Later – much later – I found out about TTLS or ‘Tittles’. TTLS stands for ‘Time Travellers’ Love Syndrome’.
It’s similar to when people survive an earthquake or some other near-death experience. As soon as they know they’re not going to die, they often fall into each other’s arms in relief.
But at that moment in the Gardens of Diana, I had no idea how time travel was affecting us.
All I knew was that it was a terrible idea to be getting involved with girls who lived hundreds of years ago and whom we would never see again.
‘Dinu!’ I hissed. ‘You can’t kiss Lollia. We’re not supposed to interact, remember?’ I was speaking in English of course.
‘Is too late for that,’ said Dinu. ‘Anyway, I really like her. I want to bring her back with us.’
‘WHAT?’
He gave a lopsided grin and shrugged. ‘She can be girlfriend.’
‘Dinu, you can’t bring her back.’ I tried to think of a way to put him off. ‘She has terrible teeth and bad breath.’
‘I have plan. I will take her to free NHS dentist. They will fix her teeth and make her beautiful.’
‘She has bandy legs.’
‘I do not care.’
‘Dinu, she’s a witch. She has an extra tooth in her mouth and a box of magic herbs at her house. Plecta told me.’
‘Plecta is jealous because Lollia is very beautiful.’
‘Lollia may be beautiful, but Plecta is brave and good. Anyway, you can’t bring someone back through the time portal. Solomon Daisy said so.’
‘Who is Solomon Daisy?’
‘The bazillionaire whose tech guys invented the time machine.’
The girls were looking at us with frowns. They had heard their names but had no idea what we were saying.
‘How do they know you cannot bring person back?’ said Dinu. ‘Has anyone tried?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This boy named Martin – I met him before I came here. He was the first one to go through the portal.’
‘Someone went back in time before us?’
‘Yes, but he was too scared to leave the Mithraeum. While he was in there,’ I continued, ‘he made friends with a little mouse and decided to bring it back as an experiment.’
‘What happened to mouse?’ asked Dinu.
‘It exploded into chunky salsa.’
Dinu narrowed his eyes, almost like he didn’t believe me.
Of course he was right not to believe me.
‘Salsa Mouse’ was a total lie.
‘I can tell you are lying, Wimpy,’ said Dinu, ‘because you make eyes wide like baby.’
I only had one argument left and this one was going to hurt. I took a deep breath. ‘Here’s the thing, Dinu,’ I said. ‘You can’t bring her back because she’s going to die soon.’
I have heard people say ‘white as a sheet’, but he actually went white as a sheet. ‘Lollia will die soon?’ He looked at her in disbelief and she looked back, puzzled.
‘I’m sorry … but yes. It’s her fate to die aged fourteen.’
He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Then we must bring her back more than ever!’
‘No!’ I cried. ‘That would definitely cause a time crash! If we bring Lollia back to our time to stop her from dying, then the archaeologists never would have found her bones and Solomon Daisy wouldn’t have become obsessed and he would never have sent us back …’
Dinu was just staring at me.
My head was beginning to throb again and I felt sick.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Lollia, looking from me to Dinu and back to me. ‘What are you two talking about? Why do you have that look on your face?’
‘I feel a bit sick,’ I said to her in Greek. ‘I think I need the latrine.’ It was partly true. I’d assumed because I hadn’t touched a bite of food in nearly four days I wouldn’t need the loo. I was wrong.
‘Go in the bushes where we hid,’ said Plecta, also looking worried. ‘Do you want me to stand guard?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You wait here. I’ll be right back.’ Then in English to Dinu, ‘I’m just using the bushes as a toilet. Don’t go anywhere.’
I pushed the wet shrubs aside and found the place where we had crouched earlier.
Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered to dig a little hole with a twig.
Maybe I shouldn’t have searched around for the perfect leaves to wipe with.
Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the time to carefully cover it all over again and pat the damp earth down on top.
Because when I emerged from my leafy latrine, Plecta was standing alone by the benches, wringing her hands.
Dinu and Lollia were nowhere to be seen.