Molly Moon Stops the World (23 page)

Finally, at midday, feeling very constricted by their new bodies and clothes, Molly and Rocky climbed into a black, chauffeur-driven limousine, looking and trying to feel like Arabs.

They arrived at the guarded gates of Primo Cell’s mansion. Their car was smoothly ushered through.

Remembering the torture chamber beneath the house’s foundations made Molly feel sick. So instead she tried to think of Davina Nuttel, imprisoned somewhere within these walls, and of Davina’s joy when she was freed, if their plan worked. The steelbeast sculptures on the grounds glittered in the lunchtime sun, looking hungry and malevolent. She dreaded having to cross the cobbled courtyard on her platform shoes. Both she and Rocky had walking sticks, as if they were very old, but would these be enough to steady them?

“Cell’s going to see through this act,” Molly said frantically to Rocky. “I look like something out of the
Arabian Nights.
Maybe we should go home.”

“You look completely authentic,” Rocky assured her. “Now, let’s go.” His voice sounded muffled to Molly, because, like him, Molly had stuffed her ears full of wax, to make any verbal hypnotism that Cell might try powerless.

With her mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert and her hands clammy from nerves, Molly took a grip on her silver walking stick and carefully emerged from the car.

The entrance was very busy with other cars arriving and guests making their way toward the house. Through her veil, Molly saw that the place was teeming with guards—security had obviously been increased for these foreign VIPs. Her body seized up. Rocky had to prod her with his gold-plated cane to make her take a step forward.

The courtyard egg shot a burst of flame to welcome them. Even though Molly was expecting it, she lurched sideways.

Sinclair helped his old Arabs down the front stairs. Then, using their age as an excuse, he led them through the marble hall, where the delegates were gathering, and straight to Primo Cell’s conference room. This way they avoided any conversations with other guests or, worse still, with Primo himself. They passed a display showing the strength of Cell’s biggest businesses: Primospeed, the car manufacturer, Compucell computers, One Cell Medicine, Cell Oil. Huge photographs illustrated his most famous brands: Honey Wheat Pufftas, Timezze watches, Bubblealot, Heaven Bars, In the Groove deodorant, Sumpshus toilet paper, Mightie Lightie diet bars, Fashion House. The picture that made Molly
the most nervous was of Shlick Shlack knives.

In an empty galleried room, a huge table was laid with twenty-eight places. Each setting had a glass, a bottle of mineral water in a silver holder, a cut-glass bowl of ice, and a few wrapped chocolates. Sinclair led Molly and Rocky to the side of the room where name cards for Sheikh Yalaweet and Sheikha Yalaweet were placed halfway down the table.

“Okay,” said Sinclair quietly. “I’ll leave you now. I’ll start ushering the guests and their translators in. When everyone is gathered, Primo will make his entrance. Molly, I’ve put you next to him, on his left. He usually starts with the people opposite him, and then works his way clockwise round the table, until he gets to the person on his immediate right. Then he’ll turn to you. Good luck and see you later.”

Molly sat down, her legs quivering and her heart beating fast. On the table in front of her was Cell’s speech transcribed into Arabic. Molly picked up the paper and pretended to read.

Sitting on cushions that Sinclair had put on their chairs, Molly and Rocky looked convincingly big, especially when two very small Filipino men sat down on the other side of Primo Cell’s place. The Filipinos were very jolly. They chatted excitedly, opening their chocolates. They introduced themselves to Molly, who
nodded, leaned toward them, shook their hands, and mumbled,
“Sabah alkheir,”
in what she hoped was an Arabic accent. Then she fiddled with her veil and prayed that they wouldn’t want to talk to her.

Molly peered out through the slit in her
niqab
and watched the room fill up. An elegant Indian woman dressed in a red-and-orange sari arrived with her dark-green-suited partner. Then a Japanese couple sat down. The lady was in a specially creased yellow designer outfit and a peculiar corrugated triangular hat. More and more guests took their seats. Molly had never seen such an array of different-colored skins, or clothes of such colorful variety.

Molly sat quietly, head down, pretending to read, but the writing danced sickeningly in front of her eyes. She tried to relax herself by meditating, but the tense situation was too distracting.

