by Georgia Byng
“You have a parakeet?” said Nockman, gazing at Mrs. Trinklebury as if she were a goddess.
“Oh, y-yes,” said Mrs. Trinklebury, turning pink at Mr. Nockman’s attention. She pulled on a spare pair of rubber gloves. “If we’re going to slap this place into shape, Molly,” she said, “I’d better get started.”
By suppertime, wonderful smells of a roast beef dinner with potatoes and peas, corn, and gravy were wafting through the orphanage. The building was warm, as Mrs. Trinklebury had arranged for oil to be delivered, and the boiler was now running full tilt.
Molly and Rocky gave all the children the bubble bath and shampoo and brand-new soft towels they had bought at the airport.
By eight o’clock everyone was washed, dry, and wearing something new, chosen from Molly’s suitcases. Even Gordon, Roger, and Craig found T-shirts they liked.
The dining-room tables were set, sparkling with glasses and lit with candles. And the fire blazed.
Supper was the best Molly had ever had. Not the best food, although it was good, but best because it was fantastic to see everyone again, even Hazel and her old gang. And how different they were now. They were shadows of their former selves and very quiet as they ate and drank. The smaller children, on the other hand, got chattier and noisier as the evening went by, making Mrs. Trinklebury, and even Nockman, laugh.
Molly and Rocky gave everyone the presents that they’d bought at the airport. Cameras and Walkmans for Hazel and Cynthia, radio-controlled cars and planes for Gordon, Roger, and Craig, and teddy bears and walkie-talkies for Gemma, Gerry, Ruby, and Jinx. Mrs. Trinklebury loved the perfume and the necklace they’d bought her, and Mr. Nockman liked his new suit.
When the candles on the table were melted to the size of mushrooms, Mrs. Trinklebury suddenly tapped the side of her glass with a fork. Everyone grew silent as shy Mrs. Trinklebury stood up, coughed, and bravely proceeded.
“Now as y-you all know, I’m a s-stutterer,” she began, smiling.
“But you’re very nice,” said Gemma.
“Well, thank you, Gemma, and so are you. And stutter as I m-may, I’m going to t-talk to you all now about something th-that I haven’t told anyone for years, but which I know I m-must tell you all. This is the right time to tell you. It’s the right time, because at last this building, our h-home, H-H-Hardwick H-house, has got hap-happiness inside it.
“M-Molly and Rocky, as you know, have asked me to c-come and live here and h-help take care of all of you. Which I h-hope is all right with you.”
The children cheered.
“Before now, there was a lot of sadness in th-this building, and some of you probably felt that no one understood h-how it felt to be alone in the world.
“I used to feel the s-sadness here when I came in to clean, and it almost broke my h-heart. Because, well, deep down, I know what it feels to be alone too. Because—and this is what I wanted to tell you—I am an orphan too.
“You may think I am a bit old to be an orphan, but you s-see, my dad died when I was two, and then my mother got married again. Trouble was, her new husband had three children and then he had another two with my m-mum, and, well, there were just too many children and my poor mum couldn’t cope. One of us had to g-g-go. And the one who went was me.
“Now, that never seemed fair to me. And for a long time I hated those other children for pushing me out. B-because they did, you know. They held on and kicked, and I was the one who g-g-got pushed out. I was more timid than them, you see.
“Then, one day, I heard a song that seemed to be written for me. Some of you know it.” Mrs. Trinklebury smiled at Molly and Rocky. “But for you others, I’ll sing it now. It goes like this.” Mrs. Trinklebury’s quaky voice filled the dining room.
“Forgive, little birds, that brown cuckoo
For pushing you out of your nests.
It’s what mamma cuckoo taught it to do-
She taught it that pushing is best.”
Molly looked around, wondering if Hazel and the bigger children would be making faces after hearing the lullaby. But they weren’t. They were sitting still, listening intently. Except for Gordon, who was still eating.
“That song taught me a lot,” said Mrs. Trinklebury. “It made me realize that I mustn’t hate those children who pushed me out of the nest, because they hadn’t been taught any better. So I forgave them. And from that moment onward, life was better, because I didn’t h-hate them anymore.
