The Paninis of Pompeii Read online

  ‘Vesuvius,’ he said to his wife one evening as they were preparing for bed, ‘I have done something dreadful.’

  And he told her the whole sorry story of how he had accidentally killed Barkus Wooferinicum and forty-seven other dogs. And how, rather than admit this to Filius, he had instead been dressing up as a dog for the past three weeks.

  ‘I am a turtle fighter,’ sighed Caecilius. ‘I mean, I am a terrible father.’ He scooped up a grade ‘B’ fart and looked at it sadly. ‘No, no, I don’t even deserve this,’ he sighed, and threw the fart down the toilet, which for farts is a sort of nightclub where they can dance with all their friends.

  ‘Perhaps you are not as terrible as you think, my dear husband,’ smiled Vesuvius, and she flung open the window with her mind to reveal an unexpected sight. It was Filius, and he was playing with forty-eight dogs in the garden. And the biggest and shiniest of all the dogs was –

  ‘Barkus Wooferinicum!’ laughed Caecilius. ‘He’s not dead at all! And neither are the other dogs I thought I’d killed!’

  ‘Actually the other forty-seven dogs are dead,’ said Vesuvius sadly. ‘The ones Filius is playing with are a different forty-seven dogs. But you are quite right – Barkus Wooferinicum himself is absolutely fine.’

  ‘See, Father, you only stunned him with that fig!’ cried Filius from the garden.

  ‘So you knew the whole story all along,’ laughed Caecilius, fondly stroking his son’s hair even though he wasn’t standing anywhere near Filius and couldn’t possibly have reached him. ‘And yet you made me dress up as a dog for three whole weeks!’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ replied Filius seriously. ‘For the moral of Ancient Pompeii is this: “Be thou honest in thy dealings”.’

  ‘It is true,’ said Caecilius thoughtfully. ‘I was not honest with you, Filius, and for that I apologise. I am sorry I killed your dog.’

  ‘But you didn’t kill him, remember?’ said Filius.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Caecilius. ‘Well, then, I am sorry I didn’t kill your dog.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Filius, ‘you’re sorry you didn’t kill him?’

  ‘No, that came out wrong,’ said Caecilius, ‘but the important thing is, I’m tired, I’m going to bed. Goodnighticus, everyoneicus.’

  So Caecilius and Vesuvius went to bed and slept, and dreamt their happy dreams. Caecilius dreamt he was a chef.

  The next morning Vesuvius woke up and when she put on her shoe, she said, ‘Oh, what’s this? There is something in my shoe.’ And when she looked inside she got the surprise of her life because she found nothing other than –

  ‘A GHERKIN!’ cried Vesuvius, aghast. ‘How in the name of Jupiter did that get there?’

  But only one man in the whole of Pompeii knew the answer, and that man was already well on his way to market to get the early fart, chuckling as he went.

  THE END

  FILIUS AND SLAVIUS

  Now, Filius had everything he could possibly want in life – a pencil with a rubber on the end, some Mirror-Men and something else. All sorts of things. He even had a dice and when you threw it, it controlled the weather. I was sunny, II was cloudy, III was storms, IV was rainbows you could eat, V was overcast and VI was all the weather at once. But still Filius was bored, because children with everything often have nothing, in a way.

  ‘I am bored, Barkus Wooferinicum,’ said Filius. ‘Why don’t you do that trick you like doing, to cheer me up?’

  So Barkus Wooferinicum did his trick but it didn’t really cheer Filius up because the trick was just to carry on behaving normally.

  ‘Drat and figs,’ said Filius, who had learned this naughty expression from his father. ‘I think I am going to go crazy with boredom, you know.’

  But just then he heard someone else saying ‘Drat and figs!’ in the next room. His curiosity roused, Filius crept along the corridor and peered in to the front room, where Slavius the household slave was looking gloomy, as if someone had rolled a V on his face.

  ‘Drat and figs,’ sighed Slavius. ‘I am so bored being a slave. I wish I could be anyone else – yes, even that spoilt brat, Filius – just for one day. I bet if I were Filius, everything would be all right.’

  Now, this gave Filius an extremely crafty idea. He ran into the room and smashed Slavius over the head with an enormous Roman vase.

  ‘That’s for calling me a spoilt brat,’ said Filius. And then he had another crafty idea.

