," John said. "Can I have your name? I mean, I'd like to write the Park Service, at least let them know what a great employee they have."

"Oh, I don't work here," she smiled. "I just borrowed the coat for awhile."

"You don't - ?"

The family looked at her blankly.

"Ohhh, I like to come down and spend a little time - here, or at Lincoln, or the Wall..." she gestured out toward the National Mall. "Just for a little inspiration- every now and then."

Their jaws dropped as she pulled off the Park Service coat, revealing the star-spangled costume of the Capital City's own superheroine.

"No way," the girl breathed.

Americana smiled as she floated off the floor.

"Bye. I'll look for you tomorrow." She dropped the coat over a handrail, and flew off into night sky.

The Schaeffers scrambled over to the opening though which she had left and pointed after her.

A graying man shook his head as he slipped on his long green coat.

"Tourists," he chuckled.

But he, too, stood on the steps and watched until Americana vanished from sight.