Charlie Hipkiss is lazy and has an answer for everything, whilst Saima Noor is sensible and hardworking. Both pupils, in Year 5 at Wicton Village Primary, find that truth and lies are never far apart when a school trip turns their world upside down.
Wicton Village museum is under threat and a furious Miss Isadora Dean, the mysterious curator, invokes the power of an ancient force. Unaware, the two classmates are thrust back in time to cruel, Roman Britain. Trickery, robbery and murder confront them and threaten their very lives. Survival is everything if they are ever to return home.