by Georgia Byng
“Near enough.”
“I get it,” Molly said. “So first, we get up to the palace. Second, Petula hypnotizes the guards. Third, we make our way to the mind-machine room—”
“I was thinking differently,” Tortillus interrupted. “Petula could come onstage with the quogs. She can quietly make her way to Princess Fang’s seat and, as soon as her eyes lock on to the princess’s, hypnotize her.”
“But if Fang spots Petula’s not a quog,” Molly pointed out, “then Petula will be caught. It’s so dangerous. Because anyway, even if she manages to get to the princess to look her in the eyes, she may not be able to hypnotize her.” Molly frowned. “If she can’t, she’s—she’s dead!”
“You’re right,” Tortillus murmured. “We’ll do it your way then.” He rubbed his eyes. “Let’s hope we get dealt some good cards.”
Molly stroked Petula. She’d played lots of poker in the orphanage and remembered quite a few games where she’d been losing badly and then had had a run of luck. “Maybe Petula will be our ace in the hole,” she said.
A short while later, Tortillus led a furry sabrerat and a small quog out of the hut. Petula waddled along slowly in her new flappy feet. She was very anxious.
I can’t do this, you know, she confided to the mynah bird.
You can only do your best, her new friend replied.
And so Petula followed her mistress toward the loading area of the zoo. Once there, she looked into the quog crate and studied the animals suspiciously. They seemed peaceful. She sent polite greetings out to them, wondering whether they would understand dog and whether they would reply in a friendly way. Tortillus opened the cage door.
Come on in, came the thoughts of the biggest quog. We’re not going to eat you.
Petula glanced across at Molly in her sabrerat cage. She took a deep breath, picked her feet up, and gingerly stepped inside.
The sky began to rattle with noise as big flycopters descended upon the zoo. Wildgust raised blue flags, indicating that the machines could prepare to lift the crates. Chains and heavy-duty canvas straps were lowered.
One by one, large and small crates were hooked up. As soon as each was ready the hawk-man waved a green flag and the crates were pulled up into the air. Petula’s quog cage was one of the first to be hauled away. Her stomach lurched as though she was on a very fast-rising elevator. Through the metal grid she watched the zoo enclosures drop away, and the shimmering lake shrink. She watched the roofs of cottages and lawns of gardens become tinier and tinier until finally she was looking down a precipice of gray rocky mountain.
Why are you dressed as a quog? the biggest quog thought to her.
I’m on a secret mission, Petula explained. The quog’s eyebrows jiggled as he digested this information. Petula wondered if he knew what a secret mission was. She looked at his gray scruffy fur and his real webbed feet and she hoped she would get away with her disguise.
The flycopters hovered over a flat, stony place. Petula peered out of her crate to see what lay below. To the right some very tall metal gates were open. Beyond these were huge passageways that led into the mountain to a showground inside the palace. Guards dressed as toy soldiers with ribbons in their helmets stood about, guiding the aircraft and their loads down. Petula wondered which one she ought to hypnotize first. Hypnotize first? Who was she kidding? Petula knew that her hypnotism was out to lunch. In fact it was out to tea, supper, and breakfast too. Any hypnotic skills she’d ever had had left town.
Tortillus opened Molly’s cage, and attaching a lead to the collar around her neck, patted her fuzzy sabrerat head.
“Good sabrerat,” he said loudly as a guard walked past. “Don’t bite now!” He led Molly toward the cliff edge, where a score of iron rings were fixed to the ground, and he tied her lead to one. “Stay!” he commanded. He returned shortly with Petula.
“Good girl,” Molly whispered to her, very impressed at her pet’s acting. “I can see why that director put you in his movie.” Molly was trying to lighten her mood, for her insides were bumping about with nerves. “It’ll all be done soon, Petula. We’ll do it—you just wait and see. Before you know it you’ll be chasing rabbits in Briersville.”
The guard by the rock turned and then began walking toward them. In the bubble above Petula’s head Molly saw that she was thinking of nothing but the guard. All about him were swirls of silver light and his eyes were swirling too. Molly could see that Petula was preparing to hypnotize him.
You can do it, Petula! she encouraged her silently. The guard came closer.
