“This is making me feel really nervous,” Molly moaned. “If Zackya does chase us to this time, he’ll easily be able to track us down as so many people are noticing us.”
Just then there was a scream from the street behind them, a scream followed by shouting and a low, baying noise.
Fourteen
“Move!” Forest cried. He pushed Molly and Rocky backward until they were wedged up against a shop wall covered with tin saucepans. In front of them, the crowd surged away from the center of the street where the baying noises were multiplying and becoming louder.
“Is it Waqt?” Molly asked Forest. “Shouldn’t we run? I’ve got that purple pill inside me. He’ll track us down here.”
“It’s not Waqt. Stand on that ledge. Look!” Molly and Rocky, clinging onto Petula, stepped up. In front of them was a sea of heads and, like water magically parting, the crowd made a long clearing. Six black cows were running down this gap, causing mayhem. They’d already knocked over two rickshaws and a stall selling fruit. They seemed to be dangerously stampeding, but not out of malice; they were frightened—something farther up the street had scared them. Men tried to calm them. One managed to flap a sheet in front of the mooing leader and so divert her down an alley. The others followed her. And, as quickly as it had been stirred up, the busy, scruffy street returned to its normal state.
“Man, that’s India for ya!” Forest exclaimed. “You wouldn’t get a sight like that in an American or European city. Cows stampeding the shopping district! That’s action for you. I love those holy cows.”
Zackya stood at the entrance to the Chandni Chowk. He’d been given permission to leave the maharaja and so was now intent on catching up with Molly Moon. He had to lock the escapees up again before Waqt realized they’d gone, but he was having problems. The hypnotized guards he’d brought with him from the 1870s had already caused trouble. Their swords and old-fashioned attire had frightened some tourists. Two screaming women had frightened a group of cows that had in turn taken off and galloped into the busy market streets. Now, a fearless old Indian woman was lecturing him, her hands on her hips, and this was making it impossible to read his silver tracking device.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, upsetting the holy cows like that,” she heckled him, in Hindi. “Just look at the trouble you and your band have caused. Look at the crowds. People could get hurt.” As she waggled her finger, Zackya looked up. He gave her a filthy hypnotic stare.
“Wapplyglupglup glaap,” the woman said, still wagging her finger, and fell silent.
Zackya turned away and concentrated on his silver box. It refused to work properly. It was showing that the girl, Molly, was in this time, but when he asked it in what direction she was to be found, the gadget merely blinked at him. He switched it off and called his guards over.
The cool alleyways of Chandni Chowk were much more peaceful than the streets. Forest led Molly and Rocky through an alley only wide enough to let one rickshaw along it at a time. The crumbling walls of dilapidated three-story buildings rose up on either side of them. Black electricity wires swirled above in a spaghetti-like tangle. They echoed Molly’s feelings. For she was very confused and muddled as to what to do next.
“Shouldn’t we go back now?” she suggested.
“What, in these clothes?” said Rocky. “We’ll stick out like aliens. Before we go back to Waqt’s time we should get some Indian outfits.”
They glanced along the alley. On either side of it, every available space was a narrow shop. Molly had never seen such narrow shops! They were often only the width of a person sitting down with their legs stretched out. Some shops were wider with lovely padded-cloth floors. And shoppers took their shoes off before going in.
“That’s real sensible,” said Forest, smiling. “No floors to clean. Hey, isn’t India cool!”
“Do you think we’ll find a clothes shop?” Molly asked as they passed one that sold costume jewelry and red and gold scarves.
“Sure, just keep walkin’ and you bet we will.”
And so they continued up the alley. Petula stayed close to Molly. As they walked, Molly told the others what she’d learned about Waqt’s past.
“Sad guy,” said Forest.
“Mad guy, you mean,” said Rocky. Then he stopped. “Wow, what’s that? Smells like sugar and doughnuts!” Molly walked nervously on, but Rocky hovered at a bakery shop where trays of pastry shapes were laid out under white mesh.
