Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism (11 page)

Molly stepped out of the shop, pulling up the collar of her scruffy blue jacket and putting her new sunglasses on again. Mr. Mold gazed after her.

The new customer blocked his view. “Let me have another look at the pair of glasses you showed me this morning,” he demanded.

“Ah yes, Professor Nockman,” said Mr. Mold, shaken from his daze. He pulled the spectacles that he’d been polishing earlier out of his top pocket and put them on the counter. “You’d never guess it, but that girl out there has just won the town talent competition!”

His impatient customer wasn’t at all concerned with modern Briersville life. But he did have an interest in Briersville life a hundred years ago. He’d been into Mr. Mold’s shop several times since he’d discovered that the elderly antique dealer knew the story of the town’s famous Dr. Logan and that Mr. Mold had even bought and sold artifacts that had been used in Logan’s traveling hypnotism show.

Today Professor Nockman was back in the shop because of the pair of antique spectacles that was on the counter now. They had black lenses with a white
swirling pattern on them and were said to have once belonged to Dr. Mesmer himself.

“Supposed to be protection against hypnotic eyes,” Mr. Mold had explained. “Fun but foolish. But, I should think,” he had added hopefully, “very appropriate for your museum collection.”

The spectacles were expensive, and Professor Nockman hadn’t decided whether to buy them or not. He picked them up and scratched at his oiled mustache with a plump, long-nailed finger. Mr. Mold continued to stare down the high street at Molly and Petula, who were strolling along, looking in shop windows.

“Apparently she can dance like Ginger Rogers. My granddaughter thought she was beautiful! She looks quite plain to me. Well, I suppose it’s all in the eyes of the beholder.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said the professor, trying the strange spectacles on and looking up at the ceiling.

“She bought herself a beautiful gold pendant, although she called it a pendulum. A funny thing for a child to buy. I hope she doesn’t fritter all that prize money away.”

“A
pendulum
?” said Professor Nockman, suddenly giving the shopkeeper his full attention. He turned his swirly spectacle-clad eyes upon him. “How much money did she win?”

“Three thousand pounds, I believe. It’s amazing, isn’t it? She looks so ordinary. Well, you know what they say, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ And talking of books, when I asked her where she learned to perform like that, she said, ‘From a very special old book.’ What an eccentric child!”

“What book?” demanded Nockman, his nose twitching like a dog’s that had just picked up a scent.

“Some book she’s carrying.”

Professor Nockman snatched off the antique spectacles and, at last, looked out into the street at the girl. She was reading the ads outside the newspaper stand, and held awkwardly in the crook of her arm, under her jacket, was the hard-edged shape of a large, rectangular object. Nockman gasped. He’d hit the jackpot. He was sure of it. His mind raced as he thought about what Mr. Mold had been saying. The girl had bought a pendulum and won a whole load of money; everyone thought she was gorgeous but she wasn’t, and the secret of her success lay in a special old book. A book she obviously didn’t want anyone to see, since she was hiding it under her jacket. Nockman’s gut instinct surged up and told him that the shape under the odd-looking girl’s jacket was, without any shadow of a doubt, his hypnotism book.

Molly and Petula were now disappearing around the
corner. The professor lunged for the door handle, then remembered the spectacles.

“I’ll take the glasses,” he said. “How much did you say they were?”

“They’re absolutely unique,” said Mr. Mold shrewdly. “Four hundred fifty pounds.” He handed the silver-rimmed spectacles over.

Nockman’s mind was galloping. He knew the shopkeeper was charging too much, but if they were really effective antihypnotism glasses, he might need them, and he didn’t have time to bargain.

“I’ll take them.” Professor Nockman put the money out on the desk. “Don’t bother wrapping them,” he said. “And if you get anything else on hypnotism, call me in the States. Here’s my number.”

“Certainly,” said the shopkeeper happily. He’d never sold so much in an afternoon. It had been a good idea to open on a Sunday after all. “Good-bye.”

Professor Nockman hurried out of the shop, threw his cigarillo on the ground, and looked frantically for the girl. Burping with excitement, he puffed his way down the street in the direction she had taken.

Molly and Petula, meanwhile, had returned to the hotel, where Miss Adderstone and Edna were faithfully waiting in the minibus.

