Serial Sunday: The Three Who Loved Pizza, Part II
- cepmurphywrites
- 7 hours ago
- 9 min read
By
Esperanza Abolou
Rafaela Abolou
Mohammad Bhatti
Imogen Locke
Aakshaya Ninintheeban
Alice-Jane Pezet
Aruj Sharma
Edited by David Flin.
Chapter Three
Flavius Diomides slowly looked around the classroom. He was puzzled, although he tried not to show this. He was a Standard Bearer, and that meant he had to look like he knew what was going on.
He looked at the pictures on the wall, at the children sitting on the floor, at Miss Snodgrass, at the lights on the ceiling.
“Where are we, and who are these children?” he asked.
“This is Hispana Junior School. I am Miss Snodgrass. How did you get into the school?” She paused a moment, looking at the Roman equipment. “Could you explain about your equipment to the children?”
“Brutus, lay your equipment on the table.”
One of the children raised her hand. “Excuse me, if you’re Roman soldiers, why are you speaking English?”
“What is English? I am speaking Latina, of course.”
At this, a forest of hands went up into the air.
“Let’s give Mr Diomides a chance to explain what the equipment is,” Miss Snodgrass said. “He’s come a long way to be here.” Miss Snodgrass was still wondering how to explain to the parents of Nia, Geoff, and Mary that their children had been swapped for Roman soldiers. This was not covered in any teaching course. Still, she had to seem to know everything in front of the children.
Flavius Diomides was worried. This was all very strange. Brutus and Cassius would expect him to know what to do, and he knew that he had to look like he knew everything in front of them.
“Line up, class,” Miss Snodgrass said. “It’s time to get ready to go home. Mr Brooks,” she said to the TA in the class, “could you take the children to be collected. I have to see to these three gentlemen.”
“But…” said Mr Brooks as Miss Snodgrass led the three Roman soldiers to the staffroom.
Brutus and Cassius stayed quiet. Staying quiet was something that they had learned in the Roman Army. They were, however, clearly curious about everything around them. They looked at the staffroom and at the staff there. They looked confused.
“Everyone is wearing strange clothes,” Flavius said at last. Brutus and Cassius nodded in agreement. “Those are not clothes we are familiar with,” Flavius eventually said.
The teachers in the staffroom looked at the three soldiers dressed in armour, with large shields slung on their backs and swords sheathed on their belts.
Mrs D’Oliveira rose to get milk out of the fridge as she made herself a cup of coffee. The soldiers stared at the carton of milk, and at the fridge, and at the kettle.
“OK,” said Miss Snodgrass. “This is getting kind of spooky. You’re acting like you really are Roman soldiers.”
“We are Roman soldiers,” Flavius replied. “Whose villa is this and where is this place? There is no villa like this within our patrol area. And that pot – I saw cold water go in and boiling water come out, but there is no fire. And why are there men in this temple to Vesta?” [1]
The teachers looked at each other. Either these Roman soldiers were very good actors, or they really were Roman soldiers. Most of the teachers thought that it wasn’t very likely that three really good actors would come to the school.
“So, if you’re Roman soldiers, why aren’t you in Rome?”
Miss Snodgrass sighed at the question. “It was only the Praetorian Guard that served in Rome, to protect the Emperor. Of course, that meant there was no-one to protect the Emperor from the Praetorian Guard. There were four emperors in 69AD, so it wasn’t perfect.”
“That’s old history,” said Flavius.
“I think that we had better take you to find some suitable clothes,” Miss Snodgrass said.
As they were leaving the staffroom, Brutus whispered something to Cassius, who then whispered to Flavius.
“Are we in Arabia?” Flavius asked. “You use Arabian numbers on your clocks.”
“No, this is Britain,” Mrs D’Oliveira said.
“Britannia? We are still near the Caledonian Wall?”
“Let’s get you come clothes,” said Miss Snodgrass, trying to take charge. She led the way outside, and the soldiers stared in wonder at the road. Brutus and Cassius pointed at the surface. “Why hasn’t it been finished?” Brutus eventually asked. “Why haven’t you put the stone slabs on top?”
Just then, a car drove past. Brutus looked at Cassius; Cassius looked at Brutus. Then they both looked at Flavius. Flavius stared at the car, and then he turned to Miss Snodgrass.
“Where are the horses on that chariot?” he asked. “And where are the chariot races held?”
Chapter Four
“We’re at school,” Mary said. “We don’t work in a villa. We aren’t old enough to work. We’re lost.”
The soldier in charge didn’t look very impressed by this. “I think that you are escaped villa servants. Hadrasbul,” he said to one of the soldiers, “where’s the nearest villa?”
A dark-skinned soldier thought for a moment. [2] “That would be the Silurian Villa, Sir. The one that breeds horses.”
“Very good. We’ll go and see if they’ve lost any house servants. Those are very strange clothes, children. Maybe you’re being trained to be charioteers. We will go and see if Villa Silurian has lost some house servants. Hadrasbul and Tonio, make sure the children don’t flag on the way.”
The two soldiers moved behind the children, each holding a leather strap in their hand. They looked meaningfully at the children. “Keep up,” Tonio said. “If you keep up, we won’t need to use these.”
Crassus, the soldier in charge, led the way through the mist. He set a quick pace and the children had to hurry to keep up. They didn’t have enough breath to talk with each other.
The mist and the wind made it cold, and the children felt miserable. And hungry. They hadn’t eaten for some time and they didn’t have any food with them. The ground was hard and they were very scared.
