Reluctantly they set off. Their plan was a daring one. They intended to hide in Cell’s private rooms. It was the only way they could discover how his hypnotism worked and, they hoped, what had happened to Davina.
They took a cab and were soon cruising down Sunset Strip. Molly looked out of the window at people in their cars doing safe things like going to work or to the shops. She thought how lucky they all were. Once or twice, Gandolli, the smiling politician, grinned down at them from red-white-and-blue election posters. Molly thought that he wouldn’t stand a chance of winning if Primo Cell was after the presidency.
The previous night, on their way out of Primo’s mansion, Molly had hypnotized the gatekeeper to let her and Rocky pass whenever they wanted. Now they slipped into the grounds with ease.
However, making their way to the front door was extremely difficult. It was as if the night before had not ended. Constant traffic motored up the gravel drive. Chauffeur-driven stretch limousines with darkened windows drove by. Molly and Rocky had to dart behind bushes and hide every half minute. What should have taken ten minutes took forty.
“Looks like he’s having another party,” said Molly, peering at the front door over the shell of a giant tortoise that was munching at the rosebush they were hiding behind. They watched as lots of importantlooking men and women in suits arrived, accompanied by bodyguards.
Molly scrutinized the arriving guests. “Those people look like politicians, don’t they?”
“Yup,” whispered Rocky. “In fact, that’s the governor of California. I’ve seen his picture in the paper. What is Cell up to?”
Getting into the house through the front door was impossible. So Molly and Rocky commando-crawled along the top rose garden—Molly unfortunately through a pile of peacock droppings. They sneaked past the sculptures and the Chinese carp pond until they were at the far end of the gray mansion. Here they found a small, low window that was ajar. Going first, Molly squeezed through. She felt one foot land somewhere wet. As she wiggled the rest of her body inside, she found that she’d trodden in a large sink of water. She was in a flower-arranging room. Vases, baskets, and pruning shears stood on the counters, and buckets of exotic flowers lined the floor. With one foot dripping, she quietly jumped down to the linoleum floor and warned Rocky to watch his step. She wiped the peacock muck off her jeans with a cloth.
“Birds’ turds are s’posed to be lucky,” whispered Rocky.
“Only if they land on you from above. Anyhow, I’m not superstitious,” said Molly.
They could hear what sounded like household staff talking outside the room. There was nowhere to hide among the flowers, so Molly crept to the door, ready for instant hypnosis if it should be needed. But the voices passed by, and after a moment, she peeped out into a short hallway. At the end of it was what looked like a service staircase. As quiet as cats, and glad that the walls were blue and that their denim clothes helped to camouflage them, they made a break for it and slipped upstairs.
They were at the opposite end of the house from where they had been the night before, and they could just hear the rumbling hum of talk and laughter from the main reception rooms. Furtively, they slipped up the next flight of stairs and came to a landing with a purple carpet. They followed it to the left.
There were doors on either side of this corridor. When Molly and Rocky heard footsteps coming, they dived through the nearest one and hid behind a fourposter bed.
They found themselves in a luxurious suite, with a sitting room and bathroom attached to the bedroom. It was decorated in pinks and whites, and fluffy cushions were scattered all over the chairs and bed. Small tables with lace cloths on them displayed vases of pink lilies and tiny porcelain ornaments of dogs. The guest staying in it seemed to have really made herself at home. On the dressing table was a little silver tree hung with diamond rings. In an open box beside it were three diamond necklaces. When they saw Gloria Heelheart’s face smiling out of a framed photograph, with several white dogs cuddling up to her, they realized that they must be in the star’s bedroom. A second later they heard a growl.
Molly looked again at the bed. Its cover, which she had mistaken for a fur counterpane, was in fact a mass of live fur, still attached to its living owners. Gloria Heelheart’s ten white Pekingeses were snuggled up to one another, enjoying a midday snooze. The one in the middle had woken up.
Molly and Rocky felt as if they were the matches that were about to set off a box of very noisy fireworks. As silently as snakes, they slipped out.
