24

In the morning, Tilly nudged me awake. She pointed at Prima, who was snoring soundly.

‘This is so totally weird,’ she said. ‘Prima belongs thousands of years ago. She probably died thousands of years ago, and yet here she is, alive and well and sleeping on your spare mattress.’

I shrugged. ‘Time travel is like that. You and I belong now, and yet we still managed to go back to Ancient Roman times. I was on the Titanic, even though it sank long before I was born.’

‘Like I said – totally weird.’

Just then, Prima woke up. She sat up and covered her ears, looking absolutely terrified.

From Amy’s room, I could hear loud music; from Stephen’s room came the sound of car crashes, courtesy of his latest computer game; downstairs the vacuum cleaner and the coffee maker were competing to see which could have the most irritating sound.

‘I never realized what a noisy world we live in,’ said Tilly.

I closed my bedroom door, blocking out some of the noise and Prima relaxed a bit.

‘I’m starving,’ said Tilly suddenly. ‘Half my dinner went on the floor last night when Prima did her circus act.’

I was hungry too, but there was no way I was risking another family meal disaster. In the end, I ran downstairs and got some cereal and milk and bowls.

When I got back to my room, I filled each bowl with cereal and Tilly poured in the milk. Beside us, Prima shrieked with laughter.

‘What’s so funny about cereal?’ I wondered before I noticed that Prima was holding her bowl to her ear and listening to the cereal crackling.

‘Wouldn’t you love to know what’s going on inside her head?’ I said.

‘I’m not sure I could cope with that,’ said Tilly.

I laughed. ‘Seriously, though, Tilly. Think about it. When we were in Pompeii, we’d have given anything to be able to talk to Prima, but there was no way we could manage it. And now …’

‘And now you’ve just become fluent in Latin?’

I sighed. ‘Of course not. But lots of people nowadays speak Latin.’

‘Like who?’

‘Well … surely we could find someone. We could ask my parents.’

‘OK,’ she said doubtfully.

‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘Prima can’t stay here forever. Sooner or later, she’ll have to go back home to her family.’

‘And how exactly are we going to manage that?’

‘Let’s worry about that later. For now, though, while Prima’s here, we have to make the most of it. She’s our friend. We have to talk to her … get to know her properly.’

Tilly sighed. ‘I don’t know if you’re right,’ she said. ‘But after a night of listening to Prima sleep-talking in Latin, I haven’t got the energy to argue with you.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘We have a plan. Sort of.’

While Tilly and I got dressed, Prima sat at my mirror and began to fix her hair. She piled it up on her head in a very fashionable way – very fashionable a few thousand years earlier, that is.

Then she found a marker and used it to paint her lips in a gross purply-red colour. With a pink marker, she drew a wobbly circle on each cheek. She smiled at us, and Tilly had to turn away to hide her giggles. Prima looked like someone from a very weird, very low-budget horror movie.

‘It’s not her fault,’ I said. ‘She’s used to having slaves to make up her face and do her hair.’

‘That’s true,’ said Tilly. ‘And maybe we can ignore the face paint, but if we’re ever going to go outside this room, we’ll have to do something about Prima’s clothes.’

She was right. Apart from being totally out of place, Prima’s long tunic had been ruined by the mad dash down the hill and the dip in the ocean. Tilly picked it up from the floor and held it in the air. It was crumpled, torn and dirty.

‘Why is this still here?’ she said. ‘The slaves in this place must be very lazy.’

I giggled, and then she continued.

‘Prima lent us clothes when we were in Pompeii, so maybe you can give her something to wear,’ she suggested.

I opened my wardrobe door and Prima ran over to see what was inside. She ignored my clothes, though, and concentrated on the photographs of Tilly and me that were stuck to the inside of the door. She gazed at each one, and then gazed at Tilly and me, and babbled away in Latin.

‘I wonder what’s the Latin for “We’re going to be here all day”?’ sighed Tilly.

We made Prima sit on the bed and we held up loads of clothes for her to choose from, but she shook her head at everything.

‘I think it’s the trousers that she doesn’t like,’ said Tilly in the end. ‘We didn’t see any women wearing trousers in Pompeii, did we?’

‘We didn’t see any men wearing them either,’ I laughed.

‘Good point,’ said Tilly. ‘Looks like you’ll have to give her a skirt.’

‘I’d love to,’ I said, ‘if I actually owned one.’

‘But you do,’ said Tilly, grinning. ‘And I know the perfect T-shirt to go with it.’

Soon Prima was dressed. She seemed very pleased with herself in my school skirt and the T-shirt Tilly had chosen for her, which said 21ST CENTURY GIRL across the front in huge black letters.

‘Are we ready for the outside world?’ asked Tilly.

‘I’m not sure the outside world is ready for us,’ I muttered. ‘But I’ll go crazy if I have to stay here any longer.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Tilly. ‘So let’s go.’