And so, using all her doggy might, Petula summoned up the tingling electric feeling of hypnosis. Her legs and back became rigid with concentration. Her eyes stared up at the approaching guard’s, daring him to stare back at her.
Come on, come on! Molly urged.
Petula could feel Molly’s encouragement. When the burly man was finally near enough, Petula locked her black pupils on to his and willed him to be hypnotized.
But it was useless. The man was unmoved. Petula wasn’t surprised—no whooshing fusion feeling had rushed though her body—so she knew that the hypnotism wasn’t happening.
Petula collapsed on the floor in a heap. She had let everyone down.
“Zookeeper!” shouted the guard. At once Molly bristled with nerves. Had he seen through Petula’s disguise? Tortillus quickly came over.
“That quog—is sick,” said the guard. “Get rid—of it.” He marched away.
“Petula can’t do it,” Molly whispered hoarsely, fighting back tears of exasperation. “She can’t do it at all.”
“Do you think she might have another go?” Tortillus asked. As he bent down to stroke Petula, Silver fluttered down by her side too.
Oh, cat tails! Petula moaned, with her head in her paws. I’ve only ever hypnotized a bunch of sleepy mice. I wish they understood.
Don’t worry, Silver said. I’ll tell them how it is. And flapping up to Tortillus’s curved shoulder, he cawed, “IM … BOSSY… BELL. IM … BOSSY… BELL.”
“Im bossy bell?” Molly asked Tortillus quietly. “What does that mean?”
“That, I’m afraid, means, impossible,’” Tortillus whispered back.
Molly found her insides being gripped by desperation. She had to come up with a good plan now, or she was as good as dead. And so her inventive mind began to whirr.
“Forget our first plan,” she said, glancing across to Wildgust, who was holding a butterfly-winged mouse. “I think I’ve got a better one.”
And as Tortillus stroked Petula’s pretend beak, Molly whispered her ideas to him.
Tortillus nodded. “So wait for the sign,” he said and ambled away.
Molly sat down, trying to seem as sabreratty as possible. She looked out over the walled edge of the cliff and kept her eyes glued on the elethumpers. The hours stretched out as though time had taken a sleeping pill. When a palace servant passed, looking a little too interestedly at her, she growled at him, which sent him scurrying.
Then, from inside the mountain, Molly could hear that the show had begun. The sound of a distant brass band floated out of the giant palace passageway. She watched anxiously as the bearunkeys were shepherded into the tunnel and then ten minutes later returned. She saw the giant mice and the deer geese being taken in to perform.
Finally Tortillus said very loudly, “Elethumpers next!”
Molly edged her fingers up to her neck and surreptitiously undid her collar, placing it on the ground beside her. She took off Petula’s lead too. And then the commotion that she’d been waiting for happened. Two enormous male elethumpers went crazy. One began kicking its back legs so furiously that it pushed its crate right up to the edge of the mountain, where it lay see-sawing, half on the mountain, half off. The other was bouncing on the spot, waving its trunk about, trumpeting aggressively at one of the guards. The hypnotized palace servants shrank back to the palace wall. Even Tortillus looked worried. Belsha stood behind the elethumpers, tickling their tails
with a feathered stick, which wasn’t helping; in fact, it was making things worse. She winked at Molly.
And then Molly heard a swishing in the air. Wildgust was swooping down on her. Molly felt like a field mouse being hunted by a bird of prey. She grabbed Petula and it was just in time too, for a split second later Wildgust’s sharp talons were hooked under her arms, lifting her up. Instinctively, Molly put her right arm up to hold on extra tight to his leg. Then it felt as if they were falling off the mountain as Wildgust tipped his body and flew sideways and down. Molly looked below. Beneath her was a thousand-foot drop. Her stomach leaped. If Wildgust let go of her, she and Petula would be dead. Would he? Surely not. But Molly couldn’t entirely trust the hawk-man. Quickly taking her mask off and holding it in her teeth, she gripped onto his leg even tighter.
Now Wildgust flew upward, around a shady part of the mountaintop city. His strong wings beat the air. Soon he was nearing the summit of the mountain. Below, Molly saw colorful manicured gardens and the golden roofs of the fabulous mountaintop residences. It was completely deserted. Perhaps everyone was at the circus. Molly hoped so.
