Double Trouble

by Judi Curtin

  Now the men said lots more stuff, but none of it made any sense to me.

  Then one of them grabbed Tilly’s schoolbag and threw it into the back of the chariot.

  ‘Hey!’ said Tilly. ‘My schoolbooks are in there and, trust me, you wouldn’t do that if you knew my teacher.’

  The man didn’t look like he was afraid of anything – not even our totally scary teacher. He said something else, and then he pointed at us and then pointed at the chariot. You didn’t need to be a genius to understand what he was saying.

  ‘What are we going to do? I really want to get my schoolbag back, but I’m so not going into that filthy chariot,’ whispered Tilly.

  ‘No offence, but our parents told us we should never take lifts from strangers,’ I said loudly, trying to sound brave and polite at the same time.

  The man slowly reached down and pulled a sword from its holder at his side. He pointed it in our direction.

  I gulped. I knew we were in trouble – double trouble now that Tilly was with me.

  Tilly grabbed my arm. ‘Say something,’ she said.

  ‘Do you believe in time travel now?’ I whispered.

  Tilly had gone pale. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Lauren, for not believing you before. But I sooo believe you now.’

  The man waved the sword in the air and it glinted dangerously in the bright sunlight.

  ‘If we die here, do we just find ourselves back at home, like nothing happened?’ whispered Tilly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back. ‘Maybe if we die here, we’re just … you know … dead.’

  ‘I don’t really want to find out the hard way, do you?’

  I shook my head.

  Then, holding hands, the two of us walked slowly towards the chariot.

  3

  Trust me, chariots really aren’t a comfortable way to travel. The men and the boy stood at the front, while Tilly and I sat behind them, clinging on to the sides. At every bump in the road, I felt like we were both going to be flung out. (Which would have been fine except I’m fairly sure the men would have just picked us up and flung us straight back in again.)

  I tried to figure out where and when we might be, but the constant bumping of the chariot made it impossible to think properly.

  ‘Is Saturn still following us?’ I asked, as soon as I dared to open my mouth.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for a while.’

  I’d been afraid she was going to say that. At first, we’d seen Saturn trotting along the side of the road behind us, but he couldn’t run very fast and he’d quickly fallen far behind.

  ‘He’s probably at home, trying to explain to my parents that he’s managed to lose us forever,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Tilly replied, putting her arm round me. ‘I bet he’s hiding somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to rescue us.’

  I huddled close to her and tried to believe that she was right.

  In front, the two men were talking to each other.

  ‘What language are they speaking?’ asked Tilly.

  ‘I don’t know. All I know for sure is that it’s not English and it’s not French.’

  ‘And it’s not Spanish, because I’d recognize that after my holiday there last year.’

  Then one of the men shook his fist at us and the other one reached for his sword, and Tilly and I figured it was time for us to be quiet.

  After ages, we passed a few stone houses. The boy pulled hard on the reins and the chariot slowed down and then stopped completely. As soon as the bumpy motion ceased, I felt sick and dizzy.

  I looked at Tilly and saw that she was pale and scared-looking. I held her hand and tried to look brave.

  One of the men shouted something and a woman came out of a house.

  ‘That woman looks kind of familiar,’ I said to Tilly. ‘Maybe Saturn has brought us to meet some of my ancestors.’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘I doubt if that woman is your ancestor. She just looks familiar because there’s a picture of a woman exactly like her in our history book.’

  ‘In which chapter?’ I asked, half afraid of the answer.

  ‘In the chapter on –’

  ‘– Ancient Rome,’ I suddenly remembered and finished the sentence for her.

  At last, the chariot and the clothes the men were wearing started to make sense.

  ‘So the men are speaking Latin,’ said Tilly. ‘That’s why it sounded so strange.’

  ‘Saturn has brought us to Ancient Rome,’ I whispered. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I can’t believe it either – but it’s true … isn’t it?’

  I nodded slowly. ‘It looks like it.’

  The last time I’d time-travelled, I’d stayed in the same country, and had gone back less than a hundred years. Now I was far, far away from home – and even with Tilly beside me, it was totally scary. Suddenly I wished that I was safe with my family, with nothing more serious than a history project to worry about.

  The men said something to the woman and she went back into the house. When she came back a minute later she was carrying a large bowl of water. She handed the bowl to the men, who took turns to drink.

  As I watched, I forgot all about being scared. I forgot all about Ancient Rome and chariots and scary, glinting swords. My mouth felt drier than it ever had before. I felt like my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Beside me, Tilly was trying to moisten her dry and cracked lips. One man passed the bowl towards the boy, laughing as some of the precious water sloshed over the edge. As the boy held it to his lips, he looked up and his huge dark brown eyes met mine. Without taking any water, he passed the bowl to me. I drank greedily and quickly passed the bowl to Tilly. She drank all but the last few drops, which she passed back to the boy.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, as he drank. ‘You see we haven’t had a drop of water for thousands of years.’

  The boy smiled at her, almost like he could understand. Then the woman took her bowl back and we continued our journey.

  4

  We passed more and more houses, and soon we were in the middle of a city.

  ‘This must be Rome,’ sighed Tilly. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Rome.’