Beside the biscuits was a large silver pot in which was a white milky liquid. In the center of this pot floated a slimmer pot with ice in it, keeping the milky substance around it cold. At the other end of the counter was a miniature wood-burning stove with a copper vat on top. A lilac-shirted shopkeeper watched Rocky and smiled.
“We don’t have much electricity here in Old Delhi,” he explained. “So that’s how we keep liquids cool and fresh. And we use old-fashioned fire to cook with. Have you ever eaten Indian sweets?” Rocky shook his head.
“You speak very good English,” he observed.
“Of course!” The baker laughed. “Many Indians do.”
Rocky watched as the man took a scoop of doughy mixture and rolled it into a ball. He tossed this into the vat, which contained hot oil. The man then fished the ball out and dropped it into a bowl full of syrup along with fifteen or so more of the golden dumplings.
“My customers like these sweets the best. They’re called ‘gulab jamun.’ Here, taste one.”
Rocky shook his head. “I haven’t got any money.”
“Not everything in life costs money!”
The dumpling was delicious and Rocky could have stood for a long time tasting the man’s wares, but Molly pulled him on.
“Thank you,” said Rocky as they moved away down the alleyway. “That man was so nice.”
“So was the guy who makes noodles,” Forest agreed, still chewing what he’d been given to taste. “Wasn’t that delicious, Petula?”
“But we’ve got to hurry,” said Molly. “Come on, you two. We’re not on vacation.” While Rocky crouched down to tie his shoelace, she approached a sturdy, bald man who owned a mask shop. “Excuse me. What year are we in?” Papier-mâché faces of tigers and lions, birds and elephants peered down at her.
“It’s 1974, of course!” he chuckled. “Would you like to try on a mask?” He held a mirror up to her face. Molly glanced into it and saw the scaly time-travel skin by her ear. She was just about to look away when she noticed an inch-long scar on the side of her neck. She gasped, touching it and wondering how and when it had got there.
In that instant, Molly was struck by a thought. If this was 1974, and Waqt was in 1870 with her younger selves, by now her own history in 1870 would have played out. Surely she should now have all the memories from her ten-year-old self in 1870 because that time had passed. And yet she couldn’t remember any more of her time as a ten-year-old in India. She couldn’t remember how it had gone—how it had finished. It was as if the memories were lagging behind, still traveling from 1870 to this modern time, and they hadn’t arrived yet. Was this scar from her time in 1870s India?
The man held an elephant mask up to her.
“Try one?”
“No thanks.”
Molly was suddenly filled with cutting fear. She didn’t like this at all. Her younger selves were stuck in the past, their memories hidden from her, and now there was this mysterious pink scar on her neck. Molly realized that she must get straight back to the 1870s and find Waqt. She knew she wouldn’t relax until she’d saved her younger selves and somehow caught him.
How she should catch Waqt was a terrifying prospect. It would be worse than trapping a vicious wild animal. A papier-mâché tiger face snarled down at her, reminding her of Waqt’s hunting trophies and his gun.
The answer lay in the crystals, Molly thought. If they could just steal all of Waqt’s time-travel crystals, and his time-stop crystals, then they’d have a chance. Without the crystals, Waqt would be reduced to
being simply a very powerful hypnotist. Just a maharaja with power over hundreds of guards. Molly gulped and touched her scar.
“Hey, you two,” she called. The others had been distracted again. They were watching a man in a cog shop fix something with a blowtorch. “I really think we should go back.” Molly tried not to sound too nervous. “Now,” she said more frantically, picking up Petula.
“Fine, fine,” said Forest, ambling over. He wiped some sweat from his forehead. “I dig those time winds.”
Molly found a nice, clear area at the side of the alley, and soon they were flashing through the decades again. Molly extended her invisible antennae and tried to sense when her other selves were. She felt their vibrations and stopped. The time winds subsided.
A holy cow was standing right beside them. It let out a moo. The air was cooler than before, but it was still hot. Molly had arrived in exactly the same time that her young selves were in. Because of this, she was able to get their memories. Right away she remembered being ten and being tested by Waqt. She winced, and told the others how he’d made her paint, use an abacus, and dance and play the sitar.