Molly went to her room, collected her knapsack, and
came down to pay her bill. Then she went to the minibus and climbed in. Petula hopped in after her.

“Where to, miss?” Miss Adderstone asked in her rubbery-mouthed voice (still not wearing her false teeth).

“The airport,” Molly said confidently. She sat back and gave Petula a good stroke.

Professor Nockman, who’d been looking for the girl in other shops, bustled into the drive of the hotel just as a blue minibus was pulling out. The driver had a mad look in her eye and seemed to be wearing a pair of knickers on her head. As the vehicle turned into the traffic, Professor Nockman caught a second glimpse of the plain-looking talent-contest winner. She was sitting in the back of the minibus like a starlet, with a pug dog beside her and a big, burgundy-colored book on her knee, and through the low window he saw that she was holding what was, unmistakably, a passport.

Professor Nockman knew that the girl had the hypnotism book. He dived for the back of the minibus. But he missed the vehicle completely and tripped over his feet instead. Getting a mouthful of exhaust, he started to panic. Nockman realized that the hypnotism book,
his
book, was sliding away from him. The book was essential to his plan—his brilliantly conceived, secret plan that was going to catapult him to the top of
his profession. Without it he’d never achieve his aims. Now there was a good chance that the girl with the passport planned to take it far, far away. Desperately Nockman ran, huffing and puffing, into the hotel and rushed upstairs to his room. He threw everything into his suitcase and charged back down.

“Are you leaving, sir?” asked the receptionist, alarmed. “Have you paid your bill?”

But Nockman didn’t reply. He was already out the door.

“To the airport,” he growled at a sleepy taxi driver who was reading the paper.

As the car moved off, Nockman willed the traffic lights not to turn red. Beads of sweat were dribbling down his forehead. Then, as the taxi made good progress out of town, he realized that he could still catch the girl, and he began to cool down.

That book was his destiny. All he had to do was follow it.

T
he airport was an hour and a half’s drive from Briersville. Molly sat in the back of the minibus, stroking Petula and looking out the window at the countryside shooting by. She drank it all in, not sure when she would be seeing it again. She wasn’t bothered if she never came back. Nor did she care that she didn’t really know where in America she was going. She felt strong, rich, and eager to see the world. And determined to find Rocky.

Miss Adderstone drove fast and furiously to the airport, and she and Edna helped Molly out of the minibus. They seemed almost sweet now as they stood huddled together, Miss Adderstone in her snipped-up suit with her knickers on her head and Edna in a tight-fitting, Italian-looking raincoat. They dabbed their
eyes with hankies. Edna’s had a map of Italy sewn on.

“Oh, Molly, we’ll bleedin’ well miss you,” Edna said weepily.

“Best of luck, Molly, dear.” Miss Adderstone sniffed.

“Thank you,” Molly said cheerfully. Petula gave Miss Adderstone a dirty-dog look.

“Send us a postcard.”

“Do keep in touch.”

Molly nodded. Then she decided to give each of them a farewell present. She clapped once and both went into a deep trance. “Now, listen carefully, you two,” Molly said. “I’m going to give you some new interests … so your lives get more … well, more
interesting
. Miss Adderstone, from now on, you will have a big new passion for”—Molly looked about for inspiration—“for, for airplanes and flying. Yes, that’s it. You are going to learn to fly planes. And Edna, well, you will love Italian cooking and Italy even more. You’ll love Italian fashion, um … Italian cars, oh, and the language, of course, which you’ll learn to speak. And from now on, both of you will be
nice
to
all
children.”

Molly felt satisfied that she had been generous to everyone at Hardwick House. She clapped twice and Miss Adderstone and Edna came out of their trances. Miss Adderstone started to sniff again.

“Oh, you are
so
lucky, Molly, to be going on a plane,” she said with a sob. “I’ve always wanted to fly.”

“Arrivederci
, Molly,” sniffled Edna.

Molly helped Petula inside her traveling basket. “Good-bye then,” she said. She turned away, and the sound of Miss Adderstone’s and Edna’s wails faded as she stepped inside the terminal building.

“Boy, oh boy,” Molly said under her breath.

“I’d like a ticket on the next plane to New York, please.”

The airline clerk peered over her desk at the small girl, whose chin was level with the top of the counter. “I’m sorry, but we can only sell tickets to passengers who are sixteen or over.”

