Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure (11 page)

Six men came in with an assortment of apparatus. One placed a Chinese abacus at the side of the room, others set up a low table and put a large pad of heavy paper on it as well as a long black box and some big paintbrushes.

The maharaja sat down cross-legged by the table and bid Molly sit, too. Nervously she obeyed, deciding that if this was a dream she might as well go along with it.

Waqt picked up a paintbrush and opened the box. Inside was a pot of water and a block of dry black ink.

“The art of Chinese painting,” he said, wetting his brush and dabbing it on the block to absorb ink, “is something that comes naturally to people with artistic talent.” With a flourish and with a swishing left and right of his brush, he painted the outline of a scene—craggy
mountains and a stormy sky, with a spiky pine tree and a wolf in the foreground. “I have always had the raw talent. I refined it with years of practice in China. Now it is your turn to show me your talent.”

The ten-year-old Molly felt a knot in her stomach. She hated being tested. She knew she wasn’t talented at anything.

“I am not good at art.”

“Oh, pick up the blasted brush,” said Waqt.

Molly leaned forward and tremulously began a picture. She tried to paint a mountain, but it just looked like a lump. Her sun looked like a tennis ball, and her pine tree was like a Christmas tree that a small child had drawn. Instead of a wolf, she painted a stick person.

“Oh!” sighed Waqt disgustedly. “I see the baby won’t have artistic talent.” Then he shouted, “WRITE THAT DOWN, YACKZA.”

Next they moved to the abacus. Here, Waqt tested the ten-year-old Molly’s mathematical skills. Molly wasn’t very good at sums, and because she’d never used an abacus before, it made everything worse. She fumbled with the beads.

“USELESS AT MATHS!” bellowed Waqt. “Write that down, Yackza.”

And so the testing continued. A sitar player was
ushered in to try to teach Molly to play on the stringed instrument, but she could hardly play one note correctly. An Indian dancer was called in to give her a lesson. Molly’s attempts at being graceful were disastrous, and Waqt cut her short.

“USELESS!” he exclaimed.

Finally he clapped his hands and two men placed a large, embroidered sack full of colored crystals in front of Molly.

“Do you feel anything for these stycrals?” asked the giant. “You may touch them if you wish.”

Out of breath, Molly picked up a scarred red crystal. “Very nice,” she said, nervously replacing it.

“Is that all you feel for them?” Molly shrugged a yes. “Write that down, Yackza. Before she learns to hypnotize, the stycrals mean nothing to her.” Then he asked, “Is trime tavel something you have ever thought about?”

Molly frowned at the man in front of her and suddenly felt very antagonistic toward him. Who was he to quiz her like this? Angrily, she replied,
“Why
should I tell you what I have thought about or not thought about? I don’t know you.”

“Hmm. Spirited and cautious. Got that, Yackza?” Then he turned to Molly. He bent toward her, expectant of her answer. “You may be a fiery one, but I still
want to know—is time travel something you’ve ever thought about?” He was so close, she could see residues of makeup that he wore to disguise his walrus skin.

“I think…” Molly racked her brains for what to say. She didn’t want to say this man was mad, she didn’t want to say how frightened she was. She found herself thinking of her friend Rocky and wishing he were with her. She wanted to say that if he was here he’d know what to say. And then, the words of a song he’d once made up sang through her head and, echoing them, the ten-year-old Molly said, “I think… there’s no time like the present.”

The giant squinted at her and smirked. “HA! Poetic. At last, some talent. Write that down, Yackza.” Then he clicked his fingers and Molly was hypnotized. A memory of Rocky’s voice gently rang in her head.

The
eleven
-year-old Molly opened her eyes to check that the others were with her. They were traveling forward
in time. Rocky to her right, with his eyes shut, while Forest’s eyes bulged with pleasure and his mouth glooped open like a surprised goldfish as he watched the swirling colors around him. Zackya’s guards didn’t seem to be chasing them. Molly relaxed and she wondered what they should do next. She decided that stopping for a while at some point in the future would be good, as that would give them time to formulate a plan.

She let her invisible measuring antennae become her leaders, and she judged what she felt might be a hundred years in the future. Then she made them stop.

