by Georgia Byng
Thirty-seven
“After you flew away, Miss Adderstone and Edna left too, but before they went, they sacked Mrs. Trinklebury, an’ they told ‘er never to come back. They said they wanted to be nice to children from now on an’ that us children didn’t want grown-ups bossing us about. So they said it would be happier for us if they all went.”
Molly remembered the instruction she had given Adderstone and Edna at the airport, and felt like groaning.
“But Mrs. Trinklebury was nice,” insisted Jinx.
“Yes, but she did what Adderstone told her to and left all the same,” continued Gemma. “Then Miss Adderstone packed her cases, an’ so did Edna, an’ they had an argument ‘cause Miss Adderstone snipped some of Edna’s clothes …”
“She cut up Edna’s coat,” said Ruby.
“An’ both their hats,” added Jinx.
“Yeah, they looked silly when they went away, with their clothes all snipped,” said Gerry. “Edna gave us some candies, ‘cept they were funny ones with ‘orrid stuff in them.”
“They was kinda Italian grown-ups’ candies,” explained Gemma. “They were both nice to us afore they went, though. Miss Adderstone gave me a bag of moffballs.”
“An’ she gave me ‘er bottle of mouffwash,” said Jinx.
“But you were naughty, weren’t you, Jinx?” Gemma reminded him.
“Yeah, I drank it.”
Rocky ruffled Jinx’s hair.
“Anyway,” Gemma continued, “Miss Adderstone said food and groceries would keep bein’ delivered an’ paid automatic by the bank, and she said we must keep going to school or else nasty Mrs. Toadley would come ‘ere. So we had to pretend Miss Adderstone and Edna were still ‘ere so no one outside knew they’d gone.”
“And where did they go?” asked Molly.
“Dunno.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, then Hazel took over,” said Gemma.
“And she was worse than Adderstone,” whispered Gerry.
“She was horrible an’ bossy,” continued Gemma, “an’ she made us work so ‘ard. We had to cook an’ clean. She said we ‘ad to look really tidy for school or else Mrs. Toadley would guess we was ‘ere on our own….”
“An’ Hazel left her room and moved to Miss Adderstone’s old rooms an’ she frew lotsa paper out of the window,” said Gerry. “She said Roger and Gordon must go in Edna’s room. But then …”
“Then they all started arguin’,” said Gemma. “An’ Roger wanted to be in charge because he said Hazel was too bossy. An’ Gordon wanted Edna’s rooms all to his self. So Roger an’ him had a fight an’ Roger had to go up to the sanatorium room …”
Gemma and Gerry were talking very quickly and animatedly, and Ruby and Jinx were watching them with wide eyes. Molly and Rocky realized how disturbing the last few weeks must have been.
“An’ then they all shouted at us all an’ bossed us about,” said Ruby, “but they never helped.”
“And then they all argued so much that they stopped talking to each other.”
“An’ us. They stopped talking to us,” said Jinx.
“Most of the time,” Gemma remembered. “Sometimes they’d get really cross with us if we answered the phone. Or the door. And Hazel was very strict. She said we mustn’t tell anyone that Adderstone left. She said if we told, Gordon would hit us. But now it’s okay ‘cause it’s the Christmas holidays and school’s finished.”
“So we don’t ‘ave to be clean anymore,” said Gerry.
“But we don’t get school lunches now, so we’re ‘ungry,” murmured Ruby.
“An’ we can’t go to the village, or the town.”
“Never,” said Jinx. “Or they said the bogeyman would get us.”
“Well, you mustn’t worry about that,” said Molly. “The bogeyman’s just rubbish.”
Molly looked about her. Her surroundings were more like a garbage dump than a room in a house. Hockey sticks and deflated footballs were kicked into corners, along with cardboard boxes and plastic bags. A few saucepans with moldy insides lay about, and the walls had been splattered with black ink.
“So where are the others now?” said Rocky.
“Probably asleep,” said Gemma, sipping her drink. “At ten Roger gets up. He goes foragin’ in the Briersville garbage bins. But Gordon an’ Cynthia an’ Craig don’t go out. They stay in Edna’s rooms, watching TV. An’ Hazel stays in her room, ‘cept she does come downstairs for her special deliveries. She takes the boxes back to her rooms.”
