by Georgia Byng
He had taken her coin, her precious coin; the one that she had loved; the coin that had helped her hypnotize the world! Molly shook. Beads of perspiration began to gather on her forehead. She felt hot, really hot, as though she might explode; and then, suddenly, she felt cold, as cold as the stone floor beneath her. Her teeth began chattering.
Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her face. She felt a horrible, lonely pain in her stomach, as though she had lost her closest friend. She knew the only thing that could make the pain stop was the coin. She bent over, clutching her stomach, rocking backward and forward, moaning.
She thought of the coin now, in Mr. Proila’s possession. A jealousy, the likes of which she had never felt in her life, engulfed her, drowning her in its green fury.
“It’s mine,” she hissed. “MINE!”
She thought about the lovely music she’d made. How she wished she could hear even a note of it right now. But as she wished, she caught sight of a tiny thought waving frantically to her from the corner of her mind. The thought suddenly shouted, “HE’S GOING TO KILL YOU! GET OUT OF HERE!”
Molly looked at the tiny barred window and then at the heavy cell door with its small viewing pane. Suddenly she was petrified. Adrenaline began pumping through her veins, making her focus. She wanted her coin back. But she had to forget that for now. Right now she had to escape or she wouldn’t be seeing tomorrow.
The cell was completely secure. The only way she’d get out was if someone let her out. Molly knew that her hypnotism hadn’t worked the last time she’d tried to use it. Neither had her mind reading. Part of her was tempted to try them again. But the realistic part of her knew that all her skills had gone. If she wanted to escape, she would have to use her wits.
She went over to the door. “HELLO!” she shouted gleefully. It took a lot of energy to sound cheerful because she was crying inside. “HELLO-EEE! ANYONE THERE? THIS ROOM’S SO PRETTY AND SWEET! HELLO! CAN YOU COME HERE A MOMENT, PLEASE?” Molly heard someone stir in the corridor outside. She began singing. “La la la la—life’s such fun! Full of beans, full of sun, HOW I LOVE!” One of the bodyguards appeared at the door’s small window. “Oooh, hello!” Molly smiled happily at the man. “I have a little problem,” she said sweetly. “I really, really, really need to go to the, hmmm, what’s it called in Japanese? . . . I know, toilee.” Molly sang the word as though she were the happiest person in the world. The man outside grunted, judging that Molly was definitely still under the influence of the tea that Mr. Proila had given her. Molly heard keys rattling, then the sound of metal slotting through metal.
“OK, OK.” The man nodded.
Molly gave him a big hug. Then she made an “I’m desperate” face and said again, “Toilee, toilee, toilee!” as cutely as she could.
The guard led her up the stairs toward the room where Molly had gotten changed. As she walked past her own clothes that were folded on a bench, she thought what a fool she had been for not being suspicious of Mr. Proila. She stepped past the guard into the bathroom, humming and smiling all the way.
She picked up the toilet roll. “Um . . . and hmmm.” She coughed, pointing at the loo.
The guard nodded grimly and shut the door. Molly decided not to lock it. Instead she noisily put the lid of the toilet up. Then, seeing some buttons on the control panel beside it, she chose the one that had a fountain symbol. Immediately the noise of recorded running water, designed to cover up the noise of a person using the toilet, sang out.
Molly was shaking from nerves. The guard wouldn’t give her long. She only had a few minutes to escape.
There was a lidded wooden bath at the end of the room. Quietly as she could, she stepped onto it and opened the high window above it. Two meters below was the garden where the apple tree grew. She could jump down, she thought, run across the garden, and then try to climb the perimeter wall, but whether she’d manage to escape before the guard realized she’d run away was another question. Molly decided she would take a huge risk. She took the black hair sticks that held up her hair and threw them so that they dropped a few meters away, on the grass below the window. Leaving the window open, Molly got down off the bath and opened it. Then she climbed in and pulled the lid back into place. Then she waited.
For a while everything was quiet, except for the sound of the fake water gurgling from the toilet’s “music box.” Molly bit her knuckle. Perhaps she had made a fatal error of judgment. Perhaps things wouldn’t go as she’d hoped.