  ‘Me too, but given a choice, I’d skip the whole chariot and sword and scary-men thing. I’d kind of prefer to be here in our real time. I’d like to be travelling by air-conditioned bus and staying in a nice hotel, with a leisure centre and a pizza restaurant.’

  Tilly laughed, and for one small second as I laughed with her, I managed to forget how scared I was.

  Just then we pulled up next to a huge wooden gate. The men jumped down from the chariot and waved at us to follow them. The boy gave us a sympathetic look. It didn’t make me feel better. Did he know something we didn’t?

  I looked all around, hoping to see Saturn, but there was no sign of him. Had we lost him forever?

  Tilly grabbed her schoolbag and we jumped down from the chariot. The firm ground under my feet felt strange. The two men were talking to another man.

  ‘Maybe we should make a run for it while they’re distracted?’ I whispered.

  Tilly shook her head. ‘Haven’t you seen those swords? They don’t look like they’re used for decoration. I wish I had a gun in my schoolbag.’

  ‘I thought you were a pacifist.’

  ‘I am, but this is an emergency. And if I had a gun, I wouldn’t use it. I’d just threaten them with it.’

  ‘Anyway, these people have never seen guns,’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t know to be afraid.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Tilly, rooting through her schoolbag. ‘I wonder if they’d be afraid of this cheese sandwich I forgot to eat at lunchtime?’

  The sight of the sandwich reminded me of something.

  ‘I’m starving,’ I said.

  Tilly, who is always really generous, carefully tore the sandwich in two, and we started to ea
t.

  It was totally weird. There we were in Ancient Rome, eating the food that Tilly had prepared that morning in her nice, safe kitchen, back when we were living our real lives. How could things change so much, so quickly?

  Just as we were wiping the last crumbs from our mouths, one of the men stepped forward and took Tilly by the arm. He led her inside the building, and far too afraid to be left on my own, I followed.

  We were in a huge open area, a bit like a market place. People were pushing and shoving. The man led us to a small platform and indicated that we should climb up.

  ‘Maybe we’re going to be in a play,’ I said hopefully as I went up the steps. ‘Or this could be the Roman version of The X Factor. Have you got your tin whistle in your bag?’

  ‘I doubt if it’s The X Factor,’ said Tilly. ‘Even Simon Cowell couldn’t get away with treating the contestants like this.’

  The man climbed on to the platform beside us and began to shout out something. Gradually people began to walk over, and soon a crowd had gathered. The man suddenly seemed nice and friendly, patting our hair and smiling at us.

  ‘Maybe things aren’t so bad,’ said Tilly. ‘This could be where they bring people who are lost, so their relatives can find them – sort of like customer services in the supermarket. Pity he doesn’t know that none of our relatives is going to be born for thousands of years. No one’s showing up to claim us any time soon.’

  Suddenly I could feel the blood draining from my face.

  ‘Tilly,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve just remembered something important about Roman times.’

  ‘What?’

  I could hardly get the words out. ‘In Roman times … they had … slaves.’

  ‘OMIGOD!’ she gasped. ‘This guy isn’t trying to reunite us with our families. He’s trying to sell us.’

  The man was still talking. He pointed at our crumpled uniforms and the crowd laughed.

  Tilly put her arm round me. ‘OK, so we don’t like wearing these ugly uniforms either,’ she muttered. ‘But it’s a school rule. We don’t get a choice in the matter.’

  I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but it didn’t help. I was too scared.

  And where was Saturn? Why wasn’t he here to save us?

  A few people stepped forward and stared extra closely at us. One woman climbed on to the platform. She looked inside my ears, and then she took Tilly’s hands and examined her fingernails. Tilly grabbed her hands back and the crowd laughed again.

  Just then the crowd went silent as a huge, tall man pushed his way to the front. He was dark-skinned and hairy, and on one of his arms, a huge deep scar ran all the way from his wrist to his shoulder. He was the most evil-looking man I had ever seen.

  ‘That man looks a bit like the ogre in the pantomime we went to last Christmas,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘But in the pantomime, he was scary and funny at the same time. This guy seems to be concentrating on the scary part.’

  The ogre looked closely at Tilly and me, and then he spoke to the man on the platform.

  Tilly held my hand.

  ‘It’s going to be OK, Lauren,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

  If it was going to be OK, then why was Tilly shaking so badly? And why was she squeezing my hand like she was trying to grind every one of my bones to a fine powder?

  After a long, heated discussion, the evil-looking ogre loosened a leather pouch that hung from his belt. He pulled two coins from it and handed them to the first man. Then they shook hands and the first man walked away. The ogre said something unintelligible to Tilly and me, and then he took each of us by the arm and led us from the market place.

  5

  A short while later, we were walking along a dusty road, with Tilly and me in front and the ogre a few paces behind. Every time I glanced back, the ogre growled something, so I decided it was best to keep my eyes on the track ahead.

  Tilly and I whispered together to try to make ourselves feel better, but it wasn’t easy. When you’ve just discovered that you are hundreds of kilometres and thousands of years away from home, it’s bad enough.

