Molly Moon, Micky Minus, & the Mind Machine

by Georgia Byng

  Molly reached forward and touched the dognake, carefully directing movement into only him. Schnapps came to life and at once saw the situation. Summoning all their strength, he and Molly pulled. They pulled as hard as they could, and slowly but surely, like a bucket from a well, Tortillus began to move up through the still air toward them.

  “Eeeerrrghhhh,” Molly groaned as she wrenched him up. As soon as his body was on the cliff edge she was able to reach Wildgust. Concentrating very hard, taking great care not to let any movement pass into him, she undid his hands from around Tortillus’s arm.

  Molly lay on the ground panting, with the frozen people about her on the spring snow, and Wildgust hanging in the air like an angel from hell.

  She crawled over to the rock and unwound the dognake’s body from it.

  It was now that she let the world move.

  Wildgust plummeted away. The professor and Tortillus looked completely bewildered.

  “Quick!” Molly cried, grappling for her red crystal. “Join hands. Grab Schnapps, Selkeem! We’ve got to leave. NOW!”

  Wildgust flapped his wings and began soaring up high above them. Now he could see the ledge. Molly, Professor Selkeem, Tortillus, and the dognake were huddled there in a circle.

  “I’ll get you,” Wildgust roared furiously. But as he shot toward them, he saw that he had lost. He suddenly realized why they were all so close together. It wasn’t from fear. It was a necessity for time travel. They were going to leave him. And, with a BOOM, they were gone.

  Twenty-nine

  As they whizzed forward through time, the professor gripped Molly’s shoulder and cried out, “Blissful to be the rider, so nice not to be the horse for once!” Molly had no idea what he was talking about, but since Selkeem always spoke in riddles she didn’t worry. What did worry her was how wrongly she had read him. She’d thought he was bad to the core, but he’d proved that he wasn’t. And she was very concerned about Micky.

  “Is Micky still at the institute?” she asked, her hair flicking about her face in the time winds.

  “The Mickster is not a trickster. He’s okay. I left him to find his rock to stand on.”

  “You left him to find Rocky?” The boy professor nodded.

  Tortillus held Molly’s other arm. He was staring straight ahead with a sad look in his eyes. To have your own brother try to kill you was deeply shocking. Molly had been upset by the incident with Wildgust. Tortillus must be a thousand times more traumatized.

  Molly brought them into a time hover and then she slotted them precisely back into where they’d come from.

  As they materialized, a worried-looking crowd hurried around and greeted them.

  “Professor Selkeem and his dognake are fine,” Molly explained at once, seeing their confusion. “They helped us. It was Wildgust. He …” She faltered, not wanting to be the one to break the horrible news.

  “He tried to kill me,” Tortillus said, embracing Belsha. “He hadn’t changed like we’d hoped. He’s jealous as he ever was. He must have been hiding his hatred of me all these years.” He bowed his head. “We … we left him behind.”

  Everyone fell silent.

  “One day you can go back and find him,” Molly said. “I can take you back. And if you think he’s changed, I’ll help you to bring him back home again.”

  “That’s kind of you, Molly.”

  Then the professor piped up, He’s completely moldy. Gone off. Past his sell-by date. Never be good again.”

  “You might be right,” Tortillus agreed sadly.

  Molly ran her eyes around the gathering. She was impatient to find out what had happened to her brother. To her great relief she saw Micky sitting cross-legged on the grass by the fishpond, watching them.

  “Have you dehypnotized him?” she whispered to Rocky.

  “Yes. He’s all back to normal.”

  Molly walked across to her brother and stood over him with crossed arms. “Are you all right?” she asked, smiling down.

  “Yes, I’m fine now,” Micky said. He squinted slightly as the sunlight hit his eyes. “But being under someone else’s power is really bad. I know that now, Molly. I felt like my body was a robot that I was trapped inside.” And then, getting to his feet, he did something that Molly had never thought he would do. “Thanks, Molly,” he said. “You’re a great sister.” And he gave her a hug. Molly hugged him back. It was strange, she thought, how such bad things and such good things could happen on the same day.