  ‘Let us change places, you and I,’ said Filius. ‘For just one day, you shall be me and I shall be you.’

  ‘I see,’ said Slavius. ‘Your plan is a delight, for we look quite similar, you and I. So now let us change our togas. And a-ho, a-ha! We each are the other one now! I am Filius!’ said Slavius, clapping his hands in glee.

  ‘And a-ho, a-ha! I am Slavius!’ announced Filius. Then Slavius (dressed as Filius) smashed a massive vase over Filius’s head.

  ‘What was that for?’ said Filius (dressed as Slavius).

  ‘That’s for calling me a spoilt brat,’ laughed Slavius. ‘For I am now you and you me, remember?’

  Just then Caecilius’s car pulled into the driveway (the Romans did not have cars, of course, ‘car’ was just short for ‘carrot’). Caecilius and Vesuvius had been out all afternoon in their carrot, with their ugly friends, Atrium and Hortus.

  ‘I don’t even know why we are friends with those dreadful people,’ grumbled Vesuvius as she and her husband slipped through the front door. ‘All Hortus ever does is go on and on about her scented herb gardens, even though I’ve never heard of her scented herb gardens – if she even has any – and in actual fact she never goes on about them at all. But I bet she will, in a later story.’

  ‘There, there,’ said Caecilius, fondly stroking his wife’s hair. Then he glanced at the sundial on his wrist.

  ‘By the Gods of Honey and Fig Mountain!’ he cried. ‘We shall be late for the theatre. Filius, Filius, my lad, come along, look lively!’

  ‘Quick,’ said the real Filius in the front room. ‘Slavius, you must go with them and pretend to be me.’

  ‘And you must go to the Tavern of the Slaves,’ grinned Slavius, ‘and pretend to be me, for I promised my friend Agricola that I would be there tonight to make merry with him.’

  ‘Then the game is on,’ said the real Filius, quickly smashing a vase over the real Slavius’s head.

  ‘What was that for?’ asked Slavius.

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ admitted Filius, who had lost track of who should be smashing who over the head with enormous Roman vases. ‘Now, go! And may the luck of the Gods go with you!’

  ‘You too,’ laughed the real Slavius, and running into the hallway he said, ‘Salve, Mother and Father. It is me, your little son, Filius, ready to accompany you to the theatre!’

  ‘Then let us proceed there at once,’ said Caecilius, and catching hold of a passing dove he announced, ‘We shall travel by dove!’

  But the dove was unable to bear the weight of three people and so they walked to the theatre instead.

  As soon as they were gone, Filius (disguised as Slavius) leapt out of his hiding-place and ran outdoors.

  ‘Ha!’ he shouted at the evening sky. ‘What fun it is to be a slave! I have never felt so free!’

  And off he headed for the Tavern of the Slaves to experience life in another world.

  Walking through the theatre doors, Slavius (disguised as Filius) could barely believe his eyes. ‘It is so big and grand,’ he marvelled. ‘What are we here to see?’

  ‘We are going to watch a startling new play called The Boy Who Lied to Some People Who Trusted Him,’ said Caecilius.

  ‘That sounds exciting,’ said Slavius. ‘Shall we go and sit down?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Caecilius, ‘but first – don’t you want some of your favourite theatre snacks?’

  ‘Yes, please, Father,’ replied Slavius, ‘what are they again, I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Why, it’s strawberries, that’s what you love,’
laughed Vesuvius. ‘Here, let me buy you the biggest basket that money will buy.’

  And the three of them entered the theatre with Slavius silently cheering to himself, as if someone had rolled a I inside his soul.

  ‘Strawberries and entertainment,’ he thought. ‘Certainly is it a fact that indeed this is surely the life for me, most excellently and decidedly so in truth!’

  Meanwhile, Filius (disguised as Slavius) had reached the Tavern of the Slaves, which was a lowly building, which meant it stank. The floor was covered with sawdust and broken pencils with rubbers on the end lying about, and none of the Mirror-Men had been tidied for months, but just lay heaped in a corner gathering dust and laying eggs.

  All the same, Filius was enchanted.

  ‘Back at the villa everything is so clean and neat and dull,’ he marvelled. ‘Truly, this where the life is – with these lowly, reeking people and their crude games and challenges.’

