by Georgia Byng
“It already has.”
“It already has?” cried Molly, so loudly that Petula barked. “And what happened? Did he win?” Sinclair avoided her eyes. He dropped a newspaper at her feet.
PRIMO CELL WINS PRESIDENTIAL RACE ran the headline.
“It was a landslide victory,” Sinclair mumbled. “Election Day always happens on the first Tuesday in November. That was yesterday. November the second. This is this morning’s paper.”
For a moment there was silence. Then Molly’s tongue and brain connected.
“Are you crazy, Sinclair? Why did you wait this long to wake us up? We could have sabotaged his campaign, we could have tried to work out his passwords, we could have done something, but instead, you left us here. Are you stupid or something?” Molly paused. “I’m sorry, Sinclair. It’s just it seems to me you’ve left it much, much too late to wake us up.”
“I couldn’t risk it. Dad thought you were dead, and that’s what has kept you safe,” said Sinclair. “But today … after his victory …” Sinclair’s voice shook. “I had a crazy hope that he wouldn’t win. But of course he did. Now he’s the most dangerous man on the planet.”
Molly thought of Cell as a huge slimy creature, with slithery tentacles reaching into every country of the world.
“Why does he want to be so powerful?” she said.
“Because he’s crazy,” said Sinclair. “I don’t know.”
Molly suddenly felt sorry for Sinclair. It had to be very difficult for him to betray his own father. She also thought he must be a very good person. After all, as Primo Cell rose to the top, he took Sinclair with him, but Sinclair didn’t want that ride. He cared more about other people than himself.
“Oh, I wish this hadn’t happened,” moaned Molly.
“He’s not actually president yet,” said Sinclair more brightly. Molly and Rocky looked perplexed.
Sinclair explained.
“There is a bit of hope. At the moment, Primo is president elect. He has a few months to prepare his advisors and organize his government before he’s handed the reins of power by the current president. This is how it always works. He’s not THE president until he’s sworn in on January twentieth. We still have time to blow him off his tracks.”
“The security around Cell is going to be double—triple, now,” Rocky said.
“But I’m his son, and he trusts me,” said Sinclair. “At least, he does at the moment. And he doesn’t know you’re alive, Molly, so we’ve got an ace up our sleeve.”
Molly was beginning to think that Sinclair was as crazy as Primo Cell. The reality of the sinister hypnotist’s becoming president of the United States was more than her mind could cope with. What could she, a child, possibly do about it?
“I can’t help you, Sinclair. Look what happened when I tried before. I am not the magic solution to all of this.”
“You’re wrong,” said Sinclair. “There is a tiny window of hope. But I don’t want to talk about it now.” He jumped up, eager to change the subject. “I’ll tell you about it at my house.” Earl handed him a baseball cap, some sunglasses, and keys. “And no doubt you’ll want to know about your gang in Malibu.”
“Where are we going?” asked Molly.
“Back to Hollywood. There’s someone special I want you to meet.”
Thirty-one
The cave in the cliffs behind the hut was amazing. Sinclair and Earl led Molly, Petula, and Rocky over a narrow walkway into the spacious, greenly lit cavern. The water inside was ten feet deep and so clear that they could see the sandy bottom.
Stalactites clung to the damp, algaed ceiling. At the far end was a concrete wall, and set in this was the steel door of an elevator. Minutes later, they were all shooting smoothly upward inside the cliff. At the top, a cream, suede-covered wall and a highly polished glass door greeted them. Sinclair pressed a button on the wall. The door slid open, and they found themselves standing outside the concrete bunker that housed the elevator. It was disguised to look like a large rock.
The view was spectacular.
“Hawaii’s over there,” Sinclair pointed out. “Perhaps when all this is over, we can make sure Primo lends you his private jet.”
“Have we learned how to fly planes?” asked Molly, wrinkling her nose as she tried to remember the lessons.
“No,” laughed Sinclair. “It comes with a pilot.”
