by Georgia Byng
Molly saw what had happened. Gerry had traveled unaccompanied and Lucy Logan must have given Molly’s name as the grown-up who was going to meet him when he got off the plane. She knew Molly would be able to handle this problem. A little hypnotism was what was needed, that was all. Molly put her hand under the flight attendant’s elbow and gently led her away from Gerry. Then she centered herself and looked up at the young woman to concentrate on how she should hypnotize her. The lady was brisk and efficient, tight as a coiled spring, but not unkind. Capturing this essence of her, and trying to make herself feel this way, too, Molly turned her eyes on.
She hadn’t used them for a few days, but this made no difference to their power. They throbbed as they drove a hypnotic glare into the woman’s brown eyes.
“She’s . . . She’s . . .” The woman stumbled over her words. “She’s called Mrs., erm, Mrs.. . .”
“Mrs. Moon?” Molly asked.
“Y-yes.”
Molly felt the fusion feeling—a wave of warm tingling that started in her toes and enveloped her body, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end—and she knew the woman was hypnotized.
She kept looking into her eyes as she said, “I am Mrs. Moon. I am the boy’s mother. I may not look it, but I am. I’m thirty-five years old.”
The woman nodded dumbly and smiled like a baby who’s just been given an ice cream.
“Good,” she replied. “Sign here then, please, and you can take him away.”
“In half an hour you will no longer be hypnotized by me,” Molly whispered. “You will remember that you handed Gerry Oakly over to a woman who looks like I will when I’m grown up.” Molly paused. If she could, she always liked to leave people with something good after she’d hypnotized them. “From now on, you will be very happy. You will dance . . . a lot. Got that?”
The woman nodded. “Good-bye,” she said. Smiling blissfully, she turned and began walking away across the terrazzo airport floor. Halfway across she stopped. She did a little balletic twirl, which was applauded by an old man with a walking stick. Gerry let Petula go just in time to see the flight attendant pirouette through a queue of teenage students and disappear.
“That woman must be stupid!” he remarked. “Anyone can see you’re not a grown-up.”
“Well,” said Molly (deciding not to tell Gerry about her hypnotic powers), “I could look thirty-five to her. Maybe she needs glasses.”
Gerry seemed unconvinced. Then a naughty look crossed his face. He glanced about. Carefully he took off his blue straw hat.
“Look,” he said. “I made a secret compartment in it.”
Molly looked into the crown of the hat, where a black cloth lining had been sewn in. All of a sudden it moved.
“Oh! Is it Titch II?”
“The Third,” Gerry said sadly. “A cat got number two.”
Petula winced when she heard the word “cat.” She hated cats. But the smell of mouse coming from the hat distracted her. She lifted her nose to get a better whiff.
“Did you travel all the way from LA with him in there?”
“Yeah.” Gerry undid a Velcro seam in the lining and a brown mouse stuck his nose out.
“But didn’t they catch you at the X-ray machine?”
“Nah. I just walked through with my hat on and they were so busy they didn’t even notice.”
“What about on the plane?” Molly asked, amazed.
“Oh, Titch enjoyed it. I gave ’im some exercise in the wash basin of the airplane’s restroom. An’ he slept. An’ I gave ’im some cheese. That stewardess was in a dream or somethin’. Loads of times my ’at was bobbin’ about like crazy on my ’ead but she didn’t seem to notice.”
“Didn’t he, um, wee on you?” Molly asked.
Gerry scratched his hair. “Erm, a bit, I s’pose. But Titch III’s pee don’t really smell.”
Petula cocked her head and sniffed the air. Molly wrinkled her nose, too.
“Hmm.” She laughed. “That’s a matter of opinion. Maybe you should have made him a kind of mouse diaper.”
Gerry grinned. “Maybe next time.”
Molly hugged Gerry around his shoulders. He was a lot shorter than she was, which wasn’t surprising as he was much younger. She was really glad to see him.
