Molly Moon, Micky Minus, & the Mind Machine

  When Primo had talked about the man on TV she’d felt he was really saying, “Do you think a time traveler, Molly, should waste her time watching silly TV shows? Doesn’t this time traveler have more important things to do like finding her lost twin brother?”

  Molly had promised Primo and Lucy that she would go back in time and find their son. What had become of him was a complete mystery. At the hospital where they had been born, there was no record of him. Molly shivered as she passed a statue of a leaping hare. It looked so friendly in the daytime, as it jumped over a flower, but in the dark, and with this storm raging, it looked like a pouncing demon.

  When Molly got to her bedroom she found the candle in its stand and lit it. Then she lay down on the bed. Petula hopped up with her and Molly gave her a cuddle.

  “What do you think, Petula?”

  Procrastinate is a word that means to put off. Molly had been procrastinating and procrastinating and procrastinating ever since she’d promised her parents that she would track her brother down. She’d been putting off traveling back to the time when she and her brother were both babies because now, safe in her own time, Molly realized how scary and dangerous time traveling could be.

  Since coming back from her adventures Molly had had nightmares about being stranded in the wrong time. She’d also had horrid dreams about other time travelers chasing her.

  Molly sighed. “I suppose I really ought to just go and find him. Will you come with me?” Petula whined. “It probably won’t be all that bad, you know. I think I’ve been working myself up about going. My imagination has gone wild and made me scared. It will probably be easy to find him, Petula. We’ll tell him what it’s like here, about Primo and Lucy and Forest and Amrit and Rocky and Ojas, and then he’ll probably want to come back with us. Once we’ve found him, well, I can concentrate on life then. We’ll set up that hypnotic hospital and begin curing people by hypnosis.”

  Petula looked at her mistress and tried to read her thoughts, but it was impossible. What perplexed her was why Molly smelled so worried.

  Molly found her pajamas and put them on. It was late. If she was going to set off into the past tomorrow, she ought to get a good night’s sleep. She blew the candle out and pushed her feet down under her duvet, curving her legs around Petula, who lay on the bed. As she drifted off, a buzz of excitement sparked inside her. Was it possible that by this time tomorrow she would have actually met her twin?

  But as Molly slept, other things dampened and drowned her excitement—ripples of apprehension and fear. They took the form of dark dreams. These blew through her mind like the winds that encircled the grand house that she slept in.

  In the worst dream, Molly was floating in a massive sievelike sphere. It was the Bubble of Light at the beginning of time, a place that really existed, for Molly had once been there—but in her dream the Bubble was different. Molly couldn’t get out of it, and through the billions of little black holes in the Bubble, whining voices teased her.

  “No, no, no, no,” they whistled.

  “Let me out!” Molly shouted.

  She looked in a mirror. Her face was changing, becoming younger and younger because the light from the giant Bubble was shining on her.

  This part of Molly’s dream was true to life, as this was exactly what could happen in the special light at the beginning of time. So, although only a dream, it was terrifying.

  “I HAVE TO LEAVE!” Molly screamed, her face and body now like a three-year-old’s, “OR I’LL BE SO YOUNG I’LL BE NOTHING!”

  And then there she was outside the Bubble, traveling through time with gale-force time winds blasting about her. And true to the nature of time winds, they were making her skin scaly—but it wasn’t happening slowly like in her real adventures. A patch of scaly skin behind her ear was spreading like wildfire. It was racing across her cheek and down her arms. Now her whole face was old and wrinkled. Molly felt like a leaf that was turning brown and shriveling up.

  Like a ball being bounced about by some careless child, Molly found herself back in the Bubble of Light at the beginning of time, with the miracle rays shining on her again. As they shone they rubbed away all the time travel scales.

  So it went on, with Molly thrown from one terrifying moment to the next. Eventually, as though bored with her, the dream departed, and only then did Molly fall into deep, gentle sleep, where the winds in the park outside couldn’t be heard.