They discovered that all the suites along the passage had stars staying in them. Every room was lived in, and even had its own style, as if it had been customized for its owner.
On one desktop in a man’s room, Molly found a bank statement with Hercules Stone’s name at the top of it. Underneath was printed an address: Magpie Manor, North Crescent Drive, West Hollywood.
“He’s well and truly settled if this is where his bank stuff is sent,” said Rocky. “I wonder how long he’s staying here for.” Then, as he read the statement, he added, “Wow, he doesn’t have to worry about money. Thirty-four million dollars! He’s rolling in it.”
Molly found an aerosol can of something called Bye-Bye-Bald. She sprayed some onto her hand, and immediately her palm looked as if a patch of black hair had grown out of it.
“His hair’s obviously falling out,” she said. She looked at two ruby cufflinks on the bedside table and a photograph of Hercules Stone hugging Primo Cell.
“Cell keeps them here like prize possessions. Like caged birds. I suppose they entertain him. He must have them to stay for weeks at a time.”
“Amazing entertainment,” said Rocky. “Imagine having any star you wanted staying with you.”
“We still haven’t found any clues to Davina,” said Molly. “But if today is business as usual for Cell, it probably means hypnotizing people, which means, if we want to know how he works, we’ve got to get to his rooms quickly, Rocky. Let’s not hang about here.”
They left Hercules Stone’s bedroom and went toward the landing above the huge oak staircase. Voices greeting each other echoed up from the marble hall. From where they were, they had a bird’s-eye view of heads: bald ones, half-bald ones, and others that looked like well-groomed hairy animals.
“Politicians, army swells, and celebrities,” said Molly. “I see his game. He gets government and army people here by promising that they’ll meet the stars. He knows that even politicians get starstruck. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cell plans to get a few politicians under his thumb before the end of today.”
Molly and Rocky darted along the hall to Cell’s wing of the house. They passed the pictures of rabbits beings stunned in the glare of lights. They came to the blue neon sign that flashed A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE, and then, tremulously, they stepped up the green marble stairs that led to Primo Cell’s nerve center. They were gambling that Cell would be entertaining his guests downstairs, but the thought that they might come faceto-face with him was like a menacing black cloud in their minds. Molly’s ears thumped as her heart pumped hard and sent blood throbbing through her head.
But when they got to the top of the stairs, the coast was clear. They slipped quickly into Cell’s limesmelling study.
Just as they did so, they heard two deep voices echoing in the hallway. The voices were coming their way.
Twenty-Six
Molly’s wits went on strike, and she didn’t know what to do. She found herself looking in the fire’s log basket to see whether she could hide there. Luckily, Rocky kept his head and tugged her toward the open curtains. They each took a side of material and pulled the dark-green velvet about them, letting it settle so that the drop of the curtains looked natural. Molly concentrated on quieting her breathing. As she looked up inside the green tube of material around her, she felt like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
The door clicked open and then shut as the two people entered. Molly immediately recognized Primo Cell’s liquid-velvet voice.
>
“So here’s where I make it all happen,” he was saying. “My home study. This is where I think and relax. Oh—and where I write checks.”
Molly heard Primo, agonizingly near to her hiding place, turning a key and opening a drawer in his desk. She swallowed—inside her head it sounded like water sluicing down a drain.
“Ah yes, my charity checkbook. Here it is.”
“This really is very kind of you, Mr. Cell,” said another man’s voice.
“Not at all, General. It really is my pleasure. Please, call me Primo.”
Molly’s chest tightened. As far as she could remember, general was the highest rank in the army.
“Thank you, and you must call me Donald.”
“Donald, it’s nothing. My own mother was a widow, so I myself never grew up with a father. I know firsthand how much it will help these families if they get help from your charity. Please sit down.”
Molly heard a leather chair give way under the general’s bottom, and then a creak as Primo Cell sat too.
“Who should I make the check out to?” asked Cell.