In the cab on the way back to the hotel Gerry told Molly about his new life in America. The large mansion that belonged to Primo Cell, Molly’s father, was a far cry from Hardwick House, the dump where he and Molly and Rocky and the other orphans had grown up. It had indoor and outdoor pools, a game room with Ping-Pong and tenpin bowling, and each one of the nine adopted orphans had his or her own bedroom.
Mrs. Trinklebury, the woman who had once worked as a cleaner in the orphanage, was now in charge. She had enrolled the children into a progressive school where they grew vegetables, cooked, did lots of art and music, and where English, history, geography, science, and even math lessons were, Gerry said, fun.
“Fun?” Molly asked incredulously.
“Yeah,” Gerry said keenly. “English is just books, and the teacher reads ’em to us, too. It’s just like story time all the time. And math isn’t like math, because the teacher is so funny. He’s got a parrot that talks all the sums! An’ history is like scary stories about what’s ’appened in the world so far, and the way the teacher tells it you don’t wanna leave the class, the stories are that good. An’ the geography lesson makes you want to get on an airplane and see all the countries. An’ we do a class called natural world. We learned all about endangered species.” Gerry gazed out of the window, his eyes turning misty. “It’s really sad what’s ’appening to the rain forests,” he said as they passed a copse of trees. “And ’orrible about the whales.”
Molly stroked Petula. “Why? What’s happening to the whales?”
“People are huntin’ and killin’ ’em, Molly, even though they’re endangered. One day there might not be any left. Some grown-ups are sick.” Gerry opened the window and then wound it up again, as though to clear his mind.
“Music lessons are really cool. We made our own instruments out of oil drums and saws and glass bottles. An’ we formed a band and played our crazy instruments and the teacher was the conductor.”
Molly was impressed. Perhaps she could hypnotize the tutor waiting for them back home to be like these teachers.
“I’m learnin’ the harmonica, and”—Gerry’s hand dived into his pocket—“this one is for you.” He passed Molly a silver harmonica. “Bought it with me own pocket money.”
“Harmony” was etched across the top side of the instrument.
“Oh, thank you so much, Gerry,” Molly said gratefully. “I really like it.” She gave it a blow and they both laughed at the noise she produced.
“If you practice you’ll get better,” said Gerry. “I was bad, too, when I started.” He then took another harmonica out of his pocket and gave Molly a demonstration. “Oh . . . yeeeeeah,” he said when he finished.
Molly laughed. “Brilliant!” she said encouragingly.
“An’ I wrote this one about the whales. I did it for my endangered-species project.”
This time he played a mournful tune. In between chords he made a strange, guttural noise with a high-pitched call mixed into it. That was his impersonation of a whale, Molly realized. Though it was actually quite funny, she didn’t laugh. Gerry was obviously deadly serious and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Little did she know that in a matter of days she would be far less considerate, and Gerry would be wondering where the kind Molly had gone.
Three
Gerry, chatty as a finch, filled Molly in about his life in America, making her laugh with his funny impersonations. She was very glad that she’d gone to the airport to meet him. Gerry did stink a bit of mouse pee, but it was really terrific to see him again.
Back in central Quito the cab stopped short of the hotel. The alley to the square was so crowded with people, the driver couldn’t get any closer. Hoards of fans, who had
flocked into the city to see the Japanese boy band play that evening, were gathered outside the hotel. Molly paid the cab driver, picked up Petula, and with Gerry holding on tightly to his hat and his bag, they tried to push through.
“When you was in New York in that Broadway show, was it like this?” Gerry asked as they squeezed through the crowd.
Molly wondered whether to tell Gerry that she had become a star on Broadway by hypnotizing an agent and a producer to get a part in a show, and then by hypnotizing everyone including the audience to think that she was the most talented performer ever. She was still ashamed when she remembered how she had become a star by conning people. Gerry would be shocked by how selfish she’d been. She would never use her hypnotism in such a way again, she thought. She decided not to explain what had really happened. Instead she laughed.
“Oh, I wasn’t as big as these guys. They’re huge!”
“You were good, though, Molly. All the papers said so.”
“You know what they say—don’t believe everything you read in the papers.” Molly smiled.