“Waqt’s on some kind of headmaster’s trip!” said Forest.
Molly glanced up and down the alleyway about her. All the electricity spaghetti was gone, but the shops were roughly the same size and the smells were similar, too. Even the mask shop was there. Molly realized that the man who was standing inside it painting a leopard mask might be the great-great-great-grandfather of the sturdy little man she’d spoken to in modern-day India. She decided to check what time they were in, so she walked over to him. He put down his paintbrush and, pressing his hands together, bowed his head slightly.
“Namaskar,” he said.
Molly assumed that this was a way of saying hello. She did exactly the same.
“Namaskar.” Then she added, “Excuse me, what year are we in?”
Zackya stood impatiently in the middle of the road. The small silver tracking device hidden inside his clothes let out a bleep. Irritated, he plunged his hand into his pocket to retrieve it.
“So you’ve moved to another time again, Moon,” he muttered, reading the dial. He looked about him for his guards, indicating to the nearest that he wanted them to gather quickly. The fourth guard was over by a newspaper stand, asking its keeper questions. Zackya didn’t have time to wait. He bid the three hypnotized guards beside him to get into a time-travel position. This they did, their hands on each other’s shoulders. And with a BOOM Zackya lifted them out of the year 1974 and back to 1870.
He felt no compassion for the guard whom he’d left stranded in a time that wasn’t his. This guard was only lightly hypnotized, so he would, in a few weeks, come out of his trance and think he had gone mad. He would be an 1870s person marooned in the 1970s. No one would believe him when he told them that he belonged to a different time. Zackya knew this, but it didn’t bother him in the slightest. All he cared about was catching Molly Moon.
Molly repeated her question.
“What year are we in, please?”
The man thought. “Half past three.” Molly realized that not so many Indians would have spoken her language in 1870, or whenever they were. “Thank you,” she said and, bowing, bid the man good-bye.
“Hey, you’re a natural, Molly,” said Forest.
“Did I do the right thing?”
“Yeah. Namaskar means ‘Hi’… ‘Respect’… that sort of thing. My yoga teacher used to say it.”
Molly put her hand to her neck. The scar was still there. She was very confused.
Just then she felt the right pocket of her jeans move—the pocket in which she was keeping her red crystal and her clear crystal. She slapped her hand on them, but too late. Molly turned to see a boy her own age, in a scruffy brown tunic stained with crimson dye, tearing away up the alley.
“NO!” she shouted. “That boy’s just stolen the crystals!”
Fifteen
Rocky tore away from Molly like a rocket from its launchpad. Ahead, he could hear the thief’s footsteps on the cobbled street. His own sneakers pounded over the ground, kicking up dust as he skidded around the corner. His rib cage began to ache from the effort of running. But he ignored the stitch, because the more he ran the more he realized how critical the crystals were to them all. The red crystal was their ticket forward to the twenty-first century. He simply must get it back. And then the boy’s footsteps stopped.
Rocky, breathless, and desperate, arrived at a cross alley, where a banyan tree grew. He tried to work out which way he would have gone if he were the boy. One alley had three black cows loitering in it, with flies buzzing about them. The second alley was the resting spot of a small, skinny monkey eating a piece of bread. The last alley led to what seemed like a place full of shops. Rocky started out down this leg of the alley. But after a few strides he realized that the pickpocket’s footsteps had stopped. With wily instinct, he looked up.
As he did, Molly, Petula, and Forest caught up with him. Rocky stood with his hands on his hips, his lungs heaving, and stared upward.
“Are you all right, Rocky?” Molly asked. She hoped he wasn’t about to have one of his asthma attacks.
Rocky nodded.
“What are you going to do to me?” said a silky voice from above. The brown-faced urchin edged his way farther up the banyan tree. Petula barked.