“The U.S. Army Widows’ Fund,” came the reply.
“Will ten million dollars be sufficient for now?”
The general gave an audible gulp.
“Er, absolutely. More than enough. I’m stunned by your generosity.”
For a moment Molly wondered whether she, Rocky, and Lucy Logan had Primo figured all wrong. Perhaps he was using his hypnotism to do good.
There was silence, and Molly pricked up her ears. The sound of a nib on paper scratched the air. There was a long pause, and then she heard a noise that sounded something like this:
“Bdeughhhh.”
It came from the general.
Molly knew at once what was happening. Now they were going to find out how Primo Cell locked his hypnotism in.
“Good,” said Cell as if he was talking to a child. “Now you, Donald, are totally under my power. You will forget that I promised your charity a gift. You won’t remember our meeting here. Instead, you will remember a wonderful lunch party at my house. In a minute, you will return to the other guests, thinking that you have merely been to the bathroom. From this moment on, you will do my bidding. And your obedience will be firm and unmovable. You will stay under my power, always … always … always.”
Behind the curtain, Molly shivered. A chill as cold as a breeze from the heart of a glacier rose through her, and her diamond suddenly froze.
She let the icy feeling wash through her but not seize her. And as time stopped, she realized two things. The first was the startling fact that Primo Cell could stop time, and the second was that this was how he locked in his hypnosis. He stopped the world while his victims were hypnotized, and somehow that sealed his power.
In his chair opposite the general, Primo Cell sat up as if someone had given him an electric shock. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he sensed resistance. Someone alert and breathing was here in this very room. He rose and with three powerful steps crossed to the window. He snatched the velvet aside. Molly would have screamed, but terror had seized her throat.
For a second, Primo Cell looked shocked. Amazed even. He rarely came across people who could keep moving in a time stop.
“You?” he barked. “Molly Moon. I should have guessed.”
Recovering, Molly focused her eyes on him.
He began to laugh.
“Oh, you disappoint me,” he said. “I had thought you might be pupil material, but I can see from your face that this is not the case. And no doubt your accomplice is here too.” Cell whisked Rocky’s curtain roughly aside. “Ha. But still as a statue. Not as accomplished as you, I see.” Cell grabbed Molly’s arm. “You two are going to wish you’d stayed at home today,” he hissed.
He hauled Molly toward the frozen general. Then, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder, he did an astounding thing. Molly felt Primo Cell send a wave of cold fusion feeling out of himself into the general, so that the man stirred, and suddenly the general could move again.
“Pick up the boy,” Primo Cell ordered him. “But at no point let my hand lose touch with you.” This, Molly realized, was so the man didn’t freeze again. The general obediently rose and picked up Rocky, who bent like a rag doll under his left arm.
“Now, hold the girl. Don’t let her go.” The general’s massive right hand clenched Molly’s puny biceps. “Good. Now we must hurry.”
With his free hand Primo Cell reached for a button inside the top drawer of his desk. A bookshelf in the room sprang open to reveal a door.
“We may look ridiculous like this,” said Cell as he maneuvered himself behind Molly and the general, “but looks can be deceiving, especially in Hollywood. Take me, for instance.” He pushed them toward the secret door. “People think I’m a marvelous person. A benefactor. Someone they can look up to. But I’m not any of those things. I’m selfish and greedy.”
Molly suddenly found her wits as she saw a stairwell below her. Was this where Cell had brought Davina? She pulled away from the general’s hand and began to shout.
“Help! Somebody HELP ME!”
But of course no one could hear her. In the grand sitting room, politicians stood like sculptures, champagne glasses in their hands and rigid expressions of enthrallment on their faces as they spoke to celebrities. If the world had been moving, the hubbub of conversations would have drowned Molly’s cries. As it was, the air was still as a picture, with sound suspended, so Molly’s distant screams, as Primo propelled her down the stairs, were audible in the hall.
