Serial Sunday: The Three Who Loved Pizza, Part IV

By

Esperanza Abolou

Rafaela Abolou

Mohammad Bhatti

Imogen Locke

Aakshaya Ninintheeban

Alice-Jane Pezet

Aruj Sharma

Edited by David Flin.

Chapter Seven

Time to get some food, Miss Snodgrass thought. She wasn’t very comfortable with the fact that Brutus and Cassius were wearing bedsheets and that Flavius was wearing a dressing gown. It was embarrassing, and the most embarrassing part was that they were strutting around proudly in their new clothes, and people were staring at them.

“We look magnificent,” said Brutus.

“Where are the chariot races?” Flavius asked.

“We don’t have chariot races anymore,” said Miss Snodgrass. “We have football matches.”

Miss Snodgrass tried to describe football, but she didn’t do a very good job of it. She wasn’t very interested in football because it all seemed very silly. Then she had an idea. It was, she thought, the best idea she’d ever had in her life.

“Have you ever been roller skating?” she asked.

“What is roller skating?” Cassius asked. “Skating is on ice and there is no ice. Just rain, but then, this is Britannia. It always rains here. It is a miserable, horrible place, full of miserable horrible barbarians and miserable, horrible food.”

He paused.

“No offence.”

“None taken,” said Miss Snodgrass through gritted teeth. “It’s a short drive to a roller-skating place. That’s like chariot racing, only without chariots and also everyone gets to take part.”

“Chariot racing without chariots? You mean horse racing?” asked Flavius, trying to understand.

“No horses. Just people with special shoes.” Miss Snodgrass had enjoyed roller skating when she was a child. She hoped she still remembered how to do it.

“It’s chariot racing without chariots or horses, just special shoes. It must be like the Olympics. But you will not be able to come, for it is not proper for a woman to see such events.”

“Why not?” Miss Snodgrass asked. Then she remembered. “Oh, we wear clothes while roller skating. We don’t do it in the nude.”

“We don’t either. The Greeks may have run naked in their Olympics, but we’re not that stupid.”

Miss Snodgrass led the way to her car and the Romans looked puzzled.

“Get inside and sit down?” Brutus asked in astonishment. “Whoever heard of sitting down in a chariot?”

“Well, you can’t stand up,” Miss Snodgrass said, trying to imagine them doing that. She didn’t have a big car and having four adults in it made it crowded. Then she had to show them how to use seat belts.

They didn’t like the seat belts. They kept asking what was the point of them; how could they get hurt when they were sitting down, and lots of other questions.

“Sit down. Put your belts on. Be quiet,” snapped Miss Snodgrass, using the voice she used when children were being silly in class.

Flavius, Brutus, and Cassius sat down, put their belts on, and were quiet. Even Miss Snodgrass was surprised at how effective her tone of voice had been.

Of course, it didn’t last long. As soon as she started driving, they started talking excitedly and pointing at the cars coming towards them.

“What would chariot races be like if they went in both directions?” Flavius wondered. “There would be a lot of shipwrecks.” [1]

“And if we had spears, then we could have some spectacular battles,” Cassius said.

“You’re weird. You prefer gladiators to chariots,” [2] said Brutus, and Flavius agreed with him.

“But chariots and gladiators in one event!” Cassius enthused.

Miss Snodgrass tried not to listen. She concentrated on getting to the roller-skating arena. She ignored all their questions about why cars have roofs and funny shaped wheels and what the horses in the cars ate and how were they fed. She concentrated on the road.

It felt like a lifetime, but it was only ten minutes before they arrived at the arena.

The three Romans weren’t very impressed by the outside of the arena. They thought that it was small and a bit grubby and that too many children were about.

Miss Snodgrass paid for the entry tickets and hired the roller skates. She tried to ignore the fact that everyone was staring at the three Romans. Children pointed and made comments about the bedsheets and dressing gown.

She showed them how to put on the roller skates and how to move in them.

“You don’t walk; you glide. Push one foot forward, don’t lift it. Glide, don’t walk.”

They tried. They fell over. They struggled to get up. They fell over again.

“Look, it’s easy,” Miss Snodgrass said, skating slowly and very cautiously but – and this is the important part – without falling over.

Eventually, the three Romans got the hang of skating. They tried to skate as though they were in a chariot race; a long straight skate, then a sharp turn, and a long straight skate back. They kept bumping into people, but they didn’t seem to mind that too much.

“I’ve worked it out,” said Flavius. “You don’t walk; you glide.”

“Amazing,” said Miss Snodgrass. “Working it out all by yourself like that.” Her voice was full of sarcasm, but Flavius didn’t notice.

“You see, Brutus, Cassius, being a Standard Bearer means knowing how to skate. Do you want me to teach you, Lady Snodgrass?”

“I’m hungry,” said Cassius.

“You’re always hungry,” Flavius replied.

“I’m hungry as well,” Brutus added. “Really hungry. Lady Snodgrass, I think you need to get us some food. What is the custom here for foraging? Do we plunder or buy?”

“Not plunder,” Miss Snodgrass said, horrified. “That’s against the law. We buy things. There’s a place on the upper floor that does food, and you can watch the skating from there.” She led the way to the escalators to the upper floor.

The three Romans stared at the escalators, looking suspiciously at the moving stairs.

“Doors that open themselves,” Flavius said. “Stairs that climb by themselves. Why? In the name of Jupiter, why?”

By now, Miss Snodgrass had given up trying to explain things properly and decided that she would say something silly. “We have to give the Christmas elves something to do when it’s not Christmas.”

