by Georgia Byng
“Does Princess Fang ever talk to him?”
“Sometimes. He has a direct link to the palace via a communication system, which he shouts into, when he’s not talking to himself. And since he first came here, he has been summoned back to the palace twice. Perhaps Fang must put him on that mind machine you talked about, for each time he comes back his brain seems even more scrambled and his conversation even more of a riddle.” Tortillus reached a long bony finger up to his neck and scratched the skin just inside his shell. “He once tried to get me to drink one of his foul brews. Heaven knows what that might have turned me into. I threw it over the balcony when he wasn’t looking.”
Just then Silver flapped over and landed on the table. Micky put down his fork when he saw the black bird. But when Silver whistled, “Chaaaarp! Chaarp! Eat ap! Eat ap!” he relaxed and, Molly was shocked to see, he even gave the bird a morsel of bread.
Molly took a banana and began to peel it. Its inside was bright orange and it tasted like pineapple. She considered whether to tell everyone about her mind-reading skills but decided to keep it her secret for now.
Tortillus continued. “So, as I said, Molly, we have been waiting for years for an opportunity to overpower the palace. Now we meet you, a once-brilliant hypnotist. Perhaps”—he smiled and looked around the room—“you have come to set us free.”
“I wish I could.” Molly sighed. “With all my heart I do. But Princess Fang stole all my skills. The mind machine took all my hypnotic knowledge from me.”
“Tell me about the machine.”
“Well …” Molly described everything she had seen. “And as soon as the technology is there, Princess Fang will suck the talent out of me and then she’ll have my hypnotic knowledge and the talent to use it. And then, once she’s a time-traveling hypnotist, well, there will be nothing to stop her from taking over the world.”
Tortillus nodded gravely as he digested what Molly had said. Micky, Molly noticed, was listening carefully too.
Tortillus tutted. “So simple and yet so impossible! If only we knew how to put the knowledge back into your brain. We’ll just have to find a way to get you wearing that skullcap again.”
“I know,” Molly agreed. “But how, Tortillus? Princess Fang and her scientists are probably the only ones who know how it works.”
“Have you seen the scientists?”
“Not exactly, although there seem to be some very scientific-looking children up there. And some women in smart suits.”
Tortillus suddenly leaned forward and seized Molly’s hand. “I believe there is a chance now, Molly. You must too.”
Molly tried to smile. Tortillus made everything sound so simple, but what he was suggesting was impossible. And yet his hope was infectious. Molly couldn’t help feeling excitement and she noticed a wonderful sense of something else was bubbling up inside her too: optimism.
Later that night Wildgust, giving every indication that it was a thoroughly unwelcome chore, took Molly and Micky to a hut by the starlit lake. Inside it had a dry, hard earth floor and two very basic beds with pillows and sheets. There was no need for blankets as the night was warm.
“Sleep,” Wildgust said gruffly, but he patted Petula gently on the head.
From his shoulder Silver imitated him. “Slaap!” he squawked, adding, “Swet drems.”
“Good night,” Molly replied, and quickly she summoned a thought bubble to appear above Wildgust’s head. Strange pictures were painted there. The hawk-man was thinking about dark birds flying around the moon and then a view of the lakeside town from above. Next there was an image of Tortillus asleep on a pile of wood.
He left, locking the door behind him.
“He’s creepy, isn’t he?” Molly said to Micky. “Like he’s angry or something.” But Micky wasn’t listening.
“Don’t suppose there’s an ionic cleaner here,” he complained, inspecting the hut’s bathroom.
“What’s an ionic cleaner?” Molly asked.
Micky looked at Molly as though she had just asked what water was. “Oh, I forgot you’re from the Stone Age. It’s a machine that you step into and it cleans you with laser light and positive ions.”
“What, instead of a shower or a bath?”
“Yes. But as I suspected, all they’ve got here is water.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Molly asked.
