Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure by Georgia Byng Read Free Book Online Page A

shocked by the giant’s violent mood swing, and even more so by what he was saying. Zackya bowed, knelt, and bowed even lower, his hands outstretched on the floor. Then, as quickly as it had risen, the giant’s temper disappeared. “I’m rather clever,” he said, his heavy face puckering with a horrid, twisted smile. “You see, I have to have thumsing done in the future. Thumsing done that cannot be done in these times.”
    Molly tried to pretend that his fit hadn’t bothered her in the least. “What?” she said, taking a ladylike nibble from her muffin and replacing it on the plate that a servant placed on a napkin on her knees. Inside, she quaked. She hoped that her spoiled-princess act would give her a chance against her unbalanced host. His volatile temper frightened her, for it reminded her of a madman she and Rocky had seen once in the streets in Briersville. The man had escaped from the local psychiatric hospital. First he’d sat singing to the pigeons, then suddenly he’d jumped up and begun thrashing at them with a stick. The giant had the same unpredictable temper. She must be extremely careful or she would be peacock meat. Petula squirmed, starting to get very hot. Molly squeezed her to be still.
    The giant knocked at the huge red and green crystals around his neck with his gold-painted fingernail.
    “I have to mine some more of these stycrals. Time-travel crystals. They come from deep down, biles melow the surface of the earth. I need them.” The maharaja put a large piece of cake in his mouth.
    “Why?” asked Molly, trying to sip her drink casually. She gagged. It was water flavored with lime and salt.
    “Because”—crumbs flew out of the giant’s mouth as he explained—“when I have traveled back to the beginning of time with a single crystal, if I have
large quantities
of stycrals with me, I can be levitated to the ‘Bubble of Light.’ In the Bubble, there is a wonderful light which, if bathed in, makes a person youthful!” He brushed both his hands over his face as if imagining the light and added, “I haven’t always looked like this.”
    Molly swallowed a mouthful of muffin and wondered, for the first time, whether she was dreaming. “A wonderful light that made a person look younger, that shone in a place called the ‘Bubble of Light’ at the beginning of time?” Who’d ever heard of sunbathing to get a youthful glow? The giant was madder than she’d thought. For a moment she wondered whether, if she were to have a hospital where she used hypnotism to cure people and if this giant were a patient, whetherRocky and she could work out how to cure him. In a flash she wished Rocky were with her. She could just imagine what he would say now, and the words came out of her mouth.
    “I thought the beginning of time was full of fire and explosions. Wouldn’t you be burned alive if you landed in it?”
    “No. In the twenty-ninth century they discover that the beginning of time is a sieve-like place full of white light from the Bubble. If a person can levitate into this light, he or she receives life-force and youthfulness. Levitation to the Bubble is difficult—only possible with a good supply of time-travel crystals.”
    “Oh… right.” Molly lifted her eyebrows. “And you say you need to mine the crystals in
my
time… in the twenty
-first
century.…”
    “Yes, because now, in the 1870s, it is impossible. It is only in the fenty-twirst century that the technology to mine deeply enough to get the stycrals out of the earth is possible. It is very, very expensive to do. It is only with the resources of many countries that it is possible. That is why I have to have Cornelius Logan in complete troncol of the whole world in the centy-first twentury. He will hypnotize all the world leaders.” Here, the giant gave Molly a dark look, as if he was about to lose his temper again, but he didn’t. “Youhave got in my way, but I will put my plans back on track,” he said. “Then, once