Serial Sunday: The Three Who Loved Pizza, Part I

Edited by David Flin.

Before proceeding to the story, it might be in order to explain the background to it. This part could easily be subtitled: “Catch them when they’re young.”

As some of you may know, I work at a junior school (for children aged 7-11). As part of my work there, I run an after-school club called, imaginatively, the Author After-School Club. Groups of 6-8 children aged 9-11 take part in this. Over the course of a term, they generate a story which I have the privilege of tidying up and, where applicable, arrange to have it published.

The first group decided on a Christmas story. In this, The Three Who Saved Christmas, Santa goes on holiday just before Christmas and has an accident which prevents him delivering presents at Christmas. As a result, an elf, a reindeer, and a snowman have to step in and save the day.

The second group wanted to write an adventure story. They settled on a story of seven school friends who acquire magical powers and then have a variety of adventures. This book, The Magic Seven, will soon be available.

But it is the third group that is most relevant to aficionados of alternate history. They decided that they wanted to write a story where three schoolchildren went back in time to Roman Britain (which they had covered in history earlier) and three Roman soldiers came forward in time to modern Britain in a sort of time travel swap. They then told stories following the adventures of both groups as they tried to return to their own time.

Time travel leading to a change in a historical timeline is a long-standing alternate history technique, used by such illustrious authors as Mark Twain and L Sprague de Camp. We can now add the seven young children of the Author After-School Club to this list, with a story they’ve called The Three Who Loved Pizza.

I must admit that I find the imaginations of these young children amazing. Ideas flooded out of them in torrents. To be fair, their judgement of what was a good idea and what wouldn’t work is still a work in progress, but there is no chance of them ever suffering from writer’s block.

It was their story. Each week, we would meet and read through how I had written up the story they had told the previous week. Then they discussed where the story should go next, while I made copious notes. Then rinse and repeat.

Viewing a story from the point of view of a child is an interesting experience. They are used to a power differential that means that the central characters can’t use brute force to solve problems that arise during the course of the story. Humour tends towards the unsubtle (the name Professor Cleva-Clogs elicited much amusement) and events move swiftly.

That’s one thing you very quickly get to realise. They like their stories to move with breakneck speed.

The story itself follows the adventures of both the children and the Roman soldiers who have been displaced in time. This involved the children working out what would be unfamiliar to each of them. They had a lot of fun doing this, and it generated a lot of worldbuilding. They also very quickly grasped the concept of Chekov’s Gun, that something that is mentioned early in the story needs to be utilised later on, along with its corollary that something that gets used and is important to the plot needs to be introduced first.

It's not a story of great subtlety. It’s a story painted in bright, primary colours (red, green, blue, and white, for example). It’s also ingenious in many ways. It is a remarkable achievement for a group of 10-year-old children to write an AH book of this calibre, and I wonder how many of them will go on to produce more works in the future.

Or, given that they were keen on time-travel, perhaps they’ll produce more works in the past.

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The Three Who Loved Pizza

By

Esperanza Abolou

Rafaela Abolou

Mohammad Bhatti

Imogen Locke

Aakshaya Ninintheeban

Alice-Jane Pezet

Aruj Sharma

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Prelude

A long time in the future – in April 2028, to be precise – Professor Cleva-Clogs invented his very famous time-travelling television. No-one knows quite how he got it to work, but it’s a bit like a television, only it shows the past.

When you watch it, you see something from the past. Unfortunately, it only shows things that happened at the place it was, and nowhere else, things that could be seen by wherever it was. If the time-travelling TV is in Cardiff, it will show things happening in Cardiff in the past. Or where Cardiff will be if it is showing a time from before Cardiff was built.

Also, you can’t affect anything that’s happening while you’re watching. Nor could you choose what bit of history you see, and you couldn’t fast forward over the boring bits – and most of history is boring bits where nothing much happens. You can’t rewind to see bits you missed, either.

Everyone was interested in the T-T TV, but no-one could really do anything with it. All you could do with it was watch the past. Finally, the Government decided to put them in schools to help with history lessons.

What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter One

Mr Squire was the handyman at Hispana Junior School in Heddon on the Wall. Heddon on the Wall was (and still is) a small town in the very north of England and, as its name suggests, it was very close to Hadrian’s Wall.

