by Georgia Byng
“Crumbs,” said Molly, under her breath to Rocky, “he isn’t half deluded.” Then to Nockman, she said, “I’ve just got to stop you a moment there. Let’s get things straight. You didn’t rob the bank. Some extremely talented chil—I mean accomplices did. Anyway, that’s beside the point, as from now on, you will completely forget the hypnotism book and the trips you made searching for it. You will forget any ideas you had about robbing Shorings Bank. You will forget that it was robbed. Okay?”
“Okay. I forget—now.”
“Right. Any other big bad things you’ve done?”
“Yes,” admitted Nockman. “I sold a car with broken—brakes—to a man. He crashed.”
“Was he killed?” Rocky asked, his mouth agape.
“No, but ze lady he hit broke her leg.”
“Uuurgh, stop,” said Rocky angrily. “This is horrible. I can’t believe you. Why do you do all these things if you know they’re nasty?”
“I like being nasty,” came Nockman’s simple reply.
“But, why? Why?” asked Rocky, completely perplexed. “Why did you like being nasty? Why couldn’t you have liked being nice?
“Never—knew vat—nice was.”
“But weren’t people nice to you?” asked Rocky.
“No—ov course not. Eferybody hated me. My father—he hated me. Even my muzzer laughed when my parakeet—died. She vas nasty. I learned ze nasties—vrom her—not ze nices. I don’t know nice.”
Rocky looked horror-struck. Then his appalled expression turned to one of realization. “Molly, it’s like Mrs. Trinklebury’s lullaby…. It’s what mamma cuckoo taught it to do. She taught it that pushing is best.”
Molly slowly nodded, as she too saw both Mrs. Trinklebury’s rhyme and Nockman in a new light. “You’re right, Rock. I almost hate to feel sorry for him, but you’re right. I suppose it’s not surprising that he’s mean, if no one taught him otherwise…. I suppose being kind is a bit like … like reading…. If no one had ever taught me to read, I’d find it very difficult to know how…. I mean, the pages of letters would just look like a jumble. Being kind must look like a jumble to him.” Then she added, “And you and I thought our lives had been bad.”
“Yeah,” sighed Rocky. “At least we had Mrs. Trinklebury, and each other. Perhaps we can teach Mr. Nockman to be a better person.”
“Mmmmnn,” hummed Molly. “I wonder….” Then she asked Nockman, “Do you feel bad about the things that you’ve done?”
“No, vhy should I?” answered Nockman.
“There’s a problem here,” said Molly to Rocky. “It will be difficult to teach him to be better if he doesn’t see why he should change. He won’t want to be taught. And I’m not sure that just hypnotizing him to be good will fix him. He won’t really change until he feels sorry for what he’s done before. He might want to change if he realized how much he’d hurt people.”
“But how do we do that?” asked Rocky. “We’d have to make him feel what those people felt.”
“Well, I reckon,” said Molly, feeling like a surgeon about to conduct an operation, “I reckon we tap into the one thing that upset him, the only thing that we know he was upset about.”
“His parakeet?”
“Yup, his parakeet.” Molly turned to Nockman. “I tell you what, um, what’s your first name?”
“Simon. I’m Simon,” said Nockman, reaching inside his green jacket for his passport and offering it to Molly. She took it and studied his photograph, in which he looked more like a goldfish than a person. Or maybe a piranha.
“Well, Mr. Simon Nockman,” she said, “first I want you to do a dead-dog impersonation, on your back with your arms and legs in the air. Yes, that’s right, and now bark.”
“Voof, vooof, voooof,” barked Nockman from the floor, his legs and arms waving.
“Good,” continued Molly. “Now, while you’re like that, I want you to imagine what it was like for Petula, that pug dog that you stole, to be treated badly by you.”
“Vooof, arf, voooof.”
Molly could see he wasn’t feeling much, so she added, “And if you can’t feel anything, just think about your poor dead parakeet.”
“Aaaaaooouuuuoooo,” howled Nockman pitifully.
“There. You see,” said Molly, “he’s thinking about poor Petula and mixing it up with his sad feelings about his parakeet. He’s learning.”
