Double Trouble

by Judi Curtin

  So I lay Saturn on my lap and stroked him. I stroked his head and his ears. I stroked the soft fur on the side of his face. I stroked his neck and …

  It worked!

  I opened my eyes. Tilly and I were sitting on the bench in front of my house. Our tunics had vanished and we were back in our school uniforms. On the grass beside me was my schoolbag, just as I had left it. On the green, Stephen was still kicking a football with his friends.

  ‘Did I just have the most amazing dream?’ asked Tilly. ‘Or …’

  ‘It’s the “or”,’ I said. ‘It really happened. We really were in Pompeii.’

  ‘Sorry, Lauren, it’s too weird,’ said Tilly. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, grabbing her wrist. ‘We brought back our bangles.’

  Tilly gazed at the silver bangle on her arm, but didn’t answer.

  I rattled my charm bracelet in front of her.

  ‘I brought back the Roman charm,’ I said. ‘And I left the little silver flower with Prima.’

  ‘OMIGOD,’ said Tilly, as the colour drained from her face.

  ‘I know it’s totally strange,’ I said. ‘But you’ll get used to the idea, I promise. Like I said, the first time-travel journey is always the hardest. It’s –’

  ‘I believe you, Lauren,’ said Tilly. ‘I absolutely believe you. It’s just that …’

  She grabbed my arm and pointed.

  ‘I think you should look over there because it seems like we brought back more than a few pieces of jewellery.’

  I looked to where Tilly was pointing and I knew that my face was turning chalky white to match hers.

  Because sitting on the grass behind the bench, looking very, very confused … was Prima.

  22

  ‘I saw her on the boat,’ said Tilly. ‘She was approaching us and holding out her hand. She must have touched me at the last second!’

  Prima was getting up and dusting down her tunic. She was looking around her, like nothing made sense any more.

  I knew exactly how she felt.

  Stephen’s friends had stopped playing football and were walking towards us. The cheekiest boy, Nathan, began to laugh.

  ‘Who’s your weird friend, Lauren?’

  Prima said something in Latin and all the boys started to laugh.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Nathan. ‘I made a mistake. I meant, who’s your very, very weird friend?’

  As he spoke, he reached out and touched Prima’s tunic. Prima pulled away and shouted at him.

  ‘She’s probably saying that Julius will have him thrown to the lions,’ said Tilly. ‘Or that she knows an onion farm that’s looking for a few extra slaves.’

  Prima looked really angry, but the boys continued to laugh at her. I had a horrible feeling that she was going to hit one of them, or pull a sword from under her tunic and try to cut someone’s head off.

  I knew I had to do something.

  ‘Take your friends away, Stephen,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll tell Dad that it was you who broke the window in the shed.’

  Stephen went pale. ‘Come on, lads,’ he said. ‘It’s boring here. Let’s go back to our game.’

  After a few more smart comments, the boys followed him back to the middle of the green.

  ‘Poor Stephen,’ said Tilly. ‘Are you ever going to tell him that your dad knows about the shed window and doesn’t mind because it was an accident?’

  I shook my head. ‘No way. It’s my only method of controlling him.’

  Suddenly Prima grabbed my arm and clung on like a limpet. She was shaking and whispering in Latin.

  ‘What is it, Prima?’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of – well, nothing except for the fact that you’ve just skipped forward a few thousand years in time.’

  ‘It’s the car,’ said Tilly. ‘She’s afraid of the car.’

  I hadn’t even noticed that a car had driven by. Unfortunately, it was followed by a huge, noisy lorry. Prima began to whimper.

  ‘We have to get her out of here,’ I said. ‘If a plane flies over, she’ll lose her reason altogether.’

  ‘Let’s bring her to your place – it’s closest,’ said Tilly.

  ‘But what will we say to my mum? I think she might notice that Prima isn’t one of my usual schoolfriends.’

  ‘Maybe we won’t have to tell your mum anything,’ said Tilly. ‘Maybe we could hide Prima in your bedroom, like the girls did in that Alice and Megan book we read at school.’

  ‘That was a story,’ I said. ‘That sooo wouldn’t work in real life.’