“Nothing,” wheezed Rocky. “We just want the red and clear stones back.” He began talking slowly, for if he could just wind his hypnotic voice around the pickpocket for long enough he’d be able to persuade him to climb down. “Why don’t you just bring the stones dow—”
The boy interrupted him. “You mean the gems?”
“The crystals.” Molly pushed her hair out of her eyes. She’d noticed that the boy was shifting himself higher up his branch—in fact, to the level of the windows of the nearest building. There was no time to try to hypnotize him down with Rocky’s voice or even her eyes. He was moving away too fast and he refused to make eye contact. “You speak our language very well,” she said, trying to stop his ascent.
The thief looked suspiciously down, wondering why the person he’d just stolen from was flattering him. “Maybe I do. Why do you care?”
Molly realized that the only option left to them was bribery.
“If you give those crystals back, you will be far better off than if you run away with them,” she said. “With the red crystal, I can take you to a different time—to the future, if you like. How about that?”
The boy frowned and glared down at them. That was the most ridiculous lie he’d ever heard.
Rocky butted in. “Molly’s telling you the truth. Molly can time travel because she’s a master hypnotist. And with the clear crystal, she can stop time. Honestly. Me and Forest here can’t make them work. We really need the red crystal back, because we’re from the future.”
The boy up the tree looked at the odd party below with their strange dog and he began to laugh. “Well, I’ve heard a lot of lies, but I’ve never heard one as wild as that!”
Forest started laughing, too.
“Forest, this isn’t funny,” said Molly. “If we don’t get the crystals back, we’re as good as—”
“It’s okay,” said Forest, and he delved into his jacket pocket. Pulling out a small black object, he said, “Ever seen one of these?”
He switched a button, and the tape recorder in his hand started playing groovy Los Angelean music.
“Magpie Man! He’ll steal your heart and your soul… OOOOOh aahhh,” sang the pop star Billy Bob Bimble. The boy up the tree nearly fell down with fright.
Just then there was a low shout. Everyone turned to see an official in a brown uniform marching toward them. He was wielding a baton. The boy in the tree began to scramble up the branch to the high window. He made a deft leap, but his tunic caught on a stubby twig, so he half tripped, falling onto the branch below. Molly gasped. The official was now beside her, roaring at the boy.
??
?I told you I’d catch you,” he shouted in Hindi. “Tonight you’re sleeping in a cell, you rotten thief.”
“Man, go easy on the kid,” said Forest, but the short, muscly official ignored him and continued waving his nightstick and shouting.
Molly knew this noise would soon attract attention, so she summoned the warm fusion feeling and at once her body hummed with the familiar heat of hypnotism. She tapped the policeman on the shoulder. He glanced irritably at her and at once he fell prey to Molly’s powers. He was hypnotized—silent as the cud-chewing cows down the alley. Because Molly didn’t speak Hindi, she pressed her finger to her lips. “Shh.”
The boy up the tree dangled from a branch, fascinated by what Molly had just done. Then she spoke to him.
“I’m going to need your help. I can’t speak this man’s language and I need to leave him some hypnotic instructions.”
“This is a trick, isn’t it?” said the boy. “You’re on his side. Make him do something really stupid that he wouldn’t normally do. Then I’ll believe you.”
“I told you, you have to tell him what to do. I can’t speak his language.”
A naughty glint flashed in the boy’s eyes. “I will, then.”
Molly patted the man on his shoulder. She put her hand to her ear and pointed up the tree, indicating that he should listen to the boy.
“Remove your trousers,” the boy said in Hindi so that no one there except the official could understand him. The man nodded and at once began unbuttoning his trousers. Soon they were halfway down his legs, revealing orange underpants. The boy let out a whoop of laughter, but then another look of suspicion crossed his face.
“Cry like a baby elephant!” he ordered, again in Hindi.
“Waaaoohaah!” the policeman trumpeted.
The boy smiled. “Hop about like a crow!” Now the man was hopping around with his trousers around his ankles. Molly had to admit this did look funny. She glanced at Rocky and tried not to laugh.