  Two

  Molly woke up in the dark. A fox was barking outside and the drainpipe outside her window was gurgling as rainwater rushed down it. She rolled over, pulling the duvet over her shoulders, and tried to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t so she stretched her hand out to press the light button on her alarm clock. A blackbird let out its first chirrup. Moments later another joined in. Molly lay back on her pillow and listened to the opening notes of the dawn chorus.

  Outside, gusts of clouds raced across the sky, unveiling the moon. The park and Molly’s bedroom were suddenly filled with silver light. She tipped herself out of bed and nudged her slippers on. Petula drowsily raised her head, then curled up into a tighter ball and shut her eyes again. Molly wondered what she was dreaming about. Chasing sticks, she supposed. She smiled as she imagined Petula’s doggy dream. Then, yawning, and tripping on her clothes strewn all over the floor, she approached the window. Here, on a table glinting in the silver light, lay her clear crystal and her red-and-green time-traveling gems, threaded onto a piece of old string. She slipped the precious necklace over her head, realizing as she did that she wouldn’t take it off again until she next went to bed at Briersville Park. For when she was in other time zones, the scarred colored gems were her only ticket home.

  The clear crystal was simply for world stopping. To test herself, Molly stroked it now and prepared to stop time. She let her mind relax and looked out at the wet garden, focusing her hypnotic eyes on a rabbit that was nibbling the grass under a cedar tree. As she concentrated, the cold, tingling feeling that always accompanied world stopping filled her veins. Soon her mind was feeling fizzy. And then it was done.

  The rabbit froze mid-hop. The world froze. Birds taking flight from the cedar tree hung in midair. The silhouettes of llamas in the far field were as statuesque as the animal-shaped bushes about them. Everywhere was as still as a picture. But not just in Briersville.

  In New York, where it was half past midnight, night traffic was silent. Nothing moved up or down or across the glittering streets. Partygoers leaving snazzy nightclubs and restaurants, ready to go home to bed, were suddenly rigid, frozen as they walked. Inside lofty skyscrapers the snores and dreams of sleeping people suddenly halted, replaced by hush and stillness. In Tokyo, Japan, where it was two thirty in the afternoon, chopsticks, pincering sushi, hung motionless in front of still, open mouths. In Sydney, Australia, where it was late afternoon, surfers were frozen as they rode motionless waves. All over the world raindrops paused. Waterfalls were suspended and hurricanes and winds were quiet. And at the center of the freeze was Molly, with her clear crystal, holding the world motionless with her will. The powerful feeling it gave her was dizzying. She released her concentration and in a snap the rabbit on the grass hopped away. She smiled. She was pleased to see she still had the knack.

  Molly folded her arms. She wondered what the day held for her. For her today wasn’t necessarily this day. No, her today was going to be a day from long ago—the day when she and her twin brother had been born. It would be a day full of detective work and hopefully lots of answers. Someone had kidnaped her twin brother—that was clear. Somehow they had removed his name from the hospital’s records too. Molly had read in the papers of cases where babies had been abducted from hospitals. The thieves were usually sad, mad people who desperately wanted a child. If her brother’s thief wasn’t sad and mad, then it was someone very, very bad. Molly didn’t relish the idea of meeting him or her at all. She clenched her fists. She suddenly felt enormously protective toward her unknown twin and furious with who
ever had taken him. They had absolutely no right to him, just as Cornelius Logan had had no right to Molly when he’d stolen her. The difference between her and her brother was that she’d found out about her true roots. Right then and there Molly made a promise. Though she had been putting off finding her twin, now she would do whatever it took to track him down. Nerves bubbled up from the pit of her stomach, but still she was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery—for Lucy, for Primo, for herself, but mostly for him, her brother.

  Molly opened the drawer of her rosewood cupboard and pulled out a pair of clean jeans. She found some underpants, two odd socks, a long-sleeved blue T-shirt, and a black sweater and put them on. Then she pulled her favorite red-and-white sneakers out from under the armchair. She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and splashed some water over her face. Dabbing her nose dry, she ran her fingers through her hair and tried to untangle a few knots that had built up as she’d slept. Giving up, she stared at herself in the mirror. She was not a pretty girl, Molly knew, and today her hair looked as though it had been electrified. But she didn’t mind.

