Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism (4 page)

“Or did Rocky and you sit in the bushes planning your wedding?” jibed Hazel.

All at once Molly smiled. It was a smile that came from an excitement deep inside her, and from the hopes already kindled in her about what she would be able to do if she learned to hypnotize people. Hazel and her posse just better watch out. Without a word Molly stood up and left the room.

After tea all the children had to rest on their beds, except for those who were allowed to practice their acts for the Briersville Children’s Talent Competition. Molly was itching to start reading the hypnotism book but couldn’t risk it, as Cynthia was reading a comic on the bed beside her.

The minutes crawled by. Molly heard Rocky’s husky voice, but she still felt angry about what he’d said, so she didn’t go and see him. Then came homework hour. It felt like homework year.

Miss Adderstone’s cuckoo clock struck six. At assembly, Molly ignored Rocky and so Rocky ignored Molly. After singing a hymn, to tape-recorded organ music,
Miss Adderstone, with Petula yapping under her arm, made some announcements. The first was that Molly would be on vacuuming duty for a week since she had failed to complete the cross-country race. The second was that some American visitors were coming the next day.

“They will be arriving at four o’clock. May I remind you that they are interested in adopting one of you, strangely enough. If you remember, the last Americans to come here left empty-handed. Do not let me down this time. I’d like to get rid of one of you, at least. They won’t be interested in adopting dirty, flea-bitten rat runts.” Miss Adderstone’s eyes hovered on Molly. “So clean up. Only a respectable child will be chosen. Some of you, of course, don’t need to be told this.”

Every child in the room felt excited when they heard this news. Molly even detected a glimmer of hope in Hazel’s eyes.

At supper Molly sat by herself, eating a bruised apple.

Finally, when she thought she was about to explode from curiosity, she found a moment when the bedroom was empty. Quickly taking the book from under her mattress, she hid it in her laundry bag and set off for the laundry rooms.

Hades
means Hell in Greek. Hades was the orphanage name for the laundry rooms, which were deep in the
bowels of the building. Molly made her way down to them now, looking as if she was off to do some washing.

The cellar was dark and musty, with low ceilings. The walls were lined with rusty pipes that hung with drying clothes. At the far end were some old porcelain sinks with limescale-covered plug holes where the children washed their dirty clothes. Molly found a warm spot under a lightbulb, below some drying pipes, and, bursting with anticipation, she reached inside her laundry bag.

All her life Molly had yearned to be special. She’d fantasized that she
was
special and that somehow, something miraculous would happen to her. Deep down inside, she felt that, one day, a brilliant Molly Moon would burst out and show everyone at Hardwick House that she really was a somebody. Yesterday, she’d thought something important was going to happen. Maybe the important thing was one day late.

All evening Molly had wondered whether this book was going to make her dreams come true. So it was with trepidation and a timid hand that she slowly lifted the dry, leather cover of the old book. It opened with a creak.

There was the first page again.

HYPNOTISM

An Ancient Art Explained

Molly turned to the next page. What she read made her tingle from head to toe.

Molly noticed with amazement that Dr. Logan had come from Briersville. This was extraordinary, as sleepy Briersville didn’t have many interesting people to boast of.

She eagerly turned the page.

Molly’s hands began to sweat.

“HYPNOTISM,” the book read,

Molly thought of the trick she had learned: of drifting off into space and looking down at the world, of turning herself off when people were shouting at her. Maybe, without knowing it, she had been putting herself into a trance. The book continued.

When Molly read the next sentence, her heart skipped a beat.

Hungrily, she read on.

Molly put the book down for a moment. “Or,” she thought aloud, “when you wake up, you will think you are a monkey.”

Molly smiled as ideas began to jostle through her head. Then a shiver of suspicion stopped her in her tracks. Was this book for real, or was it written by a madman?

Then she remembered the warthoggy man in the library. He said he’d traveled all the way from
America
just to find this book. The professor must believe that the secrets contained between its covers were extremely valuable. It must be very, very special. Perhaps—Molly said to herself—perhaps she’d chanced upon a real treasure!

Eagerly she looked at the table of contents.

The book was peppered with drawings of hypnotized people in Edwardian clothes. There was a picture of a woman lying flat with only a chair under her head and one under her feet. She was called “The Human Plank.” There were lots of diagrams of a man making strange faces—one a puffed-up blowfish face, another where his eyes were turned upward, showing their whites. “Yuck, disgusting!” Molly thought. As she turned the thick pages of the heavy old book, Molly came to the end of Chapter Six and realized it was immediately followed by Chapter Nine. Two chapters, Chapter Seven, “Hypnotizing Using the Voice Alone,” and Chapter Eight, “Long-Distance Hypnosis,” had been carefully removed. Molly wondered who’d taken the pages and whether they’d gone missing years ago or only recently. It was impossible to tell.

Near the end of the book was a brownish photograph. It was of a man with curly hair and glasses and a bulbous nose.