One person did hear the shouting. One person had casually walked away from the frozen lunch party and was cleaning his nails with a toothpick. As he placed the used toothpick into the outstretched hand of Stephanie Goulash, Sinclair Cell’s phone went off. He pressed its answer button.
“I’m on my way,” he said lazily.
“Sinclair, get here right now,” came his father’s impatient reply. Sinclair looked into his phone’s screen at Cell’s stern face.
“As you can hear, I’m having a bit of trouble.” Cell turned his phone to transmit a picture of Molly yelling and the general with a frozen Rocky under his arm. “Come here and help me.”
“Okay. Coming up. Trouble is, I was talking to Mrs. Grozztucke when you stopped the clock. She’ll wonder how I suddenly disappeared when things start moving again.”
“Forget her. The woman drinks too much anyway. She’ll just think she’s having a hallucination.”
“Okay.”
Molly was pushed roughly down the stone staircase. It went farther and farther down, as if it was spiraling to hell itself. Her arm felt sore in the general’s iron grip.
She was starting to feel exhausted. It was very tiring resisting the freeze while shouting at the same time.
“Get off me,” she yelled again and again. But her efforts were useless. Twisting, Molly turned her eyes on Cell.
Her smoldering look rolled off him like water off wax.
“You’ve got a nerve! Little girls shouldn’t play with fire, you know. Or ice, for that matter.” Primo Cell suddenly brought his strange party to a halt. “Take off the crystal.”
Molly wondered how on earth Cell knew she was wearing a diamond.
“No. I won’t,” she said. “It’s mine.”
“Take it off or I’ll take it off for you,” Primo said grimly.
Molly was amazed. Primo Cell had to be one of the richest people in the world, and at a moment like this he had his mind on diamonds. He was completely materialistic. Molly supposed it was her payment, her punishment.
“You’re a mean, greedy, ugly man,” she shot back. “You’re worse—you’re scum. You don’t need this. But I do.” Molly thought of the orphanage children, of the unpaid bill back at the hotel, of the dwindling money at Happiness House, of nothing much to eat, of difficult times ahead. “You can’t have it.”
“You won’t be needing it where you’re going,” Cell stated c
oldly. “Give it to me right now.”
Molly heard the threatening tone of his voice and quailed. She was so tired. She had no more strength to resist. She reached for the catch on her necklace’s chain. The diamond had absorbed the cold from her body and felt like ice against her skin. She undid the catch but still clutched the diamond.
“I suppose you’ll let Gloria Heelheart borrow it, and won’t she be thrilled?” she whispered. “But you know what? If she knew what you were really like, she’d hate you. All your hypnotized people would.”
“Oh, my, so you have no idea of your crystal’s true power,” said Cell dryly. “Hmmmm.” He reached out and took the jewel from Molly’s hand.
And although Molly didn’t know it, she froze.
Twenty-Seven
The general now carried two still children down the stone stairwell. They had descended below ground level, and as they wound farther down, light came up from below. The stone wall was replaced by thick glass. And the staircase descended like a tube of ice into a vast, white, cathedral-sized space. They reached the bottom and stopped.
This room was massive and modern, like a very big art gallery, although there was no art on its walls. Instead, in its center was what looked like a strange sculpture. It was a large steel tower. From its top a long pole stretched parallel to the ceiling and, in the distance, something large and heavy was fixed to the end of it. At the foot of the tower was a steel bench.
Sinclair Cell sat on it, looking at his reflection in a pocket mirror.
“Sinclair, you could have come and helped me, you lazy toad,” said Primo. “Help me now. Tie their arms behind their backs.”
Cell instructed the general to put Molly and Rocky on the ground. The immobile pair lay there like dead fish, and Sinclair came over and tied them up.
Then Cell let the world come out of its freeze. Immediately Molly and Rocky’s time started again. Both were shocked to find how they’d been moved. As far as Rocky was concerned, he had just been behind the curtain, while Molly’s time had stopped when Primo had snatched the diamond from her. A few seconds later she gasped as she realized what had happened.