After a short while the guard started to knock at the door. “Missa Moon?” he asked. Molly lay curled up, trying to make the very bath think that she wasn’t there. After a few more calls, she heard the guard open the door, then gasp.
“Noroi!” he cursed. Molly then heard his heavy footsteps in the passage and on the stairs. Almost immediately Mr. Proila’s familiar voice boomed from somewhere in the building.
“WHAT!?!” There was more thudding of rushing feet and then Mr. Proila was in the bathroom, too.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get her!”
Molly heard the guard leave the room.
“Stupid fool!” Mr. Proila spat. With difficulty he clambered up onto the lid of the bath. The wood bent and squeaked over Molly’s head.
“AAARRGH!” Mr. Proila screamed with rage out of the window. Molly trembled. He was so close, and yet totally ignorant of Molly’s presence.
And then she felt the pull of the coin. It was just above her head. How she wanted it!
There was a thud as he slumped down to sit on the bath lid. “We’ll get her,” Mr. Proila said conspiratorially. Molly realized he was talking to the coin. “If she escapes, of course the first thing she’ll do is find one of her fans. Seek protection. Ha! She won’t be protected at all. Far from it. I’ve got friends in very high places, haven’t I? By showing up, she’ll be helping me. She’ll be arrested and secretly handed back to me. And then? Then—I’ll either play music to her till she does exactly what she’s told or”—Mr. Proila’s voice dropped so deep that he sounded like a troll—”or I’ll just dispose of the brat. Chop her up into little bits and scatter her all over Japan for the birds to eat.”
Molly was so scared she thought her heart might stop.
There was silence, and Molly was convinced that Mr. Proila had guessed where she was. Then he spoke: “Message for Miss Sny. Book a show for Friday night. Say that Molly Moon is going to make an appearance. I’ll be going onstage with her. I’ll be playing, too. End of message.” Mr. Proila started talking to the coin again. “With you I’ll be able to play every sort of instrument, won’t I? It’s just you and me now. Those musical instruments should be here any second. Ha! And when they do arrive . . . Wow, wow, wow!”
Mr. Proila got off the bath. Molly heard him walking away. “What will my stage name be?” he mused. “Tattoo King? Yes.” He went down the stairs. The front door slammed.
Molly was rigid with fear, yet she knew she must get out of the building before Mr. Proila came back. She was deeply depressed by the loss of her coin but also by the loss of all her other hypnotic skills. She had to accept that they were gone. On top of this she was overwhelmed by loneliness. She remembered with shame how she had spoken to Rocky, how she had treated Petula and Gerry. As though the bath had suddenly filled with liquid guilt, she felt herself start to drown in self-loathing. The only saving thought was the idea that the coin had made her behave so badly. But why hadn’t she resisted it? Why did she even want it back? Did that show that she was essentially bad? Molly’s head swam with feelings of remorse and confusion. But bearing down on her was the knowledge that she had to get out of the teahouse before Mr. Proila returned.
Twenty-six
Molly slid the wooden bath lid off, making sure it didn’t clatter to the floor.
She couldn’t go out of the front door of the building as Mr. Proila might still be outside. She climbed back up on the bath, peered out of the window and began to wriggle through it. Holding on to the windowsill, she
lowered herself so that the drop was as short as possible. Even so, she thudded onto the wet grass. She sprinted across the garden and scrambled over the wall, praying all the while that a guard wouldn’t be on the other side to catch her.
Instead, Molly found herself in an ornamental pond filled with white and orange carp. She waded across, the fish scattering about her, and out the other side. Her kimono was soaked and weighed down with water. Gathering the wet material in both hands, Molly ran across another garden then clambered over a low brambly hedge.
She didn’t know where to go. She remembered Mr. Proila’s words about what he would do if he found her. He’d stop at nothing to make sure that Molly’s blabbing mouth was gagged to keep the coin’s secret.
Trying to calm down, Molly hid for a moment by a bush and tried to work out a plan. She recognized a tall red building in the distance. She knew that the main Tokyo train station was near there. If she could get on a train, at least then she’d be out of Mr. Proila’s immediate vicinity.
