The next thing Jack knew, he was lying on thestone patio. The patio stones were trembling. Arumbling sound came from the ground.
12Jack raised his head. Annie was on the ground, too.
"You okay?" said Annie.
Jack nodded.
Everything was shaking and crashing down aroundthem--pots, plants, the mermaid fountain. Water fromthe goldfish pond sloshed onto the patio and Jack andAnnie.
They both jumped up just as roof tiles began fallinginto the garden.
"We better get inside!" said Jack.
He grabbed his leather bag. Then he and Anniestumbled into the scroll library.
Giant cracks split the stone floor as Jack and Annieran to a window and looked out.
Glowing rocks were bursting through the sky aboveMount Vesuvius. The whole top of the mountain hadblown off.
"What's happening?" said Annie.
"I'll check--" said Jack. He pulled out the Romanbook. He read aloud from the section about thevolcano:
When a volcano erupts, hot melted rock called"magma" is pushed to the surface of the earth. Once itgets outside the volcano, it's called "lava.""Lava! That's like burning mud!" said Jack.
"It covers everything!" cried Anme.
Jack kept reading on:
There was no running lava from Mount Vesuvius.
The magma from the volcano cooled so fast that itfroze into small grayish white rocks called pumice(PTJM-iss). A pumice rock is very light and has holeslike a sponge.
"That doesn't sound too bad," said Annie.
"Wait, there's more," said Jack. He readA great cloud of pumice, ash, and burning rock shotmiles into the air. When it rained down on Pompeii, itcompletely buried the town.
"Oh, man," said Jack. "This is a major disaster!""It's getting dark," said Annie.
Jack looked out again. A thick black cloud wasspreading over the earth like an umbrella. The sunvanished as the sky turned smoky gray.
"That must be the cloud of pumice and ash!" saidJack.
Just then the ground trembled again. Chunks ofplaster from the ceiling fell on the scrolls.
"We have to get out of here!" said Annie.
They ran from the scroll library into the garden.
Ash and pumice began to fall.
"We have to cover our heads!" said Jack.
They hurried from the garden into the dining room.
13"Look! Pillows!" said Annie. "Let's put them on ourheads!"They hurried to the couches beside the table andeach grabbed a pillow.
"Tie it around your head with your belt!" said Jack.
They both pulled off the belts from around theirtunics. Then they tied on the pillows, like giant hats.
A chunk of ceiling crashed down near them.
"Let's get out of here!" said Jack.
They stepped over pieces of fallen roof tiles and raninto the main hall. They pushed open the front door.
A blast of heat and dust nearly knocked them over.
And when they stepped outside, pumice rained downonto their pillow hats.
"Run!" cried Annie.
They ran from the vacation villa into the dark,burning streets. |