“Christmas? Is that a Christian thing? Are Christians still around? Where do they get elves from?”

Miss Snodgrass just smiled. Let them wonder, she thought. Misleading them was fun, and she wondered what else she could say that would be funny.

They reached the food court, found a table close to the edge, and the three Romans looked through the glass walls down at the skaters below.

“Impressive, isn’t it,” said Miss Snodgrass.

Flavius shrugged his shoulders. “The Circus Maximus is impressive,” he said. “But this isn’t bad for a provincial backwater.”

“Thank you,” Miss Snodgrass said through gritted teeth. She saw a waiter nearby, waiting to take their order.

“This is a nice piazza,” Flavius said, waving an arm and indicating the food court and the view of the skating arena beneath.

The waiter nodded. “Nice pizza. Very good.”

Chapter Eight

Geoff, Nia, and Mary climbed on to the horses and started to ride away from the approaching riders. Mary urged her horse forward but quickly found that Geoff and Nia couldn’t keep up.

Luckily, it was a grey, overcast, gloomy day with a lot of mist, making it hard for the pursuers to see where the children were going. If they could get far enough ahead, then maybe the people pursuing them would lose the trail.

If.

There were a lot of hills and several woods. Mary led the way downhill as much as she could. She thought that if they travelled quickly, they might be able to get far enough ahead to be out of sight. Unfortunately, visibility was better when they went downhill. That meant that the pursuers could see further, which meant it was harder to get out of sight.

At the bottom of the hill, they rode into a marshy area. The mud was thick and glutinous. The horses’ hooves sank deeply into the mud and they struggled to pull them out. Each step was an effort, and the pursuers were able to close much of the gap.

“Let’s keep on going,” Geoff said, encouraging the others.

It was still slow going and the horses struggled one laborious step at a time. There was a sluggish stream ahead at the bottom of the hill, which had some bushes lining the banks; there was also a small wood just on the other side of the stream.

“If we can get to the other side, we might be able to lose them,” Mary said. “Hurry up, everyone.”

They urged the horses on. The ground was a bit firmer and the horses could walk a bit easier. Meanwhile, the riders chasing them had reached the edge of the marshy area. They found it even harder than the children – the riders were adults and much heavier than the children, so the horses sank deeper in the mud. The horses were barely able to move in the mud.

The riders got off the horses and struggled through the mud. This gave the children chance to cross the stream. Mary led the way, her horse stepping carefully. It slipped on stones in the stream a couple of times, but Mary was able to stop it falling or stumbling. Geoff and Nia followed, less confidently. They wobbled on their horses as they crossed the stream. The horses slipped on the slimy stones; then there was a squeal and a splash as Nia fell off and into the stream.

“I’ve got an idea,” Geoff said, trying to whisper quietly and still get the others to hear him. “Let’s get off and hide and let the horses go. They’ll follow the horses and we’ll be safe.”

Before anyone could say anything, he had slipped off of his horse and hid in the bushes by the bank. Nia didn’t try to get back on her horse. Instead, she joined Geoff and hid. Mary reluctantly joined them, and the three horses started to run away up the hill on the far side of the stream.

The three children held their breath as the riders reached the stream and plunged across. The children crouched down lower, barely daring to look.

They need not have worried. The riders saw their missing horses running up the hill and they galloped after the horses, shouting encouragement to each other.

The children waited until the riders were out of sight, then they crept out from the bushes.

“I’m wet,” said Geoff. “Wet and cold.”

“What do we do now?” Mary asked.

Nia thought carefully. “We find the Roman soldiers at their fort. There will be one near the Wall. They might know how we can get back.”

*****

The children waited until the riders were well out of sight. They then crept out and looked around carefully. There was no sign at all of the riders.

“Which way do we go?” Mary asked. She looked at Nia, and then Geoff also looked at Nia.

“How should I know? I can’t see through mountains. There will be a camp by the Wall, but I’ve no idea which direction the Wall is from here. We’ve turned around so often that I’m completely lost.”

Geoff thought, frowning as he did so. “We’ve not crossed the Wall, so it must still be north of us.”

“Yes, of course,” said Nia sarcastically. “But which way is north? We don’t have a compass.”

“As I was saying,” Geoff continued. “It’s about the middle of the day, so the sun will be to the south, and it looks brighter that way,” he said pointing through the mist. “If that way is south, if we go in the opposite direction, we’ll be going north.”

“Oh,” said Nia. “That’s actually pretty good thinking.”

They walked in that direction. Fairly soon, things started to look a bit familiar.

“I’m sure we’ve been here before,” Mary said.

Nia looked ahead. “Well, unless they’ve lost two Eagles, I think we’re right back where we started.” She pointed to an Eagle standard still lying on the ground.

They looked at it as it lay there, and they wondered what they should do.

As they looked, Mary glanced up and saw riders approaching. “What are we going to so?” she asked plaintively.

“Maybe,” said Nia slowly. “Maybe if we hold up the Eagle, maybe they’ll think we’re Roman soldiers and they’ll go and look somewhere else.”

The riders were getting closer; they had definitely seen them. The mist was still thick enough that it was hard to make people out as anything more than general shapes.

The three children quickly grabbed at the Eagle, each putting a hand on it at the same time. As they held it, they suddenly felt it start tingling...

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[1] Romans called a crashed chariot a “shipwreck”.

[2] While gladiator events were popular in Rome, chariot racing was far more popular.

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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.