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

Cornelius is in troncol, I will have the power and wealth of many, many countries at my tingerfips. The mining can begin and I will get mountains of stycrals. Armed with tons and tons of stycrals, I can get to the beginning of time and attain
youthfulness.
Simple, you see. And it would have been done by now, too, if it weren’t for a problem that occurred: You, Miss Moon, were the mevious donkey that escaped the laboratory.” The giant snorted impatiently. “I am put out, I must say. It has taken me years to work out how to mine the stycrals. Then I came up with the ingenious plan of using hypnotists from your time to do the work for me. I went to the future, to your time, to the time when you were just born, and I hypnotized Cornelius. I put the whole plan into action. Primo Cell and Lucy Logan’s baby was put in an orphanage. That was you, of course. Primo Cell and your mother were split apart. Everything was wet up to serk. It took a lot of effort to set things up so that Cornelius’s life would end in him ruling the world for me. It was exhausting work. Time travel is exhausting. But I knew it would be worth the effort.” He glared at Molly.
    “I time traveled to modern India and phoned the Hite Whouse, in America, expecting to speak to PrimoCell and Cornelius, expecting to hear about
rooms
full of mined stycrals. But, instead, another man was president. My plans had been wrecked.”
    Molly again tried to look unshaken. She put on an uncaring, hard expression and sipped at a yellow drink. She was so scared that the sugar in the drink felt electric on her tongue.
    “After more exhausting detective work,” the giant continued, “I realized that
you
were responsible. Hmm. I stupidly gave in to my fatigue and sent that imbecile Yackza to fetch you. And he fetched the
wrong
you
.
Don’t you agree? He should have gone back in time and fetched the ten-year-old Molly Moon, who hadn’t yet learned to hypnotize. For me to kill. Then my plans would have gone smoothly—as Molly Moon would have been too dead to ruin them.
Do you understand?”
    Molly, still acting her part, lifted her nose and shrugged. “Of course I understand. Time travel isn’t rocket science.”
    And then something awful happened.
    Petula, who had stayed invisible under Molly’s T-shirt for so long, got the fidgets. She was roasting under there. She began to wriggle and push her face out. And at once the giant saw her.
    “WHAT IN NOT’S RAME IS THAT?” he boomed. He leaned forward, and his cranelike arm shot out and ripped Petula from her hiding place. “HOW DIDTHIS ANIMAL GET THROUGH THE NET, YACKZA?
YOU WANTED THIS LUMP OF MEAT AS A PET FOR YOURSELF, DIDN’T YOU, YOU STUPID MAN?”
    Held upside down by her back legs, Petula let out a yelp and started whining loudly. In the giant’s hands she looked more the size of a guinea pig than a dog. Molly’s first impulse was to scream, but she just managed to hold it in and transform her cry.
    “How DARE YOU!” she shouted angrily, slamming her glass down on the table. “Put her down at once. If you treat that dog badly, I certainly won’t help you.”
    This made the maharaja look up. He turned Petula the right way up and began to laugh.
    “Melp he… ha ha ha… Melp he? HA HA HA. I must say, HA, I never thought you would be such an amusement!” The giant grinned. His teeth were horrible. All stained orange. “I tell you what, my dear, why don’t we have a gittle lame?”
    “A game?”
    “Yes. This dog will be the stakes. What happens is this: I will show you the rudiments of trime tavel. And then you will go back in time and fetch something for me. If you manage to fetch the thing, well then the dog… I assume it is a dog, it’s so ugly—which end is its rear end?—then the dog lives. If you fail, the dog dies. Curried pug might become a delicacy born today!”

Eight
    M olly followed the giant maharaja past the still-cowering Zackya and through a tall, golden door. They ascended a