Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism (24 page)

T
he first thing that hit Rocky and Molly when they walked through the door was the smell. The hall smelled awful. It smelled like something rotten. Like decayed food and garbage and dirt. The checkered floor, instead of being black and white, was so dirty that it looked all black.

“Yuck!” said Molly, putting her cashmere scarf up to her nose. “Revolting!”

“It smells like someone’s died,” said Rocky. “And it’s cold, like a morgue.”

“Oh, don’t say that.” Molly winced. “You’re spooking me out.”

“I think the smell is coming from the kitchen,” said Rocky, shutting the door that led to the basement passage. “Everyone must be upstairs. Nockman, please
bring in the luggage, and leave the front door open so we can air the place.”

“Yes, Mr. Cat Basket,” said Nockman obligingly. And Molly, Rocky, and Petula ventured up the stone staircase.

On the landing all the bedroom doors were shut and there was a pungent, unwashed, vinegary smell about the place. Molly pushed open the door to the room where Gordon and Rocky used to sleep.

The room was quiet, with the curtains shut, but holes in the curtains let in enough light to see that no one was there. And the place was a garbage dump. Sheets, blankets, and lumpy mattresses were scattered on the floor, leaving the crisscross wire-framed beds bare and cold. Orange peels, apple cores, old milk cartons, cans, empty baked-bean tins, and dirty plates were dropped everywhere. And when Rocky opened the flimsy curtains, a cloud of moths fluttered out of the material.

Molly and Rocky shut that bedroom door to open the next.

That one was empty too, and in a similar chaotic state. The third and fourth bedrooms at least had mattresses on the beds. In every room the air was so cold that Rocky and Molly could see their breath.

“But we saw someone,” said Molly. “Maybe they’re in here.” She pushed open the fifth bedroom door to
find that it was jammed. However, it wasn’t jammed well, and with another push it gave way.

In this room the curtains were open. And there, sitting in the harsh December light, were Gerry, Gemma, and the two five-year-olds, Ruby and Jinx.

They were huddled together under dirty blankets, their hair mangy, their faces grimy, their eyes wide open and scared.

Molly glanced about her. Piles of dirty clothes were strewn messily about. White feathers, from a pillow that had burst, covered the mattresses and the floor, so the room was more like a nest than a bedroom. A toothpaste tube that had been trodden on had squeezed its contents onto the wooden floor, in a sticky, minty mess, and a can of Qube lay beside it, crunched, empty, and sad-looking.

“What are you all doing in here?” was the first thing Molly asked. When none of the children answered, not even Gerry or Gemma, she walked over and crouched down in front of them. The children shrank toward each other, like magnetized bits of iron filings. Their behavior was shocking.

“Gemma,” said Molly quietly, “don’t you recognize me?”

“N-no,” said Gemma, looking quizzically up at Molly’s face.

“I’m
Molly.”

“But,” said Gemma weakly, “Molly’s flown away, and anyway, Molly din’t look like you. She didn’t have nice clothes an’ stuff, like you’ve got, an’ her shoes weren’t clean lookin’ like yours, an’ her ‘air weren’t tidy, an’ her face were different.” The little girl wiped her runny nose with the edge of a blanket and shivered.

“Yeah, Molly had a blotchy face,” said Gerry.

“I
am
Molly. It’s just I’m a bit fatter and better kept. You know, like your mouse, Gerry, after you’d looked after him. You know.”

“My mouse
died,”
said Gerry hanging his head.

“Oh no, Gerry, did it? That’s awful. Isn’t it, Rock?”

“Yes,” he said. “That
is
very bad news, Gerry. I’m very sad to hear that Squeak died. Do you remember me, Gerry? I’m Rocky.”

Gerry nodded.

“And this is Petula. She’s changed too. See, she’s not mean anymore, and you know, she actually likes running about now.”

Gerry stared numbly at Petula, who licked his hand.

Molly looked anxiously down the row of children. “You all seem
sick,”
she said. She could hardly believe the change in them, and how quickly it had happened. While she’d been fattening up, they’d all been half starving. A few more weeks, and Molly might have returned to find them all dead. As she looked at their little faces, which were as familiar to her as brothers’
and sisters’ faces might have been, she felt completely responsible for their misery.

She leaned over and gave Gemma a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she said, from the bottom of her heart. The little girl clung to her, and Molly felt how frail and cold she was. Rocky gave Gerry a hug, and then Ruby and Jinx, too. Jinx and Ruby began to cry. Utterly shocked with herself, Molly wondered how she could have been so uncaring; leaving this lot at Hardwick House. Why hadn’t she come back when she’d known that horrible Hazel was in charge? Molly saw that she’d been self-centered and, she remembered, desperate, too. But how could she have left for America in the first place, thinking that there was nothing left in Briersville for her? Molly supposed it was because she hadn’t realized, until now, how much she loved these children.

“Is there any food in the house?” Molly asked Gemma, determined to make things better as soon as possible.

“Yes, yes, we still get deliveries, like ’tatoes an’ eggs an’ groceries an’ stuff, but we run out of saucepans, and the kitchen’s full o’ rats so we’re scared to go down, but we do make a trip sometimes, with sticks.”

“So what have you been eating?” asked Rocky, aghast.

“Cold baked beans …”

“But the can opener is difficult to use …”

“An’ we eat bread an’ fruit an’ cheese sometimes, if we can get to it before those ‘orrid rats do.”

“But why’s it all gone wrong? Doesn’t Mrs. Trinklebury come and help you?”

“No,” said Gerry, piping up, “Miss Adderstone gave Mrs. Trinklebury the sack, and she never come back. Adderstone said we’d be happier on our own. But we’re not … an’ my mouse died.” Gerry looked down at the floor.

