For a few moments Molly lay exhausted on the grass. The pain in the bridge of her nose was so intense that for a while she could think of nothing else. Molly couldn’t help crying. It had been the worse thing ever to fight like that with Rocky. Silver sat quietly on her head.
Then the throbbing in Molly’s nose ebbed, and the blood in it clotted. Molly dried her eyes. Her face, she knew, was a tear-smeared mess of bruises, blood, and earth.
“Thank you, Silver,” she whispered, catching her breath. Then she gave a shiver and looked about her at the frozen world. She glanced over to Rocky. His face was overcast with a vicious expression.
Molly knew that to hypnotize him she would have to bring her eyes directly into his line of vision. She would have to touch him to send movement into him and, while the rest of the world was frozen, zap him with her eyes. And it had to work the first time, or the monster Rocky would be back.
The problem was that Rocky had originally been hypnotized by Micky and that hypnosis had been locked in. Molly cast her mind back to the picture that had bobbed over Micky’s head when she’d asked him what his hypnotic password was. She’d seen a white meringue pudding on a dish. Was meringue the password? She could only find out by trying.
First Molly checked her eyes. Luckily Rocky hadn’t managed to hit her there. Nothing was blurry—in fact, she could see well. So she summoned up a really powerful beam of hypnotism. It buzzed behind her eyeballs, making her sore nose tingle. Then Molly crawled over to Rocky and, looking straight at him, touched his shoulder. He came to life at once. Her eyes blazing, Molly let him have it, and in an instant Rocky was stunned.
“Now, Rocky,” Molly said, “you are no longer under Micky’s power. I unlock you with the password meringue.” Rocky stared straight ahead as though he didn’t understand. “Blast, it’s not working,” Molly muttered. Then she tried again. “With the password, baked Alaska. Still Rocky was unmoved. “With meringuey pudding …” Molly guessed. “With yummy pudding,” she offered. Molly was starting to feel helpless. She thought of the whipped-up meringue she’d seen. Had it been ice cream? “With ice cream,” she jabbed. But this didn’t work either. What had the pudding looked like? Like a mountain of ice cream, she supposed. “With icecream mountain?” she asked. Molly was getting really desperate. At any moment Rocky might jolt out of his trance, if she didn’t nail the password. “With snowy mountain …” she tried. Then, “With MONT BLANC.”Molly threw this last guess into the air without any hope for it at all. But amazingly, it had the effect she wanted. At last Rocky nodded. “Is that the password?” Molly asked, dumbfounded. He nodded again. “Oh thank you!” Molly blew out a sigh of relief. “Now hold on, Rocky. All this will be over soon. So, just remember, when I bring you out of this trance you will be completely your old self, the real Rocky. You won’t have any loyalty to Princess Fang. Okay? You will be as yourself as you were before we came to this place. Do you understand?”
Rocky nodded again.
“All right. In five seconds you will be free from all hypnotism, including mine. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now!” She clicked her fingers.
At once Rocky sat up. “Oh, Molly,” he moaned, “what have I done? I’m sorry, Molly. Oh no. Oh NO! Look at your nose … your face!”
Molly smiled. She felt like life was suddenly filled to the brim with joy.
“Thank goodness you’re back,” she said and flung her arms around her best friend’s shoulders.
For a while the two friends sat embracing in the still, cold, suspended world. Then Molly gave Rocky a quick briefing on what had been happening. Princess Fang stood on the cloister roof, puce with fury, and the palace workers stood rigid as if they were made of wood. Petula was frozen in the position of barking at Rocky, her body curved, her mouth snarling.
“Poor Petula,” said Rocky. “She’ll never trust me again.”
“She’ll understand,” Molly said. “Don’t worry. Right, let’s get Her Horribleness up there sorted out.”
At once Molly allowed the world to move. Petula resumed her barking, but then stopped and stood confused. She put her head to one side and sniffed at Rocky. He had lost his angry metallic smell, and Molly looked happy.
On the cloister roof Princess Fang was equally muddled. Then, seeing Molly tie the string of gems around her neck, she understood immediately what had happened.
