Chapter 28

The Volcano Goes Boom!

Well, back to school, anyway.

We zoomed out of the tunnel and climbed off the carpet.

Everyone was still exactly as we left them, frozen in time. Mrs Olsen, Amelia, Edwin and all the other kids stood like statues. Even the school pigeons were still. The flames above our classroom looked like they’d been painted on the sky. The boiling lava looked like it had frozen solid, and its steam had frozen too.

‘Bother,’ said Phredde gloomily. ‘Boring old school.’

PING! The tunnel vanished.

PING! The magic carpet was gone too.

‘Oh well, here goes the end of the adventure,’ said Phredde, even more gloomily.

PING!

Everything started to move again. The lava edged across the netball court and the flames from our classroom licked the sky and all our class kept trudging down to the library and …

‘Pru!’ screamed Mrs Olsen.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, surprised. There was no way she could have guessed we’d been in Ancient Egypt for two weeks, was there?

‘What are you wearing!’ demanded Mrs Olsen.

I looked down. ‘Oh,’ I said. I still had my silk dress and golden sandals and diamond and ruby toe rings and my hair was still done Ancient Egyptian style.

‘And Phredde! And Bruce!’ Mrs Olsen stared at Phredde’s dress and hair and Bruce’s jewellery. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she demanded suspiciously.

‘Well …’ I said, searching my brains frantically.

‘It’s for my term project,’ said Bruce hurriedly. ‘The one on Ancient Egypt. You know how Phredde PING!ed up a giant octopus for her project? Well, I thought it’d be cool if I dressed up the three of us in Ancient Egyptian clothes! I hope I did it correctly,’ he added, looking worried.

Mrs Olsen beamed at us. ‘What a lovely idea, Bruce!’ she said. ‘I’m sure you look absolutely perfect!’

Well, I was sure we looked perfect. But I wasn’t going to explain how I knew.

That’s when the volcano really exploded.

‘!’ I said.