Jack threw open the door to the room of scrolls. He and Annie rushed in and ran over to the shelves.
Jack pulled out the piece of paper with the Latin title on it:
Vir Fortissimus in Mundo
“Okay,” he said. “We have to find the scroll with this title.”
They began frantically unrolling scrolls one by one. They were all handwritten in Latin.
She held up a scroll. The words at the top matched the ones on their paper.
“Yay,” said Jack. “I wish I could read Latin so we could find out what the story is.”
“Don’t think about it now!” said Annie. “Let’s go!”
Annie handed the scroll to Jack, then started out of the room.
“Come on,” she said. “Bring it!”
“I just want to check and see what the story’s about,” said Jack.
He put the scroll in the leather bag. Then he flipped through the book on Roman times, looking for a picture of the ancient scroll. In the middle of the book, he found a picture of a volcano erupting over a town.
Under the picture was written:
For 800 years, Mount Vesuvius was a peaceful mountain, rising above the town of Pompeii. Then, at noon on August 24, A.D. 79, it erupted into a deadly volcano.
“Oh, no,” whispered Jack. “August 24, A.D. 79—that’s today! Oh, man, what time is it?” He looked around wildly. “Annie!”
She was gone again.
“Annie!”
Jack grabbed the leather bag. Then, clutching the book, he tore out of the scroll room.
“Annie!” he cried.
“What?” Annie appeared at the door to the dining room.
“V-v-volcano!” stuttered Jack.
“What?” said Annie.
“It’s—it’s coming—a volcano—at noon!” said Jack.
Annie gasped.
“What time is it?” cried Jack.
“So that’s what the soothsayer meant!” Annie said. “The end is near.”
“What time is it?” Jack asked again. He looked around the garden.
He saw something near the mermaid fountain.
“A sundial!” he said. “That’s how the Romans told time!”
Jack and Annie raced to the sundial.
“What time does it say?” said Annie.
“I don’t know,” said Jack.
His hands shook as he turned the pages of the book. He stopped on a picture of a sundial. It showed examples of different times. Jack looked back and forth from the page to the real sundial in the garden.
“Here!” he said. He had found the one that matched. Jack read the writing under the picture:
The shadow on the sundial can hardly be seen at noon.
“Oh, man,” he whispered. He looked at Annie. “The end isn’t near; the end is here.”
Just then he heard a terrible blast. It was the loudest sound he had ever heard.