Hopelessly Rome-antic [Re-writing]

Just the way it is

The return home wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Callum was extremely quiet and didn't ask many questions. Instead, he focused on trying to find a solution to our problem.

When we went back to school, I expected him to completely avoid the matter and keep his distance with us but he was the one who was waiting for me at my locker for the first lesson.
Casually leaning against the locker's door, one hand in his trousers' pocket and the other holding a pile of documents. He waved them at me and I hurried to join him.

"I found these" he explained as I grabbed my books and we moved toward the first class.

"The Truth about Egypt?" I said as I read the title of the folder out loud.

"Some old documents I found on Internet. I printed everything out and started to look through it."

We entered the classroom and discussed a bit more before our history teacher came in.

"How's everyone doing with their project? The due date is approaching, so I'll be expecting and accepting early work."

From his seat, Callum gave me a thumbs up.

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"So here, this entire part is about the attack on the camp that you told us" Callum said. He highlighted in bright pink a section of the page we had been reading.
"Basically, it says that the attack was conduct by Cleopatra's brother. His goal was to kill the Roman generals and  gain power over his sister."

Highlighting another section of the report, he went on about how General Tatum Marcus had nearly died but somehow survived.
Every single information in the text that I had seen or assisted to was highlighted.

"Our only problem is that part right here." Amelia pointed out. She circled in green a paragraph that I read. Basically, it confirmed many other documents on Eopei's sudden disappearance.

"We only need to find what made her disappear."

"That's easier said than done"

--------

We spent five days doing as much research as we could on Eopei but we always ended up with the same amount of information. There was nothing we could do that would help us gain more knowledge on it. Callum even considered talked to my stepmother about it and when he did, she gave him the exact same answers we had been reading all about for the last 72 hours.

"I give up" Amelia said as she fell from my bed onto a pile of history books we had taken from the library.

"Same" Callum declared and shut his computer down.

"I guess we can take a break" I muttered.

"Take a break? We've been working on this for three days. THREE DAYS" Amelia emphasized "I don't even spend that much time on revision for a test."

Callum chuckled at her remark and took a sip from his glass.

We'd gather at my house every day after school to do our homework and then focus on our private research on Eopei. My step-mother had stopped being mad at me for skipping school and being sick too much, and now she was thrilled with the fact that I had brought a cute teenage boy home who was also very interested in history.

Except I had my own little plan on putting him with Amelia.

"Let's talk about something else than history" Amelia declared and when neither of Callum or myself replied, she begged us even more. "Please"

"What do you want to talk about?" Callum asked.

"The costume party that the school is holding"

And here we go.

"We should go as a trio." Amelia started "It'd be like the three musketeers...but not dressing up as them obviously."

"Why not?" Callum asked "I like them"

"They're not...flattering enough" she replied and took out her computer to search something. "There is just so many costumes we can dress up as. Like Harry Potter."

"Too cliché"

"Twilight"

"No way in hell"

"The Mortal instruments?"

"Nope"

"Disney princesses"

"Can you get something more original? If you plan to drag us to this stupid party, then at least make sure that we stand out." Callum complained as he grabbed his laptop from the table and jumped on my bed. "What about something more historical?"

"Hell no. We've had too much to do with history recently and I don't want to be dressed as a dead person."

The two of them were quarrelling on which idea was better and I took a quick look at my closet.

"I'd rather dress up as something historical then" I said "I've already have a few dresses from all these time travelling and if my step mother finds then, she's probably going to ask me about it anyway. And it's not like I'm going to wear them every day as well, so we'd better use them now."

Amelia gave me a look that meant something along the line of wow, great support for your best friend while Callum gave me a thumb up.

"Then I get to decide what we dress up as" Amelia yelled out and stuck her tongue out to prove that she had a point. Since Callum and I had chosen the topic, she might as well work her magic and find us people to go as.

That's how we spent the rest of the evening look at the two dresses I had brought back from the past. After a quick look, Amelia started sketching what she had in mind and decided on drawing our makeup too. She had in mind that we should be flawless since it was a costume party and wasn't going to let any detail pass.

In the end, she decided we should dress up as Roman or Greek gods. She copied the plain dresses I had brought back and sketched a few more details that we would add onto them later. As for Callum, she yet had to find a costume too and decided that the best would be to rent a costume for him if I wasn't able to bring back one armor back in time.

But still, the dance was in a month and we had a lot of time to prepare our costumes.