  The bell over the palace nursery entrance rang out to the tune of “Hickory Dickory Dock” and the door slid apart, revealing Nurse Meekles’s garden. A gaggle of children ran around a big green ball, shouting and playing. Three more dug in a sandpit, two dangled on swings, and two others rode futuristic-looking hover trikes around the paths. Alerted by the bell, the old nurse came out of the house to see who’d arrived.

  “Can I help?” she asked, her eyes darting from Tortillus to Belsha. She spotted Molly but didn’t react. Micky, hanging back in the shadows, was too indistinct for her to see clearly. She registered Miss Cribbins’s lopsided wig, but her eyes rested on Princess Fang. “Can—can I do anything, Your Highness?” Princess Fang stared dumbly at her. Nurse Meekles came closer, looking nervous.

  “Tell her that you will do anything that she asks of you,” Molly instructed the princess.

  “I will—do anything—you ask—of me,” Fang repeated mechanically.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” Nurse Meekles hesitated, convinced that her ears were failing her.

  “Do some cartwheels,” Molly ordered. “Do some cartwheels now and tell Nurse Meekles that you are her servant.” Immediately the princess did as she was told. Her feathered dress was soon rolling with her inside it, like a great big, wrapped-up birthday present, toward Nurse Meekles.

  “I am your servant,” she exclaimed, arriving at the Chinese woman’s feet.

  Nurse Meekles looked perplexed and then worried. “Is this some sort of joke?” she said.

  Molly stepped up to the old woman. “No, Nurse Meekles. But Princess Fang will be your servant from now on and so will Miss Cribbins. Thanks to your help, everything’s been sorted out. Look, here are King Klaucus, and Queen Belsha.

  Nurse Meekles gasped. “Your Majesty, is that really you? I—I didn’t recognize you. What’s happened to you? Oh my goodness!”

  “It’s good to see you, Ai Mu,” Tortillus said.

  “I don’t believe it!” Nurse Meekles shook her head.

  “And this is my friend Rocky, back to his normal self,” said Molly. “And”—she grinned—“here’s Micky.”

  “Micky, my plum pudding dumpling! It is you!” Nurse Meekles clapped her hands with delight. Micky rushed toward his old nanny and threw his arms around her.

  “Thank you,” he said. “And Molly’s right—we’re all free because you helped. Thank you for knowing what was right.”

  Nurse Meekles fell on him like a parent reunited with a lost child. “I knew you were still good at heart, Micky. I knew it. You’re a good boy, my honey cracker, always were.” Then she nudged him away to look at him. “And how well you look!” she exclaimed.

  Micky blushed. “You know I was brainwashed by those people, Nurse Meekles. I’m—I’m so sorry I became what I did. They made me feel that I was useless—that I was nothing without them. Miss Cribbins told me I only had a few years to live. Even the name they gave me was to make sure I felt bad about myself. I mean, Micky Minus! Who wants to be a minus? Not me.”

  “What are you going to call yourself now?” Nurse Meekles asked, laughing, “Micky Plus?” She hugged him again.

  “Well, I don’t know if I’d be allowed”—Micky turned to Molly—“but I wondered whether Molly would let me take on the same name as her.”

  “That would be brilliant!” said Molly happily. “Micky Moon! It sounds perfect!”

  “Yes, it is perfect,” said Nurse Meekles, giving him yet another hug. “So Micky Moon it is.”

 
; Then the smile drained from her face as she noticed Professor Selkeem, standing half hidden behind a bush. Without saying anything, she walked toward him. And to everyone’s astonishment, she knelt down and embraced him too. They began to talk quietly and earnestly. Nurse Meekles, Molly thought, must have looked after the professor when he’d been younger as well.

  That night at the palace, the shallow pool in the center of the dining room table was lit up so that it glowed purple. Candles were floated on it. Shiny spoons and silver chopsticks reflected their light. Glasses glittered full of different-colored liquids—concentrated orange squash for Molly; something bright yellow for Micky; exotic fruit juices for Rocky and Professor Selkeem; and delicate pink wines for Nurse Meekles, Tortillus, and his family. Petula and Silver were given places of honor at the head of the table. Petula ate rare fillet steak, while Silver was given the best seed in the house. The food was delicious—spicy meats and creamy potatoes, freshly picked vegetables and salads. Molly was reminded of the weird dinner she had been to with Princess Fang and her bratty companions. She looked outside to the spray-fountain courtyard. There were Fang and her friends now, sitting on the steps eating millet porridge. She turned to Micky.