  ‘Aha!’ bellowed a voice into Filius’s ear just then. ‘Slavius! I knew you would show up. Good to see you, mate.’

  Filius turned and saw a fellow not much older than himself. He was startled to see it was Agricola, the slave belonging to his parents’ ugly friends, Atrium and Hortus.

  ‘Agricola, do not address me in so familiar a manner,’ said Filius angrily. ‘Go and fetch me some farts – and look quick about it or next time it shall not be merely the sharpness of my tongue you feel, but the keen cut of my whip, you insolent goat.’

  ‘Why,’ marvelled Agricola, ‘you talk to me as if you were not a slave yourself, but instead a young master, such as that spoilt brat Filiu– ouch, why did you just smash an enormous Roman vase over my head?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Filius. ‘Now, look, Agricola. I’m sorry I spoke to you like a young master. It was just a sort of a joke. I am actually a slave like you. Now, let us sit and scoop up a fart or two and talk about what slaves like to talk of.’

  Filius sat himself down on one of the mean chairs of that place and regarded the soiled and crusty table with interest. Agricola went to the bar and returned holding a couple of farts, one of which he offered to Filius. But Filius was struck with a dumb sort of horror such as he had rarely known.

  Why, he thought, I have never seen such a low-grade fart in all my life. It is full of gristle and bone, and see! It hardly swirls but lies in Agricola’s hand like a tired mouse! I can barely bring myself to scoop it up.

  ‘Aaaah,’ said Agricola. ‘Look at that, would you? A grade ‘E’, what a treat.’

  ‘But it is hardly even fit for a dog such as Barkus Wooferinicum,’ shouted Filius, ‘do not touch it a moment longer!’ and, rising, he swatted at the fart and sent it flying from Agricola’s hand through the window, where it immediately scurried away into the shadows.

  ‘I do not know what has got into you tonight, Slavius!’ exclaimed Agricola, also rising. ‘You, who are usually so fond of the Tavern of the Slaves, have treated everything as if it were beneath you. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame on you! Yes, you heard me, Slavius, I have brought the Seven Shames of the Slaves upon you. One for Pride, two for Loathsome Thoughts, Three for Vile Countenance, Four for Moral Indecision, Five for Being Weak of Flesh, Six for Idle Hands and Seven for Foolish Doltery! Yes, Slavius – I pronounce upon you the Seven Shames of the Slaves, and each more shameful than the last.’

  ‘Blast him to the Gods,’ cried the other slaves, and soon a full-fledged brawl was in progress, with Filius and Agricola at the centre of the ruckus.

  ‘I do not think I like this play,’ said the real Slavius, back at the theatre.

  ‘Hush, it is an excellent entertainment,’ said Caecilius, ‘and look you well to the moral of the story, which is coming up now.’

  On stage, the actor was weeping and wailing. ‘Oh, woe, woe,’ said he, ‘I am undone. For I once was a good boy – a simple slave to a family who cared for me and gave me shelter and some ham. But I have lied to them. I have disguised myself as their son and now the Gods will punish me.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said a huge face made of wood. It was only a play, but Slavius was completely terrified for he had never been to the theatre before and his simple slave’s mind could hardly tell the difference between truth and fiction.

  ‘I am the mighty god, JUPITER,’ thundered the face on the stage. ‘Now, you naughty boy who lied to the very people who trusted him – I will thwart you. For you have eaten strawberries which you did pluck from my enchanted forest, and which you did think were so sweet. But no, it was all a trap, I have made them as bitter and poisonous as your lies themselves, and now you shall perish from eating them.’

  ‘It is all I deserve,’ wept the actor on the stage, and he fell to his knees and rolled on to his side. ‘And now, because of my lies – I die.’

  ‘No, no,’ shouted Slavius from his seat. ‘I cannot stand it any longer. It is all I deserve! It is all I deserve! Yes, these strawberries – I can feel them, burning me up inside, just like the deceitful boy in the play. Oh, I can feel them inside me, what agony! I must die, I must surely die!’

  And, scattering strawberries everywhere, he leapt from his seat and ran from the theatre into the dark night beyond.

  Meanwhile, the real Filius was racing away from the Tavern of the Slaves with Agricola and the rest of his fellows in hot pursuit, throwing tables, chairs, farts, Mirror-Men, tankards, vases and a tree at him.

  ‘Think you’re better than us, Slavius?’ they yelled. ‘We’ll show you!’

