Molly Moon, Micky Minus, & the Mind Machine

by Georgia Byng

  “Thank goodness you’re back,” she said and flung her arms around her best friend’s shoulders.

  For a while the two friends sat embracing in the still, cold, suspended world. Then Molly gave Rocky a quick briefing on what had been happening. Princess Fang stood on the cloister roof, puce with fury, and the palace workers stood rigid as if they were made of wood. Petula was frozen in the position of barking at Rocky, her body curved, her mouth snarling.

  “Poor Petula,” said Rocky. “She’ll never trust me again.”

  “She’ll understand,” Molly said. “Don’t worry. Right, let’s get Her Horribleness up there sorted out.”

  At once Molly allowed the world to move. Petula resumed her barking, but then stopped and stood confused. She put her head to one side and sniffed at Rocky. He had lost his angry metallic smell, and Molly looked happy.

  On the cloister roof Princess Fang was equally muddled. Then, seeing Molly tie the string of gems around her neck, she understood immediately what had happened.

  “GUARDS!” she screamed, stamping her foot. She began backing up the sloped roof, looking at the wall between the courtyards and wondering whether she might cross it. Desperately she scanned the gate below, hoping for assistance, but as every batch of muscly men entered, time seemed to skip a beat and the next moment the very same guards were sitting on the ground quiet as roosting pheasants. Moon was freezing time to hypnotize the guards. And there was absolutely nothing that she, Princess Fang, could do about it. She could hardly bear it! If the Moon girl got the better of all the guards, there would be nothing to stop her. And then all would be lost. The kingdom … the empire! She would never be Queen of the World. Princess Fang would be finished! Then she heard a heavy beating behind her. It sounded as though a huge kite with leathery flapping wings was coming toward them.

  Princess Fang turned. Turned to see that the flying thing in the air at the side of the mountain was brown and furry with four legs. Its hooves dangled beneath it, and its strong wings beat the air. It was a cow flapper and it was coming straight for her.

  With one arm Princess Fang shielded her eyes from the bright sun. Then, seeing that the creature was dive-bombing her, she dropped to her knees. In the next moment, there was a bubbling noise and the princess saw something falling though the air toward her.

  “UUURRGHHH!” she screamed, but it was too late. The ripe and juicy cowpat hit her square on. Cow poo splattered all over her sophisticated angular hair and sprayed the shoulders of her pink taffeta dress. It trickled down her forehead, her cheeks, and her back.

  Bull’s eye! Silver thought up to the cow flapper. Thank you!

  My pleasure, the strange creature thought back to him, mooing as it flew. That will teach her to take potshots at cow flappers! And it gave the mynah bird a broad wink before tipping its body sideways to fly up and away.

  Neither Molly nor Rocky could stop laughing. Then, eventually, seeing that the princess was attempting to escape over the high courtyard wall, Molly pulled herself together and froze the world again.

  Silver was on her shoulder. Together they scaled the vine to the cloister roof. Molly almost felt sorry for the princess. The little girl was petrified, but Molly had no sympathy for her. She knew that behind the frightened eyes lurked a hard-hearted dictator.

  “Craaaaarkkk!” croaked Silver. “Nasty!” Molly gathered her hypnotic strength and let the power build up behind her eyes. Finding a part of Princess Fang that wasn’t covered in cow poo, she reached out and touched her. Immediately the princess was animated, even though the rest of the world was still as a picture.

  Molly let her have it. A hot beam of hyperconcentrated hypnotism shot out of her eyes and hit home. As the force exploded into her, the horrid child jerked backward. Then she stood still, now totally entranced by Molly.

  “You, Fang,” Molly began, “are now completely under my power and will be until I tell you otherwise. I lock this instruction in with the words—”

  “Spoiled brat,” sang Silver.

  “With the words spoiled brat,” Molly agreed, and she let the world move.

  Fang nodded obediently.

  “YES!” shouted Rocky from below, punching the air. Petula barked enthusiastically, and Molly turned and curtsied.

  “FANTABULOUS!” She laughed.

  “You can say that again!”

  “FAN-TAB-U-LOUS!” cawed Silver.