  ‘And your better idea is?’

  Of course I didn’t have a better idea, so we crossed the road and headed for my house. We let ourselves in through the back door and were tiptoeing up the stairs when Mum heard us.

  ‘Is that you, Lauren?’ she said.

  I left Tilly and Prima on the stairs and went into the kitchen. Mum was sitting at the table, ready for a long chat.

  ‘So, Lauren,’ she said. ‘Did you do anything interesting today?’

  You mean besides getting sold as a slave (twice), living in an Ancient Roman villa and getting rained on by Vesuvius?

  ‘No. Not really,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I had a lovely day. First I watched that great new reality show, and then I –’

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ I said. ‘Can we talk later? I have to get something from my bedroom for Tilly.’

  Usually, that’s the end of that, but for some reason Mum followed me into the hall, where Tilly and Prima were still standing on the stairs.

  So much for Tilly’s amazing plan.

  ‘Oh, you’ve got friends with you,’ said Mum. ‘Hello, Tilly. How are you?’

  Tilly beamed at her. ‘Hi, Deirdre. I’m good, thanks. And how –’

  Before she could finish, Mum had stepped towards Prima.

  I was glad that the neck of Prima’s tunic covered the flower charm that I had given her. I wasn’t so sure any more that my mum would understand why I’d given it away.

  ‘And who’s this?’ Mum asked. ‘I haven’t met you before, have I?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said quickly. ‘This is Prima – Tilly’s exchange student. She arrived this morning.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Mum. ‘I met your dad yesterday, Tilly. And he didn’t mention that you were expecting a visitor.’

  ‘Oh, you know my dad,’ said Tilly vaguely.

  ‘And where is Prima from?’

  ‘Slovakia,’ I said, saying the first faraway country I could think of.

  ‘Italy,’ Tilly said at the same time.

  ‘Kind of on the border between the two,’ I said.

  I knew from the way that Tilly stared at me that Italy and Slovakia mustn’t have a common border, but luckily my mum isn’t great at geography, so she didn’t notice our mistake.

  ‘So are you all staying for dinner?’ asked Mum.

  I wasn’t at all sure that was a good idea, but before I could answer, Tilly was smiling at Mum again.

  ‘Sure, Deirdre. That would be lovely, thanks.’

  Mum went back into the kitchen and the rest of us went on upstairs to my bedroom.

  ‘Why were you still on the stairs?’ I said to Tilly. ‘It’s like you were just waiting to be caught.’

  Tilly rolled her eyes and looked at Prima.

  ‘We made slow progress,’ she said. ‘First Prima had to feel the stair carpet. Then she had to feel the wallpaper. Then she had to smell the paint on the banisters. And when we got to the window on the stairs, she lost the run of herself completely. Who’d have thought that the sight of your neighbour mowing his lawn would be so exciting?’

  I giggled. ‘The poor girl,’ I said. ‘Everything must seem so strange.’

  ‘Everything was strange for us in Roman times,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s worse for Prima. At leas
t we’ve read bits and pieces of our history books. We have the benefit of knowing something about what happened before our time. But the future is a whole different thing. If you and I went to the future, we’d find it a bit weird too.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Tilly. ‘Do you think Saturn could take us to the future? That would be totally cool.’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ I said. ‘Maybe we’d better finish with our trip to the past first.’

  There was a sudden crash and I turned to see Prima pouncing on the jar of colouring pencils on my desk. She was beaming like she’d just discovered gold.

  While Prima was lying on the floor, scribbling all over an old colouring book of Stephen’s, I got Mum’s laptop, and Tilly and I searched for information about Pompeii.

  ‘OMIGOD!’ Tilly gasped. ‘Vesuvius erupted in the year 79. We went back almost two thousand years, Lauren! Even thinking about that makes my head hurt.’

  I clicked another link and a series of photographs popped up.

  ‘Pompeii’s in ruins,’ said Tilly.

  ‘What did you expect?’

  She sighed. ‘I knew that it was ruined, but it’s still so weird seeing it. I can’t believe we were there just a few minutes ago.’