Molly left the garden through a gate and found herself on an empty street. She ran. Was it her imagination or were there people following behind her? She didn’t dare look. If she actually saw Proila’s guards chasing her, she might freeze. She was sure they were getting closer. Their feet were pounding the sidewalk. Molly’s socked feet slapped the concrete and her heart raced. The soles of her feet stung. But she didn’t care. Nothing mattered except for getting away. Ahead, Molly saw people—ordinary people. Her challenge now was to navigate the crowds without being recognized. She hoped that her disheveled appearance, her makeup, and the speed at which she was careering along would mean no one would realize she was Molly Moon.
Beyond the intersection she was coming up to was a wide street full of fast-moving cars. A clot of people waited for the lights to change so that they could cross. As Molly approached, the green pedestrian light flashed and the crowd began to surge forward. Molly dived for a gap between two schoolgirls, hurdled over the back wheel of a woman’s bike, and squeezed past an old lady. She dashed to the other side.
Behind, she was sure she heard cries of complaint as Mr. Proila’s bodyguards knocked people over.
Molly sprinted down the street toward the red building. She ran across another street, dodging the cars. The noise of screeching brakes and blaring horns filled the air as drivers tried to avoid her.
Molly darted through groups of pedestrians. She curved past women pushing strollers and people wheeling suitcases. Molly saw a sign ahead, in Japanese letters but with an arrow and a picture of a train, and then in English, it said: TOKYO CENTRAL STATION.
She hurried toward it, keeping her head down so that people wouldn’t recognize her. She paused at a ticket booth and, out of breath, read the information board beside it. “Tokyo-Kyoto . . . six thirty,” Molly gasped. She pulled some of the yen notes out of her pocket. “Kyoto, please.”
As she took her ticket and her change and turned away, she saw a sign for the toilets. At the same time she noticed that many people were wearing surgical masks, as Chokichi had told her they do in Japan during the flu season, and she had an idea.
A minute later Molly was coming out of the ladies’ room with a makeshift mask on. She hurriedly read the electronic information boards, where English and Japanese were displayed in turn. “Kyoto, 6:30 . . . Track 2,” the board flashed. Molly saw a number 2 with an arrow beside it farther down and started to run again. The station was full of commuters. They looked at Molly, not because they recognized her but because she was a child alone in wet clothes and no shoes.
There was her train—a smart white bullet train that would take her to Kyoto. Molly ran along platform two, jumped onto the train, and quickly slid into a seat. From there she checked the platform and the stairs for Mr. Proila’s bodyguards.
She saw only one. He was walking past the top of the stairs to the train at the next platform. Molly ducked.
“Please don’t guess I’m on this train! Please don’t guess I’m on here.”
The doors bleeped and swished shut. A Japanese voice began talking over the train’s intercom. The announcement was then repeated in English. “This train is about to depart for Kyoto. Journey time: two hours, forty minutes.”
The train began to move. Molly willed it to pick up speed. Her nightmare was that it might stop and reverse back to the station.
For a long while Molly stayed rigid. She half expected a hand to come down on her shoulder. But Mr. Proila’s bodyguard didn’t appear.
As she slowly relaxed, Molly shivered. The train was warm but her clothes were damp and stuck to her. She peeled her socks off. They were black with filth. Her teeth chattering, she gazed out of the window.
The train carved its way between tall futuristic buildings. Gradually, the structures beyond the glass got lower. Finally they hit open countryside and the train switched to top speed.
Molly’s bottom lip trembled. She was miserable. She was being hunted and she had no one to turn to for help. She thought of Rocky, of Petula and Gerry, wondering where they were, and then of her parents, and of Forest, Micky, and Ojas back home. A painful lump grew in her throat. Teardrops rolled down her smeared white face. She could call home, if only she could remember the number. But right now her head was a storm and the number a blank. What if Mr. Proila found out about Molly’s parents and got their number, and played music over the phone to them, or played to them over the Internet? They’d be hypnotized by him, too, and she’d never get home, never feel safe again.