Molly took her sunglasses off, and her eyes beamed out irresistibly. “I am sixteen,” Molly said, giving the woman her passport. The clerk suddenly saw a girl who was obviously at least sixteen.

“Madam, of course, I wasn’t thinking properly, I do apologize. But I’m afraid it’s too late to check in for the next flight. It has nearly finished boarding. It leaves in twenty minutes.”

Molly increased her eye voltage.

“I’m
so
sorry,” the blue-suited woman said bewilderedly. “I don’t know what’s come over me today. For
a VIP like you, madam, of course I can arrange everything. That’ll be four hundred fifty pounds. Do you have any baggage?”

“No.”

The woman took Molly’s money and wrote a few details down before handing her a handwritten ticket and a boarding pass.

“Please make your way as fast as you can to gate twenty-five. Have a good trip.”

Molly hurried through the departures gate and up to the X-ray machines. After a good eye flash the security guard let her pass through without checking her dog basket, and Molly padded past duty-free shops and down carpeted corridors.

Just as Molly found gate twenty-five, Professor Nockman arrived, sweating and panting, at the ticket desk.

“Did a young girl just buy a ticket here?” he asked aggressively. “She would have bought it with cash.”

“Sir, we have hundreds of people buying tickets here every day,” said the ticket clerk crisply.

“Yeah, yeah,” Professor Nockman said rudely, “but a girl, a girl of ten or so … she …”

“Sir, we don’t sell tickets to children. And, besides, we don’t divulge information like that.” The telephone behind the desk rang and the woman turned to answer it. The professor leaned forward and scanned the piece
of paper in front of her, reading it upside down.

There was a note of a cash payment for a ticket to New York for an M. Moon.

“Gimme a ticket to New York. I wanna catch the two thousand flight,” demanded the professor.

The woman looked down at her list and crossly covered it with her hand. “I’m afraid it’s too late to board that plane. The gates have closed.”

Indeed they had. Molly had stepped onto the plane, the last passenger.

Molly showed the flight attendant her economy ticket and flashed her eyes. “First class, I think,” she suggested, and was escorted to the first-class compartment at the front of the plane. She put Petula, hidden in the basket, on the empty seat beside her.

As Professor Nockman stamped and raged, Molly was buckling her belt. As a security guard put his hand on the professor’s shoulder, a flight attendant brought Molly an orange juice. Professor Nockman had to make do with a ticket on the next plane to New York, five hours later.

The plane roared down the runway and took off into the darkening sky. Molly looked out the window. It was her first time on a plane, and she found the idea of being in a huge chunk of flying metal scary. Her hands began to get sticky. But then she noticed how calm all the flight attendants were and she felt better. She looked out
the window again and watched the twinkling lights of the airport falling away as the plane climbed higher and higher. She looked to the west, in the direction of Hardwick House. It was somewhere there, miles and miles away. Molly breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to be leaving. Hardwick House had nothing to offer her now, and somehow, she was sure, she’d see Rocky again. Then everything would be hunky-dory. Maybe she could hypnotize his family to adopt her, too. Or they could run away together and live out of suitcases. Molly’s mind boggled as she thought about America. She’d seen it so often on television programs. Soon she’d be living the happy life that she’d been longing for. She wouldn’t have to watch ads and pretend anymore. Molly began to investigate the small television screen attached to her armrest.

From the viewing gallery on the airport roof, Professor Nockman fumed as he saw the plane taking off. “M. Moon,” he muttered, “I’m on to you, M. Moon….” He twiddled the golden scorpion medallion that hung round his neck. “So you’ve got the book, an’ you’ve learned a few tricks. Well, ain’t you a smart aleck. But not so smart that you covered your tracks. You better watch it, kiddy—I’m hot on your heels. And when I hook you, whoa! You’re really gonna wish you’d never laid eyes on that book at all.”

T
he flight to New York was eight hours long, but Molly was very comfortable in her massive reclining chair. She watched two films and smelled lovely from all the free skin creams that came in a special bag. Petula behaved herself all the way, sucking on a stone that she’d picked up in the Briersville Hotel drive. She whined only once—when the chicken casserole arrived—but the flight attendant thought it was Molly making the noise. Molly ordered a second helping, which she put in Petula’s basket.