Mr Squire didn’t really care about that. There weren’t any Romans left and Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t on the school premises. If anything wasn’t on the school premises, he didn’t have to repair it when it went wrong, and the teachers broke enough things to keep him busy, thank you very much, to say nothing about what pupils could break.

He had to fix the History T-T TV. Miss Snodgrass had said that it wasn’t working properly. When he looked at it, he found that it wasn’t working at all. He asked her why it had stopped working.

“I don’t know,” she said. She was a middle-aged, slightly stout lady with horned-rim glasses and short hair that was dark, just showing traces of grey. The children thought she was really old, but she was actually 41.

Mr Squire sighed. Teachers always broke things. They were even worse than the pupils. At least the pupils didn’t pester him much.

“Aye. I’ll have a look at it. What were you doing when it stopped working?” In Mr Squire’s experience, teachers were usually doing something when things broke.

Miss Snodgrass shook her head. “Nothing. I just changed the batteries. They needed changing because coffee had been spilt on them. That’s why I put new batteries in.”

“Coffee had been spilt on them,” Mr Squire said with heavy sarcasm. “I suppose an invisible ghost spilt the coffee. Or maybe the coffee spilt itself. Perhaps there was a sudden rainshower of coffee over just the telly.”

“Now you’re just being sarcastic, Mr Squire. Can you fix it? I’ve got a class coming back from lunch in ten minutes.”

Mr Squire said all sorts of bad words under his breath. This would take longer than ten minutes. He would have to do the best that he could.

He took the back of the T-T TV off. The first thing he saw was that the batteries had been put in the wrong way round. He sighed, turned them round the right way, turned the machine back on – and nothing happened. He was going to have to take it apart and put it back together again. That sometimes worked.

He didn’t know what the different bits were, but he took out the Thingummy and put it carefully to one side. It was damp from coffee, so he let it dry. He then took out the Whatsit and the Oojamaflip and the Whatchamacallit. He even took out and dried the Dontuchthis.

He didn’t know why it was called the Dontuchthis, but it looked weird. He shrugged and dried out all the pieces, put the T-T TV back together again, and turned it on. It worked, so he took it back to the classroom and left Miss Snodgrass to carry on with her lesson.

On the way back to his workshop, he wondered what to do with the Dontuchthis. He couldn’t work out where it should go and there wasn’t room for it, so he left it out. The T-T TV worked, so the piece couldn’t have been important.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

*****

Miss Snodgrass spoke to the class about the Romans in Britain. She explained about public baths and mosaics and gladiator fights and Hadrian’s Wall and slave auctions and...

She spoke to the class for a long time. Miss Snodgrass liked Roman history. She even knew about Gaius Appaleius Diocles, who she said was the richest sportsman ever. [1]

The children were interested at the start, but – one by one – their attention started to drift. It was not long before only Nia was paying much attention. Nia really liked history.

“What I want you to do,” Miss Snodgrass finally said, “is to make something Roman. A mosaic or a helmet or a toga or an aqueduct or something. The Romans were great engineers.”

“I want to be a rocket engineer,” Geoff whispered to Nia and Mary.

“We know,” Mary whispered back. “You keep telling us.”

“Stop whispering,” Miss Snodgrass said. “Now, you all know your groups. We’ll start making our Roman things tomorrow.”

******

“You know,” Mary said to Geoff and Nia, “if we want to make something that’s really good, we need to get a very good look at something Roman. Miss Snodgrass always keeps the TV thing set to Roman times, so we could use that.”

“We’re not supposed to use it. Something really bad might happen.”

“Oh, come on. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Let’s ask Miss if we can use it. That way, it’ll be OK.”

******

Miss Snodgrass watched as the children used the TT-TV. It was set so that it could just see a little bit of Hadrian’s Wall. Today, it showed a bunch of sheep huddled beside the wall. The sheep looked miserable because it looked like it was raining and cold.

It always made her happy to see the Wall as it was originally, and not in the tumbledown state it was today.

“Remember, this is a delicate piece of equipment,” she said. “Just watch, don’t touch. I’m glad to see that you’re keen to do good research. Sit still and watch carefully.” She turned a knob on the TT-TV. She never could get the hang of using the remote.

