by Georgia Byng
“Exactly. Wouldn’t you want to be president if you were a power-crazed egomaniac and could make people do whatever you wanted?”
Molly nodded. This made sense.
“I have no proof yet that he’ll run for president this year. But it’s very possible. He could make people support him, and he’s got all the money to pay for an election campaign.”
A puzzling thought struck Molly. “But Lucy, hypnotism wears off. Primo Cell won’t be able to keep thousands of people under his control. He’ll have to keep hypnotizing all those stars and celebrities and police officers and politicians and whoever else.”
Lucy nodded. “You would think that would be the case, but Cell already has so many people under his control, and some of them he’s had for years. I think he’s somehow found a way to keep his subjects hypnotized permanently. I think he’s discovered a new hypnosis much more powerful than ours.”
Molly screwed up her face as she digested this. It was a frightening idea.
Lucy hadn’t finished.
“I’m also sure that Cell is behind Davina Nuttel’s disappearance. My research shows that Cell planned to launch a new line of kids’ clothes through his Fashion House company this year. I’ve found several pictures in the papers of him coming out of the Manhattan Theater after seeing the show Stars on Mars. He must have wanted Davina to promote Fashion House. My hypnotist instincts tell me that something went wrong. Perhaps Davina didn’t go along with his plans. Perhaps she found out his secret. Perhaps somehow, astonishingly, she resisted his hypnotism. Whatever happened, my feeling is he had to get rid of her. The man is out of control.”
If you’ve ever been on a roller-coaster ride, you will know that fearful feeling you get while being cranked up to the top before you swoop terrifyingly downward. Your stomach feels full of waves of apprehension. Molly’s instincts told her that a fast, furious ride was seconds away. She found herself gripping the arms of her chair.
Lucy reached for her shoulder as if to prepare her. “We must find out how his new kind of hypnotism works. How he keeps his victims under his power permanently.”
“We?” asked Molly faintly.
“Molly, you may not realize it, but you have more than a talent for hypnosis. You have a very special gift. Your performance as a hypnotist in New York was absolutely amazing. Only someone as good as you could stand up to Primo Cell. I have never come across anyone with powers like yours. Because you can help, you must. If you don’t, dreadful things will happen in the world. And think of poor Davina.”
Molly blushed from all of Lucy’s flattering words, but at the same time she was dreading whatever invitation she felt was coming her way.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go to Los Angeles, in America, to Primo Cell’s headquarters.” Up came a photograph of a dark-blue glass office building with palm trees in front of it. “This is where he works. And this is his home.” A gray house behind cedar trees, a high wall, and a big metal gate filled the screen.
“First and foremost, you must find out whether Cell is behind Davina’s abduction. And then find out where she is. Help her if you can. Investigate Cell. Talk to some of the stars who are under his power. Report back to me.” Lucy paused. “I’ll send you money, so you don’t have to worry about that. You’ll have to use a lot of hypnotism to get information. But I know you can do it. Will you, Molly?”
Molly thought of how miserable her life had been before she had found the hypnotism book. How happy she was now. She owed her happiness to Lucy. How could she refuse to help her? But when she looked up at that impenetrable steel gate, and thought of the gentle librarian fighting to escape from her burning car, she trembled inside. She didn’t want to go to America and take on this dangerous man, but she felt herself nodding her head.
“I’ll do it,” she said. Then she couldn’t help blurting out, “But—but what if Primo Cell hypnotizes me?”
“This isn’t without risk, Molly. I won’t pretend it is. But if that should happen, I assure you, I will do everything to get you back.”
Molly rubbed her sweaty hands up and down on her jeans.
“You are probably feeling that this is too grown-up for you,” Lucy told her. “But it’s not. You are a genius hypnotist. And you are a brilliant secret weapon. I’ll tell you why.
“You can investigate Cell without casting the slightest suspicion on yourself, because you, Molly, are a child. Primo Cell will never suspect a child.”
Molly felt as if she had just swallowed a pill that was going to change her life.
“So when do I go?” she asked.
