Part I
“Guy’s, come on, or we’ll be late!” Sally sighed, and tucked her long blond hair behind her ear. She tugged on the boys sleeve’s to get their attention. They reluctantly put away their Roman History books and followed her to the check-in area in the ----- St Train station. They are going on an excursion to the ------Museum, and their train was a striking bright blue colour.
“Wow, this is cool” said Daniel, stopping next to their transport to examine something that caught his eye
“Check this out, it’s...” he began, but Sally grabbed his collar and unceremoniously bundled him into his seat, ignoring the amused stares of their fellow passengers.
The trouble with these boys is they are so...imagine reading history at a bus station! What have I got myself into...? Sally sat back in her seat, resting her head wearily, and to her surprise, the seat slid smoothly backwards until she was lying down. She hurriedly sat up, and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. The seat bounced up and hit her, sending her flying into the seat in front. The occupant of that seat turned around and peered disapprovingly over the top. He pushed his glasses up so he could see her.
“Hmmm...And what are you doing, miss?” he asked her, his bald head shinning slightly. Sally stammered, and scrambled back to her seat, blushing. She pretended to be intent on watching the scenery outside. The disturbed man grunted, and settled back down to read his newspaper. Sally sneaked a peek at him, and as she leaned forward slightly, she saw that the date of the paper was dated 20 years ago.
How strange...why would he be reading such an old paper? She wondered, her forehead wrinkling seriously, as she pondered this.
Meanwhile, the boys were also discovering some other rather odd aspects of their transport.
“What’s this? A poster advertising movies...boring...hang on, it is dated 1970! That’s 30 years ago! Wow, that is weird, why would they still have a poster that is so old, yet it looks so new” Daniel nudged Julian and pointed it out. The older boy just nodded his head absently, and turned back to his studying of the rather dog-eared history book. Daniel rolled his eyes and glanced outside. To his concern, the sky and everything seemed to be getting darker. He squinted, trying to see better, but it steadily got darker.
Sally realised the same thing, and looked across at the boys.
“What’s going on? It’s not night time yet, or have we passed a time zone?” She whispered loudly across the isle. The boys shrugged, and rubbed at the windows, to no avail.
Sally frowned, and straightened up her clothes. Hang on, these are not my clothes!!! A Roman toga? What am I doing wearing a toga???!!! She thought worriedly, searching for her other clothes. They were no-where to be seen. The boys noticed her discomfort, and started laughing at her, until they realised that their clothes were different too. That sobered them up, and the expression of incredulity on their faces would have been funny any other time. They sighed helplessly and resigned themselves to their new attire.
With a loud splutter and a lot of static, the loudspeaker came to life.
“Attention: all those disembarking at Station Rome. We will be stopping in 10 minutes. For those continuing to Station Athens, there is a luncheon stall on the platform...” The loudspeakers voice blared on for a while, but Sally and the boys didn’t hear it, they were too busy trying to sort out this extremely puzzling mystery. Going to Rome? But...! Their thoughts were the same, as they stared at each other uncomprehendingly, until Julian, always the deep thinker, came up with a plausible solution.
“I think we’ve travelled back in time, although there are a few glitches involved, since they didn’t have trains back then, according to my history book” His dark hair fell over his serious brown eyes as he waited for Sally to answer.
“I...but...how, why would this happen?” She stammered, wringing her hands in confusion.
Julian was stumped by that question, so he just raised his eyebrows and rested his head on the chair.
The fast moving countryside was changing every minute. From being suburbia, it went to small farms, then bare plains, until the train rolled into busy Rome, and screeched to a halt at the station. People, all dressed like themselves hurried around, but the bemused time travellers just sat watching it in bewilderment, until the station master gave his last call.
“Well, we might as well get off, I suppose”, said Sally, picking up her backpack-come Roman handbag- and heading out the door, onto a long, paved platform. The boys followed her, stumbling in their haste to exit into this new and exciting city.
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