boys exchanged another worried look.
“We heard,” Walter said. “And I get that you want to jump straight into the mission.”
“But you’ve been through quite an ordeal,” Simon added.
“And if you need time—” Walter continued.
“Or someone to speak to—”
“Or a shoulder to cry on—”
Esther shook her head and held her hands up to stop them. “Guys. I’m okay. You don’t have to look at me like I’m made of porcelain and might break any second. I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I’m alive. And now I want to find this Scepter and save the school. Can we just do that? Please?”
She didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that Oliver had been torn from her once again. That just when she’d been reunited with him, fate had ripped them apart once more. She didn’t want to think about the fact she owed him her life, nor the fact that he was the person with whom she’d fallen in love. There would be time to think later. But now, if she spent even a second dwelling on it, she knew she’d break down and dissolve into tears.
Simon and Walter exchanged a final glance, then both shrugged, clearly realizing there was no point arguing with the headstrong Esther.
“So, where are we?” Walter asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Esther said, looking about her at the unfamiliar landscape.
“And how do we go about finding this Scepter of Fire?” Simon asked.
Again, Esther was stumped. “I don’t know.”
Just then, Esther saw something come hurtling through the air right for her. It looked like a brass cricket ball and it was flying at an enormous speed right at her face.
Drawing on her switchit skills, Esther reached her hands up and caught the catapulting ball of metal. It was going at such a speed, she staggered back. Shock waves ricocheted down her arms.
Taking a moment to recover from the surprise, Esther looked down at the object in her hands. It was Oliver’s magical compass.
“How did that get here…?” she stammered.
Nothing was as it should be. The headmaster had spoken to them through the vortex. The portal had split in two. The compass had found its way to her. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, the portal they’d traveled through was different than usual, and the normal rules clearly did not apply.
“The compass can guide us!” she said excitedly, looking up from the ancient bronze instrument to the others.
“How does it work?” Simon asked.
“It shows you the future,” Esther said. “So if we interpret the symbols correctly, it will guide us to where we need to be.”
Walter frowned. “Where we need to be?” he asked. “Or just, you know, where we will be?”
Esther paused to consider his point. If Oliver’s team had taken the correct tunnel and landed in the time that would lead them to the Scepter of Fire, then whatever future awaited Esther and her team would be entirely different. But then again, whatever future the compass showed to them, it was their destiny to follow it nonetheless. Though it might not lead them to the Scepter, it would lead them to something, and that was enough for her for now.
Esther decided not to dwell too long on Walter’s point. There’d be no way of knowing which team had landed in the place where the Scepter of Fire was lost until they were holding it in their hands.
She looked down at the symbols. The main dial was pointing to a small image of a sun. Another was pointing to an anchor. A third showed what appeared to be a stick figure throwing a javelin.
Esther scratched her head, none the wiser, and looked up at the desolate, sandy area for clues. She had to shield her eyes from the blazingly bright sun, since there wasn’t anything to provide shade other than some spindly trees and some skinny, grazing goats.
“Well?” Walter asked her. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed.
“I can see the sea,” Simon offered, pointing into the distance where a silver streak glittered on the horizon. He squinted. “It appears to be a harbor filled with vessels. Perhaps we’re on an island? Some kind of trading hub?”
“Ooh, yes!” Esther said, her mind starting to put some of the pieces together. “That would explain the anchor. What else do we have?”
“Are those orange groves?” Simon asked, pointing once more to a densely wooded area filled with trees bearing bright, gleaming oranges.
Esther nodded. There was a corresponding symbol on the compass too, a smudge of orange like a paint splatter. “I think we might be somewhere in the Mediterranean,” she suggested. “Greece, perhaps? That would explain this symbol of someone throwing a javelin. It could represent an Olympian.”
Simon became quite animated at the mention of Greece. “Oh, that was some jolly excellent detective work, Esther. So we may be in Greece. But what era?”
But before Esther got a chance to answer him, Walter’s brown eyes grew suddenly wide with fear, and he pointed a trembling finger ahead of him.
“What… What… What’s that?!” he cried.
Heart pounding, Esther whipped her head up to see something very large glittering under the bright sun, moving on big wooden wheels at a very rapid pace, and heading right for them.
“That,” Esther said, not quite believing her eyes, “is a golden chariot!”
There was a horse pulling the chariot, its hooves clopping loudly against the hard earth. The large wooden wheels creaked as they spun, propelling the chariot toward them at an enormous speed.
With barely a second to react, the children dive bombed. They jumped opposite directions, Esther leaping one way, the boys the other.
Esther landed in a gutter. The horse-drawn chariot went thundering past, spraying a fine mist of powder all over her.
As the sound of galloping hooves and creaking wooden wheels began to fade, Esther sat up, shaking herself, and peered across the road at Walter and Simon. As the dust the chariot had kicked up began to settle, she saw the two had landed, once again, in a tangled mess.
“Get off!” Walter cried, trying to shove Simon away from him.
“You’re on my hand!” Simon contested, shoving back.
“Guys!” Esther cried, leaping to her feet and hurrying toward them. “Be quiet. I think I know where we are.”
She peered along the path, watching as the golden chariot shrank into the distance, not quite believing what she was about to say next.
“We’re not just in Greece,” she announced, as the two boys finally untangled themselves and came to stand beside her. “We’re in Ancient Greece.”
“Ancient Greece?” Walter asked. “You mean…”