Sinclair’s Aston Martin was parked beside the concrete bunker. Petula barked at him to open the door. It was windy on the cliff top, and the breeze was getting under her fur. They all climbed in. Sinclair revved the engine until it sounded like a lion purring. Soon they were driving up a winding, walled track to the cliff’s summit. Before them was a highway.
“This is the Pacific Coast Highway,” said Sinclair. “It goes all the way up the west coast of America. That way”—he pointed to his left—“is north—San Francisco, then Portland, Seattle, until you get to Canada. And this way”—he gestured to his right—“is south—Malibu, then Los Angeles, and eventually Mexico.”
“Wow,” said Rocky. “Where are we now?”
“This is a place called Dune Beach. It’s a two-hour drive to get back to Hollywood, so let’s hit the road.”
The Aston Martin swooped out onto the highway.
“If we’re passing Malibu, can we drop in and see everyone?” asked Molly. Sinclair shook his head and put the gear shift into Power Drive.
“Sorry. Not just yet, Molly. At the moment they think you’re working for the Benefactor. I had to hypnotize them all not to worry about you being gone. I hope you don’t mind. But they’re all really fine—and if you reunite today, there’s a danger that Primo would find out that you’re still alive, and we don’t want that.”
Molly held Petula on her lap and settled back into the blue leather upholstery. She shut her eyes. She felt quite strange. As if she’d traveled up a time shaft, up a cylinder of time in which she’d viewed the summer and autumn months but hadn’t properly experienced them. So this was what it felt like to be hypnotized over a long period. Molly felt guilty about people whose minds she’d meddled with—although she didn’t feel bad about hypnotizing Nockman to be better. He was enjoying life more, wasn’t he? And soon her hypnotism of him would wear off completely, and he would have metamorphized into a good person.
“What have Nockman and Mrs. Trinklebury been doing? Anything exciting?” she asked.
“Yes, they have,” Sinclair replied, smiling as he pressed the stereo controls. “If you want some in-car entertainment, look at the screen.” A small screen on the ceiling in front of them flickered, and to Rocky and Molly’s amazement, a home video began.
It showed all the children from the orphanage having some sort of party with Mr. Nockman and Mrs. Trinklebury. The microphone picked up the end of a speech that Nockman was making.
“Now at last,” he said, “I know how vunderful ze verld is.”
Everyone clapped.
“Whose birthday?” asked Molly. “Nockman’s?”
“No, it’s a party to celebrate Mr. Nockman and Mrs. Trinklebury’s engagement. It was in July.”
“Their what?” Molly and Rocky stared in shock.
“Are you sure?” said Molly. “Are they, you know, in love?”
“Yup, like two turtledoves.”
“Yuck,” said Rocky.
“Well, they’re very happy,” said Sinclair. Molly looked at Rocky. “As long as he doesn’t lead her into a life of crime.”
“No way,” said Sinclair. “From what I see, the guy’s nuts about her and will do whatever needs to be done to please her.”
“Well, I’m happy if Mrs. T. is,” said Molly. “What about the others?”
Sinclair fast-forwarded the tape. In a sitting room, Gemma and Gerry put on a show for the other orphanage children. Gemma invited Hazel to come forward and said that she was going to hypnotize her. Molly and Rocky couldn’t believe it. Gemma and Gerry then hypnotized Hazel and convinced her that she was on the top
of a very high wall, and that every time Gemma blew, the wall swayed. Hazel lay flat in the middle of the stage, trying not to be blown off.
“But who taught them?” asked Rocky.
“You did,” said Sinclair. “Well, indirectly.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” said Sinclair. “It seems you photocopied the original hypnotism book and they found a part of the copy. They’re quite good at looking like they’re real hypnotists.”
“But they are real, aren’t they? Their show looks brilliant!”
“Well, don’t be too deceived. Hazel’s acting. Gemma and Gerry have no hypnotic skills at all. I’ve checked. Mind you, they are very good animal trainers. Look at this.”
A table stood at the front of the same room with a miniature gymnasium on it. It had little slides and swings, seesaws, and merry-go-rounds. Molly and Rocky watched in wonder as Gerry got his mice to go down a slide, to ride on the swings, to seesaw, and to whizz around and around. They even stood on top of each other in little mouse triangles.