Finally Molly and Gerry made it to the hotel elevator. A flustered bellboy stopped them briefly, then recognized Molly and Petula and pressed the elevator button for them.
“Oh, puppy,” he gasped to Petula, stroking her head. “Zis is loco.”
Inside the suite, Micky was lying on his bed reading. Petula bounded in and jumped up to greet him.
“You’ve been ages!” Micky said, sitting up and smiling at Gerry. “You must be Gerry. I’m Micky.” He reached out to shake hands. Seeing a mouse in Gerry’s, he faltered.
“This is Titch. And, yeah, I’m Gerry. Hello.”
“Gerry’s going to have a shower,” Molly said, surreptitiously pointing to Gerry’s hair and holding her nose, “because Titch has had a long journey—on Gerry’s head.”
“After that we can go and see the Japanese boys,” Micky suggested. “They’ve given us VIP tickets for their concert tonight. Want to go?”
“You bet,” said Gerry. “But with all them fans downstairs,” he went on, “they’ll probably have to leave from a secret door.”
“You’re right.” Micky smiled again at Gerry. “The passes they’ve given us get us into the stadium through a special door and we get to go to the party afterward. But you’ll have to get a move on, and leave Titch here with Petula. OK?”
While Gerry was in the shower, Molly changed her top for a black-and-white, stripy long-sleeved one, and she put on less grubby sneakers. Gerry came out of his room in jeans and a T-shirt with a whale on it. He made a nest for Titch in a box with holes in its lid, and Molly left Petula a bowl of water.
After a quick snack of tortilla chips and guacamole, they were ready.
Before they left the room, Molly’s eyes darted around to see whether she’d left anything behind. On the table she saw the black velvet pouch with the gold coin in it. For some reason she didn’t want to leave it behind. She picked it up, left the room, and closed the door behind her.
Quito Stadium stood on the outskirts of the city like some sort of giant metal spaceship. The cab Molly, Micky, and Gerry were in drove through a special guests’ gate and soon pulled up at the performers’ entrance to the building. Micky knocked on the door and a serious-faced man opened it. He looked at their passes, nodded, and accompanied them along a series of gray passages and up several flights of stairs into the heart of the building. As they followed him, the noise of an audience somewhere beyond thumped through the walls. The man turned the handle of a white door and, while he could still be heard, said, “Kids, after the show, follow this passage upstairs. That’s where the party is. Enjoy the gig!”
He opened the door and Molly, Micky, and Gerry walked into a vortex of sound. They were on a private balcony with a perfect view of the stage. The auditorium was heaving.
“What’s the band called?” Molly shouted to Micky.
“Zagger.”
The friends peered down.
“Glad we’re not down there,” said Micky, looking down at the fans at the very front of the crowd in the mosh pit.
“Yeah, you’d get mashed up like a stick on a stormy night,” Gerry observed.
Micky laughed. “Squashed like a beetle in a mud flood!”
Molly gave Gerry a hug. “It’s really nice to see you,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”
A deep voice came over the loudspeakers:
“Señoras y señores! Ladies and gentlemen. El momento que ustedes esperan . . . The moment you are waiting for . . . De la bienvenida por favor . . . ZAGGER!”
The audience erupted. Zone by zone, the stage came to life. A silver drum kit with a halo of lights above it rose up in the very center. Banks of keyboards, glowing with yellow light, emerged to the left, and an electric guitar in blue neon appeared on the right. More white light revealed a cloud of snowy curtains at the back of the stage. These parted and three boys, each one dressed in a sharp silver space suit, stepped out toward the audience.
The boys looked amazing. Their hair jutted up, cutting the air so that they looked like strange bird-boys. The tallest one’s Mohawk was orange, the middle boy’s was red, and the smallest’s was green. Their silver suits had peaked shoulder pieces that gave the impression that they might suddenly spread wings and fly. Molly looked at Gerry’s face and smiled. He was enraptured.
The smallest band member, a boy who was very solidly built, leaped up onto the drum rostrum and sat down. Picking up two black sticks, he began to play. Fierce and precise, he beat out a rhythm that soon had the audience whooping and cheering, clapping on the beat.