Nockman howled again. “Aiaaaouuuuuouoooo.”
“Now,” shouted Molly over his wailing, “whenever anyone says ‘hello’ to you, you will get on your back and howl like this and feel like this and imagine how Petula must have felt kidnaped by you.” And turning to Rocky, she said, “Every time someone says hello should be often enough to really make the lesson sink in, don’t you think? And doing it this way will mean we don’t have to keep prompting him.”
Then, to stop the noise, Molly told Nockman to get up and hop about like an excited orangutan.
“Oooogh, oooogh uuuugh,” he grunted.
“Now,” said Rocky, getting the idea, “for all your other bad behavior, whenever anyone says ‘good evening’ to you, you will remember the nasty thing you’ve done that that person reminds you of, and you will tell them what you did, remembering your parakeet again. Okay?”
“Oooooh, ooogh, uurgh, aah, okay.” Nockman nodded, absorbing Rocky’s complicated instructions.
“That should get him thinking, shouldn’t it?” said Rocky.
“Most definitely,” agreed Molly. “And,” she ordered, “you can stop being an orangutan. Good. Right. You work for us, Mr. Nockman. You will do everything we ask. We will treat you well and you will be very happy working for us. Now, you may wake up.” Molly clapped her hands.
Then Rocky went to the fridge and poured everyone a glass of Qube.
Preparations to leave began.
Molly had some suitcases sent up from the lobby store, since she had so many new things, and Nockman began to pack her clothes. Rocky made a series of important telephone calls. And Molly saw to the hypnotism book.
She took it from the safe, carefully stowing it away in her knapsack. Then she picked her way through the hotel-room debris, through fan mail and New York souvenirs, through toys, gadgets, and accessories, and she thought about what to take with her. When she saw Petula lying on her old jacket, she decided to leave it behind. She unhooked her new denim jacket from the wardrobe door and went to the window to take a last high-up look at glistening Manhattan.
Rain poured down outside, but the afternoon sunlight was also hitting the buildings, so everywhere brick and steel and glass were shining. Molly still felt small here, because the city was so tall and dense and full of people she’d never meet. But now, instead of finding the city scary, as she had the first morning she’d looked out at it, she now loved the place. She loved the skyscrapers, the noisy streets, the crazy drivers, the shops, the galleries, the theaters, the movie houses, the slick people, the city’s parks and all its dirt. And she knew that, one day, she’d be back.
Petula, after a restful sleep, was woken by the sound of Nockman emptying Molly’s wardrobe. For some reason the man in the room wasn’t as frightening as the one who’d kidnaped her, so she ignored him. She picked up a nice stone and began to suck it.
Finally the hotel receptionist brought up a fat envelope that had been delivered for Molly, and it was time to go.
Molly’s Rolls-Royce was driven to the service entrance. With help from a hotel porter, Nockman loaded it up with luggage. Soon Molly, Rocky, and Petula were sitting comfortably on the car’s leather seats, behind its tinted-glass windows. Nockman was in the driver’s seat as chauffeur, butler, porter, general servant.
The Rolls-Royce engine revved, and with a stately lurch they left the Waldorf.
Thirty-three
Before they left New York, Molly and Rocky had to make one last stop. The Rolls-Royce wove its way down busy avenues until Nockman parked it outside a tall building with a triangular-shaped entrance and the name
Sunshine Studios above the doors.
A scruffy man in a dark blue suit hurried down the white marble steps to meet them. He took off his dark glasses and smiled, revealing a golden incisor in his top deck of teeth. “Welcome, welcome,” he said excitedly, “and thank you for your phone call. We are so pleased to have you. I’m the director you spoke to, Alan Beaker.” He thrust his hand out for Molly and Rocky to shake. “Please, follow me.”
Molly, Rocky, and Petula followed the director inside, along white passages and then into an enormous studio, full of cranes and cameras and people standing about staring at Molly. The new star, Molly Moon.
A gray-haired woman, dressed in a very smart suit, stepped out of the throng. “This,” said Alan Beaker, “is the chairwoman of Qube Incorporated, Dorothy Goldsmidt.”
