by Georgia Byng
“You know, don’t you, Zackya, that I’m already furious with you?” growled Waqt, turning a page and not looking up. “I still had character tests for the six-year-old Molly. And she might have drawn some more stycrals from the earth for me… not that any of the older Mollys seem to magnetize them.… But that’s peside the boint. The point is that because ofyou, she’s gone. You aren’t tasting my wime are you, Yackza?”
“N-n-no, sahib.”
“If I am not tismaken, I can hear a dog.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And what,” said Waqt, in a slow, threatening tone, “is the point of daking the tog?”
“She will come back for the dog, Your Highness!”
Waqt raised his bloodshot eyes. “You fupid stool,” he hissed hatefully. “You never did know how to play games. I already have bait for her. She will come back to save herselves! This is the second time you have stolen this animal. It is obvious that you want the dog for yourself! Guard! Take that animal and kill it!”
A tall, stiff man stepped out from the corner of the room, seized Petula, and removed her. Zackya looked nervously after her, waiting for the door to shut to obliterate the sound of Petula’s barks, before he continued.
“And… and I have these crystals that she stole from you, Your Highness!”
A book came whizzing past his head, batting his ear as it went, and the tiny Indian women scurried toward the wall like two animals sheltering from lightning. Waqt got to his feet.
“YOU INADEQUATE IDIOT!” he exploded. “YOU’VE COMPLETELY RUINED THE GAME. NOW SHE IS STUCK IN THE FUTURE. YET AGAIN YOU—YOU YACKZA, YOU BLITHERING FOOL FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE CESSPIT—HAVE FUINED MY RUN. AAARGH!” Waqt hurled the two stools through the air. Zackya dodged them as if he were a moving duck in a fairground arcade.
“AAAAAAAAAARGH!” Waqt’s yell filled the room, making the windows rattle. And then, as quickly as his temper had exploded, it stopped. For a moment he looked blank, then he observed, “She may well be lost in the future, but I suppose this will show us how good she is. Hmmm, yes, this will be interesting. If she is as good as I was when I learned the hypnotic arts, she will return. And we will leave a few clues for her. Clues to lead her to her death. You have done well, Yackza, my little rockcoach. No insecticide for you today.” Then he said to the other guard, “Dollow the fog. When it is dead, take its body and wrap it up for a Ganges River burial.” He picked at his eyebrow. “I’m tired of this observatory palace. Tomorrow I would like to spend the night at the Bobenoi Palace in Jaipur itself. There, the amenities are better.” He looked at his toenails and scowled. “It’s impossible to get a good pedicure these days. Zackya, get rid of them.”
Zackya clapped his hands and bossily shooed the women away. When they’d gone, he knelt down to grovel at Waqt’s feet.
“You are always so right,” he simpered. “You have such style, Your Highness, such wisdom.”
Traveling into modern Jaipur by elephant was quite an experience. Rocky sat right behind Ojas and explained how the flow of traffic worked. Amrit was as calm and as coolheaded as the camels and buffalo beside her, even when a paint bomb hit her side. Lots of people stared up at them, and one tanned couple with packs on their backs even took advantage of Amrit stopping at a traffic light.
“Excuse me,” they asked Ojas, “but eez eet possible to book you and your elephant for a tour of zee city tomorrow?”
“I am sorry,” Ojas apologized charmingly. “I would love to, but tomorrow I will be busy time traveling.”
The tourists’ eyes widened. They opened their phrase book to see what “time traveling” could really mean.
“You’re optimistic,” Molly observed.
“I find that is the best way to be,” Ojas replied.
The streets became busier and more crowded. The roads and walls of buildings were all colors of the rainbow where splattered paint had dried, and the ground was stained with red marks from paan chewers spitting out their betel-nut leaves.
“I think Holi is nearly over,” said Ojas. Amrit took them down the street, past the arcades of the bazaar, and Molly scrutinized the shop windows. Although many were selling leather sandals or cooking implements, most were selling jewelry. They passed a marketplace where men sat on the ground burning silver rope, collecting the silver that dripped off it in little piles. Flower sellers sat cross-legged in high stalls, piercing orange and yellow flowers with needles and threading them onto strings to make marigold and frangipani chains.