  I tilted the laptop screen, making sure that Prima couldn’t see what we were looking at.

  How would she feel if she could see her beautiful city so badly damaged?

  Tilly and I searched all the pictures, looking in vain for familiar streets.

  ‘It’s all so … ruined,’ I said in the end.

  Then Tilly giggled. ‘I wish we’d planted my maths book in one of the buildings. Imagine how that would have confused the archaeologists when it was uncovered.’

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ I said. ‘But I was too busy saving my life to think of something like that.’

  But speaking of saving lives made me feel sad. I thought of Marca and all of the other slaves on the onion farm. Had they managed to escape? I would never know.

  23

  When Amy came in for dinner, she looked at Prima’s clothes for a long time. She didn’t say anything, but my big sister is very easy to read. I knew she was afraid that Roman tunics were an amazing new fashion statement that had somehow managed to pass her by.

  Then she looked down at Prima’s feet.

  ‘OMG,’ she said. ‘Those are the most amazing gladiator sandals I’ve ever seen. Where did you get them? I’d love a pair like that!’

  ‘Prima doesn’t speak English,’ said Tilly quickly. ‘And you can’t get sandals like that. The shop she got them in closed down.’

  ‘Ages ago,’ I added helpfully.

  Amy immediately lost interest in Prima. She went over to the dresser and turned on the radio. Prima ran over and looked round the back of the radio, like she expected to see a group of miniature slaves trapped inside, singing at the tops of their voices.

  ‘She’s probably looking for Felix,’ said Tilly.

  Before I could answer, the microwave pinged and Prima jumped, then collapsed into a loud fit of giggling.

  We all sat down and Mum served the food. Prima watched how we used our knives and forks and did her best to copy us, but this wasn’t a great success. (It was spaghetti bolognaise for dinner – not easy for a beginner.)

  ‘Poor Prima,’ whispered Tilly. ‘Imagine, she’s from Italy and this is her first time seeing spaghetti.’

  When she’d finally managed to empty her plate, Prima leaned over to the salad bowl and picked out a cherry tomato. She smelled it and then she rolled it along the table, like it was a toy.

  ‘Surely she’s seen a tomato before?’ whispered Tilly.

  ‘Now that I think about it, I didn’t see any tomatoes in Roman times,’ I whispered back. ‘Maybe they weren’t discovered back then.’

  Suddenly Prima squeezed the tomato and it burst, spraying Dad with juice and seeds. Prima threw her head back and laughed for ages.

  ‘You’d think that was the funniest thing she’d ever seen,’ said Tilly.

  ‘It probably is the funniest thing she’s ever seen,’ I said. ‘She’s led a very sheltered life.’

  Then we were distracted as Prima used the tablecloth to wipe her face and her fingers and the front of her tunic.

  While all this was happening, Mum looked vaguely shocked, Stephen giggled at everything Prima did, and Amy paid no attention to anything, as she was too busy fiddling with her iPod.

  Dad tried to speak to Prima in every language he knew a few words of. (Luckily he didn’t know any Latin.)

  Then, when Prima didn’t reply to any of his questions, he decided that shouting at her in bad English was the best way to proceed.

  ‘YOU … LIKE … IRELAND … NO?’ he screamed. ‘IS … VERY … NICE … HERE … NO?’

  Prima sat back in her chair, looking terrified, but Dad didn’t notice. He kept on shouting at her, until Mum patted his arm.

  ‘The poor girl doesn’t understand,’ she said. ‘And I think you might be scaring her a little bit.’

  Dad took that as a sign to shout even more loudly and slowly.

  ‘I … DID … NOT … MEAN … TO … SCARE … YOU,’ he shouted, so loudly that Prima burst into tears.

  She jumped up from the table and ran towards the door. Unfortunately she was still holding the edge of the tablecloth. Stephen grabbed for the other end, but was a second too late. There was a huge crash and soon the floor was a mess of broken dishes and scraps of bolognaise sauce. A single unbroken glass rolled slowly backwards and forwards against the leg of the table before coming to rest at Mum’s feet.

  Prima stopped at the door and stood there like an Ancient Roman statue.

