Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure (33 page)
Read Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure Online
Authors: Georgia Byng
“It is a present for you,” said Ojas. “For you to wear. Next week it has to go back to its rightful owner, but until then, you can make the most of it.” He gave Molly a cheeky smile.
“Oh, thank you, Ojas,” said Lucy, slipping it onto her wrist and finding it much too big. “It must have belonged to a very large woman!”
Everyone laughed.
“Oh no, Lucy, it is not for your arm. You must wear it around your ankle!”
Primo handed Ojas his padded coat.
“Why don’t we go and see whether Amrit likes her new home?” he said, grinning broadly.
And so, reunited, everyone set off across the lawn to the swimming pool.
“You must have had some amazing adventures,” Primo said, fondly patting Molly’s and Rocky’s shoulders as they walked. “We’ve been worried sick ever since you all disappeared. When you’ve had some food and sleep I’ll be extremely interested to hear what happened and to find out how time travel works.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” Molly said, smiling up at him.
Amrit walked along, her great bottom swinging as she plodded after Ojas.
“I must say,” said Primo, “now Amrit is here, I realize that what this place
really
needed was an elephant! A
house is always best filled with children and elephants!”
“And funny grown-ups,” said Rocky, smiling as Forest did a cartwheel on the lawn. Petula rushed past them.
“And pets!” added Molly. “Especially Petula-shaped ones!” She crouched down to retie her damp shoelaces. “I’ll catch up with you,” she said.
The ground in front of her was wet with dew and covered with footprints: Amrit’s, Ojas’s, Rocky’s, Primo’s, and Petula’s. Molly glanced back at her own.
The past was made up of the prints and impressions of life, Molly thought. She wondered where life was leading her now. She’d intended to start a hypnotic hospital, but yet again it looked like her plans were to be interrupted. Now she had to find her twin brother. Half of her wasn’t sure if she wanted a brother; the other half had a burning desire to meet him.
Ahead, Rocky whistled. The tune was from a song he’d once made up. Molly knew its words well, and now they sang in her head:
There’s no time like the present,
No present like time.
And life can be over in the space of a rhyme.
There’s no gift like friendship
And no love like mine.
Give me your love to treasure through time.
Molly smiled. She loved her friends and her life, too. From now on, whether she was at the beginning of time or the end of time or slap-bang in the middle of it, she would make the most of every moment.
Meanwhile, a couple of thousand miles away, on the outskirts of Jaipur, on a piece of land that served as a sewage pit, a huge worm slithered through the slime. An equally slippery character picked his way across the sludge.
Zackya’s silver tracking device was switched on. He put his scarf to his nose and tried to ignore the sulfurous stench in the air.
“I’ll find her, wherever she is,” he muttered dumbly, bringing his bleeping machine down to the stinking mud. The brown water squelched between his toes. “I KNOW YOU’RE DOWN THERE, MOLLY MOON!” he shouted madly. “I CAN HELP YOU!”
Throwing the silver gadget onto the bank, he began to scoop up the filth with his bare hands.
All night he dug, and the moon and stars came out to watch him. At the bottom of the muck, a battered purple metal pip sent out its last signal. Then it switched itself off and began to rust.
Georgia Byng
grew up by the River Itchen in Hampshire, England, in a large family. After leaving school, she studied drama and worked as an actor and children’s entertainer. She lives in London with the artist Marc Quinn, her beautiful, funny daughter, Tiger, and a chatterbox called Lucas. This is her third novel.
Visit her online at
www.meetmollymoon.com
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Georgia Byng
Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism
Molly Moon Stops the World
Molly Moon’s Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure
Copyright © 2005 by Georgia Byng
Map copyright © 2005 by Fred Van Deelen
Molly Moon logo design by Andrew Biscomb
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EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03406-9
Version 09282012
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Byng, Georgia.
Molly Moon’s hypnotic time travel adventure / Georgia Byng.— 1st American edition.
p. cm.
Summary: Molly Moon, reunited with her parents, is hypnotized by a mysterious turbaned gardener and eventually transported to India, where she meets not only a maharajah with a speech defect but also former versions of herself.
ISBN-10: 0-06-075034-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-075034-3
[1. Hypnotism—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. India—History—Fiction.]
| PZ7.B9887 Mnu 2005 | 2005014559 |
| [Fic]—dc22 | CIP |
| | AC |
First Harper Trophy Edition, 2006
First American edition, 2005
First published in Britain by
Macmillan Children’s Books, 2005
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