“Now, we all have stories of how we got here, and prob-probably some of you feel angry with whoever it is who’s left you here. But you must try and remember that they were like that because that’s how they were taught to be. You m-must try to forgive them.
“Baby cuckoos can’t unlearn their bad habits. But we should try to, and because what you learn as a ch-child you will pass on to people around you, from now on this house is going to be a house of happiness.
“From this evening on every single one of us is going to consider other people’s feelings.” She turned to the small children. “We don’t need n-nastiness, do we? What’s nastiness? A nasty b-bug. And we don’t want to spread it about, do we?”
“No,” said Gerry, “we don’t.”
“So,” concluded Mrs. Trinklebury, “if it’s all right with all of you, I want to change the name of this b-building, so that from now on it’s a place of joy. From now on, I propose this building should be known as Happiness House.”
Everyone stared at her. Then Molly started clapping and everyone joined in.
“Are you agreed then?” she asked. “If you are, r-raise your glasses.”
Everyone raised his or her glass. Mr. Nockman raised his the highest. Cynthia flicked a piece of bread at Craig.
“To Happiness House,” Mrs. Trinklebury toasted.
“To Happiness House,” everyone agreed.
And in the distance they all heard the sound of the cuckoo clock chiming ten.
“Now,” finished Mrs. Trinklebury, “I think it’s time for bed….”
“But first of all,” Nockman interrupted her, “I would like to do a few little tricks.”
Molly gulped. She had a feeling that Nockman was about to misbehave. But over the next half hour Molly saw a side of him that surprised her. Nockman was in his element as he did card tricks, finding cards behind people’s ears and under their chairs. Nockman also showed off his amazing sleight of hand. He took a purse from Mrs. Trinklebury’s cardigan pocket without her noticing, and a packet of candy from under Hazel’s arm. Everyone clapped. Little did they know that actually Nockman had stolen a camera from Hazel, a lollipop from Ruby, and five pounds from Gordon’s top pocket, and had stuffed them into the front of his shirt. There they lay, below his diamond-eyed scorpion, which nestled comfortably among the hairs on his chest.
By eleven everyone had gone to bed. Only Molly and Rocky still sat in chairs by the crackling fire, wide-awake. Petula lay happily at their feet, sucking a stone.
“What a day,” sighed Rocky.
“It was great today,” Molly said, “and, actually, it’s lovely here when it’s warm.”
“Mmmn, so different from when Adderstone was in charge.”
“Trouble is,” said Molly, frowning, “that oil for the boiler was so expensive. Two hundred and fifty pounds! Mrs. Trinklebury gave me the bill.” Molly reached into her fleece’s zipper pocket and pulled out her envelope of money. “If we keep buying oil and if we start spending money on other things, like redecorating the bedrooms and buying new furniture, soon we may not be able to afford heating or Mrs. Trinklebury or good food. And we did promise we weren’t going to use our hypnosis anymore. Maybe we were idiots to say we’d go straight, because Rocky, I don’t really see how we’re going to manage.”
Petula looked up, sucking her stone, sensing that Molly was worried.
“Well,” said Rocky, “we’ll just have to try and make ends meet. Things aren’t always going to be perfect, Molly, but they’ll be much better than before, and any probl
ems that we have, we’ll work them out.”
“Mmmnn,” nodded Molly.
Petula cocked her head to one side and wondered how she could cheer Molly up. She hated it when Molly was worried. She thought of her usual trick, which normally worked. Molly liked it when Petula gave her one of her sucking stones.
So Petula affectionately patted Molly’s leg with her front paw, dropped her stone at Molly’s feet, and barked a friendly bark.
This time, however, to Petula’s surprise, Molly reacted quite differently to Petula’s present.
“Oh my giddy aunt! I can’t believe it!” Molly said, gawping down at the floor. And Rocky exclaimed, “Jeepers, Petula! Where did you get that?”