Dorothy Goldsmidt raised her hand to shake Molly’s. A huge emerald ring flashed on her finger. “How do you do,” she said smoothly and grandly. “It’s such a pleasure.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” said Molly. “I think you spoke to my friend Rocky on the phone.” Rocky stepped forward.
“How do you do,” he said.
“It’s a huge pleasure—to meet you, too,” said Dorothy Goldsmidt, only slightly haltingly, “and we are ready—ready for everything.”
Twenty minutes later, Rocky, Molly, and Petula had been brushed up and were all on the studio stage.
“Lights,” shouted Alan Beaker. “Camera roll, and … action.”
And Molly and Rocky began. It was a simple jingle Rocky had made up, but with Molly’s eyes on full glare, and Rocky’s voice at its most hypnotic, and Petula looking as sweet as possible, the ad they performed was very, very powerful. It went like this:
Ifyou want to be cool andfeel good,
Do something thatwe thinkyou should,
Do a checkup, a checkup, a checkup,
On the kids inyour neighborhood.
Some kids m~ be having a bad time,
Socheck outthose kids, make ‘emfeel fine,
Do a checkup, a checkup, a checkup,
On the kids inyour neighborhood.
Yo, listen up …
For some kids this life isn’t one ounce offun,
This world should be goodfor everyone.
Hapl!Y childhood … Understood?
Check outthe kids inyour neighborhood.
The ad finished with Molly and Rocky pointing straight at the cameras. “Cut!” shouted Alan Beaker. “That was fabulous! You two are professionals all the way.”
“Well,” said Molly, smiling at Rocky, “we have been doing ads for years.”
“Yes,” said Dorothy Goldsmidt, “that was wonderful, and we will air it, like you said, every hour, every day. It will be Qube Incorporated’s pleasure to pay for the TV time. Thank you so much.”
“Oh, no,” said Molly, “thank you. And so good-bye now. We have to go.”
“Good-bye,” called everyone in the studios, starstuck.
Back in the Rolls-Royce, Rocky said to Molly, “See, brainwashing can be used for good. Feel less guilty now?”
Molly nodded. “I know that ad won’t change the world, but it will do something good, won’t it?”
“Definitely,” agreed Rocky. “Even if only one person is kinder because of it, it was worth it. But you know what? I think thousands of people will see it. You never know how many kind things will be done because of it. Plant a seed and hope it grows.”
Thirty-four
The Rolls-Royce left the island of Manhattan and rolled on down the highway to John F. Kennedy Airport.
Once there, Nockman parked alongside the international departures entrance, and a porter came to help. He and Nockman loaded Molly’s twelve suitcases onto an airport cart, while Petula hopped into her traveling basket. They all went inside to the check-in desk.
“Thank you,” Molly said to the porter as he heaved the last case onto a conveyor belt. “And if it’s not too much bother, could you keep the car?” She put the Rolls-Royce keys in the tired man’s hand.
“Keep? You mean park it?”
“It’s a present,” said Molly.
The man’s mouth dropped open. “You kidding?”
“These are its papers.” Molly took a crumpled envelope out of her jeans pocket. “If I just put your name here, it’s all yours. What’s your name?”
“Louis Rochetta. You’re joking, though, right? Hey, am I on some sort of game show?” The man looked about for a hidden camera.
“Nope,” said Molly, writing the porter’s name on the car registration. “There you go, Mr. Rochetta. Take it easy now.”
Mr. Rochetta was too stunned to say anything but “Th … th…”
“Don’t mention it,” said Molly, smiling. “Goodbye.” She’d always wanted to give someone a jackpot surprise like that. Then she turned to talk to Rocky, who’d sorted out the tickets. Fifteen minutes later Molly was hypnotizing the airport staff once more, to get Petula unnoticed past the passport officers and all the X-ray machines.
Rocky and Molly went shopping in the duty-free mall. They had to visit a bath shop, a candy shop, an electronics shop, and a toy shop. After a mammoth spree their plane was ready to board. Staggering under all the weight of their purchases and carrying Petula’s basket, they made their way to gate twenty.