  “Did you ever muck about with those friends of Princess Fang’s?”

  “I wasn’t allowed,” said Micky, eating a tiny, bright tomato. “Cribbins said I’d catch something. Anyway, I never really wanted to—they weren’t like the kids I’d known from Nurse Meekles nursery. They couldn’t play properly.”

  “Princess Fang wasn’t really like a child at all,” said Molly. “I mean, when I had supper with her here she was drinking wine and smoking—and the books she read! She was learning about astrophysics!”

  “She’s a genius, I suppose,” said Rocky. He pointed at the professor, who, now dressed in a blue jumpsuit, was also in the courtyard, where he had constructed a makeshift outdoor laboratory, “Just like Selkeem. Except it seems, from what he did to save you, Tortillus, he’s a mad good genius, whereas Fang was a mad bad genius. I’m surprised her brain didn’t explode from all the knowledge she tried to cram into it. And whoever heard of a six-year-old wanting to take over the world? Wow! That six-year-old was beyond any child ever!” Everyone around the table nodded, except Nurse Meekles.

  “Fang was beyond any child ever,” she suddenly volunteered, “because—and this is going to be news to you all—because that person sitting out there, whom you call Princess Fang, isn’t a child.”

  Around the table, mouths fell open, conversation stopped, and chopsticks and spoons were laid down. All eyes fell inquiringly on Nurse Meekles.

  “Isn’t a child?” Tortillus exclaimed. “But of course she’s a child. Just look at her.”

  Everyone glanced outside at Fang, who sat on the step looking at her belly button. Her podgy little legs were sticking out straight in front of her. Her small arms and little hands, her big eyes and full face were completely childlike.

  “Yes, look at her,” said Nurse Meekles. “That, my friends, is Queen Fang.”

  Tortillus’s shell rose up his back in surprise. “But how can that be? The old queen would be about sixty years old by now.”

  Nurse Meekles nodded. “It’s a long story—an incredible story. I’ll try to put it in a nutshell for you.” A murmur went around the table, and the old woman began.

  “Once upon a time there were two royal hypnotists—a bad one called Redhorn—he’s the one who snatched you, Micky—and a good one, a much more talented one, called Axel. Axel was my husband. Both knew how to time travel with hypnotism and they knew about a place at the beginning of time, a Bubble with marvelous properties. If a person goes there and bathes in its light he becomes younger.”

  “That’s true.” Molly nodded. “I’ve been there.”

  Nurse Meekles smiled. “Well, Redhorn told the old Queen Fang about that place and she was very, very interested in it. You see, Queen Fang loathed everything ugly and everything old, and this included herself. She hated looking at herself in the mirror. Every year she spent months in and out of the operating theater, having surgery to make herself look younger. And every day beauticians spent hours treating her face with oils and creams to make her look more youthful. She took medicines to stop herself from aging; she even injected herself with chemical concoctions at every mealtime. She used every scientific trick in the book to keep herself young. But the wrinkles kept coming. And so she became obsessed with the Bubble at the beginning of time. She wanted to be made as young as a child again, since she thought that the youth of a child is more beautiful than anything else.”

