Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure (23 page)

Later that evening, as the puppy gnawed on a bone, Molly began chewing on a tough and chewy, bitter-tasting stick. A tray of decanters containing dark liquids lay beside her.

The little Molly was put to bed and Ojas settled down in the room he was sharing with Rocky. He was mesmerized by the television. Rocky left him sitting wide-eyed watching a colorful Bollywood movie. Molly meanwhile was given a very intense yoga lesson from Forest. Rocky laughed as Forest twisted and prodded
Molly’s body into circuslike contortions.

“You’ll be glad you did this,” Forest said as Molly stood on her head with her legs crossed. “This combination of treatments always works. It flushes everything out. So tomorrow you won’t have that trackin’ pip inside you. Just make sure that in the morning you can get to the bathroom quick.”

“Great. Thanks,” Molly said as her stomach gurgled. “I hope you’re right.”

That night, with a fan blowing in the room, Molly slept badly. She tossed and turned as her whirling mind tackled the problems she faced.

She dreamed she’d turned into a bent old woman, scaly and dry from time travel. In the dream she was trudging through a muddy wood, following a trail of children’s footprints. There were paw-prints alongside them and yeti-sized tracks led the way. In the nightmare, Molly was led deeper and deeper into the forest. As she walked the trees about her became thicker and thicker until the wood was pitch dark and she could no longer see the ground. And then the mud began to gurgle and move and swallow her up. As she sank down into it she saw the green, scarred crystal disappearing into slime.

Molly woke up, frightened and shivering and terrified that she had lost the scarred stone. She got up
and found it at once, lying in the golden bowl on the table. Relieved, but still reeling from the nightmare, she picked it up and went to get a drink of water. In the mirrored bathroom she switched on the light and stared at her reflection. It looked as though a Bollywood makeup artist had started work on her face, covering her cheeks in scales, and then had gone for a tea break. But her face hardly bothered her now. She’d sacrifice her whole body to scales if the reward was getting Petula and her younger selves back. And that, she realized, was the price she might have to pay.

Molly went back to bed, putting the scarred stone under her pillow with her clear crystal. In the darkness she thought again about why Waqt wanted to adopt her baby self and not an older Molly. She thought again of her mother, Lucy, and how she’d seemed so gloomy and disappointed in Molly.

Feeling sad and useless, Molly slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

At seven o’clock, her stomach woke her up.

She had a terrible cramp. It felt as if there were monsters inside her, gripping and pinching her intestines. She flew out of bed and spent the next hour in the bathroom.

“I’ll get you, Forest!” she shouted from in there.

However, by the time she came out, she felt fantastic. And the purple capsule was now gone. Flushed away, shooting down the sewage pipes of Jaipur.

Forest had not fared so well. After a dawn shower, he’d forgotten to shut his bathroom door. As a result, while he’d been off at the yoga platform, saluting the rising sun, monkeys had let themselves into his bedroom. When he got back, his room looked as if a bomb planted on his breakfast tray had exploded. Food was everywhere. The monkeys hadn’t
quietly
helped themselves to the breakfast—they’d decided to play catch with it or something, because the windows were splattered with green curry, and three fried eggs were stuck to the ceiling. And the ten different fruit juices that Forest had lavishly ordered now dripped down the walls and dribbled through the canopy of the four-poster bed. Pillows had been ripped apart so that feathers floated about, and the books in the room had been torn up. The bathroom was even more of a disaster. The monkeys had helped themselves to toothpaste and bubble bath, and the floor was all wet and slippery from their splashing around in the toilet, which was now blocked with two rolls of paper. A third roll had been unraveled and was draped around the place. But Forest’s biggest grievance was that the monkeys had popped every
single one of his super-duper, specially designed, will-make-you-feel-relaxed pills out of their packet and eaten them.

“Man, those were my herbal remedies, specially prescribed for me by my pressure-point therapist,” he moaned.

Outside the cottages things were equally chaotic. Amrit, who was hobbled for the night, tied to the hundred-year-old frangipani tree, had pulled it up from where it was growing beside a wall, and so released herself. The ancient plant lay prostrate and dying on the lawn. Then the elephant had waded into the swimming pool, where she now sat squirting water, happy as could be. Nearby, under parasols, aping the lazy humans they so often saw sunbathing, four brown monkeys sprawled on lounges, soaking up the sun.

Amazingly enough the hotel staff did not seem very bothered by the turn of events. Despite their signs, monkeys often came into the bedrooms. They found Amrit’s paddle really funny and kept saying what good luck the hotel would now have. They apologized for suggesting Ojas should tie her to the old frangipani tree, insisting that it was their fault. They decided to let the monkeys move on in their own time, as no one wanted to risk getting bitten.

Rocky had slept well. He’d gone to sleep wondering
why his skin wasn’t affected by time travel, but in the morning he’d realized that maybe it was. The area behind his knees was very dry and flaky. The effects of time travel certainly weren’t as bad for him as they were for Molly. Maybe it was because
she
was actually
making
the time travel happen, while he was only going along for the ride. Mulling on these thoughts, he finished his breakfast and went to the hotel reception to pay their bill. As he crossed the lawn, the large wad of bank notes in his pocket bumped against his leg. Rocky intended to make sure the hotel wasn’t out of pocket from all the damage that Amrit and Forest had caused.

