Mozart regarded his blank expression and offered him the phone book.
"Dude, are you telling us this bucket can actually take us to all these places?"
"It brought us here. Why guess what historical figures would think of San Dimas when we can go and ask them?" Ted pointed out.
"Ted my friend, that is a most bodacious question," Bill agreed. "Who else should we get for our report?"
Ted picked up his bag and reached for his textbook. Instead he found notebook full of nothing but doodles.
"Ted! You lost our history. Now how are we gonna know who are historical figures are?"
Ted stared back at him blankly for a moment. "We'll use the phone book. There's gotta be lots of names in there."
"Okay. Do you remember the list of names we were supposed to study?" Bill asked.
"Uh... Yep!" Ted nodded brightly.
Bill flipped through the pages, trying to find something that looked familiar. "Belshazzar, Burna-Buriash, Caesar, Cetshwayo, Confucius..."
"It's him, salad dressing dude! Maybe he was like, an ancient chef or something," Ted poked the listing for Caesar with his finger.
Bill punched in the number, and Ted hastened to shut the door before he lost anything else. The booth landed next to heavy columns supporting a red tile roof. Sunlight cut knives and shadows between the stone, and bounced off the flaking paint on marble statues. They spilled out into a press of people dressed in swirling cloth, with pale woolens competing with layers of bright colour and gold jewelery. Despite crashing down in full view of so many eyes, few glanced in their direction. Everyone was already too distracted by the procession overflowing the roads. Soldiers hemmed in long rows of prisoners as they carried piles of gold, and muscular men led giraffes along in a stately march. For all the gawpers, the procession sought the attention of only one man wearing a heavy purple layer on top of loose white folds. The way he sat apart from the crowd, and the way his dark eyes flashed in smug amusement made it clear the parade and even the excited public were all meant for him.
"Let's all go talk to that dude, maybe he knows who Caesar is," Bill pointed.
"How are we going to get close to him?" Ted asked.
Bill watched for a minute as a boy in a plain tunic climbed up to the man's side to whisper in his ear. "We'll disguise ourselves to look like that kid. Where can we get some clothes like that dress-thing he's wearing?"
He looked around, and pointed to a merchant watching the show from his store front, piles of folded cloth lying ignored around him. "There's a place. Come on Mozart, I have an idea."
Mozart distracted the merchant with an animated conversation while Bill and Ted crawled below the edge of the counter. Ted reached up from where they crouched out of sight and swiped some clothes, cramming them into his bag. They scurried back to the crowds and pulled the tunics over their own clothes like stuffing pillows into a pillowcases. Their sleeves and the edge of their shorts stuck out, and Ted fumbled to get his backpack on again.
Creeping up as the boy had done, Bill crouched by the man's purple-swathed shoulder and spoke into his ear.
"Salutations, fashionable old dude. Excellent party," he gave a thumbs-up. "We're looking for someone named Caesar, so we can ask his opinion of San Dimas. That's where we're from."
The man gave Bill no more than a brief quizzical expression before guards appeared at his sides.
"Listen, we're totally not here to fight anybody," Bill and Ted both backed up as the man's guardians lowered their long spears. "We wouldn't win anyway, so there's no point in any of us even starting."
With a shared glance, they both leapt into the parade, startling a giraffe so badly it tore its lead from the grip of its handler. The giraffe broke into a run, scattering the other animals and the audience. The rows of soldiers push back to avoid being trampled, and the prisoners took the chance to dump their loads and make a break for the opening. The chains binding them together stretched out like a rope in a tug of war and knocked down anyone who didn't get out of the way quickly enough. They charged toward the same place the rest of the parade had flowed: right at the man in purple. Bill and Ted hit the ground in time for the chain to pass over them, but the unfortunate guards were dragged down like over-whelmed bouncers.
A guard gave a cry to rally more help to his position, calling out on behalf of the name Caesar, but he was unable to stop his charge from being knocked down next to Bill and Ted, almost landing on top of them.
"We got you," They lifted the old man back to his feet and pulled him along to get free of the crush of bodies.
"Oh, so you are salad dressing dude!" Ted grabbed Caesar's hand for a shake. "Come on, we gotta get out of here. Your wild raves are gonna get someone hurt."
They shielded Caesar from view, and Mozart helped the startled man into the booth while Bill flipped through the phone book.
"Okay, I got one. 1700's America, here we come."