The fields were hilly, with thick clumps of grass and occasionally they came across some sheep grazing. Some of the soldiers looked eagerly at the sheep, but Crassus said that there would be no stealing of sheep.
The children were now tired, as well as being cold, wet, and hungry. They breathed a deep sigh of relief when they saw a building come into sight.
A man in a toga came to the door and spoke with Crassus. They talked for a bit, with Crassus pointing at Nia, Mary and Geoff.
“We found them up near the Caledonian Wall. They had got lost. Have you lost some villa servants?”
The man looked a bit shifty. “Have they got into trouble?” he asked. “Have they caused damage?”
“Nothing like that,” Crassus replied. “They’re just runaways and I’m trying to return them to their rightful owner.”
The man looked relieved. “Well, in that case, as it happens, we did have three runaways this morning. Stable hands, they are.”
“Here you are, then,” Crassus said cheerfully. “Try not to let them run away again.”
“Um, sir,” said a soldier. “I’m not sure the children are from here. They didn’t recognise this place, and the owner didn’t recognise them. The main colour here is green and they’re wearing red.”
“Equus, if they don’t belong here, then we are going to have to carry on trudging over these hills in this weather until we find their owners. If they belong here, we can go back to the fort and into the warm. Do you still think they don’t belong here?”
“Now that you mention it, sir, I think they certainly belong here and that we can head back to base.”
Geoff, Mary, and Nia were pushed roughly forward through the gateway. There were stables to one side, a clear courtyard in the centre, and a large building ahead and to the other side. This looked like the house.
Several people in the courtyard glanced at them. A few wore togas, but most of them wore simple grey woollen trousers and jumpers. Those wearing togas lounged around, while everyone else seemed to be working hard.
“Hurry along,” said the man who had brought them here. “You’ve got a lot of work to do in the morning.” He led them into the building.
The entrance hall was well-lit and quite spacious. There were several sofa-like chairs were in the room; a couple of young women looked up as the children entered.
“What strange looking people,” one said to the other.
“At least they don’t smell of horse,” the other replied.
“They will, they will.” They both giggled.
The three children saw apples on bowls around the room, but they were hurried through to the back part of the building. They were then hurried out and across to the stables.
“You sleep up there, in the hayloft. Your food is put here. Don’t steal the food of the other slaves. Food is brought around at dusk. Start mucking out the stable.”
They got shovels and started moving dirty straw out of the stable and onto the midden heap. It was hard and very smelly work. A small girl was also there moving the straw and dirt with them.
“I’ll be glad to get a bath,” Geoff said. “Nia, did Romans have baths?”
“Yes,” Nia replied. Before she could finish, the little girl spoke.
“Of course they’ve got a bath, but it’s not for us to use. They’re only for the masters. Slaves don’t get to use the baths.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all right,” the girl said. “Baths are unhealthy. They wash away dirt, and everyone knows that dirt protects you from elf shots.”
“Elf shots? What are elf shots?” Nia asked.
“Everyone knows about elves. They hide, and when you’re not looking, they shoot an invisible arrow into you. It’s poisoned and makes you ill, like you get a bad cold or some sort of rash or an upset stomach, or something like that.” [3]
Geoff grumbled about not being able to have a bath, but he fairly soon stopped complaining. He needed all his breath to work.
When it started to get dark, all three of the children were exhausted, even Mary who had worked on her parent’s farm during the holidays.
They went back to the stables. There was a trestle table with a pile of bread and cheese on it, and about half a dozen other children were already scrabbling to get some.
It was a struggle to get some food – everyone was fighting to get a share, and sometimes more than a fair share. Geoff pushed his way through the crowd to get at the food, but a large boy stood in the way.
“New slaves wait until their betters have taken what they want,” the boy said.
“That’s not fair,” said Geoff.
The boy just grinned and pushed Geoff away. Geoff pushed him back, and soon they were both pushing and shoving each other. The other children started cheering and egging them on, until a man entered the stable and blew a whistle.
Everybody stood still and he looked around fiercely. “You know that I do not allow you to damage each other. The master has paid good money for you. My job is to make sure his property doesn’t get damaged. You, new boy. You and your friends will clean the horses tomorrow. You, Arvegelinus, you will be cleaning the ovens tomorrow.” He picked up the tray of bread and cheese and stomped off.
“But I haven’t had anything to eat!” wailed Geoff.
“Don’t worry,” said Nia. “While everyone was watching you and that boy fight, I grabbed some for all of us.”
Mary and Geoff stared at her.
“What?” she continued. “I’ve got three older brothers who always try to pinch stuff. I know I have to grab my share before it’s all gone.”
Geoff grabbed his share of bread and cheese and started eating. The bread was hard, nearly stale, and the cheese was old and a bit mouldy. However, Geoff was hungry and he ate ravenously.
*****
A large bowl of porridge was brought to the stables just as the sun was starting to rise. Geoff, Mary, and Nia each grabbed a plate of it. It was thin and cold, but it stopped them from being completely hungry.
It was a misty morning. They walked towards the horses and each took one by the bridle. They walked out into the courtyard.
“We can’t stay here,” Geoff whispered to Mary and Nia.
--
[1] Vesta was the Roman goddess of Hearth, Home, and Family. Only women were permitted to serve in Vesta’s temples. Flavius thinks that the school must be some sort of temple to Vesta, as that’s where teaching of some children took place.
[2] Hadrasbul was a Carthaginian name. Carthage was a city in what is now Tunisia, and it ruled an empire until it was defeated by Rome.
[3] Genuine belief at the time.
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.