Seven
It was lucky that Molly had a light on her bicycle, as she didn’t leave Lucy’s until after dark. She strapped the briefcase Lucy had given her onto the rear rack and pedaled wearily through Briersville and up the hill out of town.
She felt cheated. She’d arrived at Lucy’s cottage wanting to listen to stories about hypnotism. Instead, the afternoon had been hijacked by Primo Cell. Molly disliked him already.
What she had learned felt slightly unreal. Imagine if someone gathered undeniable evidence that proved all birds are really extraterrestrials, here to take over the world. You’d doubt the information was really true, even if the facts were staring you in the face. This was how Molly felt about Primo Cell. Yet Molly knew firsthand just how easy it could be to control people. In her gut she felt that what Lucy had told her was true.
Molly didn’t dwell on what might happen should Primo Cell catch her investigating him. If he had kidnaped Davina, then he was crazy—a nut case—and really dangerous. She wished she had a fast car with lots of gadgets in it. Instead, she was on an old chopper bike.
But there were two things that excited Molly. Lucy had given her a new license to hypnotize—and Molly was going to Los Angeles.
Back at Happiness House, Gemma and Gerry were cleaning out Gerry’s mouse cage. They were about to make a strange discovery.
Gerry’s ten mice ran around in a cardboard box, looking confused.
“When did you last do this?” asked Gemma, her face puckering at the smell.
“I’ve cleaned the worst parts four times since Christmas. I haven’t touched the parts over there, as they don’t get dirty.”
“Why don’t they get dirty?”
“Because that’s where the mice sleep.”
Gemma reached in and pulled out straw and rags. Gerry gave a tug at a pile of paper in the clean corner.
“See,” he said, “this paper looks brand-new—just a bit nibbled at the sides.” He dropped it on the floor.
“It’s got something written on it,” said Gemma, picking it up again. She gathered up the torn pages. “It says The Book of Hy … I can’t read that—it’s been eaten. This bit says Ancient Art Revealed. What do you think that means?”
“Dunno,” said Gerry, wringing out a sponge and mopping the cage. “Something about painting pictures in an old-fashioned way?”
“It’s a photocopy,” said Gemma, gently peeling the pages apart. “About … it’s about hypnotism. Where did you get this, Gerry? Is there any more of it?” Gemma looked into the back of the cage.
“There might have been—but I probably threw it away. What’s hypnotism?”
“You know, where you make someone go all dreamy and then you tell them to do things. Where did this come from?”
“From a garbage can. Ages ago.”
“Whose garbage can?”
“I dunno—either Ruby’s or Rocky’s, they both use the most paper…. Rocky always throws away the words of songs he’s made up. I thought that was a song. But Gemma, don’t read it now, you said you’d help me with my mice.”
Gemma was too engrossed to continue her mice work. “This might be important,” she muttered. “I’m gonna go to the linen cupboard to read this. You can meet me up there.”
Twenty minutes later, Gerry and Gemma were crouched cross-legged on piles of towels in the dark linen cupboard, t
he pencil beam of a small flashlight focused on a scrappy pile of photocopied paper.
“Do you think we could really learn how to do it?” asked Gerry.
“We can try it out on your mice,” answered Gemma.
“Now? I’ve got Victor in my pocket.”
“No, we’ve got to learn it properly first. Pity all the lessons aren’t here. Gerry, this is top secret. Understand?”
“Understand,” said Gerry, and they knocked their fists together to seal the deal.
Molly arrived back at Happiness House desperate to talk to Rocky. She hoped that he hadn’t gone on one of his wanders. He wasn’t in the TV room, where Mrs. Trinklebury was watching a program about patchwork. Eventually she found him in the kitchen with Petula on his lap, reading a newspaper. Next to him was Nockman, who was studying a bird-training manual.
“Psssst,” Molly whistled from the doorway.
“Uh-oh,” Rocky said as he and Petula came out into the corridor and Molly grabbed his sleeve and hurried him upstairs. “What’s up? Where’d you get the briefcase?”
