“Nice try!” Luke said as he grabbed his sword again and jumped up off the ground. “But too slow.”
Now it was Luke’s turn, using his weight and strength advantage to drive David backward, shoving him roughly with his shield. David staggered, but then righted himself.
“You’re not playing around, are you?” Luke asked as he slashed at David with his sword. David blocked it, making a loud metal clang. “Well, neither am I.”
While the boys were flailing away at each other, few people in the crowd noticed that all the birds had disappeared from the sky. A few dogs were barking and sniffing the air curiously. Animals have senses that pick up signals we can’t receive. There was an eerie silence, a stillness in the air. The ground had begun to vibrate.
And then, Mount Vesuvius erupted.
BOOM!
CHAPTER 19RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
IT WAS AN INDESCRIBABLE DOUBLE CRACK OF sound, a thunderous explosion unlike any noise David or Luke had ever heard before. It was unlike any noise anybody had ever heard before, or since. The energy released when Mount Vesuvius erupted, historians say, was a hundred thousand times the force of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima to end World War II. That’s how loud the blast was.
Luke and David dropped their swords and shields immediately so they could cover their ears and protect their eardrums from being ripped to shreds. Everyone in the amphitheater did the same. All heads turned toward the north, where the sound was coming from. It was impossible to see Mount Vesuvius from the inside of the amphitheater, so it was unclear what was going on. The only people there who knew exactly what had happened were Luke and David.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
“It’s happening!”
It wasn’t just one quick blast, like a typical explosion. It was a long, continuous roar that went on and on. Keep in mind, the people of Pompeii had never been to a Star Wars film. They’d never heard a bomb go off. They’d never seen a car explode in the movies. This was something completely different for them.
Just a moment earlier, every man, woman, and child in the crowd had been riveted by the spectacle of Oceanus and Hilarius fighting to the death. But a moment after the blast, not a single one of those people cared about the gladiators.
“What’s happening?” everyone was asking.
“The gods must be furious!” was the general response.
In these ancient times, anything that happened, for good or for bad, was believed to be caused by the gods. If the people pleased the gods, they would be rewarded. If they displeased the gods, they would be punished. That was what they believed. So when they heard the explosion, they figured somebody must have done something really bad.
But whatever they had done to displease the gods, there was nothing they could do about it now. The place went into full-scale panic mode.
Guards dropped their swords and abandoned their posts. Food vendors dropped what they were selling. Children started crying. The caged animals were squawking and bucking. Old people, young people, men and women started running for the exits. All the slaves were suddenly free men and women.
“It is the end of the world!” somebody screamed.
Luke and David looked around for a moment at the commotion. This was just the opposite of what they had experienced on the Titanic, where it had taken two hours for the ship to sink. The panic had built very gradually. But Vesuvius was sudden and dramatic. Everybody knew right away that something was terribly wrong.
Fred the Red was nowhere to be seen. He had already made a run for it, heading out of the city. The other guards were gone too. The timer counted down. They had fourteen minutes to get to the meeting spot.
“Let’s go!” Luke shouted to David over the roar of noise. “This is our chance!”
The boys helped each other scale the arena wall and climb into the stands. From there, they scrambled past some old men wearing togas and pushed their way to the exit.
In the Fullonica Stephani, Isabel and Julia were dipping some shirts into red dye under Stephen’s watchful eye when the volcano erupted.
BOOM!
“What in the Underworld is that?” Stephen shouted, covering his ears.
“It’s Mount Vesuvius!” Isabel yelled at him. “It’s erupting!”
In a flash, Stephen was out on the street. The guards in the fullery left their posts too. Nobody was watching the girls.
“Let’s go!” Isabel shouted into Julia’s ear, the only way she could be heard over the noise.
The girls dashed out to the street, which was filled with people, animals, and carts going every which way, crashing into each other. Isabel led the way to a street called Via della Fortuna. A bunch of people were standing on the corner there, staring off into the distance.
“Look!” Isabel shouted, pointing at Vesuvius.
The top of the mountain was gone. Above it, a black mushroom cloud was rising.
Meanwhile, in Boston, Miss Z and Mrs. Vader were nervous and worried. They had not heard from the Flashback Four for a long time. They didn’t know that the TTT had been destroyed, so they had no idea what the kids were going through. Miss Z had made the very difficult decision to wait until the agreed-upon time—fifteen minutes after noon—to bring them back.
If something had gone wrong and the Flashback Four weren’t at the meeting spot at twelve fifteen, they would be stuck in Pompeii for the rest of lives. Their very short lives. And Miss Z would be held responsible for their disappearance, of course.
“Nine minutes left,” Mrs. Vader said, looking at her watch.
“By now, they should have taken the picture of Mount Vesuvius,” said Miss Z. “They should be at the meeting spot for us to scoop them up.”
“I’ll warm up the Board,” said Mrs. Vader.
But the Flashback Four had not taken the picture of Vesuvius, and they were not at the meeting
