Molly Moon & the Monster Music by Georgia Byng Read Free Book Online

was enormous. Everywhere was concrete or metal or glass or mirror or asphalt or stone. Molly could see only a few trees.
    â€œWhat tiny houses!” Molly remarked as they passed through a homey neighborhood.
    â€œTiny?!” Chokichi exclaimed. “Those are huge for Tokyo houses. You see, Molly, there isn’t enough space here. There are so many people who want to live in the city. Those houses are thought of as very big, very expensive. Rich people live in them.”
    â€œSo where do poor people live?” asked Gerry, playing with Titch.
    â€œIn really tiny houses,” Toka replied.
    As he opened a bag of rice crackers, Hiroyuki joined in the conversation. “Japanese people very good living close together.”
    â€œLook, there is Shinto shrine!” Chokichi said, pointing to a pretty little building held up by red wooden pillars. Its gray roof curved up at the edges like tiled wings. “We go to shrine and make offerings to good kami to help us. Priest give us special ema —pieces of wood with good luck written on them. We like ema .”
    Molly gazed out of the window and fingered her gold coin. She hadn’t been listening to the boys. She was thinking that if she lived in Japan, she would want a beautiful, huge penthouse in the top of a skyscraper with a view of the whole of Tokyo.
    The limo swung through the super-modern main streets of central Tokyo, where banners hung from shops, flapping in the wind. Office workers in business suits, mothers with strollers, and teenagers who seemed to be dressed like characters from comics or cartoons walked the sidewalks.
    Finally the car pulled up in front of a very smart building with a polished steel front that reflected thecloudy blue sky. Again, fans were standing about and barriers had been put up to control them.
    Gerry was appalled. “What, they’re waiting for you ’ere, too? Do they never leave you alone?”
    Hiroyuki, Chokichi, and Toka laughed as they all got out.
    Molly looked up. The green building looked like a huge pea pod, its apartments giant peas.
    After another frenzy of starry-eyed fans taking photographs, with Molly and Gerry and Petula waiting inside the marble lobby of the building, the band boys came in. They all stepped into a polished chrome elevator, and up it went to the fourteenth floor.
    â€œWho lives on the floors above?” Molly asked.
    â€œMr. Proila, of course.” Toka grimaced. They stepped out of the elevator to a bright landing with a view of the city to their right. “He’s got whole top two floors—sixteenth and seventeenth. And we have fourteenth and fifteenth. There is roof garden on top, but nothing much to see up there at the moment, just some bare cherry trees.”
    The black ebony door to the apartment stood ajar. A round-faced woman in a blue tracksuit waited there with a smile on her face and open arms. Hiroyuki, Chokichi, and Toka rushed to hug her.
    â€œMolly, Gerry, meet Miss Shonyo,” said Chokichi. “She helps us with . . . well, with everything really—especially with food!” He said something in Japanese to Miss Shonyo, who smiled and bowed to Molly and Gerry and Petula.
    â€œMiss Shonyo great cook!” Toka said, patting his big stomach.
    Molly and Gerry laughed. Both were thinking that Tokyo looked as if it was going to be a lot of fun.

Nine
    M iss Shonyo held the front door to the apartment open and everyone went in. Just inside was a row of slipper-like shoes that the Japanese brothers started to change into.
    â€œAh,” said Chokichi. “Custom of changing shoes is everywhere in Japan. We keep the street dirt outside. We will get you some indoor shoes, but for today just wear socks inside.”
    â€œSobo?” Hiroyuki called into the apartment. “Sobo is our grandmother,” he explained to Molly.
    The inside of the boys’ apartment was lovely. The entrance opened out into a huge modern room