“Full of germs. I’m not going to risk it.” Micky sank down on the bed, the mud on his dirty dressing gown cracking and falling in flakes on to the ground. “Ow, my legs. They’re so sore.” Molly watched him rolling up his pajamas and rubbing his leg. “What are you looking at?”
“What do you think of what Tortillus said about you not really being ill?” Molly asked.
Her brother shrugged. “He’s wrong,” he said.
“But—but it could be true,” Molly mused. “I mean, if you think about it, all your life Cribbins has been telling you how sick you are, hasn’t she? Why would she do that? I tell you why—because if you were healthy and strong you would be too powerful for her to control.”
Micky continued to massage his leg, as if completely uninterested in what Molly was saying.
“Look Micky, with all her other hypnotists dead, you are, or rather were, the only hypnotist Fang had. Princess Fang needed you to keep hypnotizing all the people, didn’t she? Without you she wouldn’t have the people under control and she would lose her power. So of course this is the last thing in the world that she ever wanted you to know. She was probably even frightened that you might hypnotize her or take power yourself. So her and Cribbins had to make you think you were sick—so sick that you needed them. I know you won’t believe this, but I heard Cribbins talking to herself once about you. ‘Keep him down,’ she said. ‘Don’t destroy him, but keep him down.’ I didn’t get it at the time, but now it’s obvious. They wanted you to think you were nothing, Micky. Think about it. Even your name! Micky Minus. Minus is less than nothing. Cribbins gave you that name to make you feel like a nobody!”
Micky stared sullenly at the floor, grinding his teeth. Molly expected him to suddenly shout at her to tell her that he was ill, that Tortillus was an idiot and didn’t know what he was talking about. But instead a very strange thing happened. Micky looked up and the agitation on his face melted. His mouth dropped open as he finally saw the truth.
“It’s—it’s true,” he stammered. For a moment the two of them stared at each other, both stunned by the horrible truth of Micky’s situation.
“So Nurse Meekles was right to get you out of there, Micky,” Molly went on more kindly. “She’s the only sane one up there, and she cares about you, Micky. You’re better off here.”
Micky frowned as he thought it all through. “This is freaking me out,” he said quietly. He ran his hand through his oily, curly hair and turned to look out at the lake. “But I’m not your brother,” he added. He pulled his comfort rag out of his pocket and began to rub it between his fingers. “Just give me some space, would you?” Petula jumped onto the bed and sat beside him as though in sympathy.
Molly left Micky to his thoughts. She knew that it must be very scary to see that you had been used like a slave all your life. She got up, went to the bathroom, and ran the tap. Out came very normal-looking water. She scratched her head. Her scalp was itchy from the dried gel.
It was a relief to get all the mountain-tunnel dirt and the worm-pit mud off her and to get the gel out of her hair. She liked the slimy weed soap, and the earthy, warm water was comforting. For a moment, as a stream of it tipped over her head and down her face, she could imagine she was back in Briersville Park on a hot summer’s night. Lucy and Ojas might be downstairs, cooking supper. Primo and Rocky might be playing poker in the sitting room, with their hippie friend, Forest, tied up in some yoga knot on the floor. She wished with all her heart that she was back there. She felt powerless without her hypnotic skills. To Molly, the idea of time traveling was now as impossible as it might feel to any ordinary person. As she
stood in the shower Molly ransacked her brain. Surely there must be some scrap of hypnotic knowledge still there, some snippet of information that the jellyfish machine had missed. But there wasn’t.
Was she destined to stay here forever in this time—five hundred years away from her family and friends? If she and the animal-people couldn’t get her hypnotic knowledge back, would she have to live hidden at the institute forever? And what about Micky? She couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t eventually give her away. Molly wished she’d never come. And she couldn’t bear that she’d lost Rocky. Poor Rocky. Somewhere, deep down inside that hypnotized shell, the real Rocky was longing to get out. Molly could hardly stand to think of it. And her tears mixed with the Lakeside water and ran down the drain.
As Molly dried herself she looked in the mirror. Her face looked gaunt and her eyes had gray shadows under them.