“Well,” concluded Molly, turning to Rocky, “I think it’s time we woke Hazel and the others up. Don’t you?”
The door to Adderstone’s old apartment was shut. A huge black beetle crawled out from under it. Petula sniffed nervously at the air, detecting a faint smell of the old spinster. Molly looked at Miss Adderstone’s portrait that hung on the landing wall. Someone had given her a mustache and a beard.
Molly knocked at the door and pushed, and the door swung open. She and Rocky entered.
The place smelled stuffy and rank. Miss Adder-stone’s old brown parlor was even darker than normal, with the heavy wine-colored curtains shut.
Molly switched on a light. Boxes, discarded cans, and files from Miss Adderstone’s cabinet were dropped everywhere. Empty potato-chip packets and piles of candy wrappers littered the floor like dry autumn leaves.
From the darkness on the wall, the cuckoo clock sprang open and cuckooed nine times.
“Who is it?” came Hazel’s groggy voice from the bedroom. Rocky and Molly crunched over the debris on the floor and opened the door.
In the semidarkness they saw Hazel, sitting up in bed. Molly stepped through more rubbish and pulled the curtain cord.
Light flooded into the room, hitting Hazel in the face. She shielded her eyes and whined, “Get out, Gemma. No one’s s’posed to come in here.”
“It’s not Gemma. It’s Molly and Rocky,” said Molly.
Hazel’s hands dropped from her face. And she revealed a very different-looking Hazel from the one Molly had last seen. This Hazel had a much paler, spottier face. Her eyes were bloodshot, with dark rings around them. Her lips were crusty with cold sores at their edges. Her hair was longer because it hadn’t been cut, and stuck to her head because it was so greasy. She also had the look of a mad person. She clutched a pillow. “D-D-Drono. I’m dreaming,” she panted hoarsely.
“No, you’re not. We’re back,” said Molly. “And this may seem like a nightmare to you, but we’re staying.”
The old Hazel would have jumped out of bed and challenged Molly, but this Hazel simply whimpered. Then she reached for a cardboard box beside her bed and took a Heaven bar from it. She unwrapped the chocolate and frantically crammed it into her mouth. “Gotta have a sugar hit,” she said, biting a chunk off, concentrating on the chocolate. All of a sudden she seemed to have forgotten that Rocky and Molly were in the room.
“Hazel,” said Molly, “you look terrible.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Hazel, biting a second chunk.
“You look ill,” said Rocky. “Have you been eating only candy?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing better to eat,” said Hazel, her eyes darting desperately about the room, at the boxes and boxes of chocolate bars. Then she suddenly looked petrified. “You’re not going to take my candy away, are you?”
“No,” said Molly, “but we’ve got some better food for you. Would you like some omelette and french fries?”
After Rocky had fetched some proper food, and Hazel had devoured it, Rocky and Molly talked to her.
She told them how everything had gone wrong.
She told them she’d enjoyed being in charge at first, but then, after her fights with Gordon and Roger, she’d started to spend more time alone, eating only chocolate and candy. She’d even smoked a pack of cigarettes that she’d found in Miss Adderstone’s cabinet, and had been violently sick. She confessed that she’d felt tired and ill and alone, and that finally she’d
started to look at herself.
“I felt bad tempered all the time, and I tried to feel better but I couldn’t. I wanted to have good feelings for other people, but they wouldn’t come. I just hated everyone and I hated myself for being so … so full of hate. And I’m a liar.”
Hazel reached for a green file on the side table and threw it to Molly.
“You should know who I really am. I always lied to everyone. Read it. Go on, read it.” She sank back on the pillows behind her, with tears in her eyes. “There’s no point in hiding anymore.”
Inside the green folder was Hazel’s record. Molly and Rocky started to read.
“See,” moaned Hazel, “I never was the glamorous kid you all thought. You thought I had the best parents ever, but my parents never loved me.” Hazel’s eyes brimmed over with tears. “I was jealous of you because you had Mrs. Trinklebury. She was like a mum to you two. But not to me. I came too late. I never had a mother. Just a string of nasty nannies.”