Molly ushered him to the window seat at the end of the top-floor hallway and sat him down. There, in a whisper, she told him everything that had happened at Lucy Logan’s. Then she opened the case and showed him the photographs and maps of Primo Cell’s neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
Rocky shrugged his shoulders. “The whole thing sounds crazy to me. I don’t believe it.”
“You’re just saying you don’t believe it because you don’t want to come, because it sounds dangerous. But please, Rocky—you’ve got to help me. I’m not the only one who can hypnotize round here.”
“But I’m not a quarter as good as you, Molly.”
“So you do believe this is true?”
“I never said that.”
“Well, even if you don’t believe it, you’d enjoy a vacation in Los Angeles,” said Molly confidently.
“But …”
“Since when would Rocky Scarlet turn down a trip to sunny L.A.?” urged Molly. “Bet you’d never get asthma there.”
“But …”
“Rocky, there is no way I’m going by myself,” Molly said, louder than she meant to. “Listen, it’s much warmer than here, and they have beaches. We’ll only be gone a month or so. I can’t do it without you, Rocky. Please come with me.”
Petula suddenly sat up and wagged her tail hard. Someone was at the end of the corridor.
Gerry and Gemma approached sheepishly. From inside the cupboard, they’d heard the last part of Molly and Rocky’s conversation, and now, although embarrassed to have been caught listening, they were burning with curiosity.
“What vacation? What beaches? Where are you goin’? We wanna come too,” said Gemma.
“Yes,” said Gerry. “You can’t leave us behind. Last time you left us behind, it was ‘orrid. ‘Member?”
“You can’t come,” Molly began. Then she stopped. Gemma and Gerry had never been on vacation. She thought of them on a beach with buckets and spades, or in the sea, body surfing, or in a tour bus at one of Los Angeles’s film studios, and her heart melted. They would love it, and she didn’t see how they would get in the way. In fact, it might be an advantage if they came.
“You know, Rocky, if Mrs. Trinklebury came to look after them, we’d look like a normal family on vacation. And Nockman could help too.” Molly was thinking that actually Nockman’s criminal knowledge might come in useful. He was particularly good at picking locks.
“What about the others?” said Rocky. “They’ll all be back from their courses next week.”
“Why don’t we ask Mrs. Trinklebury’s sister to have them stay on her farm?” suggested Molly. Rocky nodded.
“I’ll have to have a word with Mr. Struttfield,” said Molly, thinking how she would have to hypnotize their headmaster. “Okay, Gemma, when Mrs. T.’s finished watching her program, I’ll tell her that we’ve all been asked to go to L.A. by the Benefactor.”
Rocky grinned. “And I’ll find a nice hotel there where we can all stay, and Nockman can organize plane tickets—leaving as soon as possible.”
“Does that mean we’re going?” asked Gerry, not sure what had been agreed.
“Sure does,” said Rocky.
“Whoooooooooo!” shouted Gerry. “Whoooooo!” And not knowing what to do with all his excitement, he started jumping up and down like a coffee-drinking kangaroo. “L.A., L.A., L.A., L.A.!” he shouted, running up the hall and back again. For a moment he stopped.
“Where is L.A.?” he asked.
“L.A. stands for Los Angeles,” said Rocky. “It’s in California, in America.”
“Whoa. America? Wow!” After that Gerry was unstoppable. He bounced down the stairs and around the hall and up the stairs again and down again and up again, shouting, “No more school! NO MORE SCHOOOOOOL!”
Gemma thanked Molly and Rocky ten times and then rushed into her bedroom to pack.
“It’s the right decision,” said Molly. “Because if we didn’t take them and something bad happened to us there, then they’d never get a vacation.”
“What might happen to us?” asked Rocky, raising an eyebrow.
“The same thing as Davina? I don’t know. But this Mr. Cell is a power-crazed maniac. And a brilliant hypnotist. Jeepers, Rocky, what are we letting ourselves in for?”
“Trouble,” said Rocky matter-of-factly.
“Yes, ten tons of trouble,” agreed Molly.