Higher and higher Wildgust flew, bringing them closer to Princess Fang’s pinnacle palace. Molly recognized it at once. They were heading toward the large balcony where she had stood only days before.
As welcome as water to a netted fish, the ground met Molly’s feet. Wildgust let go of her shoulders and deftly landed on the balcony wall. Before Molly could thank him, he took off again and was gone.
Down at the zoological institute, in the tree house, Micky was banging on the bars of his cage with his shoulder, shouting through his gag. Through the bars of his prison he could see Professor Selkeem’s laboratory. Glass test tubes and dishes, the discards from the mad boy’s night experiments, lay smashed on the floor.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” the professor said, finally rousing himself from his sleep. “What do you want?” he yawned.
“Uuugh, uuurgh,” Micky grunted urgently, nodding with his head toward the empty cell. The young professor reached his arm through the bars and undid Micky’s gag. “Rockeee!” Micky yelled. “Molly’s gone—to palace! Rockeee!—To the mind—machine. Rockeeeeee! Tortillus and Wildgust—are not—hypnotized!—Molly wants—to give them—their throne back!”
“What? Their high chairs back? Wildgust not hypnotized?! This is sewer-pit news!” The professor started twitching and looking to the left and the right of him in a flurry of panic. Then angrily he shouted, “Fang can’t have them. We must get them! Wildgust must be stopped!”
“I must see … Rockeee!” Micky gasped, as though his life depended on it.
The professor opened the cage door and began dragging Micky along the floor toward the tree-house door.
“We will get them!” he snarled, gathering up a bag full of laboratory equipment as he went. “You will see Rocky. We must catch Wildgust before it’s too late!” Then he gave a commanding whistle, and his four dognakes appeared. “Carry the boy. And follow me!” he shouted. “Head for the mountain tunnels!”
Twenty-four
Molly breathed a sigh of relief. Poor Petula was in such a state of shock that her legs were shaking and she could barely stand. Molly knelt down and kissed her. Then a flapping of small wings overhead caught their attention. Silver hopped over to Petula and tapped his orange beak against her pretend quog one.
That was terrifying, Petula said with a whine.
Lucky you weren’t born a bird, said Silver. So, what are you going to do up here? This is a bad place.
My mistress will have something up her sleeve, Petula said, trying to make herself comfortable in her yellow webbed feet. She may not look like a champ, but she’s quite good in tricky situations.
Molly clutched her sabrerat mask and looked around. The place was as quiet as a cemetery. She poked her head past the wall of the balcony to see whether anyone was watching. No one was about. But now Molly knew about the cameras and poisonous darts. She could see one camera now, attached to the pink brick wall ahead, and another that hung from the red-and-green branch of a strawberry tree. Rotating cameras were dotted about the grounds like security guards in a museum. Watching them swivel on their pivots, Molly saw there were black spots—moments when certain areas weren’t covered. If they moved quickly, when the cameras had turned away, she and Petula would be invisible to the guards.
Straight ahead was the flower-decked passageway to the dining room. To the right of the balcony lay a garden and beyond this the courtyard where the mind-machine room was housed—it was tantalizingly close. Molly didn’t know how to operate the machine, but, she thought, if she could just somehow get in, there was a chance that Princess Fang would come in at some point. If Molly could overpower her, maybe she could force her to give her back all her hypnotic knowledge. Even while Molly fantasized about this, she saw what a slim hope it was. For how could Molly trust the princess to program the machine to return her knowledge? She might program it to completely empty Molly’s brain instead. Her excitement and hope were dampening, and despair was returning. She thought of her hippie friend, Forest, who always had good mental tricks up his sleeve. What would he say now to help her? she wondered. His laid-back voice filled her head.
Cool it, Mrs. Foolit.
Always remember, it’s not such big potatoes.
We’re all only blips in the great big cosmic computer, Molly.
Think positive, and positive vibes will find ya!
Molly smiled. “Okay, little potato,” she said straightening Petula’s quog ears and her webbed feet. “Let’s turn Fang into mash!”
