Their breathless laughter spilled out onto the streets, bouncing off the brick and stone buildings hemming them in all around.
"Is this San Dimas?" Elizabeth asked, stepping out of the booth to get some air.
"This is where we get some more people for our report. The more historic figures, the more credit. We just gotta find someone to bag," Ted explained.
"Where do we meet these historic figures?"
"We look around until we find one," Ted grinned confidently. "How about... that place?" He pointed to the nearest structure, a rectangle of dull brown brick receding into the fanciful shadows of larger and more ornate buildings.
Inside, they all paused in amazement at the abrupt change in decoration. The interior was as incredibly vivid as the outside was plain. Every surface was covered in ornamentation, from the mosiac floors to the walls covered in painting after complex painting, each panel leading into another like an unfolding story. People gathered together in their displays of worship and divinity and judgement, with angels and saints sheperding their followers, and demons castigating thos who strayed. With so many figures present it gave the appearance of standing in the middle of an enormous holy gathering. The sheer glory of colour and detail awed them into silence.
Paint splattered down like bird droppings, landing a breath shy of staining Bill's curls. He looked up the the scaffolding that climbed the height of the building, following it to where it brought a man up to touch the ceiling. The painter's brush exposed the human form in all its detail, creating artwork that reached out like living people about to climb down from the height and walk among them. More paint dripped down off the fresh work, and the painter broke the sanctity of the room with harsh curses.
"How's it hanging, painter dude?" Bill called up.
"Gotta admit, some of the dudes you made are pretty well hung," Ted added.
"Most excellent job on the cheeks too, though some of them are looking a little bare." Bill and Ted shared a look, and couldn't suppress their snickers.
The artist made no effort to hide his contempt as he climbed down from his awkward position on the scaffolding and swept past them. He scratched at the paint flecks drying on his face, his expression twisted in both annoyance and pain. Ignoring them utterly, he gathered up his tools and minerals, and laboured to make fresh paint by mixing powder into raw egg yolk.
Ted leaned over his shoulder to watch him work. "What some help?" He asked, poking at the slowly forming colours. "Ow!" He cried as the man smacked his hand away. "This guy's a real dickweed."
"Yeah," Bill agreed. "Let's go find someone else."
The man turned back to them sharply. Though he didn't know the language they spoke, he seemed to understand from their tone that he'd just been insulted. He bristled all the way from his dark curls to his frazzled beard, and his face burned with inflamed ego. Now that they'd come properly face to face at last, Bill saw the man's nose was badly deformed, like someone had punched him so hard he'd never recovered. He wondered if that kind of impact would leave a person expecting to get taunted.
The ensuing angry report suggested just that, as the man encompassed his work with a voice and motion of wounded dignity. In the same praise he praised himself, "Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni" and the mastery of his art. Judging from the viciousness of his tirade, he seemed to think he'd been underappreciated and badly lambasted.
Bill jumped in "While we admit you have a longer name than the rest of us, it's still fair to say these are some pretty important figures you're shouting at. We've got Mozart, the most excellent musician; Caesar, the guy who made all Roman Emperor's call themselves after him; Blackbeard, the pirate who terrorized the Americas and us when we first met him; Imhotep, the builder of giant houses for dead people; and especially Joanna and Elizabeth, the wonderful princess babes," He gestured around their group, identifying each in turn. "Come to think of it, maybe we could skip this one place out of our report, and find somebody non-bogus instead."
Michelangelo blinked paint crusted eyes, and finally noticed the truly odd nature of his audience. Bill took his pause as a chance for distraction.
"Bill S. Preston Esquire, and Ted Theodore Logan," Bill pointed to himself and his friend.
"San Dimas," Ted announced and got out his notebook and marker. He scrawled some jagged rock formations and flag with a bear. Next he drew a row of stick people on a stage. "That's all of us giving our history report."
Ted grinned and handed his school supplies over to Michelangelo, who took it and rubbed the marker tip with his finger. Incredulous, he started transforming one of Ted's stick figures into a far more detailed human, fascinated by how easy it was to colour the page. Bill and Ted each hooked him by an arm and pulled him into the phone booth before he had a chance to notice what was happening.