“Gerry sure can handle those mice,” said Sinclair, as the tape came to an end. Petula glanced at the screen and blinked.
For a while they drove in silence. Sinclair concentrated on the road, but he seemed agitated, speeding up and then slowing down again and tapping the steering wheel. It seemed as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. Molly thought how difficult it must be for him to be betraying his own father.
Then, as if the same subject was troubling Sinclair, he said, “You know, Primo Cell isn’t my real dad. He adopted me. And my sister, Sally, too.” He opened a cabinet below the glove compartment. Inside was a tiny refrigerator. He reached for some drinks.
“Adopted?” Molly and Rocky said in surprised unison.
“You got it,” said Sinclair, handing Rocky a bottle of water. “Sally and I aren’t real brother and sister.”
Molly and Rocky were fascinated. Being orphans themselves, the subject of adoption was very close to their hearts. What was more, neither had ever before met a person outside the orphanage who’d been adopted, so both listened intently to Sinclair as he told them his life story.
It turned out that he and Sally had first been adopted at the ages of four and five by a ringmaster and his wife, who had owned a circus. It was, Sinclair said, as if a huge family had taken them in. He and Sally had been extremely happy. The ringmaster was also a performing hypnotist. Unfortunately, he was such a good one that when he came to Primo Cell’s attention, Cell thought he was a threat and so got rid of him. He hypnotized the circus couple. They were now gardeners at Magpie Manor.
The young Sinclair and Sally came to live with Cell. He seduced them with a new glamorous lifestyle, giving them everything they wanted—miniature cars to drive, fantastic bedrooms, a home with a movie theater and a pool, a country house with horses to ride and vacations by the sea where there were always big boats, Jet Skis, and all the toys they wanted. He got them a home tutor. One day, he said, they’d run his empire. When they were ten and eleven, he began to train them as hypnotists.
“But,” said Sinclair, his voice bitter, “from the day he took away my circus parents’ freedom, I hated him. I saw he had no heart. I vowed that I would do everything I could to stop him ever needing to hypnotize me. I played my part. I pretended I loved him like a son loves a father. But underneath, I didn’t. I hated him. Sally made mistakes. She disagreed with him once too often. Primo hypnotized her. But he’s never hypnotized me. He likes to think that there’s at least one person out there who likes him not just because they’ve been hypnotized to. But, as I told you, I don’t like him at all. I loathe him.”
Molly looked out at the sea and the millions of tiny ripples on the water. She didn’t know how to react to Sinclair’s life history. At this moment, she just felt bowled over by all the day’s surprises. Molly knew she had other questions to ask Sinclair, but she couldn’t remember what they were. Instead, overcome by the vibrations of the car and the hum of the engine, she fell asleep. And Petula snuggled up to her, very relieved that the real Molly was back at last.
Thirty-two
Sinclair lived in a house in the Hollywood Hills. The car growled in low gear as it negotiated the steep tree-lined road. On either side, snug buildings hugged the slopes.
“All these houses are seismically safe—that means they’re built to withstand earthquakes,” said Sinclair. “Mine too.”
He turned into a drive. His house was a modern blocky building supported on columns.
They climbed out in a parking court underneath it, where the pillars were covered with tropical ivy and bougainvillea. Sinclair led them toward an elevator door.
“I can see you don’t like stairs much,” said Molly as they swept upward.
Then, “Wow!” both she and Rocky exclaimed as they stepped into Sinclair’s living room.
A panoramic window gave spectacular views of Los Angeles. And the famous Hollywood sign, looking like a giant geography-book label, was stuck on the hillside only a mile or so away. In the window was a long, curved window seat. Petula jumped up and made herself comfortable. Molly looked out. A narrow aqueduct, supported on towers and filled with water, snaked away from the house over trees and the hill and a road. Then it looped back again and entered the building below a gap in the glass window. It curled round the back of the room, where it rejoined its tail before it set off again on its route back toward the trees, hill, and road.
“That’s my lap pool,” said Sinclair. “I love it. Some days I swim once around—away from the house and back—other days I swim ten loops.”