While the drummer drummed, the tallest boy went to the keyboards and the other one to the guitar, which had a microphone stand near it. The drumming suddenly stopped.
“Hellooooo, Quito!” the tallest boy shouted into his microphone in a strong Japanese accent. “How ya doin’? You ready for some show?”
The audience whistled and cheered.
“OK. You ready, Chokichi?”
The boy on the electric guitar gave his brother a thumbs-up.
“You ready, Toka?”
The drummer nodded and leaned toward his microphone. “You too, Hiroyuki?”
“You bet!” Hiroyuki replied. “Here we go . . . A one, a two, a one two three four.”
And then the music started. It was mad. It was amazing. And mostly it was in Japanese. But this didn’t bother the audience, because they loved watching the band perform. The boys played fast tunes that had the whole audience jumping and slow songs that the crowd swayed and waved their hands to. After three songs they went offstage and minutes later came back on in karate outfits. Chokichi did a fast karate-style dance that ended with a flying leap and a somersault kick into a papier-mâché tiger, which burst, releasing confetti. At the same time tons more confetti exploded into the audience.
Even when they thought the concert had finally finished, the band came back onstage again (this time in black space suits) for several encores. At last they left the stage, the lights dimmed, and the sweaty but satisfied crowd started to leave.
“Let’s go to the party!” said Micky.
Four
Molly, Micky, and Gerry made their way to the staircase that led to the VIP party room. Other people jostled their way past them. Ahead, the noise of the after party grew louder.
A bouncer stood at the door, burly and unmoving.
“Name?” he asked, referring to a list.
Micky gave their names and they were through. Beyond was a large room with a dark blue ceiling dotted with lights like stars. The walls were covered with hundreds of tiny soft lights shaped like ivy leaves and the room was full of expectant people.
Molly glanced about. The band hadn’t arrived yet. She, Micky, and Gerry crossed the room to a seating area with a door leading off. Before anyone knew what he was up to, Gerry went across and pushed it open.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to go in th—” started Micky. But Gerry had alread
y slipped through.
Molly looked around. No one had taken any notice. She went through, too. Nervously, Micky followed.
Beyond the door a passage opened into a hexagonal space with doors in four of the walls. A big round sofa strewn with cushions and sheepskins sat in the middle like a huge, hairy slug.
“Why did you come in here?” Molly whispered to Gerry.
Gerry shrugged, but before he could reply, a booming voice filled the air. “Fifth rate! That’s what it was!”
“Sounds like a Russian accent,” Micky mouthed to Molly.
The voice continued. “You, Hiroyuki—Miss Sny tells me you sang flat ten times. And you were slow to come on in three numbers. Miss Sny noted every mistake down, so don’t think you can get away with it.”
Silently Molly, Micky, and Gerry moved closer to a door that was slightly ajar.
In the room beyond, Molly could see part of a mirror and a chair on wheels, on which was perched a nervous-looking Japanese woman in a black suit. She was holding a pen and pad. Was this the Miss Sny the cross Russian-sounding man had referred to?
“And,” the thickly accented voice went on, “your footwork was lousy. I may be deaf, but I’m not blind. That break dancing you did—well, you shouldn’t have bothered! And you, Chokichi . . .” Molly saw a little hairy hand pointing. “Your energy was dismal. Your karate dance was a disaster—even worse than Hiroyuki’s efforts. And, Toka . . .” Molly saw a small man in profile. She realized that he was the one she had seen getting into the limo with the band earlier. The one Micky had said was the band’s manager. “. . . Your drumsticks were as weak as jelly chopsticks in your hands. Pathetic! No strength! The others could have performed without you.”
Molly got a good look at him as he stepped forward, still shouting. His fat face and bulbous nose were pitted and scarred, his eyes small and sunken as a pig’s, and his rubbery mouth looked mean and was fringed by a bristly black mustache. The hair on his head was short as a mole’s. He held a cigar between his teeth and on his feet he wore white shoes with a substantial heel, presumably in an attempt to give himself extra height.