“Come on. Pull yourself together,” she whispered, tapping her face in the mirror with her finger. She made a large thought bubble appear above her head and forced it to fill with positive images. She imagined Rocky and her escaping in a helicopter with Micky and Petula. She thought of them all being back home, cooking together in the kitchen and then swimming in the Briersville Park pool with Amrit the elephant. “You can do it, Molly,” she said to herself. “You’ve gotten out of other piles of mess. There must be a way out of this. You must think positively.”
Getting back onto the jellyfish machine was her only chance. But who would know how to work it? She thought about Micky. Would he help her? He knew the combination code to the machine room door, but he’d said he didn’t know how the machine actually worked. She must check whether he was lying. She didn’t feel he was entirely on her side yet. Though he should be, after all the trouble she’d gone to just to meet him, he might need some more persuading. Maybe tomorrow he would start facing up to the truth. Molly put on a pair of lightweight cotton pajamas that hung on a peg on the wall and padded out to the bedroom.
Micky lay on his bed with his back to her. He was looking through the window at the lake. It was illuminated by what looked like thousands of twinkling fairy lights.
“What are they?” Molly asked, picking up Petula to give her a cuddle.
“Fishermen. The lights attract the fish. It’s an old-fashioned way of fishing.”
“It looks very pretty,” said Molly. Micky didn’t reply.
And so they went to bed in silence. Micky was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but Molly couldn’t drop off. Her mind was as busy as a city station. She went over to the window to look out at the lake. It was then that she noticed Micky’s dressing gown, lying on the floor. She bent down and, a little guiltily put her hand in the pocket. She was interested to see his comfort rag. But instead of material, Molly’s fingers curled around a piece of plastic. She held it up to the moonlight and gasped. The small strip of plastic was practically identical to the strip that she had been carrying around. The only difference was that instead of having the letters GAN TWIN printed on it, Micky’s strip had the words ST. MICHAEL’S HOSPITAL and then MALE LO.
Molly was stunned. She crept over to her jumpsuit and retrieved her half of the plastic baby bracelet. Now she put the two together.
The identity band was complete. Silently Molly replaced Micky’s half in his dressing gown and put hers down the side of her sneaker for safekeeping. That was why he was called Micky, she thought. It was an abbreviation of Michael. And the fact that he treasured the scrap of plastic Nurse Meekles had given him showed that Micky really did care about finding his real family, no matter what he might pretend. Staring up at the moon, Molly decided that she would find the perfect moment and show him how the pieces fitted together. Once he saw that he’d have to believe he was her brother!
Then something caught Molly’s attention. A dark shape flew in front of the moon. Like a cloaked vampire the monstrous creature seemed to be part man, part bird. Molly quickly shut the window and jumped into bed. Snuggling Petula, she was soon asleep too.
Twenty
In the early hours of the morning, when it was still dark outside, Molly was woken by Petula stirring and by a knock at the door of the hut. The key turned and Wildgust entered with a candle. The light from it flickered up over his brown, feathered cheeks. Micky rolled over and pulled his sheet up over his shoulders. Silver hopped onto the edge of his bed and sidestepped up to his face.
“Chierrrp! Cheeep! Out bed, lazzee bons,” he whistled in Micky’s ear, pecking at his earlobe. Since Micky was still half dreaming, this made him laugh. “Made laf, made laf, cheeeerp!” the bird trilled, fluttering up to perch on Wildgust’s shoulder.
“The professor wants to see you both,” Wildgust said. “So you’d better get out of bed fastish.”
“Why?” Molly asked worriedly, bending to reach for her dirty jumpsuit.
“I don’t know,” Wildgust answered, shrugging his humped shoulders.
Soon Micky, wearing his grubby dressing gown and pajamas, and Molly were walking through the cool morning air, with Petula trotting close by, toward the giant tree in the center of the zoo. As they approached, Molly studied the podlike huts and rope ladders within its high branches. She tried to work out how wobbly it would be to walk on the swinging wooden balconies up there. Lower down were the bigger pods, and in the center was a round, yurtlike chamber with chimneys, out of which poured grayish-green smoke. Professor Selkeem’s faithful dognakes lay asleep about the yurt, their bodies wrapped around the branches like bracelets.