On the right-hand side the shops were beginning to look more special. Then something caught Molly’s eye.
“Look!” she said.
Farther up the road was a wide shop with glass-paneled doors along its front. Net curtains hid the interior of the shop from view. The sign above was very smart, painted in gold and red with curly letters.
“You stay out here with Amrit and the puppy and Forest,” suggested Molly. “I’ll take little Molly and Rocky inside with me and see if I can find some time crystals.”
“Yes, Mollee. I will look after the Man of Trees,” agreed Ojas, looking over his shoulder at Forest, who was snoring. “Here is the bracelet, Rocky.”
“And we’ll get lots of money, too,” said Molly, “so that we can get Amrit some food.”
“Oh yes, Mollee, she is very hungry.” Amrit bent down so that Molly, Rocky, and little Molly could climb down.
“So, what does an elephant like to eat?” Molly asked as Amrit batted her long eyelashes at her.
“Palm leaves, bamboo leaves, sugarcane stalks, bananas, rice, cakes, sweet dumplings and always gur.”
“Gur?”
“Gur is unrefined molasses. Elephants love gur.”
Molly nodded. “One gur and chips coming up.”
Twenty-five
Molly knocked at the glass shop door. Eventually a man with a silky mustache pulled the net curtain aside.
“Can we come in, please?” Molly asked, mouthing the words very precisely so that he might read her lips.
The shopkeeper glanced at Amrit, who stood in the street behind, and then tapped his watch and shook his head. Molly prodded Rocky, who quickly revealed the antique bracelet. The shopkeeper’s eyebrows did a little dance on his forehead; he said something to someone inside and then pointed to the side of the building.
At the side of the shop was a passage. This had a heavy metal gate and a big lock.
A ragged man sat on the floor beside the gate with a bowl by his legs. One of his eyes was covered with a patch; the other was white, shrouded in cataract. The bowl was full of money. Molly reached in her pocket and put an 1870 coin into it.
“I’m sure the shopkeeper here will give you something for that,” she said, hoping he understood English. “I haven’t got any up-to-date money.”
At the side of the shop a double-chinned security guard was waiting. He ushered them under an arch into a tiny lobby with green velvet seats.
The shop’s walls were lined with glass cabinets filled with antique Indian objects: a gold chess set with the king and queen pieces on elephants and the pawns all men in turbans on camels; a silver ornamental ship decorated with filigree designs; a long snake made with gold links; a marble egg with colored stones inlaid in delicate patterns. There were shelves of black velvet boards from which hung fabulous necklaces made of diamonds and gems and pearls. In the middle of the room were glass-topped display cases full of rings and bracelets and precious stones.
And in the middle of the room stood the shopkeeper, in brown trousers and a crisp white shirt. He looked expectant. He indicated that the security guard could go.
“Good evening,” he said. “So you have something you would like me to see.”
Molly was wondering whether she ought to hypnotize him. He looked kind-natured. But it was getting late and she didn’t have time to make friends. He’d never believe in time travel, so to speed things along she smiled at him, and as soon as his eyes met hers she sent out a keen eye beam.
The man stumbled backward and then caught his balance. When, shakily, he looked up, his eyes had glazed over and the girl in front of him seemed very important indeed.
“Well done,” she said. “Now, Mr. um… what is your name?”
“Mr. Chengelpet,” said the shopkeeper.
“Well, you, Mr. Chengelpet, are now completely under my command. I am going to explain something that I need and I want you to believe me completely. Then I want you to see whether you can help me.”
The mild-faced man smiled. And so Molly began. She told him all about the crystals and time travel and she asked him whether he had any idea what the green and red crystals could be.
“I am—not sure—” the man said cooperatively. “I have—some crystals that—I could show—you that are of—these colors. Green emeralds—red rubies, garnets and—bloodstones. They are—in my safe in—the back room. They are—old gems that—my great-grandfather bought. My—father wouldn’t sell them—and neither will—I. They are—very—special.”