  “Good luck,” she said to her reflection. Then she went to wake Petula.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, to Molly’s surprise, Rocky was dressed and opening a can of dog food for Petula’s breakfast.

  “What are you doing up?” Molly asked.

  “What are you doing up?” he countered. Molly gave him a puzzled look.

  “I had a feeling,” he explained as he put Petula’s bowl on the floor, “a feeling that you might try to find him today. It was that fortune from the Chinese cookie that did it.” He pulled the small strip of paper from his pocket and read it again. “‘Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.’ I hope you weren’t thinking of going alone?”

  “Well, Petula said she’d come.”

  “Any more space available?”

  “There’s always space for you, Rocky.” Molly smiled. She hadn’t asked Rocky because she hadn’t wanted to make him feel like he ought to come with her.

  She thought he’d be happier mucking about with Ojas and she wanted to spare him the scariness of the trip.

  “Are you sure you want to come? I mean, you never know, it might be really difficult. Like last time—remember? I’m a bit nervous.”

  “What, so you think I’d let you go and do it alone, then? No way, Molly. If it’s easy, that will be great; and if it’s dangerous, then you’ll need help.”

  Molly grinned. “Thanks, Rocky.”

  Molly went to the larder and got some sugar puffs and some milk. Then she and Rocky sat at the table and poured themselves each a bowlful of cereal.

  “Aren’t you going to wake them?” Rocky asked, munching and watching Molly write Primo and Lucy a note.

  “It’s better we just go. If we tell them, they’ll only decide it’s too dangerous and beg us not to. I know that deep down they really, really want to find him.”

  “You’re right.” Rocky sipped his apple juice thoughtfully.

  From under the table where she was tucking into her chicken breakfast, Petula cocked her head and tried to sense what was happening. Her dog instinct gave her a nasty feeling that Molly and Rocky were about to embark on another one of the strange trips where they traveled down windy tunnels and arrived in different times and places. She hoped not. She’d planned to meet the postman’s dog, Chomsky, today for a good chat and a tail wag. She’d have to miss that and keep an eye on Molly instead. Petula rested her chin on her paws and frowned. Last time Molly had been on one of her special trips things had gotten very hairy. Glancing up past the edge of the table, Petula could just make out the scar on Molly’s neck, a souvenir of that adventure. She winced. Yes, Petula could sense something big was up. As she listened to them wolfing down cereal she knew that it was probably because they weren’t sure when they were going to eat again.

  Please don’t go, Molly, Petula yearned, lifting her head up. Let’s stay here. But her thoughts fell on an impervious mind.

  Molly made herself a ketchup sandwich and wrapped it in cling wrap.

  “Do you think we should bring back a baby or an eleven-year-old boy?”

  “Let’s just find him first,” said Rocky.

  Molly put on her anorak, and Rocky his sleeveless Puffa jacket and a rainproof slicker. Each stuffed his pockets with useful things; along with her sandwich Molly took a can of dog food for Petula and a bottle of water. They packed a compass, some money, a camera, and two bars of chocolate. Rocky took a flashlight from the back-door cupboard and Molly a rucksack that Petula would fit inside. Remembering their hats and scarves, and pulling their rainproof hoods up, Molly whistled quietly to Petula and they all crept out.

  Soon they were on bicycles, pedaling along the drive toward the lodge gates. It had stopped raining, but the air was thick and oppressive. Thunder was coming.

  Petula sat in the basket on Molly’s bike, sucking on a stone, her ears flapping in the cold breeze. The morning smelled of wet fern and sodden grass, of mud and earthworms. The gravel under the bikes’ wheels still held the scent of an elephant’s footprints, and mixed up with all of this was the strange electricity in the air that made the tip of Petula’s tongue taste metallic and signaled that lightning was on its way. Petula shivered. She hated thunder.