Putting on her sabrerat mask and waiting until the nearby camera had turned, she held Petula’s collar tightly and led her out into the ornamental garden. Together they scurried down the flowered path toward the courtyard. Molly tried to make her movements as sabrerat-like as possible. When they got halfway across the grass, three cameras pirouetted toward them. Paralyzed by fear, Molly quickly lay down behind a bank of purple lilies, then, when the coast was clear, dashed forward. Finally, picking their way from a statue of Fang to a scented carrot bush, they made it to the mind machine room.
Molly gave the door a push. Not surprisingly it didn’t budge. It was locked. She put her ear up close and listened. From inside came the slush, slush pumping noise of the jellyfish. It sounded as if the machine was on. Was someone having his brain interfered with right now? Perhaps Princess Fang was in there, stuffing her head with another victim’s knowledge.
“Craaaarrrrk! Body coming, body coming!” Silver suddenly croaked from his lookout above.
Molly quickly found a large mossy rock and crouched behind it, half hidden in the shadows. Petula lay down in the sun in the long grass beside a bed of multicolored poppies. She eyed the archway ahead, wondering who was going to come through. To her horror, Taramasalata, the cat-spider, came scuttling into view. The last thing Petula wanted to do was meet her, but she couldn’t risk Molly being discovered. And so, now acting as quoglike as she could, she gave a barky quack.
The cat-spider stopped in her tracks. She pricked up her ears and stood stiff and erect on her eight pink furry legs. Then her yellow eyes met Petula’s. Immediately she sniffed the air and sent out an aggressive thought message: This is private property. You don’t belong here. Why are you trespassing?
Petula sealed off the true thoughts in her head and sent back a quog message: I’m lost. I come from the zoo, but an eagle picked me up and dropped me here. I want to go back to my pupplings—will you show me the way?
Taramasalata blinked and then advanced. Soon she was a foot away from Petula, eyeing her rubbery webbed feet. She extended a pink leg and prodded Petula’s beak. Petula quacked, aware that the cat-spider had smelled a rat, or worse, a pug. Petula began to feel desperate. If only she could remember how to hypnotize! All she needed was that warm, tingling sensation sparkling up from her paws. Then the cat-spider would be hers. Petula cast her mind back to when she’d watched Mo
lly learning to hypnotize. She’d sensed then that Molly would peer into the inner feelings of her victims, and then echo the feelings back to them before she turned on the eye power. That was the method Petula had used to hypnotize the mice. It was worth another try, she thought. Deftly she delved into Taramasalata’s mind.
Petula found whining, scratchy feelings mixed with smug purrings. She took a deep breath and, feeling as whiny and as scratchy and as smug as the cat-spider, she made herself purr back.
“Purrrrr, purrrrrr, purrrrrrrr.” The creature in front of her paused. Petula purred again. Taramasalata tilted her head questioningly. Petula hoped this was a sign that it was working. And then she felt it. A tingling that was tickling the end of her claws now began trickling up her legs. She purred again and again. Now a fizz was creeping along her backbone. Three more purrs and it was humming like an electric halo around her head. Petula was thrilled. All she had to do now was bring this hypnotic energy into her eyes. Petula began to quiver with excitement as she brought her eyes level with the cat-spider’s. But there it all went wrong.
Instead of lolling over, hypnotized, the nasty creature hissed, You don’t smell like a quog. Not enough duck smell in your odor. You smell too doggy. And your beak looks very odd.
Petula gave a short quack. Don’t tease me. All quogs tease me. It’s not my fault I smell more dog than quog.
As Petula concentrated on acting the part of a bullied quog the tingling sensation died down in her. This was very frustrating. She couldn’t let her efforts come to nothing! She simply must help Molly! So digging deep, she tried again.
Petula’s tail now began to feel hot—hot as a hot sausage. Gritting her teeth and making the fizzy halo buzz about her head again, she drew up all the hypnotic power she could muster and, with a wallop of a stare, sent out what she hoped was enough hypnotism to sedate an elephant.
This time the cat-spider’s thoughts halted. She looked into Petula’s eyes. Petula glared deeply back. Taramasalata’s yellow pupils were beginning to tremble. Spurred on, Petula intensified her look. The cat-spider’s pupils were growing. Now they looked the size of cherries. And then the real fusion feeling rushed from Petula’s tail, along her spine, over her forehead, and into her nose. It felt as if hot bubbling water was spouting through her veins. The cat-spider had fallen under her spell!