Molly’s eyes lit up.
“Okay, they sound good.” She shot a look at Rocky, who stood beside the small Molly making sure she didn’t break anything. “Show us them, please.”
The man led them all through a carved door and down a short flight of steps into a small, cluttered, windowless office. It had two large safes at the back of the room and a desk with chairs on either side of it. The desk was covered in trays full of important-looking papers, with scales and weights and an assortment of magnifying glasses. While Mr. Chengelpet fiddled with one of the dials on the safe, Molly sat in a chair and looked at the framed family photographs of him and his wife and two small boys.
“I have—these red—gems,” he said, pulling leather boxes out of the safe and opening them.
“Cor! Those are nice!” said the little Molly.
Unsure, the older Molly picked up a gem. It was tiny and, what was more, when she shut her eyes she could feel it had no power to it.
“What sort of stone is it?” she asked.
“A—ruby. That one—is big—but this one—is even—bigger.” The jeweler unlaced a small suede pouch, prized out a pea-sized ruby, and passed it to her.
Molly held it hopefully, but again there was no power to it. Her heart sank. Rocky looked inquiringly at her. She shook her head.
“The red gem that I used before was eight times bigger than this.”
“I cannot help—you with—a ruby—that big,” said Mr. Chengelpet. “There are big ones—like the eighteen-thousand-carat—Heracles—in Thailand. The ruby—I have—shown you is, by all standards, big—I—won’t sell it, because—it is so—rare and large.”
“Looks titchy to me,” said the little Molly.
“Hey, shhh, Molly,” said Rocky. “Big Molly’s trying to concentrate.”
Molly wondered whether the time-travel crystals were amazing rubies or different gems completely.
“Do you have any other red crystals?”
“I have these gems—they are—tourmaline—and these—pieces of topaz,” declared the shopkeeper. The beautiful red stones he handed her were completely lifeless, too.
Molly felt frantic desperation rising up inside her. “What about green crystals?”
“Some—emeralds—yes. I have some—very fine—emeralds that I rarely show—anyone!—And some—green sapphires and—green opals.” Molly plucked up some optimism and watched as more gem-laden trays came out of the fat safes. Inside these were more small crystals.
“Ooooh, those are really pretty,” said the little Molly, unable to contain herself.
Molly touched the small gemstones. One by one, her finger passed over them. All were beautiful, but none held any power.
“This is useless!” she whispered to Rocky. Then, just as she leaned forward to push the trays away, the little Molly exclaimed, “Uuurgh! Look at that horrid dirty one at the back!”
All eyes fell upon a lychee-sized muddy green crystal lying camouflaged on the faded velvet. It looked very shoddy, with a strange scar the shape a boomerang along the side of it.
“What’s this?” Molly asked, picking it up. She shut her eyes and before she even concentrated on the crystal she noticed a current of energy coming from it.
“I’m not sure. It’s an—odd stone. A form of quartz—perhaps. Not precious, but odd. That is—why I keep it.”
Molly nodded to Rocky. He pulled the bracelet out from his sleeve.
“What do you think of this?” he asked.
The jeweler waggled his head and took the heavy object in his hand. He turned it over and in a hypnotized way admired the blue sapphires and white pearls that were studded into it.
“This—is a—marvelous example of—jewelry from the—1750s. I have—seen—pieces like—this only in—the museum collections.”
So the ankle bracelet was even older than they had thought.
“Would you like to buy it? What is the right price?”
“Two million rupees. If I wanted to—make some profit—I would buy it—for one and a half million—rupees.”
“Do you know what that is in pounds or dollars?”
“Eighteen thousand—pounds, or thirty-five—thousand dollars.”
“That’s lots of money!” exclaimed the small Molly.
“And how much would you sell that scarred green stone for?”
“That dirty green stone?” the small Molly piped up. “Don’t buy that stone!”
“Shh, Molly.”