The sun had moved across the sky. It was a hot morning. The Red Fort’s walls cast short shadows. The garden about them was no longer finely kept and populated with peacocks. Instead, it was dried out, and brown municipal park benches were positioned along its walls. A small Indian child in red dungarees, who was standing with his parents, pointed at Molly and her friends and began to shout.

“Mama. Those people and that dog came from nowhere! Maaaammmmma!”

“Yes, yes,” said his father as he turned around. He patted the boy fondly on the head and laughed as if marveling at his son’s imagination.

“And look at her big diamond, Daddy.”

“This is so cool!” said Forest. “Next time, we could go back and meet the ancient yogis of India!”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Molly, removing her crystal from around her neck and putting it in her pocket. Rocky gave her Petula. “Remember, Zackya is a time traveler, too. And there’s something I didn’t tell you about. When I was hypnotized he made me swallow this metallic purple pill thing. It’s still in my tummy. Zackya’s got this special machine that can locate his purple pills—a tracking device. He isn’t that good with it, but he’s not completely useless. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s following us right now. The machine can tell him what time we’re in.”

“Does it show him exactly what street you’re on, too?” Rocky asked. Molly shrugged and wiped her hair from her eyes. It was swelteringly hot.

“There’s a whole load of stuff I did back there,” she said hurriedly. “I stopped the world. Zackya told me all these things about Waqt and that hypnotized man. He’s Waqt’s
brother
and, oh, there’s another thing. Time travel makes you age!”

“Whoa, it’s the time travel making you wrinkly.”

“Don’t say it as if I’ve won the lottery, Forest!” said Molly. “I don’t want to start looking like an old woman!”

“Shh.” Rocky eyed Molly’s cheek. “I’m sure it doesn’t happen that quickly. I expect Zackya and Waqt have
been time traveling for years.”

“Around China,” agreed Molly.

“You’re only going to pop about in time a bit,” said Rocky optimistically, “so it shouldn’t get worse. At the moment it’s only by your ear and it doesn’t really show.”

Molly eyed the Red Fort. It was now a fully fledged tourist attraction, with stallholders outside the gates selling balloons, postcards, souvenirs, drinks,
batasha
—cotton candy, nuts, and sweets. She was a little at a loss as to what they should do next. But she did know that they ought to at least get away from the fort.

“I’ll tell you more about what Zackya told me in a minute. First, let’s move.”

And so they walked on. To the side of the road two cows stood minding their own business.

“Cows are allowed to wander around freely here,” Forest pointed out as Molly and Rocky led him quickly away from the gates, past the curvaceous white Ambassador taxis that were waiting for customers. “Hindu Indians consider cows holy. Their owners let them meander about and then bring ’em food. Everyone loves cows. On the whole, they don’t eat ’em here.”

“The best thing we can do is get lost in a crowd,” said Rocky, ignoring Forest and tugging at Molly’s sleeve. “Let’s go over there to where it looks like the shops are. The more people around us, the safer we’ll be from Zackya.”

They hurried under an arch where a sign proclaimed “Chandni Chowk. Old Delhi.” Here the crowds thickened and the wide streets were as busy as the inside of a beehive. There were swarms of rickshaws and hordes of carts pulled by strong men. These carts were piled high with things to sell—like firewood, or water canisters, or scrap metal.

People stared at Molly and Rocky in their Western clothes. Even though it was modern India (Molly wasn’t sure what year), the clothes that people wore here in Old Delhi were anything but modern. Some men were in
lungis
—baggy, wrap-around shorts made from a simple piece of material, a few were in plain trousers and shirts. Others wore long sarongs. The women all wore saris or
salwar kameez
—a long dress with trousers underneath. A rickshaw man pedaled three children in ill-fitting uniforms, ringing his bell as he passed by. His young passengers pointed at Petula and then giggled madly at Forest.

“This is making me feel really nervous,” Molly moaned. “If Zackya
does
chase us to this time, he’ll easily be able to track us down as so many people are noticing us.”

Just then there was a scream from the street behind them, a scream followed by shouting and a low, baying noise.

