We got a table for two at the restaurant, so close to the pizza oven that I could feel the heat on the right side of my face. Daisy somehow managed to squeeze his bulk between the table and his chair. The pizzas came in only one size, so we ordered half margherita for me, half mushroom and ricotta for him.
‘I don’t know if I’d survive long in Roman London,’ I said as a pretty waitress delivered a massive pizza and two paper plates to our table. ‘The Romans had no tomato for pizzas. Or chocolate. Or chilli peppers. Or potatoes for salt-and-vinegar crisps,’ I added.
‘It doesn’t really matter what food they did or didn’t have.’ Daisy used the pizza wheel to cut eight big slices. ‘You’re not allowed to eat when you go back in time.’
‘Not allowed to eat?’ I paused with the first slice of pizza halfway to my mouth.
‘Yup. Any food in your stomach will be violently expelled as you go through the portal.’
‘Violently expelled as in …?’
‘Yup. Violently expelled through your “personal portals”.’ He grinned and rolled up a slice of pizza.
‘Ugh!’ I said. ‘But how will I live if I can’t eat?’
‘People can survive for a surprisingly long time without food,’ said Solomon Daisy. That was when he told me the three rules of time travel, counting them off on his already greasy fingers: ‘One: naked you go and naked you must return. Two: drink, don’t eat. Three: as little interaction as possible.’
My jaw was hanging open.
‘Of course, a skinny kid like you probably wouldn’t last a month,’ he went on. ‘But don’t worry – you’ll only be there for three or four days. Five max. And of course you have to fast for two days before you make the jump. But I’m sure you can go without food for a week.’
‘No food for a week?’
‘Oh, and I suppose I should warn you about the shortened life expectancy.’
‘Shortened what?’
Solomon Daisy extricated another section of pizza. ‘In the normal course of events, the life expectancy for a boy like you is around ninety-five.’
‘I’ll live to be nearly a hundred?’
‘Yup. Barring the zombie apocalypse and assuming you don’t walk in front of a bus, you can expect to live for another eighty-three years.’ He dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin. ‘However, my tech guys have calculated that for each hour you spend in the past, it takes a month off your life expectancy.’
I did the figures in my head. ‘So that means if I spend a day in the past it will cut two years off my life?’
‘Yup. Twenty-four months is the price for spending twenty-four hours in the past. That means you’ll probably only live to be ninety-three. It’s much worse for adults,’ he said. ‘Every hour we spend back in time cuts a year off our lifespan. It’s something to do with cell regeneration.’
‘So that’s why you’re not going yourself.’
‘Exactly. May I try some of your pizza?’
‘Sure,’ I said, easing a slice onto his paper plate. ‘I suppose I can face living to be ninety-two rather than ninety-five.’ I chewed thoughtfully. ‘Why did Miss Okonmah ask me if I had fillings?’
‘My tech guys reckon that if you have anything non-organic in your head, like an ear stud or a filling, it would probably explode.’