Soon twenty-five businesspeople had taken their places round the great table. The room hummed. Everyone felt enormously privileged and flattered to have been invited to the president elect’s own home. They all hoped that their companies were about to receive big contracts from the future president of the United States and that they were going to make lots and lots of money.

All at once there was a loud
cling cling,
as Sinclair hit
the side of a glass with a coffee spoon.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called, hushing the excited conversation. “Please welcome the future president, Mr. Primo Cell.”

With great aplomb, Primo strode into the room. He smiled, nodded at his guests, and saluted everyone.

He was wearing a black-and-white striped suit, and there was a fiery confidence in his eyes. He looked immaculately poised and calm, but Molly sensed the raging greed that lay beneath the surface of this act.

“Welcome to you all,” Cell began. “Good morning!
Bonjour! Hola! Sabah alkheir! Buon giorno!
Hi!
Konnichiwa! Marhaban!
Thank you for traveling thousands of miles to be here today. I am extremely grateful. It is wonderful to see so many nations of the world represented, and I am glad that, as president elect, I can now ensure that America will work with your enterprises.”

The translators around the table relayed his words to the guests, who murmured approval and listened intently as Cell continued.

“In business, it is essential that you trust the person you are dealing with. If you look into my eyes, I hope you will see that I am someone you can trust.”

Molly was amazed at how quickly Cell was operating. Every person in the room politely and obediently turned their eyes toward him.

“Yes,” continued Cell in his beautifully modulated, velvet voice. “If you—look—into my eyes—you will see—that you can trust me—en—tire—ly.”

And as he talked, he began to hypnotize the company. The wax in both Molly and Rocky’s ears muffled his voice. Both sat motionless, concentrating very hard on not listening. Molly sang the words of the magpie song loudly in her head.

Now Molly could feel the fusion feeling rising all around her as Primo Cell, the supreme master of hypnotism, went systematically around the table overpowering every single person. As Sinclair had said he would, Cell had started on the guests opposite him. Now he was working on those to his right. He was knocking them down like tenpins.

Molly’s moment was nearly upon her. She tried to breathe in the yogic way that Forest had taught her, in one nostril and out through the other. But calm was impossible when her heart thumped like the hind leg of a kicking, terrified rabbit. She raised her head at
exactly the right angle to look into Primo Cell’s eyes. In a few seconds, he would turn his attention from the Filipino to his right, and face her.

In her hand Molly held a coin-sized plastic counter. It was attached to a thin wire that led up her sleeve and under her veil. Now she pressed its button. A small, concave mirrored plate, perfectly crafted by Forest—which had been held in position under her
niqab
veil—slid down like a little curved door and filled the gap in front of her eyes. The mirror was two-way. Molly could see a black-and-white Cell through it. She would wait until the moment he turned and looked straight at her. Then she would snap her eyes tight shut.

Primo Cell felt supremely confident. As he’d expected, the collection of hopeful entrepreneurs in the room were all dolts. There were just a few more to go. The sheikh and sheikha Yalaweet were next. Primo tilted his head toward the sheikha. It was unusual for an Arab woman to be involved with her husband’s business. Perhaps she was especially good at making decisions. He would give her an especially seductive hypnotic look, one that she wouldn’t be able to peel herself away from. Primo locked his eyes onto hers.

Her eyes shone out from the slit in her veil, and to his surprise, he saw they were like his own in color.
One was turquoise, the other brown. Cell thought how rare and attractive the combination was.

“It is important to
trust
those you do business with,” he insisted smoothly, smiling. Her eyes smiled back at him. Cell flinched in surprise. Was she resisting him?

Primo Cell calmly and slowly repeated the few Arabic words that he knew.

“Marha—ban dikoum.”
Through the wax in Molly’s ears, the words sounded muffled and like a spell.

It was time, Cell decided, to give this Sheikha Yalaweet a final annihilating blast. So, with a force of violent energy summoned from deep within him, he lasered a beam of hugely destructive eye power straight into the woman’s eyes.

It happened in a second.

The bullet of his look hit Molly’s mirrored visor and ricocheted back.