“But,” said Molly, “Mrs. Trinklebury would have loved you too. You just never let her.”
“But I’m horrible,” sobbed Hazel. “I know no one likes me. I don’t blame you. I don’t like myself. I’m bad. And you know, it’s not a nightmare you coming back. I don’t care about being in charge anymore. I don’t want to run this place. I’m sick. I just want to get better. I want to be better.” Hazel’s face crumpled up into a desperate mass of furrows and creases, and her mouth opened. No noise came out of it. A silent cry was there though, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
Molly put her hand on Hazel’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Hazel. Please don’t cry. We understand. Thanks for showing us your file. You should have seen mine; it made out I was a real nobody. We’ll help each other now. From now on, things are going to be different around here.”
“Good,” Hazel managed to gasp, between sobs. “And … thank you for coming back.”
Molly and Rocky helped Hazel out of bed and ran her a bath. Then they left the room to investigate Gordon Boils.
They found Gordon sitting in an armchair in Edna’s rooms, wrapped in a quilt, with his feet in a huge double slipper. Next to him, on a sofa, under eiderdowns, were the two other big children, Cynthia and Craig. Their eyes were glued to the TV. When Rocky and Molly appeared, they all looked up briefly as if they had seen a couple of flies and then turned back to the TV.
Gordon’s face, which he held in his hands, was anemic, thinner, and less aggressive. Molly read his tattoos, GORD KING, his fists read. There was nothing majestic about him now. Cynthia and Craig looked equally ghostlike and sad.
Molly switched off the TV. “Hello, you lot.”
After Rocky had brought them all breakfast, Gordon talked. His voice was weak, and as he spoke, his eyes shifted about uneasily.
He told them how they’d all been in a terrible black mood since the school term had ended. Their only consolation had been the TV, and so they’d watched it nonstop.
“It’s horrible here. We all feel sick,” Gordon groaned. “I feel like I’m sick right down to the core. Really, I think there’s something wrong with me. Rocky, I think I need a doctor.”
Cynthia and Craig said nothing.
“Listen,” said Molly. “We’ll help you get better, but on one condition; you have all got to change your ways.”
“How do you mean?” asked Gordon feebly.
“You’ve got to stop being mean.”
“Oh, that,” said the downtrodden Gordon, whose eyes were soft and wet like a calf’s now. “Of course we can. I haven’t bullied anyone for wee—days.”
“But how can you help us, Bog Eyes?” asked Cynthia.
“I just will,” said Molly. “Wait and see. Oh, and by the way, I’m Molly. Molly Moon.”
Molly spoke firmly, but inside she was pleased that Cynthia had called her Bog Eyes. It showed that any adoration that Cynthia might have felt after Molly’s hypnotism at the Briersville Children’s Talent Competition had worn off.
As Gordon, Cynthia and Craig left to have baths and get dressed, Molly wondered whether the three would be quite as agreeable when they were better again.
“We’ll have to see,” said Rocky.
The last person to visit was Roger Fibbin, up in the sanatorium room. They found him sitting on the edge of the bed doing up his shoelaces.
Roger jumped with shock when he saw Molly and Rocky.
His face was bonier than ever, his sharp nose was pink and dripping, and his hands were purple from cold. His clothes were just as tidy as they had always been before, but when Molly got closer, she noticed that his shirt had a brown dirt mark round the inside of the collar and his gray trousers were stiff with grime. His fingernails were dirty with muck.
“What … what are you doing here?” he demanded, his left eye twitching. “I’m off. Got to … got to go and check the garbage bins.” He looked at a broken watch on his wrist. “I’m late, and if I don’t check them soon, they’ll be emptied.”
After Molly and Rocky had calmed Roger down with some nourishing food, they discovered that he’d developed a foraging habit. He’d caught a few nasty stomach bugs, he said, but it was the easiest way of getting a varied diet.
“That,” he said, half weeping, pointing at the empty breakfast plate, “was the best food I’ve had in … in … weeks.”
“Don’t worry, Roger. There will be lots of good things to eat from now on,” Rocky assured him. And at these kind words, Roger flung his arms around Rocky’s neck and broke down in tears.
Wandering out of the sanatorium room, Molly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The very mirror she had looked into and seen herself as a punk.