The magnitude of the change that had come over her and of the greed and selfishness that had consumed her when she had the coin was almost unbelievable. It was only now, with the immediate problems of escaping behind her, that Molly was able truly to reflect upon how the coin had affected her.
Reeling from the shock, Molly pressed her mask up to her face and fell asleep.
When she awoke the train was at Kyoto station. She got up and, with her mask on her face and her head down, she darted toward the door. Once on the platform she bolted for the exit.
She half expected Mr. Proila and one of his guards to step across the entrance—a huge, human barrier. He wasn’t there, but Molly knew it would be foolish to assume she was safe. She must get out of the station without people seeing her. There were security cameras everywhere. Molly glanced up at one, then wished she hadn’t. She could imagine Mr. Proila in a police station, watching hidden camera video footage, saying, “That’s her.”
In her bare feet, Molly hurried away from the station as fast as she could. Scanning the building-lined avenue before her, she saw a small street with food shops along it and hurried toward it. She ran down it and into an even narrower road. This one was lined with electrical shops, all with TVs and computer monitors in their windows. To Molly’s horror she saw herself on these screens. Enthusiastic shopkeepers were playing recorded Molly Moon concerts to lure people into their shops. Like Frankenstein’s monster, this twisted version of herself stalked her.
Molly was tempted to go into one of these shops and ask for help. But it was too risky. She ran on, around corners, down an alley, and along other back streets. She hoped she wasn’t running in circles.
Eventually she came to a dead end. She found her way blocked by an old wall with ivy growing up it. Beyond were trees. The wall was easy enough to climb. Molly clambered up, swung her legs over the top of the wall, and jumped down the other side.
It seemed she was in a graveyard, because there were lots of upright old stones there. A few had Japanese writing on them. They weren’t the same shape as gravestones she’d seen before. Some were more like pillars with oval tops, others were like miniature houses. In between were clipped bushes and ornamental trees and well-tended areas of white gravel, and beyond the stones was a very old building.
Molly hid in a tomb shaped like a house, watching the rain as it fell on the grass and the pruned garden. She began to cough. A light went on in the building. She could see a bald-headed person in a
brown tunic inside. He looked like a monk or some sort of holy man. Molly wondered how many other monks there were in there. Perhaps she could sneak in through an open window to the food and warmth that she was sure lay beyond. Of course, if she found any clothing as well, that would be even better.
She watched the window like a cat at a mouse hole. Never had the thought of dry clothes and some hot food been so attractive. Night drew in. Molly shivered and coughed and waited.
When the light had gone out and it was completely dark, wincing at every twig that snapped under her feet, Molly crept toward the building. There was an open window upstairs. Luckily there was a tree close to it and the tree looked easy enough to climb. Molly hitched up her kimono and scaled it. Using a branch as a bridge, she was soon sitting on the windowsill.
The room was dark, and Molly paused. It struck her that this might be the bald man’s bedroom. Then her eyes adjusted to the light. She saw that the room was merely some sort of simple reading room. With her bare feet she was able to slip silently inside. Holding her breath, she stole across the room and peeped around the door. Beyond there was a corridor.
The building was deadly silent. Molly had no idea how many people were in there. But she was desperate for something to eat. She crept down some stairs and along a low-ceilinged passage. All the while she ached to cough, but she managed to keep it in.
She passed an indoor garden. A gnarled tree grew right up through the center of the building. She could see the starlit sky above. Molly paused for a moment to listen. Then, sure that everyone in the place was asleep, she went on.
On the far side of the indoor garden was a door with a bead curtain. Molly could see a small kitchen.
She crept inside and opened the fridge. There was a bowl of white sticky rice and a dish of tofu. Molly ate it all. She put the bowl and dish back in the fridge, hoping that by the time they were found, she would be gone. Then quietly she stole back upstairs and into the reading room. There was a dressing gown on the back of the door. Shaking from cold, Molly took off her wet kimono and put on the dressing gown. Making herself a bed on the floor from a blanket and pillow that she found on the chair, she fell into an exhausted sleep.