  Now down from the roof, the princess stood beside Molly and Rocky like a quiet, respectful kid, fresh out of kindergarten. Her imprisoned turquoise grasshopper, on the other hand, chirruped madly from its tiny prison on her sleeve.

  “I know how he feels,” Rocky said, and he opened the little latch on its cage door. With a grateful spring the grasshopper leaped out onto Rocky’s shoulder. Then it hopped down to the ground and went away. Petula and Silver watched it go.

  Leaning over Fang, Molly removed the other gem necklaces and put them around her own neck.

  “Right, let’s get things going,” she said. “To start with, let’s leave the foreign visitors to have their fun.”

  “Yes,” Rocky agreed. “Get Miss Smelly here to wash her hands and face and change into a clean outfit, and she can go and see them off.”

  “Good idea, and while she’s changing I can hypnotize all the other royal children and the rest of Fang’s crew.”

  “Nice.”

  So that’s exactly what Molly did.

  In the palace auditorium, Tortillus and the animals were now off the stage. The Lakeside choristers, dressed as mermaids, were performing their last song—a ballad about how lovely life was by the water. Dancers leaped and turned before the audience, trailing long blue riverlike ribbons.

  Switching the world on and off as though she had a pause button for it, Molly brought all Fang’s horrid playmates and advisers under her spell. And the finale continued as if nothing had happened. As the singers hit high notes and made harmonies that echoed through the mountain, the foreign guests and Nurse Meekles, with her children, listened and watched. They were completely oblivious to the fact that everyone in the auditorium apart from them was now hypnotized.

  After the show was over, Princess Fang did exactly as she’d been told and went to bid her guests good-bye. She was dressed handsomely in a violet feathered dress, but although her face and hands were spotlessly clean, her hair looked as though it had mud in it. What was more, the Chinindian president could smell a distinct farmyardy pong when he bent low to bow his good-bye.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said, trying not to breathe in.

  As they were airlifted off the mountain, the visitors all commented on their marvelous trip.

  “What a happy country!” they agreed.

  They had no idea how close some of them had come to losing their minds.

  The scientist Molly had saved from the mind machine sat with a computer open on his lap. He was taking notes about his interesting trip, convinced that he had spent the day studying new forms of oxygen-making jellyfish.

  Professor Selkeem’s dognakes had brought him and Micky to the palace laundry room in the depths of the building. They had entered through the secret hatch near the ceiling, and the dognakes were now gliding down the metal laundry machines’ sorting arms. They deposited the two boys on the floor.

  Professor Selkeem immediately went for the door but found it locked.

  “Damn!” he cried. “You’re a lychee!” he shouted at Micky. “We’re both lychees in a tin! And who’s got the tin opener?! Will Ai Mu come and open the door? No, she won’t come here today!”

  Micky ran to the door and, frothing at the mouth, began to bang on it.

  “Rockeee!” he shouted.

  “No ears there,” the professor said, sitting down on a pile of sheets and frantically opening his laboratory bag. “Too deep in the building. Must try to open it.” His dognakes curled up protectively about him. He pulled out a black object and, getting up, advanced toward the door. “Crack the door loc
ks. Just find the weakness in the code and manipulate it with the magnet.” He began passing the black object in his hand over the doorframe. “Don’t stir your noodles, little chili head. We’ll get their blood.”

  Twenty-eight

  Wildgust, Tortillus, Belsha, and the flamingo family were on the rocky outcrop, overseeing the crating up of the zoo animals. It was very strange. There were no guards marching around giving them orders, but, knowing about the palace cameras, they behaved as though they were under surveillance. They had no idea what had happened to Fang. Hearing nothing, they’d assumed that Molly’s attempts to get her hypnotic powers back had failed. Now, desperately worried, they got on with their work.

  Then a powerful beating of wings in the air above their heads caught their attention. A brown cow flapper and Silver landed on the mountain ridge. Silver hopped toward Tortillus and Wildgust and broke the news.

  “Craaaaark! Fang gone! Palace … safe. SAFE. SAFE. Craaaaark! Come!”

  “I don’t believe it!” Tortillus said, startled and quite overcome with astonishment. “That girl has done it. She’s been brilliant. BRILLIANT!” he shouted. He paused, then said to Belsha in awe, “She’s made it possible for us to start living!” He clasped his wife’s hands. “Mont Blancia will be ours again! The people will be free once more—”

  Wildgust interrupted him. “What are we waiting for?” he said darkly. “Let’s go now.”