Doctor Logan. The World’s Most Famous Hypnotist,
it said underneath. Molly was relieved to see that you obviously didn’t need to be a great beauty to be a good
hypnotist. Eagerly she flicked back to the first chapter, “Practice on Yourself.”

The first section was “
VOICE.”
It read: A hypnotist’s voice must be gentle, calm, lulling. Like a mother’s hand rocking a baby to sleep, so the hypnotist’s voice must lull the subject into a trance.

This sounded too good to be true. Molly had been labeled with the nickname Drono because people said her voice made them want to go to sleep. Now this ability, instead of being something to be ashamed of, felt like a talent to boast about. The book went on: Here are some exercises, which must be said slowly and steadily. Practice them.

Molly read the sentences out loud. “I have a wonderful, calm voice. I am calm and per-suas-ive. My voice is ver-y—”

All of a sudden she heard loud steps. She shut the book quickly and slipped it into her laundry bag.

Hazel was coming into Hades. She stamped noisily into the pipe room with her tap shoes still on.

“Urgh,” she said, “what are you doing here, weirdo? I heard you trying to sing. Give up. Your voice is flat.”

“Just singing while I find my socks,” said Molly.

“More like you’re down here thinking about how everyone dislikes you.” Hazel collected her clothes from a pipe and turned to look at Molly. “You’re like a
sock, aren’t you, Drono? A worn-out, stinking, unwanted, weird sock. Why don’t you enter the talent competition as a sock?”

When Molly didn’t react, Hazel added, “Or better still, enter as the ugliest person in the world.” And shuddering, she added, “Urgh, I bet your parents were ugly, Bog Eyes.” With a satisfied smirk, she turned and walked away.

Molly watched her go. She smiled to herself, and under her breath she said, “Just you wait, Hazel Hackersly, just you wait.”

T
he next day was Friday. Molly had awakened early, smiling from a dream that she was a world-famous hypnotist. Since then, she had been concocting a daring plan.

She had no intention of going to school. She couldn’t possibly go and sit in dire, dishwater Toadley’s lessons while the book, with all its secrets waiting to be learned, lay under her mattress. Besides, she couldn’t leave the book unguarded. Snoopy Miss Adderstone might find it.

When the morning bell went, she lay still and kept her eyes shut even when Rocky came to visit her. When Hazel rang the bell in Molly’s ear and pulled her covers off, Molly just lay listlessly in her bed.

“Brain not working again, Bog Eyes?” Hazel jeered.

“I don’t feel very well,” Molly moaned.

Molly missed breakfast. When she was sure everyone
was downstairs, she swung into action. Jumping out of bed, she opened the bedroom window and scraped some green mildew off the stone wall into a plastic soap dish. Then she carefully mashed the chunks of green mold into a fine powder. She applied the powder to her face, giving her skin a sickly green tinge. Afterward she wiped the dish and put it back by the sink.

Next, she crept along to the infirmary. There was an electric kettle, which Molly switched on. A moment later she had filled a glass half full with boiling water and hidden it under a low armchair. Then she grabbed the metal sick bowl and placed it high up on top of a cupboard next to the chair.

Back in the bedroom, Molly rifled through her satchel and found a packet of emergency ketchup, which she’d saved for sandwiches. With this in her pajama pocket she got back into bed, her trap set.

People started to return from breakfast. Gordon Boils plodded into Molly’s room. “Sick? Some hope,” he said. Molly heard something flicked, and felt something small, nasty, and damp land on her neck before Gordon left. Then Molly recognized the voices of Gerry and Gemma as they came to see her.

“Bet she caught a cold. Maybe she
did
fall in a puddle yesterday,” whispered Gemma.

“Poor Molly. She’s probably sick because the big kids
are nasty to ‘er,” said Gerry.

“Mmn. Shall we go and feed your mouse?”

Finally, Miss Adderstone stomped in.

“Sick, I hear,” she said unsympathetically. “Well, you’d better come to the infirmary.” She shook Molly, who pretended to wake up.

Acting as headachy and fluey as possible, Molly followed Miss Adderstone down the shabby corridor and past other children who’d come out of their rooms to stare at her. Miss Adderstone made Molly sit on the infirmary armchair. Taking a key from the metal chatelaine that hung round her waist, she opened a drawer, found the thermometer, and jabbed it into Molly’s mouth. Molly’s sweaty fingers were crossed tightly behind her back as she hoped madly for Miss Adderstone to leave the room. Seconds later her wish was granted.

“I’ll be back in five minutes. We’ll see if you’re sick.” Sucking her false teeth, Miss Adderstone marched out.

As soon as Miss Adderstone was safely away, Molly found her glass of water—once boiling, now very hot—and put the thermometer in it. She watched anxiously, her heart beating fast, as the mercury rose up the stalk. A temperature of one hundred and three degrees should convince Miss Adderstone that she was unwell. But just to be sure, Molly tore open the ketchup packet
before putting it back in her pocket. Her hands were trembling with nerves.