“It’s so cool,” said Rocky.
“I’d love to have a swim in it,” said Molly.
“You can. Let me show you round the rest of the place,” invited Sinclair.
His bedroom was circular, and so was the bed in the middle of it.
“Ever slept on a water bed?”
Molly and Rocky tried it out.
“Weird,” said Molly. “It must be like sleeping on jelly.”
“It’s really comfortable,” said Sinclair, activating a switch. The water in the bed began to vibrate. “It’s very relaxing,” he told them, but the wobbling water bed just made Molly and Rocky giggle.
Sinclair lived in style. He had it all.
He showed them his screening room, where he could watch the latest films, his computer room, and his darkroom. Newly developed photographs clipped onto a wire trellis showed what Sinclair had been taking pictures of recently. There were Molly and Rocky rowing a boat, with Petula perched between them. Rocky playing his guitar. Molly holding a conch shell up to her ear, listening to the sea. There were also some photographs of Petula. She was being kissed by Gloria Heelheart.
“I completely forgot!” cried Sinclair. “While you were, um … away, Petula starred in a film. It’s directed by Gino Pucci. See, that’s him in this picture.”
“Petula starred in a film?” Molly stared at the photograph. “How come?”
“Gino met her at the Academy Awards. Apparently, so did Gloria Heelheart,” Sinclair said.
“Ah yes,” admitted Molly. “Petula and I—er—met her in the ladies’ room.”
“Gloria adored her and so did Gino. He tracked Petula down. Mrs. Trinklebury gave him permission to hire her. The film’s called Thunder Roll, and it’s out in ten days.”
“What a pug!” Molly beamed. She felt really proud. “Petula, you’re a star! And so clever, to organize it all yourself.”
“She got paid a nice fat fee, too,” said Sinclair. “She’ll be able to eat steak as often as she wants.”
Molly gave Petula an extra-specially tight hug. Petula wondered what all the fuss was about. Then Molly noticed a picture of a crystal.
“Where’s my crystal?” she asked.
“I had to give it to Primo,” said Sinclair. “He wanted me to take it off you once you were dead.”
“Great,” said Molly.
“I’ve still got mine.”
Sinclair pulled his crystal from under his shirt. “You can borrow it if you need it.”
“Thanks.” Molly felt really annoyed that Primo Cell had her crystal as well as his own.
“Look,” said Sinclair, “if ever we get Primo under control, I can get all the crystals back from him, and then you can have two, or three.”
“Why, how many has he got?”
“Eighteen, including yours. They’ve all come from other hypnotists. He sits on them like an old magpie.”
“What I want to know,” said Rocky, examining the photograph, “is how come so many hypnotists have these? I mean, how did they all know the power that the crystals would give them? Molly didn’t know. She just found hers by accident.”
“The truth,” said Sinclair, “is very mysterious. I don’t think that those other hypnotists knew they needed crystals either. I think the crystals found their owners for themselves. It’s as if they have minds of their own. They don’t, of course, but I believe they are drawn, in a magnetic way, toward hypnotists.”
“Do they move by themselves?” asked Molly, aghast.
“No. But it seems that they cause urges in humans to move them. They can manipulate people to put them nearer and nearer to where they want to be.”
“Which is where?”
“Near hypnotists.”
“But why?”
“So they can be used for their true purpose, maybe. I don’t know. It’s completely mysterious. They’ve got a homing instinct—like eels.”
“What do eels do?”
“Every year, eels swim out of the rivers of Europe all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the Sargasso Sea, where they breed. Then the eels’ larvae return to the European seas, where they turn into elvers and swim up exactly the same rivers that their parents came from, even though they never met their parents. Then, after about ten years, when those elvers have grown into big eels, they swim to the Sargasso Sea to breed. No one tells the baby elvers what their parents did. They just know to do it. Of course, these crystals aren’t alive, but they seem to have some built-in instinct—just like animals. It makes them attracted to hypnotists. I thought scientists might explain the mystery. I’ve hypnotized some of them. No one has been able to work out how these crystals and hypnotists and stopping the world are connected.”