  And so Tortillus led his family back home.

  They found Molly and Rocky in an extrapretty garden with a fountain bubbling in its center. Petula lay on the warm grass, sucking a stone, while Silver pecked at tasty insects that crawled about in the dirt. Molly and Rocky had cleaned themselves up, and were enjoying a picnic tea. Miss Cribbins and Princess Fang were quiet, sitting cross-legged with the other members of the royal court making daisy chains under a shady tree.

  “So you got Silver’s message!” said Molly, getting up and beaming at him.

  “You’ve been through the wars,” said Tortillus worriedly, touching her bruised cheek.

  “I’m fine,” Molly assured him. “It doesn’t really hurt.” Then she added excitedly, “We sent a couple of guards to fetch the professor and Micky. Rocky’s going to sort Micky out.”

  Tortillus shook his head. “You are amazing.”

  Molly shrugged. “I couldn’t have done it without Silver and Petula.”

  “And that cow flapper put the cherry on the cake,” said Rocky with a smile.

  Molly introduced Rocky to Tortillus and his family, and they all sat down to help themselves to the delicious picnic.

  “Now,” Molly said, when every cake and sandwich had been finished, “I’ve got an idea that you might all like. Let’s take Princess Fang to her broadcasting studio. She’s got one last royal appointment that she can’t miss.”

  Soon they were all crowded inside a small white transmission room with the princess poised in front of a camera operated by a now dehypnotized engineer.

  “Come to—the screen,” the hypnotized princess beckoned, staring into the camera’s eye. “Everyone must—come and watch—your near-est screen.”

  In the valley below, thousands of people, all dressed in their fairy-tale costumes, stood to attention, their eyes and ears honed in on the giant hypnotic loudspeakers and screens. They watched as Princess Fang’s small mouth moved and listened as the child spoke.

  “People of Lakeside,” the princess declared, “you are all now—under Molly Moon’s—power. You will no longer—be under my power.”

  Molly’s face now smiled down from the screen. Her green eyes were huge and pulsating. “Lake people,” she said, “very soon you will be free of the hypnotism that has held you captive for so long. Before I unlock it, I want to let you know that Klaucus will again be your king. I hope you will all make this place, Mont Blancia, one of the happiest and best places in the world. Now with the words that you have been trapped by, Mont Blanc, I release you.”

  “It’s funny how simple it all is with the help of a bit of hypnotism,” Molly said to Tortillus as they returned to the palace garden again.

  Tortillus smiled, the lines of his face creasing like small concertinas. He looked up at the sky. “I can’t believe I’m up here again.” He patted Molly fondly on the shoulder. “Now you, I expect, when you have your brother back, will be making a beeline for your time and your home.”

  Molly nodded. “I think we will,” she said with a smile. Then, fingering her green crystal, she added, “I know how much you, Tortillus, would have loved to have seen this mountain covered in snow. Before we go, if you want, I’ll show you.” Molly glanced at the small badgelike watch that was fastened to Tortillus’s tunic. “I can have you back before four o’clock.”

  “But that’s in five minutes!” The old man’s hand shook. “Are you serious, Molly?”

  “Yes. Fancy it?”

  “Can Wildgust come too?”

  “Of course.”

  So, leaving Rocky with Petula, Silver, and the royal family, Molly took Tortillus and Wildgust to a quiet area beside a jasmine bush. The two hunched men held hands as Molly had instructed them. She clutched her green crystal in her palm, and taking herself into a semi-trance, bid its boomerang-shaped scar open. At once it became an eye-shaped swirl spiraling into itself, all green and airy.

  “We’re ready,” Molly said. She gripped Tortillus’s hand. “Whatever you do, keep hold of each other’s hands. As long as we’re in contact, you will travel with me.” She looked at Wildgust’s wide, apprehensive eyes. “And don’t worry, Wildgust. You’re going to love it.”

  Molly shut her eyes to concentrate, and Tortillus and Wildgust followed suit. None of them saw the dognake slither toward them with the professor on its back. None was aware that the dognake had clamped its jaws around the hem of Wildgust’s cloak. So when they took off none knew that Professor Selkeem and his dognake were traveling back in time with them.