  Amy shrieked.

  Stephen said ‘Wow!’

  Mum was white-faced and speechless.

  Dad shrugged and said, ‘What did I do?’

  Tilly grabbed my arm. ‘Looks like a volcano has erupted in your kitchen,’ she whispered. It was funny, but one look at Mum’s face told me that laughing sooo wouldn’t be a good idea.

  As soon as we’d all recovered a bit, Mum rushed me out of the room.

  ‘No need for you to help with the clear-up, Lauren,’ she said. ‘Just take that very strange girl out of here before she does any more weird stuff. I don’t care what country she’s from, they must be very uncivilized there.’

  ‘Mrs Simms says the Ancient Romans had one of the first great civilizations,’ Tilly muttered to me as we each took one of Prima’s arms and led her upstairs.

  Up in my bedroom, Prima lay on the floor, drawing all over my English exercise book with my colouring pencils. She didn’t seem too bothered that she’d just trashed my kitchen – maybe she thought we had a team of slaves to clean it up again.

  ‘What are we supposed to do with her now?’ I asked.

  Tilly shrugged. ‘I have no idea. And I don’t think there are any support groups on the Internet for people who are landed with unexpected visitors from ancient times. Looks like we’re on our own.’

  ‘It’s getting late, so she’ll have to sleep here,’ I said. ‘And do you think your dad will let you stay over too?’

  ‘But I haven’t seen Dad for ages,’ protested Tilly. ‘It’s been days and days.’

  I sighed. ‘I know it feels like that, but in real time, you saw him just this morning.’

  ‘But –’ she began, before I cut her off.

  ‘I really, really want you to stay. I don’t think I could face a night here with just Prima and me.’

  And so, because Tilly’s a good friend, she ran home and got some overnight stuff. Prima changed into a pair of my pyjamas, and when Tilly got back, she was sitting on my bed, brushing her hair.

  ‘OMIGOD,’ said Tilly. ‘Prima looks normal. She looks just like one of us.’

  I looked at Prima and saw that Tilly was right. Prima wasn’t a weirdo from another time and place an
y more. She looked like an ordinary girl, on an ordinary sleepover. She smiled and I felt a sudden rush of warmth for her. I ran over and hugged her.

  ‘Friends forever,’ I said.

  Of course Prima didn’t understand, but she hugged me back and that was enough.

  24

  In the morning, Tilly nudged me awake. She pointed at Prima, who was snoring soundly.

  ‘This is so totally weird,’ she said. ‘Prima belongs thousands of years ago. She probably died thousands of years ago, and yet here she is, alive and well and sleeping on your spare mattress.’

  I shrugged. ‘Time travel is like that. You and I belong now, and yet we still managed to go back to Ancient Roman times. I was on the Titanic, even though it sank long before I was born.’

  ‘Like I said – totally weird.’

  Just then, Prima woke up. She sat up and covered her ears, looking absolutely terrified.

  From Amy’s room, I could hear loud music; from Stephen’s room came the sound of car crashes, courtesy of his latest computer game; downstairs the vacuum cleaner and the coffee maker were competing to see which could have the most irritating sound.

  ‘I never realized what a noisy world we live in,’ said Tilly.

  I closed my bedroom door, blocking out some of the noise and Prima relaxed a bit.

  ‘I’m starving,’ said Tilly suddenly. ‘Half my dinner went on the floor last night when Prima did her circus act.’

  I was hungry too, but there was no way I was risking another family meal disaster. In the end, I ran downstairs and got some cereal and milk and bowls.

  When I got back to my room, I filled each bowl with cereal and Tilly poured in the milk. Beside us, Prima shrieked with laughter.

  ‘What’s so funny about cereal?’ I wondered before I noticed that Prima was holding her bowl to her ear and listening to the cereal crackling.

  ‘Wouldn’t you love to know what’s going on inside her head?’ I said.

  ‘I’m not sure I could cope with that,’ said Tilly.

  I laughed. ‘Seriously, though, Tilly. Think about it. When we were in Pompeii, we’d have given anything to be able to talk to Prima, but there was no way we could manage it. And now …’