Nockman was making his way to the gate as instructed. He felt quite peculiar. He knew who he was, and exactly what his life had been like so far. However, he didn’t know how he’d come to be a servant to Mr. Gat Basket and Miss Hair Dryer. Nor did he know exactly why he liked them so much. He still hated other people. At gate twenty, where everyone was lining up to get on the plane, he presented his passport and ticket to one of the ground crew. “Good evening,” she said politely.
Nockman was halfway through an insincere smile when his mind suddenly filled with memories of a teenage girl he’d once known who looked like the woman. Nockman recalled how rude he’d been to her. And, without meaning to, he started to babble. “You are ugly just like her,” he found himself saying. “Yes eendeed, eet ees true. You look like a constipated frog. And zis ees vat I alvays tell her, too. And I alvays bloow ze blubber face noise.” At this point Nockman found his mouth suddenly filling with air, and before he could stop it, a very loud, bubbly raspberry blew its way out of his mouth. And if that hadn’t been enough, Nockman began to remember his old parakeet, Fluff, whom Mr. Snuff had killed, and he began to howl. “Aaaaaeeeeouuuuooo!”
The woman looked appalled. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Sir, we have a policy against rude passengers. If you are rude to staff or other passengers, you will be barred from flying.”
Nockman was amazed at himself. He couldn’t understand how that had happened. Maybe he was ill. And all those nasty memories gave him the creeps.
“I’m zo zorry. Please accept my apologies. Eet vas a joke.”
“Strange sense of humor,” said the woman. But uncrossing her arms, she let him through.
Nockman stumbled down the jetway toward the plane door. He tripped on his shoelace and wondered again what had come over him. As he lumbered along, he considered how strange that encounter had been. He’d felt like he was a machine but that someone else had the remote controls. Nockman shuddered again as he thought of his poor parakeet, and he squirmed as he recollected the teenage girl he’d taunted so meanly. He couldn’t understand why all these memories had just spewed up in his head. He didn’t like it.
“Er, hello, Miss Hair Dryer and Mr. Cat Basket, I’m back.”
“Oh, hello,” said Molly and Rocky, looking up from their first-class seats at the green-suited Nockman. Nockman looked at them both and seemed to pale, as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Are you all right?” Rocky asked.
All of a sudden Nockman felt peculiar again. This time he found himself diving down on the aisle, rolling over onto his back, and waving his legs and arms in the air. And, as before, his mouth opened of its own accord.
“Voooof, voooof, a
aarf, aaaarf,” he barked as his hat fell off. Then, “OOOoooooOOOooOOoooowwvooof,” he howled, as again, he thought of his poor dead parakeet.
Other people on the plane looked very concerned, and a flight attendant came up to see what the problem was.
“You can stop now,” commanded Molly. Then she beamed her eyes at the flight attendant. “It’s all right. He just needs his medicine. Don’t worry about it, please.”
Nockman got up, all out of breath. That had been a fit. He must be sick. Again, out of the blue, he’d been crying about his pet parakeet and how horrid Mr. Snuff had been.
And now, as he made his way to his seat, another feeling made his eyes water. He felt pity for a dog he had once been unkind to; a dog not dissimilar to Miss Hair Dryer’s. Nockman realized that he was no better than Mr. Snuff. As he buckled his belt, he wondered how he could have been so blind. As a boy he hadn’t been blind. He’d known how much his parakeet had suffered, and he’d cried for her. For nights he’d cried. And yet, as an adult, he’d been cruel to a dog. He’d left the animal alone, cold, and hungry, in a dark, dirty room. The S for Simon, he thought, should stand for Snuff. Snuff Nockman. Nockman hung his head, and an emotion that hadn’t troubled him for years now throttled him. Shame.
Nockman looked out the airplane window and thought. He’d been unkind to people, too. He’d never let other people’s feelings bother him. He’d persuaded himself that they didn’t matter. But now … it was very strange, and he didn’t know how, but today he knew he couldn’t ignore people’s feelings anymore.
More memories of horrid things he had done began to fill his mind. One by one, the ghosts of his bad deeds introduced themselves to him. As the plane took off, he felt heavy in a way that was entirely new to him. His spirit was lagging behind him, low and sad and drenched with guilt.
Thirty-five