Petula smiled a doggy smile. She had to agree, that particular stone was a nice one; the hardest stone she’d ever sucked. She’d found it in Molly’s jacket pocket when she was trying to get comfortable yesterday morning.
Molly picked up the massive diamond and turned to Rocky with her mouth open. “It’s the diamond that gangster was holding in the bank vault. I remember I put it in my pocket, but I forgot to put it with the other bank stuff. So it never got packed into a gnome….”
Rocky looked perplexed. “But the TV report said that every last jewel had been returned to the bank.”
“Maybe this diamond wasn’t on any list yet. I remember that gangster guy saying that he’d stolen it that day, from another crook.”
“Raooof! Raooof!” barked Petula, as if to say, “Take it. It’s yours!”
Molly scrunched her velvety ears. “What shall we do with it, Rocky?”
“I don’t know,” said Rocky, stroking the hefty diamond. “It would be very difficult, maybe impossible, to find out who it originally belonged to.” Then a naughty grin spread across his face. “You’d better put it in a safe place, Molly.”
Thirty-nine
That night, Molly and Rocky finally went to bed at two A.M. At four o’clock Molly woke up.
The full December moon was shining through the window, its beams drenching Molly’s bed.
Molly felt strange. Her hands began to sweat, and then, as if something were calling her, she got out of bed, put on her robe and slippers, and took the leather-bound hypnotism book from under her mattress.
As if in a dream, Molly found herself leaving the bedroom, descending the staircase, collecting a coat, and stepping out into the frosty night.
The moon lit the way as she opened the orphanage gates, trod the icy road that led down the hill, and walked toward the village.
Molly felt drawn. Pulled. And she didn’t mind the cold. Nor did she feel frightened. She simply felt she had to do something, although what exactly she didn’t know. She found herself stopping finally at the Briersville Library. She walked up its stone steps, past its old stone lions, and into the library lobby. Across the way, in the reading room, she could see a light on. She walked to the door and pushed.
There, sitting behind her desk, was the librarian.
“Ah,” she said, looking up, smiling. “So you’re back.” And looking out the window at the full moon, she added, “And perfectly punctual.”
When she said that, Molly suddenly snapped out of her dreamlike state. She felt as if she’d just woken up from a very good sleep. There she was, in her robe, coat, and slippers, in the library reading room, with the hypnotism book under her arm. In a daze she offered it to the librarian.
“Thank you, Molly. I hope it helped you,” said the librarian, taking off her spectacles.
Molly began to find her bearings. She looked at the librarian quizzically, wondering how she knew her name. Then she realized that the librarian must have seen her name scores of times when she had taken out books. But how did she know she was coming? Molly asked suspiciously, “What did you mean when you said that I’d come back ‘perfectly punctual’? I can’t remember making any arrangement with you.”
She thought back to how she’d stolen the hypnotism book from the library. Had the librarian seen her? She felt embarrassed that she’d been caught red-handed. She’d wanted to put the hypnotism book back quietly to make everything better. But then she thought again. She was sure she’d smuggled the book away when the librarian wasn’t looking. So how did the woman know? Did they have cameras in the library? Suddenly Molly felt very muddled.
The librarian smiled. “Oh, Molly, don’t worry. Come and sit over here.” Molly sat down at the desk, in front of the librarian. And for the first time Molly looked at her properly.
She was a studious-looking woman, but now that she had taken her spectacles off, Molly saw she wasn’t as old as she had seemed before. She wore her hair in an old-fashioned bun, and some of it was going gray, but her face didn’t match it. Her face was young and smooth, and as she smiled, her eyes lit up with kindness.
“You probably thought I never noticed you, Molly, since I always had my nose stuck in a book or a file. But I did notice you. I noticed how you’d come in here so lonely and cold, and sit by the radiators. I had my eye on you for ages. I wanted to help you. I had a feeling you would learn something—well, a lot really—from the hypnotism book. So on that afternoon when you came in here, all wet and bedraggled, I hypnotized you. Do you remember waking up after a sleep on the floor?”
Molly nodded, bewildered.