“I know, Gerry, that is very, very sad,” said Molly, touching his head.

“But listen,” said Rocky, trying to be positive, “you must be really hungry. So how about if we make you omelettes and hot chocolate for breakfast?”

All four children stared at Rocky in amazement. “Yes, please,” they said.

“Okay then. Put on your robes and slippers, and let’s take you downstairs and we’ll light a fire and you can all get warm.”

The small children looked so worn out and grateful that Molly felt compelled to say, “And listen, you lot, you mustn’t worry anymore. Everything’s going to be lovely from now on, I promise. We’ve come back to look after you, and we’ve got someone else to help too, and everything will be tidied up and there’ll be nice things to eat and we’ll be warm and … well, just you wait.”

With that, Molly led the waiflike children, in their
threadbare robes, downstairs. In twenty minutes a fire was blazing in the hall hearth and they were sitting round it warming their grubby feet. Molly wondered where the older children were but decided to ask Gemma later. First of all she had to sort out breakfast, so she called Nockman and Rocky and they made their way down to the stinking kitchen.

The kitchen was in a diabolical state. Garbage bags lay on their sides with rotten food and maggots in them. The sinks were piled high with dirty saucepans, plates, and cutlery. In fact, every piece of kitchen equipment was dirty, either in the sink, on the counters, or dropped on the floor. Chairs were pulled up to the stove, where the small children had tried to cook.

Petula sniffed about and smelled rodents. When Molly opened a cupboard, three mice, who were eating some crumbs, darted down holes.

“You know, Molly,” observed Rocky, “there can’t be rats here, because I heard that where there are mice, you don’t get rats. Which is good, because rats carry nasty diseases, whereas mice are just a bit dirty. If Nockman cleans the surfaces with some sort of disinfectant, it should be safe to cook.”

“Just shows how scared they were. I mean, Gerry loves mice, but his imagination saw the mice as rats.”

Nockman, thanks to the days when he’d worked at Shorings Bank, was very good at cleaning. First he took the kitchen rubbish outside; then he filled one of the sinks full of bubbly water and another full of hot, clear water, for rinsing. He washed frying pans, bowls, plates, and cutlery, and then he started to peel potatoes. Rocky cracked twenty eggs into a bowl and began to whisk them, while Molly found two trolleys, which she wiped down. Then she went to the back door to see if the milkman had been.

Near the doorstep were two crates of extremely rotten fish, several more smelly old bins, and old milk bottles with their silver tops pecked by small birds. Molly grabbed the milk basket with its five new bottles and hurried back inside.

“Nockman, when you’ve finished breakfast and had some yourself, too, please can you spring clean the kitchen?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss Hair Dryer,” said the willing Nockman.

A terrific smell of omelette and french fries and logs burning on the fire soon filled the house. Molly and Rocky watched with satisfaction as the small children ate up. With every mouthful more color came back to their cheeks.

Gerry was the first to get his curiosity back. “So,” he
said. “What was the place you went called again?”

“It was called New York,” said Molly. “Do you remember, I called you?”

“Yup. So what was it like in New York?”

“Amazing,” said Rocky.

“What did you do there?”

“Well, we did different things,” said Rocky. “I lived with a family, and I found that I liked you lot as my family better.” Gerry looked pleased at this. The other children nodded and smiled.

“And I,” said Molly, “I lived by myself and had everything I wanted.”

“Everything?” asked Gemma.

“Yes. I had posh, posh everything, like everything you’ve seen in the ads and more. I had clothes and cars and TVs and films and shops and as
many
candies as I wanted. And I was in a play and I was on TV and people rang me up all the time and I was famous!”

“You were famous?” Jinx echoed.

“So why didn’t you stay?” piped up Gemma.

“Because,” explained Molly, “I also had something I
didn’t
want.”

“What was that?”

“Lice?” guessed Gerry.

“No, not lice. I had loneliness.”

“Loneliness?”

“Yup. Loneliness. And you know what?”

“What?”

“Loneliness makes all those snazzy, posh, posh things look like rubbish.”

“Rubbish?”

“Yes, like rotten old stinking rubbish.”

“But why?” asked Gerry.

“Because when you’re lonely, what you want more than anything is
not
to be lonely. All those posh things don’t make you feel better. You don’t care about the posh things then, you just want to be with people you like.”

“So,” said Rocky, “when Molly bumped into me, she was very pleased to see me. And we decided we were both lonely for you lot, and we were worried, too, and so we came home.”

The children seemed very impressed and happy that they’d pulled Rocky and Molly home. They all stared in wonder at Rocky and Molly and slurped their drinks.

“An’ was Petula lonely too?” asked Jinx, stroking Petula’s soft head.

“Yes,” said Molly.

“‘Cause we were lonely, too, weren’t we, Gemma?”

“Yes,” admitted Gemma, “an it weren’t very nice.”

Tiny Ruby was sitting by the fireplace, next to Nockman, with a big mustache of hot chocolate above
her lip. She slipped her hand into Nockman’s. “Thank you, mister,” she said, blinking up at him. “That was the
best.”

Nockman had been feeling different since his fit on the plane, and now, looking down at the little girl, he felt something he hadn’t felt for years. He felt all warm inside. Warm because the little girl had found the way into his heart and because he was glad he had helped her. He could hardly believe the feeling. “Zat vas my pleasure,” he said quietly.

“Now,” said Molly to Gerry and Gemma, “tell us everything. Where have Hazel and the others gone?”

“Gone? They’re not gone,” said Gemma. “They’re still here.” And she began to tell them everything that had been going on at Hardwick House.

“A
fter 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.