Donna yawned widely, not bothering to hide it from the withering gaze of Miss Wilkins, her history teacher. The wispy woman had taken the year nine history group to the British Museum, and to Donna and most of the class who weren't interested at all in bits of pot and broken statues, this was proving pretty heavy going. The squares had marched off in front with Miss Wilkins leading them, leaving everyone else to their own ends.
The lads had decided to run off and find 'The grossest dead body in the place! There's like a ton of mummies and Ron Spavins reckons he can get one out. Like smuggle it yeah?'
The remaining girls of the group dismissed this idea as 'completely bloody stupid, you are SO gonna get caught and get done by Mr Slant and the police!' They'd decided to spend the day mooching round the gift shop, and 'maybe we could pull some like, geeky foreign lads.'
Donna had been perfectly happy to go along with this, but her mate Lauren had dragged her to the statue gallery. It seemed she had some actual interest in some to the stuff there. 'It'd be interesting to like look at it. I mean, I wanna take a art GCSE next year and it's good research ennit?'
Unfortunately, it was also where Miss Wilkins and her history posse were currently. So while Lauren looked at the dusty old statues of boring old women and weirdo men, Donna was trying to dispose of her chuddy without her teacher noticing. She considered sticking it out of sight of one of the statues (C'mon, the place was hardly full. It could make a graveyard look like a first-class rave. Who'd notice if this woman suddenly had a new nose?) when Lauren pounced on her, dragging her across the gallery to some sort of flat statue thing.
"Look! Ennit weird? I mean, c'mon!" She pointed at it excitedly.
"Wot am I supposed to be looking at?" It was flat, and made from marble. It had pictures on it. It wasn't particularly interesting, but nothing in this place was.
"But can't you see it?" Lauren was frantic now, pointing her finger as close to the thing as she dared.
"See what? There's nothing on this!"
"That woman there! She looks like you!"
"EXCUSE ME?" Donna bellowed, causing Miss to 'Shh!' her with a look that clearing told her that this was not going to be forgotten about. But that could be forgotten. The woman on this thing was old. And while Donna was not the slimmest in her class, the woman was clearly round. "What are you trying to say about me eh? That I look like a middle aged woman? That I'm fat? What sort of person are you?"
Lauren's grin slid off her face. "What? No I were never saying them things! What I meant was-"
"Oh, I understand what you meant very clearly Lauren Yates. And to that I say: good luck on your own! Have fun with Miss Wilkins and the nerd patrol!" Donna made to stride off but her friend grabbed her arm.
"Look I'm sorry Donna! What I meant was, she looks like you in like 15 years time yeah?"
Donna took a closer look at it. She supposed that it did look a little bit like her. "Okay, smarty pants, but this was made in like-" She peered at the card describing that statue thing. "-That this was made in roughly the year AD 79 as an altar of household gods. How do you explain that eh?"
Lauren shrugged. "You Italian or something maybe?"
Donna laughed. "Whatever mate! Cor, they must have been really thick to worship boxes. But if that's me, then-" She quickly scanned the room and pointed at a broken statue of a young woman. "-That one's based on someone too."
"That one?" The two girls crossed the room to examine the statue Donna had pointed out. It was a young girl with one arm, the other broken off. The remaining arm clutching a big horn overflowing with fruit and vegetables.
"She's got hooped earrings on!" Lauren said in surprise, pulling off one of her own and holding it up. "Wow, you know Miss is always going on about 'what the Romans did for us' but I never knew they invented hoop earrings!"
" 'A statue of the Goddess Fortuna, holding a horn of plenty. From AD 189.' It's like 2,000 years old Lauren. You're really out of fashion! But honestly, if you see a one-armed estate girl with hoop earrings, then I'll say that that woman on that altar thing is me. Next you'll be saying that that box thing on there can…. I dunno, time travel!"
The two girls burst into giggles and Miss Wilkins thought to herself to definitely give them a detention when they got back to the school.
A/N: Little refrences to 'The Stone Rose' and Lauren is of course, a name from The Catherine Tate Show. (which I actully hate but whatever.)
So review, it's just a little thing lol!