“That is so gross!” she told Isabel, pointing at the man. “Do you see that? Don’t they have bathrooms here?”
“Quiet, slaves!” barked the woman leading them. “Let’s go. In here. It is time.”
“Huh?” Isabel said, as they approached one of the larger storefronts. “Time for what?”
“Time for you to work,” the woman said, opening the door. “You will work in the fullery.”
“Fullery?” Julia whispered to Isabel. “I don’t know what that means. What’s a fullery?”
“No clue.”
“I thought you were the smart one.”
The sign above the front door said—in Latin—“Fullonica Stephani.” Or Stephen’s Fullery.
“You will like it here,” the woman told Julia and Isabel. “The work is easy, and Stephen is a good man.”
“And what if we don’t want to work?” asked Julia.
“Slaves who do not work are put to death,” the woman said, quite matter-of-factly. “It would be wise to cooperate with Stephen.”
Inside, the shop had beautiful tile mosaics on the floor and impressive garden scenes painted on the walls. It looked like a lovely place, actually, and the girls relaxed just a little. Maybe working in the fullery wouldn’t be too bad while they figured out a way to escape.
The shop was mostly filled with sheets and clothes hanging up on clotheslines. Behind the counter was a heavyset shopkeeper—Stephen—and what appeared to be his customer, a short woman holding a large cloth sack. She dumped a load of clothing onto the counter.
“I need these back by Saturday,” the woman told Stephen.
“No problem, Mrs. Horatia.”
“I guess a fullery is like a laundromat,” Isabel whispered to Julia.
Isabel was right. And as Miss Z had informed them, clean clothes were important to the Romans.
“We have to work in a laundromat?”
“There are a lot worse places they could make us work,” Isabel whispered. “They could force us to clean out toilets.”
The customer left and Stephen came out from behind the counter.
“I see you have new slaves for me,” he said cheerfully to the woman who had brought the girls there. “Good, good! I need both of them immediately. We are backed up with work.”
He gave the woman a handful of coins. She thanked him and left.
“Come with me, slaves,” Stephen said.
He summoned a guard with a spear to accompany him as he led the girls through a hallway to another room.
“This shouldn’t be too bad,” Julia whispered. “How hard could it be to clean clothes?”
“They don’t have washing machines, you know,” Isabel whispered back. “They can’t just throw their clothes in, add detergent, and push a button.”
“Maybe they beat the clothes against rocks or something,” Julia guessed. “Isn’t that how they cleaned clothes in the old days?”
“As soon as they’re not looking, let’s make a run for it, okay?” Isabel whispered.
“I’m with you.”
“What are you two whispering about, slaves?” asked Stephen.
“Nothing.”
The guard holding the spear looked at girls suspiciously. He was going to keep a close eye on them.
“Welcome to my fullery,” Stephen said, spreading his arms wide when they reached the entrance to a large room. Clearly, he was proud of the business he had built.
The walls were red and decorated with fantastic paintings of birds and animals. There were more colorful mosaics on the floor. In the corner was a large machine that looked a little like an old-time printing press, but was actually a primitive clothes dryer. You would put wet clothes into it, and then turn a screw to squeeze the water out.
“I have other business to attend to,” Stephen told the girls. Then he addressed the guard. “Marcellus, put these slaves to work.”
Stephen left, and the guard he called Marcellus pointed to a large square tub in the middle of the room. It was about the size of a playground sandbox, and filled about three-quarters of the way up with some kind of liquid.
“Ugh, it smells like somebody peed in here,” Julia said, holding her nose.
“I think somebody did pee in here,” Isabel replied.
At that moment, another slave girl came in with a large clay jug and poured the yellow contents into the tub.
“Ugh, gross!” exclaimed Julia. “It’s full of pee!”
“Get to work, slaves,” said Marcellus the guard.
“What do you want us to do?” Isabel asked.
“Step on it,” he replied.
“Huh?”
The girls thought that maybe their Ear Buddies were malfunctioning. Or maybe Marcellus was joking.
“You are to trod in the tub,” he said, raising his voice. “Idiots! Have you never worked in a fullery before?”
The girls looked inside the tub more closely. There were clothes floating in the urine.
“Wait, you expect us to walk around in that?” Julia asked.
“Yes.”
“Walk around in the pee?” added Isabel. She couldn’t believe it.
“Yes!” Marcellus said, a little more insistently. “To get the dirt out.”
“And the clothes are soaking in pee?” asked Julia.
“Yes! Of course!”
It seemed incomprehensible to the girls, but it was true. Urine has a lot of nitrogen in it. When it sits for a week or so, it becomes a rich source of ammonia, which is good for cleaning. That’s why the clay jugs were placed in front of storefronts all over Pompeii—for people to fill up with urine.
“Are you kidding me?” Julia asked Marcellus. “You clean your clothes with . . . urine?”
“Of course,” he replied. “What do they do with urine where you come from?”
“We flush it down the toilet,” Julia told him. “Duh!”
“That is a waste of good urine,” said Marcellus. “It removes the grease, oils, dirt, and other impurities. One man’s waste is another man’s treasure.”
“Well, I’m not putting my feet into a tub of pee,” Julia said. “That’s just crazy. Come on, Isabel. Let’s go. We don’t need this.”
She was prepared to march out in a huff, but Marcellus pulled a knife from his belt, grabbed Julia from behind, and held the knife against her neck.
“Perhaps you would rather have your throat sliced open?” he asked. “That’s what we do to uncooperative slaves.”
“Okay! Okay!” Julia shouted, her eyes bulging out in fear.
“Let her go!” screamed Isabel.
Marcellus let Julia go. The girls stepped onto the edge of the tub, holding up their frocks so they