  The terrified lad rounded the corner – only to collide with the real Slavius as he fled the theatre in tears.

  ‘You!’ said Filius.

  ‘You!’ said Slavius.

  ‘Quick, we must change back,’ breathed Filius. ‘I cannot cope with your life of quick tempers and low-grade farts.’

  ‘And I for my part cannot stand the incredible morals and meaningful strawberries of high society,’ declared Slavius.

  In a flash, they exchanged togas, and now they stood in the middle of the street as the slaves came running up on one side, and Caecilius and Vesuvius approached from the other.

  ‘Calm down, everyone,’ said Filius. ‘There is no need to fight nor to be angry. For you see before you two simple fools – one high born, the other a common slave – who each thought he would be better off in the other’s sandals.’

  ‘But we were wrong,’ said Slavius. ‘For the moral of Ancient Pompeii is this: “No person should be unhappy with his lot”.’

  ‘Well, I don’t really understand,’ said Caecilius, stroking Filius’s and Slavius’s hair fondly, ‘but I am glad to have my son back and the two of you shall go unpunished on this occasion.’

  ‘And we are glad to have our friend Slavius back,’ said the slaves.

  ‘Hooray!’ cried Filius and he took out his dice and rolled a III.

  ‘Oh, it’s storms,’ he said as it began to thunder and rain.

  ‘It does not matter,’ said Caecilius, stroking the thunder’s hair fondly as they walked back to the villa, Filius and Slavius arm-in-arm like brothers. ‘It is only weather, it does not mean that the story turned out unhappily.’

  And they all laughed, for Caecilius was right, and they went back to the villa and never again did Filius and Slavius swap places. But from that day forth, each understood the other’s life a little better. Filius stopped smashing enormous vases over Slavius’s head quite so often, and for his part, Slavius more or less stopped gossiping about Filius and referring to him as ‘a horrid little poo face’ behind his back.

  THE END

  THE MA-WOL-N-F

  Now, this story is a spooky affair, and it all has to do with a dinner party that Caecilius and his lovely wife Vesuvius were throwing for some friends of the family, an ugly couple called Atrium and Hortus.

  The dinner had been very successful. Everyone had enjoyed a lovely meal of olives and some cheese made from the hind leg of a goat, and now it was time to sit back and undo your toga and let your
belly flop where it would. Slavius collected up the empty dishes and took them into the kitchen to be licked to a sparkling shine by Barkus Wooferinicum, for the Romans valued health and hygiene above all other things. Everyone was in a pleasant mood.

  ‘After-dinner fart?’ said Caecilius, offering around a tray of Grade ‘A’ quality farts he’d been saving for just such an occasion.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Atrium, scooping one up.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Hortus.

  ‘Can I have a fart too, Mother?’ asked little Filius.

  ‘Now, now, Filius,’ said Vesuvius. ‘You’re only X.’

  ‘Oh, go on, give the boy a fart,’ said Caecilius, stroking his son’s hair fondly. ‘It’s not often he gets to stay up late with the adults, what harm’s a fart going to do him?’

  ‘Oh, Caecilius, you are a big softie,’ laughed Vesuvius. ‘OK, Filius, you can have I fart, but only I.’

  ‘Ah, there’s nothing like a good Pompeiian fart,’ pronounced Atrium as he popped a particularly juicy specimen into his mouth. ‘A finer blow-off you could not find in Rome itself !’

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Vesuvius. ‘How was your recent trip to Rome?’

  ‘It was simply perfect,’ replied Atrium. ‘We had a marvellous time.’

  ‘Yes, it is an extraordinary city,’ volunteered Hortus. ‘Did you know, they built it in a day?’

  ‘I’d love to see Rome,’ said Vesuvius, turning to her husband. ‘We must visit sometime, mustn’t we, dear?’

  ‘We must indeed,’ agreed Caecilius, stroking Vesuvius’s hair fondly.

  Wow, thought Filius in fascination. Grown-ups’ conversations are so boring.

  ‘Still, it’s good to be back home,’ said Atrium. ‘And of course, Hortus missed her gardening while we were away, didn’t you, my love?’

  But at this Hortus let out a dirty gasp.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘That reminds me, I saw something awfully . . . strange the other night. But – no, no, it is too impossible, I must have imagined it.’