“I wish I had been there,” she said. “Well, I mean, I wish I could have seen it with my own eyes. But this is certainly the next best thing. You’ve done the world a remarkable service. You captured a piece of history that would have been lost forever.”
Miss Z stared at the photo some more. The sparkle was back in her eyes.
CHAPTER 5IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE
TO THE READER: BEFORE WE CONTINUE WITH THE story, a word of warning. This chapter includes quite a bit of information about volcanoes. Now, if you think reading about volcanoes could possibly be boring, feel free to skip ahead and flip to the end of this chapter, when things get exciting again for the Flashback Four. But you’ll be missing out, because volcanoes are very cool. So you may want to stick around and read the whole chapter.
Unless, of course, you’re in a big hurry to get somewhere. But if you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere, what are you doing reading this book in the first place? You should be at that other place doing that more important thing.
In any case, after getting back to Boston, Luke, Isabel, Julia, and David went home. They went back to their regular lives of school, sports, church, family, and so on. Their time-traveling career was over. Life returned to normal. None of the kids told their parents or friends about what they had experienced. What would have been the point? Nobody would ever believe it.
But something was different about them, and they could all feel it. The four of them shared a secret—they were survivors. They had survived the adventure in Gettysburg, where they had been physically attacked and thrown in jail. They had survived the sinking of the Titanic, where they had jumped off the ship and nearly drowned. Living through a traumatic event changes a person, and it bonds groups of survivors together.
A few weeks later, Isabel was walking to science class. She was a good student who liked school, except that she had to put up with some of the immature boys in her grade, who tended to be obnoxious and not take their studies seriously.
When Isabel showed up for science class, there was a sign on the door. . . .
TODAY’S CLASS MEETS IN THE COURTYARD
When she got outside, the science teacher, Mr. Martin, was in the middle of the courtyard wearing a dirty apron, work boots, and protective goggles.
“Nice getup, Mr. M,” one of the boys commented. “You going to a wedding or something today?”
“No,” the teacher replied. “We’re going to make a volcano.”
“Cool!” everyone exclaimed.
Mr. Martin was one of the few teachers in the school who hadn’t given up on doing innovative, interesting projects to try to keep the students—and especially the boys—engaged.
“Can anybody tell me what a volcano is?” he asked when everyone in the class had arrived.
Stuart, probably the most obnoxious of the obnoxious boys, didn’t bother waiting to be called on.
“It’s like when the wind starts whipping around and it picks up Dorothy’s house and stuff,” he announced to the class. “And then, bam, the house lands in Munchkinland.”
“That’s a tornado, you dope!” said one of the other boys.
“Actually,” Mr. Martin said, “the word volcano comes from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan.”
“Like on Star Trek, right?” asked Stuart. “Wasn’t Dr. Spock a Vulcan?”
“I think you mean Mr. Spock,” Mr. Martin said wearily as he bent down to pick up a clump of dirt. “Dr. Spock was a pediatrician. But we’re getting off topic. I’m talking about volcanoes here. You see, the Earth’s crust is broken into seventeen tectonic plates that fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. They move and float on a soft mantle below the surface of the Earth.”
“Mickey Mantle is below the surface of the Earth too,” shouted Stuart. “Ever since he dropped dead!”
Proud of his little joke, Stuart turned around to collect high fives from his friends. Mr. Martin waited for their cackling to subside before continuing.
Julia rolled her eyes. It was hard for her to believe that a boy like Stuart might one day grow up to become a productive member of society. None of the girls had said a word. They were just standing around, sneaking peeks at their cell phones.
“Mantle is liquid rock,” said Mr. Martin. “Sometimes the tectonic plates push and grind against each other to form a mountain.” He brought over a big red plastic garbage can while the boys elbowed each other and giggled because the teacher had used the word grind.
While the boys cracked wise, Isabel pulled a pad from her backpack and began taking notes. There might be a test on this material. And even if there wasn’t a test, she reasoned, this was information that could be useful to know down the line. You never know when it might come in handy, she thought.
“And sometimes the molten rock—or magma—from the Earth’s upper mantle works its way to the surface,” Mr. Martin continued. “When the pressure from the gases within the molten rock gets too great, it erupts.”
“Can we blow something up now?” asked Stuart. “That’s the cool part.”
“Yeah, explosions are awesome,” said one of the other boys.
“We’ll get to the explosion in a minute,” said Mr. Martin. “Patience is a virtue that you boys would be wise to cultivate.”
He turned on a spigot on the courtyard wall and used a garden hose to fill the garbage can with water. When the level was about three-quarters of the way up to the top, he added a cup of red food coloring to the water.
“Hey, Mr. Martin,” said one of the boys. “Since when does a volcano look like a garbage can? We made a volcano out of papier-mâché when I was in third grade, and it didn’t look nothing like that.”
“It didn’t look anything like that,” Mr. Martin said, unable to restrain himself from correcting the boy’s grammar. “There are different kinds of volcanoes. This one is going to