  Nurse Meekles took a sip of her wine and then, with a faraway look in her eyes, continued. “The old Queen Fang desperately wanted to go to the Bubble, but Redhorn couldn’t do it. He couldn’t get the colored crystals to move him backward in time fast enough. Then one day, using hidden microphones that he’d sneakily set up, he overheard my husband, Axel, talking to me about how he’d been there. That was it. Queen Fang, of course, had to have Axel take her there. Axel refused. So the queen told him that if he didn’t take her, I would be killed. This time he agreed, and he took her back in time. When she came back she looked four years old.” She shook her head in wonder. “Although she looked like a child, her mind was still an adult’s—or nearly all of it was. A small part of it had become childish again. The queen became more bouncy and full of energy like a child. She spoiled herself. She had her fancy playrooms built and had every toy she wanted. She dressed in the way she thought a child who had everything should dress.” The old nurse shut her eyes and tutted. “And the hypnotized people of Lakeside became her toys. She had the houses built so they looked like cottages out of a fairy tale and had the people dress in nursery-rhyme-style costumes. Then she decided that the rest of her court should also be made to look young again. They all leaped at the chance. See those ten children outside? They are all really adults. Axel was forced to take them all to the Bubble of Light. My poor Axel went backward and forward through time. And of course he became very young himself as he had to spend so much time in the Bubble. It was awful. There were other side effects too. His brain started to scramble. Sometimes I could hardly make sense of what he was saying. Luckily he worked out a way of putting Queen Fang’s people in the Bubble and hovering outside it so that he didn’t turn into a baby or disappear entirely. But even so, his skin grew rough and rhinoceroslike from all the time travel. He tried to fix it in the Bubble of Light but it didn’t work. And though he could still time travel, he lost all his hypnotic powers.” She shook her head and fiddled with her napkin. “Redhorn died of course.”

  The room was so quiet you could have heard an ant hiccup.

  “Amazing.” Tortillus sighed. Everyone looked at the children outside.

  “Whereas Miss Cribbins,” continued Nurse Meekles, “she was too nervous to take the trip back, so the princess, the queen, made her have plastic surgery. Now the woman has to take all sorts of medicines and give herself an injection six times a day. If she doesn’t do that, her beautiful, youthful face will start to fall apart.”

  “I think you have a beautiful face, Ai Mu.” Professor Selkeem had come into the dining room. “Tell them,” he added. And so Nurse Meekles let last the bomb drop.

  “Three years ago was Axel’s last trip. My husband came back the size of a three-year-old, so he now looks six.” She paused. “Yes, you may be guessing it as I speak. This, this boy here, this boy you know as Professor Selkeem, the tree boy—well, he is Axel.”

  Now everyone around the table was well and truly silenced. Molly and Micky stared at each other.

  “Yes, that’s me,” the boy said, “a shrunken, shriveled thing. I’m a prune. I talk in riddles and am all back to front, so I’m Professor Meekles backward. Professor S-E-L-K-E-E-M. See?”

  “That’s amazing,” Molly said. Bending her head, she unfastened one of the gem necklaces that hung there. “In that case, professor, these belong to you.”

  “Lov
ely jubbly!” the professor replied, enthusiastically taking the string of crystals. “Welcome home, little bulbs!” Then he turned to the waiter and in a more high-pitched voice asked, “We’d love some burned cabbage. Can you make me that?”

  “Like you and your family, Tortillus,” Nurse Meekles explained, “Fang banished him to the Institute of Zoology, where she could keep him until she needed to travel to the Bubble of Light again. She put him away there like some broken toy. She let him have his tree-house laboratory, for she saw his work as crazy and harmless. But his experiments weren’t crazy at all. He was researching water storage in animal body cells. It gets so hot here, as you know, and water is precious. If animals could live on less water, it would help.”

  “Always nice to the animals though,” Axel piped up. “Never hurt them.”

  “But you had their hearts dried and strung up in your kitchen!” Molly couldn’t help blurting out. “And you drank their blood!”

  “Oh tosh!” the professor replied, giving a mad little laugh. “Sun-dried tomatoes and tomato juice! I do think you need a magnifying glass!”

  “But what about that dead meerkat thing?”

  “Died of old-age pensioning,” Axel replied. “Waste not, want not. And look, missy—right now you are eating dead pig.” Molly looked down at her bowl of pork dumplings.

  “So,” asked Micky, “did Axel build the secret door into the laundry room?”

  “Yes, my little chili pepper,” Nurse Meekles replied. “It was for me to visit him, but I never could get up to that trapdoor, and he never visited me. Thought it might endanger my life if he did. I wanted to tell him that Tortillus and Wildgust were King Klaucus and the prince. I so wanted to tell him about Micky, but I could never get to him.”