“It is not—really—for sale,” the jeweler continued, ignoring the little girl, “because I like it—very much, I have—never thought—about its price. I don’t think—it is—very sellable.”
“Hmm.” Molly picked up the scarred crystal. “All right then, the deal is this: We will sell you this ankle bracelet for seven hundred thousand rupees, so you are getting it really cheap, and in return you will give us your scarred crystal.”
The shopkeeper nodded, his head bobbing like the branch of a tree in a breeze. Molly pushed the ankle bracelet toward him and put the muddy green crystal in her pocket.
“That is a really bad deal,” muttered the younger Molly and, exasperated by the apparent stupidity of her companions, she turned her back and stomped up the steps of the office.
“Do you have the rupees here?” Rocky asked.
“Of—course.” Mr. Chengelpet turned and opened a briefcase. He took out fourteen wads of bank notes, each secured with an elastic band. Rocky took them and put them in Molly’s bag. He indicated to Molly that they should get going.
“It was very nice doing business with you,” said Molly, once they were back in the cozy shop. “In a minute I will bring you out of your trance. You will think that you just made a deal with a French man, who has gone now, who sold you the ankle bracelet for such a good price that you gave him your green crystal. You will forget that we had anything to do with the ankle bracelet. Instead, you’ll think that we are just some nice kids who wanted to look around your shop.”
“And once we’re gone, you’ll forget about us and the elephant outside,” added Rocky.
Molly clapped her hands. Mr. Chengelpet woke up. It took a few seconds for him to rejig his thoughts so that Molly and Rocky’s instructions sank in, and then he began to look really happy.
“Oh, children, children, it’s been lovely having you here,” he said, “but I really must be going home. I have a bit of celebrating to do!”
“A birthday?” asked Molly.
“Oh, no. I have just had an extremely good day of business!”
“Yes, you have!” said the little Molly. Rocky tugged at her to be quiet.
Molly felt the crystal in her pocket and hoped that she hadn’t been imagining its worth.
“I hope you and your sons have a great evening!” she said.
“How did you know I had sons?” The man laughed, showing them to the door.
Ojas was waiting for them outside. People were crowding around Amrit, who was dozily resting, her bac
k legs crossed like those of a person leaning against a fence.
They pushed the small Molly up onto her.
“That was the worst shopping I ever saw,” she said disgustedly once they were all up.
Ojas was bursting with curiosity. “Did you get what you needed?”
“I hope so,” said Molly. “Well, I got part of it—this green crystal. Look.”
“Not a red crystal?”
“No.”
“So you can only go backward in time?” Ojas whispered. “Still, if you go back to the right place, you can find a red crystal there, don’t you think?”
“Exactly—as long as this one works. I’ll try it in a minute. It has a different feeling from the ones before. But I’ve got some hope now. Thank you, Ojas. It was really nice of you to give us the bracelet. You could have kept it for yourself.”
“That’s my pleasure!”
“I don’t think we should try the crystal now, Molly,” said Rocky. “We’ve got to have a break. We need some sleep and a good meal before we face Waqt again.”
“And food for Amrit.” Ojas added, backing the elephant in her parking space.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Molly. “There’s tons of money in my pocket now. We can go to the smartest hotel in town. They’ll be able to find her something to eat.”
“If you can pay, they will surely find.” Ojas called down to a man below. The old fellow pointed toward the center of Jaipur and said something in Hindi.
“The best hotel in town is in what used to be a palace!” Ojas exclaimed. “This should be very, very nice,” he added, waggling his head from side to side in the typical Indian way.
Twenty-Six
The Bobenoi Palace sat in the middle of Jaipur. It was a small, beautifully kept palace belonging to a very rich Indian family. As soon as word reached them that Waqt was making his way there, the father of the household had horses harnessed and his wife arranged for picnics to be hurriedly made. Waqt’s temper was legendary, as was his power, and the family had no desire to meet him. Taking only the basics for travel, they, their six children, and their helpers piled into their biggest carriages and set off for a country house in the hills.