“Well, that sleep was brought on by me. I hypnotized you when I said hello to you. And while you thought you were just sleeping, I, in fact, was suggesting things to you. I hypnotized you to find the book. I thought that four weeks with it would be the right amount of time for you to have an adventure. So I asked you to bring it back on the night of the December full moon.”
“Perfectly punctual …” Molly said.
“That was the phrase that I said would wake you up from your full-moon walk. You weren’t hypnotized to do anything else, by the way. Everything else that has happened to you was your own adventure.”
“Normally I’m so late for everything!” said Molly, although her next thought was that, actually, she hadn’t been late for anything for weeks. “But how come you didn’t give the book to Nockman?” asked Molly, trying to think straight.
“Oh, him. That liar. I had done some research and found that a Professor Nockman did not exist at the Chicago Museum. Not in any department. Before he’d set foot in this country, I knew he was a fraud. And also, by then, I’d been thinking about you. I wanted to lend it to you.” The librarian switched off the light on her desk.
Molly was just starting to wake up, and questions were filling her head. “I’m not dreaming, am I?” she asked.
“No,” laughed the librarian. “But you should be. You should be in bed, fast asleep. I would love to talk to you properly, when we’re both fully awake,” she added. “As soon as you’ve got a moment, let’s meet up for tea. You can tell me some of the adventures that you had, and I’ll tell you some of mine.”
“You had adventures using hypnotism too?”
“Of course. Everyone who finds that they have the gift has adventures. I rarely use my skills now, though. I use them sometimes, just to help people. I find that’s best.”
“Like you helped me?”
“Did I? I’m so glad.”
For a moment Molly was quiet, as she thought of how much she’d changed over the last few weeks. She might still be miserable if it weren’t for the librarian.
“Thank you,” she said. “Erm, sorry, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Lucy Logan,” said the kind-faced woman.
“Like the doctor?” she gasped. “Like the Dr. Logan who wrote the book?”
“He was my great-grandfather,” Lucy Logan replied, smiling again. “But look, you’ve had enough surprises for tonight. So let’s both go now, and Molly, come back and visit whenever you like, and I’ll tell you all about my great-grandfather and we can talk about hypnotism. All right?”
Molly nodded and got up from the table.
As she left the library, Lucy Logan waved. “And Happy Christm
as, Molly, if I don’t see you before then!”
“Happy Christmas,” said Molly, dizzy from the night’s revelations.
Molly walked back home under the December moon. Every so often she shook her head as she thought of an episode from the past few weeks, reliving exciting or scary moments and seeing how chance had been on her side. She marveled at how things had unfolded.
As she padded up the country road, thick, soft snowflakes started to fall, and the ground underfoot became white and gently crunchy. Trees above the hedgerow by the road seemed to beckon her onward.
Molly saw the Briersville billboard, lit up in the distance. The Qube people in the swimsuits looked as though their shiny teeth would be chattering now. And Molly thought how funny it was that only a month ago she’d thought these people were wonderful and she’d longed to be like them. Now she couldn’t care less about their Qube life. She had her own life to live, and it was far more interesting and meaningful to her than theirs.
Snow filled the air, swirling about Molly, muffling noises so that her walk was extra quiet and private. She felt truly excited about her life for the first time ever. She liked being Molly Moon.
The hypnotism book had taught her that she had the power to learn anything, as long as she tried. Six months ago, if someone had told her she could be a great hypnotist, she wouldn’t have believed them because she’d believed she was rotten at everything. Now she couldn’t wait to try all sorts of other things. She would start cross-country running just to see if she could get better at it. And she would really learn how to tap dance. Not to become a hugely famous tap dancer, but just to become good enough to enjoy it.
Now, there were only five days to go until Christmas! Molly had been so busy, she’d clean forgotten. She smiled. This was going to be the best Christmas ever.
Molly breathed in the fresh cold night air and grinned at the still, sleeping countryside. Tonight, life was almost too exciting. What had she thought when she’d first found the hypnotism book? That the possibilities it could bring were endless? Tonight Molly felt that was certainly true about her life. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Life felt completely magical.