Primo Cell’s head swung sideways as if he’d just been punched by King Moose. With a blow of his own making, Cell knocked himself out. He was left staring at a glass of water on the table.

Molly raised the mirrored plate inside her veil.

“You did it,” breathed Rocky, hardly able to believe what he was seeing.

To Molly’s left three other guests and their translator looked concernedly at the president elect. Sinclair
quickly dealt with them. Now everyone in the room sat staring glassy-eyed at Cell, who continued to gaze blankly at the tumbler of water in front of him. Sinclair edged toward Cell, fascinated—as if he was observing a sleeping tiger.

“It worked,” he said, astounded. “I’ve always wanted to see Primo hypnotized, and you’ve done it.”

“He did it to himself, really,” said Molly, pulling the hot veil, the
niqab,
and the mirrored contraption from her head. “And it was Rocky’s brilliant idea and Forest’s expert craftsmanship.” She looked at Cell with satisfaction. “But we’d better not waste time. He might come around.”

Molly and Rocky kicked off their platform shoes, and Rocky thankfully peeled off his nose and his headwear. Sinclair threw them a knapsack with their sneakers in it. Then he quickly programmed the translators, so that they could make up stories to tell to the foreign businesspeople, giving everyone a clear idea about what had happened over lunch. He told them that he and Primo had left for a long weekend in the mountains and that they would all come out of their trances in an hour.

Molly approached Primo.

“I’m going to get his crystal,” she said, pulling up a chair to stand on.

Primo stood, immobile as a waxwork. But unlike a manmade sculpture, he was breathing. Molly carefully unclipped the platinum chain, pulled the whole necklace from out of his shirt, and placed it around her own neck. It felt very at home there.

“Okay, time to stop the world,” she said, putting her hand on Rocky’s shoulder. “Are you ready?” He nodded. Then, concentrating on a cut-glass water pitcher, Molly rapidly breathed the cold fusion feeling into herself, and like a practiced professional, she effortlessly stopped time. Instantly, everyone around the table, including Cell, became as still as doorstops.

Sinclair smiled. “All those times Primo’s done this to other people. I bet he never expected it would happen to him. I hope I can do this without releasing him from the freeze.” He tipped Cell backward and caught him under his arms. “Oooof. He weighs a ton.”

With difficulty, he began to drag him out of the dining room, concentrating hard on
not
transmitting any cold fusion down his arms into Cell so he would stay frozen. It was very difficult.

“You okay, Molly? Think you can keep it up till we get out of here?”

Molly nodded. As far as she could see, Sinclair was the one who might have problems. Sinclair heaved the president elect through the marble hall. As he thudded
up the oak stairs like a dressmaker’s dummy, his suede loafer came off. Molly, keeping a firm grip on Rocky, picked it up. She looked up to the top floors of the house and imagined Davina Nuttel sitting by herself somewhere there. They couldn’t rescue her now—they didn’t have time. But if all went according to plan, Davina would soon be free.

Sinclair dragged Cell across the courtyard, where a solid flame hung over the giant egg. They reached the Aston Martin, and Sinclair struggled to manhandle Cell into the backseat. Molly and Rocky climbed in next. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Sinclair jumped quickly into the front and, with a screech, accelerated around the bend of the gravel drive.

Minutes later, they were tearing along Sunset Strip, weaving through the frozen traffic. Where there was a jam, they drove on the hard shoulder or on the sidewalk and shot straight through any red lights. Molly was beginning to shiver with the effort of holding time still.

Suddenly Sinclair pulled over and stopped the car. Molly released the time stop, and the cars on the street were in full motion again. Primo Cell grunted but remained in a trance.

“Was it my imagination or did you feel that too?” Sinclair said quietly.

“What?” said Rocky. “An earth tremor?”

Molly looked nervously out of the window. “It came from the sky.”

“It was a way off, but it felt like it was coming closer,” Sinclair agreed.

“I didn’t feel anything,” said Rocky.

“Someone was resisting the freeze,” explained Molly.

“Aliens?”

Molly felt herself paling. Never in her life had she considered that aliens might really exist, but these days, she’d learned that anything was possible.