In the hotel foyer, the Japanese tourists were also leaving. They stood by the desk with their wallets out, so for the moment the cashier was busy. Rocky cast his eyes around the room, admiring the splendid domed ceiling. Then his gaze fell upon the antique book that the other guests had been looking at the evening before. Approaching the glass table it lay on, he noticed how battered and charred it was. A label beside it read:

Rocky gently tipped the cover open. Inside, the first entry was September 1862. There was a signature in black ink. Rocky turned. The next page held three entries, added in October 1862. At once Rocky wondered about 1870. He wondered if the true Maharaja of Jaipur or the fallen Maharaja of the Red Fort, had ever stayed here, and he delicately leafed through the book through 1863, 1865, 1867, 1868… Among the signatures of foreigners and local dignitaries he saw no names that he knew. Eventually he came to entries for the year 1870. January, February, and then March. Suddenly, there on the yellowing page, in a great curling scrawl, was written:

The bottom of the page was charred, and so the rest of the sentence was a mystery. But it was enough for Rocky. Quickly he scanned the rest of the book to check whether Waqt had returned, which he hadn’t. Then, seeing the counter empty, Rocky bounced over
to the receptionist and paid the bill.

Ojas was down by the pool, coaxing Amrit out with a large bunch of bananas. Molly sat down on the grass and watched as Amrit waded out and greedily stuffed the sixty small bananas into her mouth, skin and all. Some, half munched, spilled out onto the ground. Then she playfully knocked the puppy Petula with her trunk. Molly pulled the scarred green crystal out of her pocket and turned it over in her hand.

“Can’t we stay here?” little Molly asked, as Forest and Rocky held her hands and led her toward Amrit. Molly knew how she felt, for this was the loveliest place the young Molly had ever been.

Rocky tapped her on the shoulder. “Guess what!” he said.

Molly smiled. “Um, Zackya’s been shrunk to the size of a cockroach and he’s tap dancing in the hotel kitchen?”

“I’ve found out something really useful!” As soon as Rocky said this, everyone was listening. “There’s an old visitors’ book in the hotel!” He told them about the entries and then about Waqt’s particular addition. “He says that time is flying and the crystal fountains are flowing.”

“What does that mean?” asked Molly.

“Don’t ask me. But, listen to this. He says he’s been to Jaipur and he’s going to Agra and Udaipur and then he’s going on a boat somewhere, but that bit was burned off. Then he mentions months. March, July, August, November. He
was
in Jaipur in March, so maybe he’s in Agra in July, Udaipur in August, and wherever he’s going to on a boat in November!”

“Amazin’,” said Forest, “You know, Agra is really close to here. Why don’t we just go there, zing back to July 1870, and
ambush
him!”

“Or go back to March 1870 and ambush him right here in the Bobenoi Palace,” suggested Rocky.

“Do you think the entry in the book is a trick?” asked Molly.

“Put it like this,” considered Rocky. “We’ve got no other leads. If he wrote in that book without knowing that we’d find it, then we really are one step ahead of him, because we now know where he’s going.”

“Pukka!”
exclaimed Ojas, and he began performing a small
puja
prayer ceremony in preparation for their trip.

Then he led Amrit over to a quiet glade. There, with great effort, he, Forest, and Rocky tied the howdah onto her back. Soon everyone was sitting in it. Before the hotel staff noticed them, Molly shut her eyes.

“Good luck,” said Rocky.

“So, March 1870, you think?”

“Yes.”

“Hang on tight, everyone,” Molly said. She held the muddy gem lightly and took herself into a trance. She was really nervous, as it was critical that she land in roughly the same time as her younger selves. If she shot back a hundred years too far, that was it. They were doomed. Trying not to think of this, she concentrated on the scarred crystal. At once she heard a BOOM and felt them lift. They were off, whizzing backward through time. The seasons rushed past. Rain, sun, storms, and winds were momentary flashes. Backward through the elements they flew. But the travel wasn’t like before. Molly didn’t feel as in control. It was as if the crystals she’d used before were high-tech versions and this one in comparison was rusty and broken. Their movements were jerky. They’d go at only five years a second then they’d suddenly cover
fifty
years in a second. The crystal wasn’t in proper working order. But it was at least taking them back.

Molly tried to gauge when to stop, but this crystal moved so erratically that she didn’t feel confident of where they were. She looked at the dirty stone and decided it was muddy because it was broken.

Waqt lay back on his bed, his hands behind his head. A pile of red, green, and clear crystals lay on the quilt beside him. For him these were the best treasure in the world. And he felt good—better than he’d felt for years.

His recent crystal-fountain ceremonies had been excellent. At Jaipur and Agra
and
Udaipur, the crystals had flowed from the earth. They’d burst through the rocks, glistening like pomegranate seeds, drawn by the baby Molly Moon. She was the perfect magnet for them. Even the older Mollys seemed to draw the crystals sometimes. He had high hopes for the ceremony in Benares in November—surely the crystal harvest coinciding with Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, would be auspicious.

On top of this, he’d enjoyed playing his game with the older Molly Moon. It had actually been fun leaving clues for her. Fun! As much fun as hunting! He wondered how many of the clues she would find.

He’d graffitied trees, he’d had flower beds planted so that the shrubs spelled out words. Flags had been made with his whereabouts embroidered on them. He’d even sent some twenty-fifth-century devices over the cities at night, lighting up the dark skies with sentences that told exactly where he was. He’d let the three-year-old Molly remember things. And yet the
eleven-year-old hadn’t yet turned up. He could always send Zackya with his machine to track her, of course, but that would spoil the game.