“You don’t think Princess Fang is in there, do you?” Molly asked as they stumbled along.
“No,” Wildgust replied briskly. “Would have seen her flycopter arrive. Don’t talk any more now. I’m supposed to be hypnotized. Remember?” From the thought bubbles above his head Molly saw that he was telling the truth, for there were pictures of Princess Fang in her bed, as Wildgust imagined it, up at the palace.
They came to the bottom of the tree, to a low door that was carved into the trunk there.
“In—you—go,” said Wildgust in his “hypnotized” voice. He pushed the tree entrance open and ushered Molly, holding Petula, and Micky through. Nudging them toward some steps, he shut the door.
Darkness engulfed them. Then, as their eyes grew accustomed to the light, they noticed a faint glow coming from above and, holding on to a wooden banister, both began to climb the massive tree’s internal spiral stairs.
“So you’ve never heard of Professor Selkeem before?” Molly asked Micky in the darkness.
“No, never,” he replied tetchily. He sounded very irritated, as though annoyed by Fang’s secrecy. Molly felt she’d won a point over the princess.
“He’s a filthy little mite, isn’t he?” Micky went on, changing the subject. “Bet he’s got lice. Pediculus. That’s the Latin word for louse.”
“Just hope he doesn’t want to roast us alive,” Molly said.
At the top a door swung open to reveal a big, wooden space with a curved wall. It smelled sulfurous, like bad eggs.
Then, like a scene from a horror film, a giant seed-pod, which hung from the ceiling in front of them, opened like a clam, and the leathery-skinned professor popped out with his favorite dognake. Petula shrank into Molly’s arms.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said with a sinister smile, holding his loincloth as though it were a ballet dress and doing a strange little curtsy. “I’m fuddled and muddled but I won’t be puddled. Sharp teeth I’ve got. See?” He smiled and showed them a row of yellowing teeth. “Haven’t brushed them for years.” Then he eyed Micky in his filthy pajamas. “You’re a dirty bit of vermin, aren’t you?”
Micky stood mute, rooted to the spot in panic. But Molly, remembering that in bad situations good manners were always a sensible idea, spoke.
“Pleased to see you too,” she lied. “Really nice.” The disheveled, wrinkled boy stepped toward her. He reached up and put a small, creased, lizardlike finger on her throat. Molly gulped. “Nice place you’v
e got here,” she said. “We’d love to have a look about.” She looked in the boy’s Chinese eyes. There was a glint of madness there. He was only six or seven, but the expressions on his face as he stared at her suggested that he was older. Molly knew that he’d probably been on the mind machine and wondered what worlds of knowledge his child’s mind held. Too much had been stuffed into his young head. His hands were filthy, and his nails looked as though he’d been scraping up black paint with them. His face was dirty too. Molly wondered what had happened to his parents.
She decided to probe his mind. In an instant her scalp was tingling and her hair felt as though it was standing on end. A hazy thought bubble, with streaks of gray and brown in it, rose above the boy’s head.
He was thinking of Molly beside Micky, and how they looked exactly the same. Then two giant peas in a pod filled the bubble, but were quickly replaced by two identical fleas, then two identical knees, and then two matching keys. He’d obviously got that they were twins. Then glancing out of the window at a sky golden with the rising sun, he suddenly said, “New day, the last day for some. I suppose you haven’t eaten breakfast?” And the picture in the bubble above his head morphed into one of Molly and Micky on a giant slice of toast. Molly felt incredibly nervous and her stomach leaped as though genetically modified, extrafluttery butterflies were flapping around in it. Did the professor plan to eat them? As he bent down and patted his pet dognake on the nose—“Good boy, Schnapps!”—she gave Micky a worried glance.