“M
ove!” Forest cried. He pushed Molly and Rocky backward until they were wedged up against a shop wall covered with tin saucepans. In front of them, the crowd surged away from the center of the street where the baying noises were multiplying and becoming louder.

“Is it Waqt?” Molly asked Forest. “Shouldn’t we run? I’ve got that purple pill inside me. He’ll track us down here.”

“It’s not Waqt. Stand on that ledge. Look!” Molly and Rocky, clinging onto Petula, stepped up. In front of them was a sea of heads and, like water magically parting, the crowd made a long clearing. Six black cows were running down this gap, causing mayhem. They’d already knocked over two rickshaws
and a stall selling fruit. They seemed to be dangerously stampeding, but not out of malice; they were frightened—something farther up the street had scared them. Men tried to calm them. One managed to flap a sheet in front of the mooing leader and so divert her down an alley. The others followed her. And, as quickly as it had been stirred up, the busy, scruffy street returned to its normal state.

“Man, that’s India for ya!” Forest exclaimed. “You wouldn’t get a sight like that in an American or European city. Cows stampeding the shopping district! That’s action for you. I love those holy cows.”

Zackya stood at the entrance to the Chandni Chowk. He’d been given permission to leave the maharaja and so was now intent on catching up with Molly Moon. He had to lock the escapees up again before Waqt realized they’d gone, but he was having problems. The hypnotized guards he’d brought with him from the 1870s had already caused trouble. Their swords and old-fashioned attire had frightened some tourists. Two screaming women had frightened a group of cows that had in turn taken off and galloped into the busy market streets. Now, a fearless old Indian woman was lecturing him, her hands on her hips, and this was making it impossible to read his silver tracking device.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, upsetting the holy cows like that,” she heckled him, in Hindi. “Just look at the trouble you and your band have caused. Look at the crowds. People could get hurt.” As she waggled her finger, Zackya looked up. He gave her a filthy hypnotic stare.

“Wapplyglupglup glaap,” the woman said, still wagging her finger, and fell silent.

Zackya turned away and concentrated on his silver box. It refused to work properly. It was showing that the girl, Molly, was in this time, but when he asked it in what direction she was to be found, the gadget merely blinked at him. He switched it off and called his guards over.

The cool alleyways of Chandni Chowk were much more peaceful than the streets. Forest led Molly and Rocky through an alley only wide enough to let one rickshaw along it at a time. The crumbling walls of dilapidated three-story buildings rose up on either side of them. Black electricity wires swirled above in a spaghetti-like tangle. They echoed Molly’s feelings. For she was very confused and muddled as to what to do next.

“Shouldn’t we go back now?” she suggested.

“What, in these clothes?” said Rocky. “We’ll stick out like aliens. Before we go back to Waqt’s time we should get some Indian outfits.”

They glanced along the alley. On either side of it, every available space was a narrow shop. Molly had never seen such narrow shops! They were often only the width of a person sitting down with their legs stretched out. Some shops were wider with lovely padded-cloth floors. And shoppers took their shoes off before going in.

“That’s real sensible,” said Forest, smiling. “No floors to clean. Hey, isn’t India cool!”

“Do you think we’ll find a clothes shop?” Molly asked as they passed one that sold costume jewelry and red and gold scarves.

“Sure, just keep walkin’ and you bet we will.”

And so they continued up the alley. Petula stayed close to Molly. As they walked, Molly told the others what she’d learned about Waqt’s past.

“Sad guy,” said Forest.

“Mad guy, you mean,” said Rocky. Then he stopped. “Wow, what’s that? Smells like sugar and doughnuts!” Molly walked nervously on, but Rocky hovered at a bakery shop where trays of pastry shapes were laid out under white mesh.

Beside the biscuits was a large silver pot in which was a white milky liquid. In the center of this pot floated a slimmer pot with ice in it, keeping the milky substance around it cold. At the other end of the counter was a miniature wood-burning stove with a copper vat on top.
A lilac-shirted shopkeeper watched Rocky and smiled.

“We don’t have much electricity here in Old Delhi,” he explained. “So that’s how we keep liquids cool and fresh. And we use old-fashioned fire to cook with. Have you ever eaten Indian sweets?” Rocky shook his head.

“You speak very good English,” he observed.