Eight
Over the next three days, Molly watched Happiness House erupt with anticipation. Mrs. Trinklebury was so delighted about the idea of a vacation that she threw her apron on the fire to celebrate. She was very excited about going to Los Angeles and Hollywood, the movie capital of the world, home of the stars she adored. She harbored hopes that she would meet some of them.
Nockman wasn’t entirely pleased to be going back to America. That was where he had, until recently, spent his whole life, and he didn’t want to be reminded of his unwholesome past and the crimes he had committed. He worried that he might be tempted to do something bad again, but Mrs. Trinklebury, who was helping him reform, said that it would be good for him. So he carefully constructed a traveling box for his twenty parakeets. Molly had told him that the Benefactor was managing the flight arrangements for all the pets. Nockman automatically believed her. He always respected what Molly said, although he wasn’t exactly sure why. He was glad the birds could come, because he wouldn’t have gone otherwise.
Two matters had to be dealt with by hypnotism. One by Rocky, the other by Molly.
Rocky’s challenge was to find hotel rooms for them. Their trip to Los Angeles coincided with its busiest week of the year. The night of the Academy Awards, when the best actors, actresses, directors, producers, and film people would win the coveted golden Oscar statuettes for their work, was in a week’s time. Every single room in every hotel had been booked months in advance.
“I hate to do this,” said Rocky as he picked up the phone. “Because of us, some people are going to lose their rooms.”
“Aren’t you nervous that you’ve forgotten how to do long-distance hypnosis?” Molly asked. But Rocky shook his head.
“Hypnotizing people is like riding a bicycle, don’t you think? Once you’ve learned, you never forget.” Molly was amazed by Rocky’s confidence and very impressed when, ten minutes later, he came out of the TV room with the news that they now had two bungalows and a room reserved at a hotel called the Château Marmont.
“All I needed was a bit of time,” said Rocky. “As long as they listen to me, they melt like butter in my hands.”
Molly, however, was incredibly nervous about her hypnotic challenge. She had to visit their headmaster and hypnotize him into giving his permission—for her, Rocky, Gemma, Roger, and Gerry to go to Los Angeles, and for the rest of the orphanage children to stay on Mrs. Trinklebury’s sister’s farm. Molly was worried that she might have lost her hypnotic skills, especially since she’d had that ice-cold fusion f
eeling when she’d tried to hypnotize the bush.
In the headmaster’s office, Molly started by explaining that the trip to California was educational. They’d been learning about earthquakes and the desert and the American Congress, she said, so the trip would be very informative.
“The other children have been asked to stay on a pig farm, where they will learn about pigs…. You know—pigs and slop and manure and, erm, agriculture. This will also be very educational.”
Mr. Struttfield seemed to think the idea splendid, because he said, “I’m very impressed that you have come to ask my permission yourself, Molly. I like children with initiative. A good golf player has initiative. A sense of—if you want that ball to go in a certain direction, learn how to hit it. Don’t wait for someone else to hit it for you—eh, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you ask me, farms ought to turn their land over to golf courses. Don’t you think?”
Molly said nothing.
“So you’re all off to Los Angeles and farms. Well, I hope you have a very educational time and, if you can, play a bit of golf for me, eh?”
“Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.”
With that, his phone rang and, picking it up, Mr. Struttfield nodded to Molly that she could go.
Molly couldn’t believe it. She’d actually persuaded him to let them all off school without hypnosis! She didn’t know exactly how Mr. Struttfield had been so easy to win over, but feeling very pleased with herself, she went back to the classroom.
And so it was that, a few days later, a small minibus was loaded and thirty-eight passengers (five children, two adults, twenty parakeets, ten mice, and one pug), took their places on board. Even Roger was eager to come, happy, he said, to be getting away from the voices he was hearing.
Molly, at last, and for the first time in months, had to test her hypnotic powers. She thought her skills might have grown rusty. But they hadn’t. She easily hypnotized the airline attendants. One bolting glare from her green eyes was all it took. The warm fusion feeling blasted through her, and she knew they were under her power. The animals were allowed through, and soon they were all settled on the plane.