  Black clouds hung above. The roads were dark and it was difficult to see where they were going, but Molly and Rocky cycled as fast as they could, eager not to get caught in the electric storm. As they passed the ONE MILE TO BRIERSVILLE sign, a distant roll of thunder rumbled in the sky. And then a bang of thunder directly overhead seemed to shake the very road they were on, and a terrifying flash of silver light forked across the sky.

  “Stop the world!” Rocky shouted to Molly over the wind, putting his hand on her shoulder. And so Molly did. When the next crack of thunder came, she froze time, making the world stand still just as a sheet of lightning was illuminating the sky. Rocky pedaled, touching Molly all the time, for that way he was able to stay out of the freeze. Petula, on the other hand, was as still as a stuffed toy.

  So the two children sped toward Briersville with their way lit up and with raindrops hanging motionless in the air that popped and splashed as they cycled through them. But the town was eerie in the strange silver light of the storm. Molly was keen to switch the world back on again. As they came into Briersville, they saw that a few people were already up—a postman stood rigid in a doorway, sheltering from the rain, and a milkman sat in his milk float. Molly and Rocky biked down the High Street and followed the signs for the hospital where Molly had been born. Both Molly and Rocky had been there before. Molly’s worst visit was when she’d fallen out of a tree and broken her leg. She’d been seven years old and hiding from the orphanage bully. Rocky had been admitted twice to St. Michael’s Hospital for asthma attacks.

  Now the speckled white building loomed up in front of them. They slotted the bikes’ wheels into parking racks and locked them up. Molly picked Petula up, sending movement into her.

  Please don’t go, Petula whined to Molly, now desperate to stop this trip.

  “Don’t worry, Petula. It’ll all be fine,” Molly said, kissing her forehead and trying to feel brave. “Just stay really quiet.” She carefully put her into the black rucksack and handed it to Rocky. Then Molly let the world move. The lightning exploded in the sky, and they walked through the hospital entrance.

  Inside was a small shop selling newspapers, magazines, and flowers as well as stationery, puzzles, cards, and games for bored patients. To the right was a coffee shop. In the distance were the elevators and signs to different hospital departments. Petula poked her nose out through the top of the rucksack and sniffed. The place didn’t smell too good. The air was clinical and filled with disinfectant. And under that was the odor of blood and illness and boiled cabbage. She snuffled and whined and then popped her head back inside the rucksack.

  “‘The Maternity Ward,’” said Molly, reading a sign. “‘St.
Mary’s Wing’—that’s where we go.” She tied her soggy anorak around her waist. Rocky kept his sleeveless Puffa jacket on but wound up his slicker. Molly brought a bunch of daffodils. As the man in the kiosk turned to sort her change she whispered, “Better look like we’re visitors.” Then they walked along an olive-green passage, following the arrowed signs.

  As they approached the maternity wing, Petula could make out the smell of babies galore and milk and diapers. Molly pushed a white swing door and they slipped through to find themselves in a door-lined passage. Outside there was another bang of thunder, then a huge flash of lightning, and from one of the bedrooms a baby began to cry. Molly and Rocky quickly stepped sideways into a small waiting room. Even though they were there to do good, both felt as guilty as creeping thieves.

  “Go back in time now,” whispered Rocky urgently, “before anyone comes.” He put his hand on Molly’s shoulder again so that he and Petula could be transported through time with her. Molly nodded and reached for her string of gems. She held the three crystals in her right hand and stared at the scarred green gem. That crystal would take them back in time. And if she made the scar on it open, it would follow very precise instructions and take them to exactly where they wanted to go. She relaxed her mind and bored her gaze into the scar. Molly steeped her thoughts with goodness, for that was the way she’d learned how to open the scar, and as she thought, the scar blinked wide. At once it was a swirling circle of greens, spiraling away into itself. They were ready. Molly’s hands began to sweat, as they always did when nerves gripped her. Then she took a deep breath and thought an instruction to the gem. She asked it to take them back eleven years and two hundred days—her precise age. And as soon as the request had been made, Molly, Rocky, and Petula were plunged back in time. A BOOM filled the hospital waiting room as they disappeared.