This was when everyone found out exactly what could possibly go wrong. The TT-TV started to send out sparks, and smoke started to come out of the back. It was thick, black, smelly smoke that set off all the fire alarms and made it really hard to see anything.

“Everybody line up and walk to the playground,” Miss Snodgrass said.

“By Jupiter!” exclaimed a Roman soldier standing where Nia had been. “What is making that infernal noise?” The Roman soldier was tall and thin and spoke with a strange accent. He sounded a bit Spanish.

This soldier then spoke sharply to the other two. “Brutus and Cassius, don’t slouch. You are Roman soldiers and you will behave like Roman soldiers.”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Miss Snodgrass demanded. She paused and looked around. “And where are Nia, Geoff, and Mary?”

“I am Flavius Diomides, Centurion and Standard Bearer of the 9th Legion. If Nia, Geoff, and Mary are your children, then they seem to be in that crystal ball.” He pointed towards the TT-TV. The screen clearly showed them standing by the wall looking very confused.

That is, they were confused, not the wall.

“Oh dear,” said Miss Snodgrass. “Their parents will be worried.”

Chapter Two

It was foggy and it was raining. Not the sort of rain where you got properly wet, but the sort of rain that just hangs in the air and sticks to you.

There was also a lazy wind. You don’t know what a lazy wind is? It’s a wind that can’t be bothered to go around you, but just cuts right through you, cold as ice, chilling you to the bone.

“I’m cold,” said Mary.

“I’m hungry,” said Nia. Nia was always hungry.

“Where are we?” asked Geoff. “Where’s the school? Where are the roads? Where’s anything? This isn’t where we are. Well, I suppose it is, but it’s not where we were.”

“I think,” Nia said carefully, “I think we’re…”

“Yes?” asked Geoff and Mary at the same time. They were keen to know where they were.

“I think we’re lost.” Nia shrugged. “I’ve never seen any place like this. The Wall looks kind of new. Has someone rebuilt it?”

“All I know is that I’m cold,” said Mary. “Which way is home?”

That’s odd,” said Nia. “There’s writing on the Wall, but I can’t read it. Hang on, I’ll get a bit closer.”

The three of them hurried forward towards the Wall. At the very least, it would get them out of the wind and into a bit of shelter.

As they ran, Mary tripped over and went sprawling on the grass. Geoff turned to help her up.

“You are so clumsy,” Geoff said.

“I tripped over that thing.” Mary pointed at a pole lying on the ground.

“Wow!” said Geoff, staring at it. “That’s not wood. I bet that’s gold. And look at the parrot on top.” He tried to pick it up, but it was very heavy. Mary and Geoff each grabbed hold of one end, and carried it over to Nia, who was still busy looking at the Wall.

“Wow!” said Nia. “It’s a Roman Eagle. That’s the battle standard of a Roman legion. What’s it doing here?”

“It was just lying on the ground,” Geoff said. “Mary tripped over it.”

“I hope she didn’t damage it.”

“Let’s put it safely by the Wall,” Nia suggested.

When they had done this, they looked around and tried to work out where they were.

“I can’t hear any cars,” said Mary.

Geoff pointed. “There’s some sort of building over there. Maybe they can tell us what’s going on.”

The building was bigger than it first looked. It had a wall made of large logs all around it.

“That’s a Roman fort,” Nia said. “Look, and there’s some Roman soldiers coming towards us. I wonder what they want?” It was a group of eight soldiers. “Let’s wave at them as they go past,” he finished.

Only they didn’t go past. They reached the children and stopped.

“Excuse me,” said Mary. “Why are you dressed as Roman soldiers?”

Seven of the eight soldiers stared straight ahead with expressionless faces. The eighth soldier, who seemed to be in charge, looked at the three children. “I am Crassus Africanus, commander of the Second Contubernia of the First Cohort of the Hispana Legion.”

“Hey! Our school is Hispana Junior School,” said Mary excitedly. “But why are you dressed like Roman soldiers?”

“We are Roman soldiers. Why are you dressed like, like villa servants? Have you escaped from your master?”

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[1] This is true. He was a charioteer.

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David Flin has written & edited a large number of alternate history books and all-ages novels, and edited Comedy Throughout the (P)Ages and How To Write Alternate History.