“That’s creepy,” Isabel said, looking away.
“I think it’s cool,” said Julia.
“Fortunately, these people didn’t suffer for long,” said Miss Z. “Maybe a few seconds. It must have been like swallowing fire.”
The Flashback Four couldn’t stop staring at the figures. Some of them seemed to be crying out in pain.
“Let me show you something else,” Miss Z said. She instructed Luke to make a right turn at a street called Vicolo dell’Anfiteatro. One block down were the ruins of a gigantic oval-shaped building.
“It looks like a stadium,” David commented.
“It was a stadium,” Miss Z told him. “This is the earliest surviving stone amphitheater in the world. It was built in 70 BC. That’s a hundred and fifty years before the famous Colosseum in Rome.”
“What did they play here?” David asked. “It’s not like they had basketball, football, or baseball in those days.”
“Their spectator sport was gladiator competitions,” Miss Z replied. “Men would face off against each other with weapons. They would fight to the death.”
“That is gross,” Isabel said.
“You’re right,” Miss Z agreed. “It must have been really gross.”
“Hey, which of you guys do you think would win a fight to the death?” Julia asked David and Luke.
“Oh, me, definitely,” Luke replied right away. “I’m bigger and stronger than David. I would kick his skinny butt nine ways to Sunday.”
“I beg to differ,” David replied. “It is you, my friend, whose butt would surely be kicked. I am infinitely faster, smoother, and wiser. Like my man Ali, I’d win, you see. I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
“The gladiator contests were a big deal,” Miss Z told the kids. “They were free, and everybody in town would come to see the blood and gore.”
“Can we go inside the amphitheater?” asked Isabel.
“I don’t think we have time,” Miss Z said, looking at her watch. “We need to get back to our meeting spot. We should let Mrs. Vader know. Isabel, will you text her and tell her we’re on our way?”
Isabel went to get the TTT out of her backpack, but it wasn’t in the pocket where she’d put it.
“Where is it?” asked David, concerned.
“I had it a few minutes ago,” Isabel said, quickly opening the other zippered compartments of her backpack.
“That thing cost a fortune,” Luke said, looking at Miss Z. “You’ve got to find it, Isabel. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I know! I know!” Isabel said frantically. “I . . . I don’t have it anymore. It’s gone.”
“What do you mean it’s gone?” asked Julia. “Check all the pockets.”
“I did!” Isabel was on the verge of tears.
“Maybe your backpack was picked!” said Luke, looking around quickly. “We’ve gotta find the guy who did it.”
“He couldn’t have gone far,” David said.
There were a few dozen tourists in the area. Many of them were holding cell phones, which looked much like the TTT.
“How are we going to know who has it?” asked Isabel.
In Boston, Mrs. Vader’s TTT beeped and she looked at the message. . . .
AMERICANS ARE MUTO!
She looked at it twice to make sure she had read it correctly. Muto meant “stupid” in Italian. Why would Isabel write a thing like that?
IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT? Mrs. Vader texted back.
The reply . . .
GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS A LITTLE GIRL.
Mrs. Vader realized immediately that somebody had pickpocketed Isabel, and the TTT had fallen into the wrong hands. But there was nothing she could do about it.
In Pompeii, the Flashback Four quickly split in two groups, rushing around to peer at the cell phones in the hands of every person in the area. It was a few minutes until David spotted a short teenager with a mohawk haircut holding the TTT, texting and chuckling to himself. David went over and grabbed Luke.
“Over there!” David whispered. “That guy has it!”
The two boys walked purposefully to the teenager with the mohawk, who put his hand behind his back as they approached.
“Excuse me,” Luke said politely.
“Buongiorno,” the teenager replied.
“I believe you have something that belongs to us,” Luke told him.
“No speak English,” the guy said.
“Give it back, buddy,” David said, holding his hand out.
“I’m not your buddy.”
“I thought you didn’t speak English,” Luke said.
“So I lied,” the guy said.
“You stole that,” accused David, pulling the guy’s hand in front of him.
“What is it you Americans say?” the guy said. “Finders keepers, losers weepers?”
“You didn’t find it,” Luke said, getting closer to the guy’s face. “You opened my friend’s backpack.”
By now, the rest of the group had come over to see what was going on.
“There’s no need to fight, boys,” Miss Z said as she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse and held it out to the Italian guy. “Will this be sufficient to make you give that back?”
The guy looked at the bill and then at Miss Z. Twenty US dollars could buy a lot. But he could tell these American tourists wanted the strange cell phone pretty badly. He made the instant calculation in his head that the thing must be worth at least five times what the lady in the wheelchair was offering.
“I’ll give it to you for a hundred,” he said.
Miss Z started reaching into her purse.
“No way!” Luke said, stopping her.
He got in the guy’s face. “You stole that. We’re not giving you a dime for it.”
The Italian teenager stepped back and looked at Luke from head to toe, sizing him up.
“My friends are on a rugby team,” he said. “They will take care of you.”
“Oh, yeah, I don’t see your friends,” Luke said, looking around. “Where are they?”
“They will be here very soon,” the boy assured him. “Believe me.”
“Back off, dude,” David told Luke. “Let it go. Miss Z will pay the money.”
“Hurry up!” Isabel
