Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure Read Free Page B

mummy—Molly’s.
    Primo wandered over to the window and looked out at a thin, fair-haired man who was kicking his legs up and running around the lawn leaping over croquet hoops.
    “I’d better go out and rescue Lucy before Cornelius starts bleating at her. And in case you’re wondering, Lucy’s got nothing to do with Petula’s disappearance. I know it. I’ve talked to her. Lucy is only half here, it seems, but she’s not under anyone’s spell, or hypnotized. She’s just wretched and traumatized from what’s happened. Poor Lucy. I think I can help her climb out of her misery.” Primo watched Cornelius on his hands and knees nibbling the grass. “It’s amazing how that lamb man out there was once so powerful. I can still hardly believe that he once hypnotized me to want to be president of America for him. And I would have been, too, if you, Molly, hadn’t saved me.”
    Primo smiled at his daughter.
    Primo and Molly had decided to start by pretending that they weren’t father and daughter. After all, if you haven’t belonged to a father
ever
and suddenly one turns up, you don’t really want to keep jumping up and hugging him, shouting, “Daddy.” You want to get to know him first. So Molly called him Primo. She liked him. He was positive.
    “I’m going to go out and have a walk with Lucy,” he said, rubbing his hands together, trying to look as though everything was under control and he was looking forward to it. “See you later. We’ll sort out all these problems. It’ll be fine, don’t you worry.” He winked and, making the sort of giddyup, encouraging noise that people make to horses, left the room.
    “Just zoning into the Here and Now,” said Forest, shutting his eyes and beginning to meditate.
    Molly and Rocky walked along the upstairs passage to the stairwell of clocks. The domed ceiling echoed with their tickings.
    “I don’t like the idea that there’s someone out there who can pull the wool over our eyes like this,” Molly said as they descended.
    “You’d better watch out, Molly,” Rocky said, and pursed his lips. “Be on your guard.”
    Rocky never exaggerated. He was also hard to panic.So getting a warning like this from him made Molly shudder. She gripped his arm.
    “Let’s stick together.”
    “Well, you’re going to have to wait for me here; I’m going to the bathroom.”
    “But how long are you going to be?”
    “Oh, three hours?”
    “Ro-cky…”
    The cloakroom door creaked shut. A huge black spider scuttled across the floor.
    Molly stood in the front hall picking the dried ketchup off her T-shirt. It was a strange place. The walls were covered with animal trophies. Their glassy eyes stared down at her. And mixed among the heads were antique garden shears—another collection of the mad Cornelius Logan’s. A man obsessed with control—controlling people through hypnotism—he’d also created the topiary animal bushes all over his estate.
    As she waited for Rocky, Molly walked around the hall table some, inspecting iridescent peacock feathers that stood in a vase. At every corner of the table a different group of animals glared down at her as if she were responsible for their deaths. In a horrible skip, Molly’s mind suddenly imagined Petula’s head stuffed and staring down, stiff with rigor mortis. She felt faint.
    Molly remembered some old wives’ tale that peacock feathers in a house brought bad luck. So, seizing the whole bunch, she pulled them out of their pot and marched for the front door and flung it open.
    Cold air flooded inside. Molly stepped out into the morning sunshine and down the front steps of the house.
    A distant lawn mower droned as it dealt with the winter grass. Light bounced off the place where Molly had last seen Petula, and then, as she walked across the circle of gravel, past the bush sculpture of a flying magpie, a cloud cast a giant shadow over the grounds of Briersville Park.
    Something blue flickered in the periphery of Molly’s