  When you’ve also found yourself sold as a slave to the most evil-looking man you’ve ever seen, then chatting about pop stars and TV programmes is never going to be much of a distraction.

  ‘I’m going to throw away a few books,’ said Tilly after a while. ‘My schoolbag is too heavy and my shoulders are killing me.’

  ‘No!’ I protested. ‘Don’t do that. This is the past, remember? All of the stuff in your bag could be useful at some stage. What you have in that bag is all we have to keep us going while we’re here. It’s not like you can just pop home later on if there’s something else you want.’

  ‘Am I likely to want my history book? I don’t need to read about Roman times. I can just open my eyes and see it all around me, can’t I?’

  I tried another approach. ‘Your dad will kill you if you go home without some of your books.’

  ‘You’re right, but I wouldn’t care. You have no idea how much I’d like to be at home now, with my dad shouting at me over a stupid lost schoolbook. I thought you said time-travelling was fun?’

  ‘Well, last time it was – sort of – when it wasn’t totally, totally scary.’

  Tilly sighed. ‘Maybe I wasn’t listening properly when you mentioned that part.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, feeling sorry for her. ‘Let me carry your bag for a while, so you can have a bit of a rest.’

  ‘Thanks, Lauren,’ she said as she passed her bag to me. Then we walked on in silence.

  ‘We’ve got to get away from this man,’ said Tilly after a while. ‘There’s still no sign of Saturn, so it’s up to us to help ourselves.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘We have to,’ she insisted. ‘The ogre’s paid money for us, remember. That means we’re valuable to him. As soon as we get to wherever we’re going, he’ll probably lock us up in a dungeon and we’ll never get away. It’s now or never.’

  I still wasn’t convinced. ‘But he’s much bigger and taller than us. If we run away, he’ll easily catch us.’

  ‘If we run in different directions, he can’t catch us both.’

  I so didn’t like the sound of this.

  Tilly continued. ‘Don’t you see, Lauren? It’s the only way. Even if he catches one of us, the other one will be free to come up with a rescue plan.’

  I still didn’t like the sound of it.

  ‘But you’ve seen his sword. What if he kills the person he catches?’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘He won’t. We’re worth money to him, remember? He might be really angry, but he won’t hurt us. Trust me, Lauren, we have to do this.’

  Tilly is very clever and logical, and I usually do trust her, but now … I wasn’t so sure. What she was suggesting was so totally scary, I couldn’t even think about it properly. But I was too tired and frightened to argue any more, so I just listened while Tilly explained her plan.

  ‘What we do is this: we wait until we get to a place where there’s some cover. I’ll give the signal and then we each run in different directions. The ogre can only run after one of us, so the other one will hide. Then, when he gives up looking, he’ll keep going to wherever he’s going, and the free person can follow.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then the free person will rescue the captive.’

  ‘How?’

  Tilly hesitated.

  ‘I haven’t got to that bit of the plan yet. Whoever it is will have to figure it out when the time comes.’

  At home, Tilly and I often play Would You Rather?, but it’s usually stupid stuff like, Would You Rather have a boy’s haircut for a year or dress up as a giraffe for a year? I never, ever thought I’d have to decide whether I’d rather be a slave belonging to the most evil-looking man in the world, or lost in Roman times trying to free a
slave belonging to the most evil-looking man in the world.

  And so we walked on. Part of me hoped that we would never come to a suitable place for escape. It was the straightest road I’d ever walked on, and all around us there were just flat fields stretching away as far as I could see. After a while, though, we saw in the distance that there were woods on both sides of the road.

  ‘Yesss,’ said Tilly softly.

  ‘Nooo,’ I said to myself.

  Tilly took my hand and squeezed it. ‘We have to be brave, Lauren,’ she whispered. ‘If we’re brave, everything will turn out right in the end.’

  Who says?

  Before long we got to the wooded area, and Tilly had issued her final instruction. ‘We’ll distract the ogre and then, on my signal, we’ll both run as fast as we can. I’ll run left and you run right. OK?’

  I nodded. Tilly squeezed my hand one more time. ‘Love you, Lauren,’ she said.

  ‘Love you, Tilly,’ I said in a weird, croaky kind of voice.

  Then really quickly, she turned and shouted at the ogre. ‘Hey, what’s that behind you?’ she called, pointing to the sky above his left shoulder.

  Of course he couldn’t understand the words, but Tilly’s pointing finger was clear enough. The ogre stopped walking and looked behind him.

  ‘Now!’ Tilly whispered. ‘Run!’

  I hesitated for a second, half afraid that she wasn’t going to run, but then she was gone, darting through the first trees on the left-hand side of the road.

  Every instinct urged me to follow her, but somehow I resisted and began to run to my right.

  Tilly is my very best friend in the whole world, but as I ran, the same words kept racing through my head – Please make him go after Tilly. Please make him go after Tilly. (I know that makes me sound like a horrible person, but I was so totally terrified I couldn’t get those bad, selfish thoughts out of my head.)

  My heart was pounding so fast, I thought it was going to leap right out of my chest. And soon, even though I didn’t dare to look back, the sound of crashing feet made it very clear that my wish wasn’t going to come true. The ogre was coming after me, and he was getting closer.