  The sky above flashed day and night, so fast that it became blur of dawn and dusk light. The mountaintop palace soon disappeared and there was rock all around them. Suddenly, even behind their closed eyelids, they were dazzled by a white light that became brighter and brighter. Molly wanted Tortillus and Wildgust to see Mont Blanc in its full glory—completely covered with snow. Watching the sky, she slowed down and selected a day when the sky was azure blue. And then they stopped. Quick as mercury, the dognake slithered off, hiding the boy professor behind a rock.

  The mountain and valleys around were coated in snow. Fresh, powdery spring snow as white as the cleanest cloud. It peaked on the rocky mountains like whipped egg whites—like meringue.

  “Heavens above!” Tortillus gasped. Wildgust squinted and cupped his leathery hand over his eyes.

  “So bright,” he murmured. Then he threw off his silk cloak. “I have to fly,” he said. “What bird could resist flying here?”

  “Go for it,” Molly said, smiling.

  And so extending his wings and shaking them out, Wildgust took off. He circled about Molly and Tortillus, laughing as he flew. Then he dived down the side of the ridge and disappeared. A few minutes later he reappeared, spiraling the thermals farther down the mountain.

  “This is a truly wonderful experience,” Tortillus said to Molly. “Thank you, and again thank you for everything you have done for our people. Whenever you want, Molly, please come back and visit us. You will always be our most honored guest.”

  “Thanks,” said Molly, grinning, stamping her feet, and slapping her sides with her arms to keep warm. “Before I go, I want you to make a snowman! I’ll get some stones for its eyes and nose.”

  Behind the rock, the little professor’s flesh was turning blue from the cold. He shivered in his loincloth.

  “I am watching you,” he said coldly, observing Wildgust swooping below. He saw Molly walking farther up the mountain, away from Tortillus, kicking the snow as she went. Tortillus stood alone on the bare white ridge.

  “N-nasty, I know,�
�� the professor stammered through chattering teeth, “to be all alone.” Molly had disappeared behind a snowy rock farther up. And Wildgust was now ascending through the air, approaching Tortillus. “I’ll get you,” the professor hissed and he prepared to move.

  Wildgust landed. “Stupendous!” he said, his feathers ruffled by the wind. “I suppose there are some advantages to having been mutated into a bird-person.” Exhilarated and breathless, his hawk eyes didn’t see the brown dognake, its tail wrapped around a rock, making its way toward Tortillus’s ankles. Wildgust took a step toward his brother, putting a hand out to touch his back.

  And then the most unexpected thing happened. Wildgust gave Tortillus an almighty push. Tortillus teetered for a split second on the brink of the cliff edge—and then fell.

  But not so fast that he wasn’t able to take hold of Wildgust’s arm and pull him with him.

  And not so fast that the dognake wasn’t able to firmly curl its upper body about Tortillus’s ankle and hold him fast. From higher up the slope Molly saw them fall, and she saw the dognake around Tortillus’s ankle. Then she saw the boy professor emerge from behind his rock.

  “NO!” she shouted. “Leave them alone! Leave them alone!” and she began to run down the snowy slope.

  Wildgust fell lower and harder than Tortillus, but he flapped his wings and was at once airborne. He grabbed at Tortillus’s arm and began tugging it, trying to pull his own brother down to his death.

  “WHY?” Tortillus shouted.

  “I will be king, not you,” Wildgust cried, his wings beating furiously.

  Molly sprinted down the slope, skidding on the ice at the bottom, and nearly falling over the ledge herself.

  “You’re demented! YOU’RE EVIL!” she shouted at Selkeem.

  “Schnapps is saving him,” the professor replied. “Do you need a magnifying glass? And what are you waiting for? Use your crystal!” Molly instantly felt stupid for not thinking of that herself. Now she froze the world.

  At once everything was still and Molly saw the situation in its true light. Wildgust was tugging at Tortillus, his huge wings spread-eagled, trying to pull him to his death. Tortillus hung upside down. And the dognake was clinging on to the rock, half slipping as he tried to stop the old man from falling. On the snow beside her, the professor looked completely out of place in his Tarzan-like loincloth.