She thought how different she looked now. Her hair was shinier, her face wasn’t blotchy, her complexion was healthy. And as for her potato nose and her closely set green eyes, instead of seeing these features as ugly, Molly now liked them, because they were hers.
She had definitely changed since that November night when she’d stood on the hill hating her life and herself.
Molly reflected upon how everyone at Hardwick House had changed since that time. And the changes had all happened because of Hypnotism.
Hazel, Roger, Gordon, Cynthia, and Craig had been humbled. Without the structure of school and rules, and by not having anything to fight against anymore, they’d fought one another and broken their alliances. With their gang smashed, they’d all had to stand alone. And then they’d had to face themselves, and they didn’t like what they’d found. Hazel had broken down so completely that she’d told the truth about herself. Molly knew she couldn’t ever bully again. And she trusted that Hazel had meant it when she’d said she wanted to be a better person. Molly wasn’t so sure that Gordon, Cynthia, and Craig would change their ways. She couldn’t imagine Gordon helping an old lady across the road, or Cynthia or Craig being kind. It would be hard work living with them. As for Roger, Molly was worried that the strain of the last few weeks had tipped him over the edge into a sort of madness. She hoped he would recover.
Then there was Nockman. He was definitely improving, becoming more considerate by the hour. Although he was still a bit of an experiment, Molly hoped he would be changed forever, as Petula had been. She was running about now, as fit as a puppy.
And Miss Adderstone and Edna? Molly didn’t know what they were up to or where they were. She knew that the instructions she had given them would wear off soon but hoped that both would have discovered that they actually did love planes and flying and Italian cooking. And if these hobbies were new passions, they wouldn’t come back to Hardwick House. Neither of them were children-loving types anyway. Molly had done them a huge favor by guiding them away from kids.
Then Molly went downstairs, to hide the hypnotism book where it had always been safe before. Under a mattress.
Thirty-eight
Mrs. Trinklebury was delighted when she got Molly’s telephone call. She arrived at Hardwick House, jolly and rosy cheeked, like a roly-poly pudding, wrap
ped in a woolly coat. She held shopping bags that were packed with delicious things to cook for supper, and her old knitting bag, which was stuffed full with homemade cupcakes. Once inside the house, she handed these out.
“Oooh, my w-word,” she said, looking about her. “This place has gone to seed, hasn’t it? D-deary me. It smells like an uncleaned kennel.”
After Molly and Rocky had explained the situation to Mrs. Trinklebury, it didn’t take much pleading to persuade her to come and live with them.
“You’ve got to, Mrs. Trinklebury. We need you to help look after us,” explained Molly.
“Otherwise they’ll send some other Miss Adderstone,” warned Rocky.
“Please come, Mrs. Trinklebury, ‘cause we really need a mum,” said Ruby.
“Someone to make us cupcakes,” declared Jinx.
Mrs. Trinklebury sighed and folded her arms. “You know it’s been lonely at home since my A-Albert died. And I’ve been even lonelier since Miss Adderstone sacked me. I’d love to c-c-come.”
Molly and Rocky gave her a hug. “You’re a star, Mrs. T.”
They then took Mrs. Trinklebury downstairs to meet Nockman.
Nockman had an apron on, and his arms were elbow high in Bubblealot bubbles. He’d already disposed of the smelly garbage and cleared the kitchen cupboards. The kitchen now smelled of lemony cleanser.
“Mr. Nockman, this is Mrs. Trinklebury. She’s coming to live here, and she’s going to be in charge.”
“And you will get on with her,” Rocky whispered quietly.
“Ah, hello,” said Nockman, taking off his rubber gloves and shaking hands politely.
“Nice to meet you,” said Mrs. Trinklebury. “You’re doing a l-l-lovely job of clearing up.”
“Thank you,” said Nockman, smiling, pleased that his hard work was appreciated.
“W-well,” said Mrs. Trinklebury, embarrassed and not knowing what to say next, “as I s-said, Molly, I’d l-l-love to come back. I’ll be bringing P-Poppet, if that’s all right.” Then she explained to Nockman, “She’s my pet budgie and she sings beautifully. I’m sure you’ll like her.”