“GUARDS!” she screamed, stamping her foot. She began backing up the sloped roof, looking at the wall between the courtyards and wondering whether she might cross it. Desperately she scanned the gate below, hoping for assistance, but as every batch of muscly men entered, time seemed to skip a beat and the next moment the very same guards were sitting on the ground quiet as roosting pheasants. Moon was freezing time to hypnotize the guards. And there was absolutely nothing that she, Princess Fang, could do about it. She could hardly bear it! If the Moon girl got the better of all the guards, there would be nothing to stop her. And then all would be lost. The kingdom … the empire! She would never be Queen of the World. Princess Fang would be finished! Then she heard a heavy beating behind her. It sounded as though a huge kite with leathery flapping wings was coming toward them.
Princess Fang turned. Turned to see that the flying thing in the air at the side of the mountain was brown and furry with four legs. Its hooves dangled beneath it, and its strong wings beat the air. It was a cow flapper and it was coming straight for her.
With one arm Princess Fang shielded her eyes from the bright sun. Then, seeing that the creature was dive-bombing her, she dropped to her knees. In the next moment, there was a bubbling noise and the princess saw something falling though the air toward her.
“UUURRGHHH!” she screamed, but it was too late. The ripe and juicy cowpat hit her square on. Cow poo splattered all over her sophisticated angular hair and sprayed the shoulders of her pink taffeta dress. It trickled down her forehead, her cheeks, and her back.
Bull’s eye! Silver thought up to the cow flapper. Thank you!
My pleasure, the strange creature thought back to him, mooing as it flew. That will teach her to take potshots at cow flappers! And it gave the mynah bird a broad wink before tipping its body sideways to fly up and away.
Neither Molly nor Rocky could stop laughing. Then, eventually, seeing that the princess was attempting to escape over the high courtyard wall, Molly pulled herself together and froze the world again.
Silver was on her shoulder. Together they scaled the vine to the cloister roof. Molly almost felt sorry for the princess. The little girl was petrified, but Molly had no sympathy for her. She knew that behind the frightened eyes lurked a hard-hearted dictator.
“Craaaaarkkk!” croaked Silver. “Nasty!” Molly gathered her hypnotic strength and let the power build up behind her eyes. Finding a part of Princess Fang that wasn’t covered in cow poo, she reached out and touched her. Immediately the princess was animated, even though the rest of the world was still as a picture.
Molly let her have it. A hot beam of hyperconcentrated hypnotism shot out of her eyes and hit home. As the force exploded into her, the horrid child jerked backward. Then she stood still, now totally entranced by Molly.
“You, Fang,” Molly began, “are now completely under my power and will be until I tell you otherwise. I lock this instruction in with the words—”
“Spoiled brat,” sang Silver.
“With the words spoiled brat,” Molly agreed, and she let the world move.
Fang nodded obediently.
“YES!” shouted Rocky from below, punching the air. Petula barked enthusiastically, and Molly turned and curtsied.
“FANTABULOUS!” She laughed.
“You can say that again!”
“FAN-TAB-U-LOUS!” cawed Silver.
Now down from the roof, the princess stood beside Molly and Rocky like a quiet, respectful kid, fresh out of kindergarten. Her imprisoned turquoise grasshopper, on the other hand, chirruped madly from its tiny prison on her sleeve.
“I know how he feels,” Rocky said, and he opened the little latch on its cage door. With a grateful spring the grasshopper leaped out onto Rocky’s shoulder. Then it hopped down to the ground and went away. Petula and Silver watched it go.
Leaning over Fang, Molly removed the other gem necklaces and put them around her own neck.
“Right, let’s get things going,” she said. “To start with, let’s leave the foreign visitors to have their fun.”
“Yes,” Rocky agreed. “Get Miss Smelly here to wash her hands and face and change into a clean outfit, and she can go and see them off.”
“Good idea, and while she’s changing I can hypnotize all the other royal children and the rest of Fang’s crew.”
“Nice.”
So that’s exactly what Molly did.
In the palace auditorium, Tortillus and the animals were now off the stage. The Lakeside choristers, dressed as mermaids, were performing their last song—a ballad about how lovely life was by the water. Dancers leaped and turned before the audience, trailing long blue riverlike ribbons.
Switching the world on and off as though she had a pause button for it, Molly brought all Fang’s horrid playmates and advisers under her spell. And the finale continued as if nothing had happened. As the singers hit high notes and made harmonies that echoed through the mountain, the foreign guests and Nurse Meekles, with her children, listened and watched. They were completely oblivious to the fact that everyone in the auditorium apart from them was now hypnotized.
After the show was over, Princess Fang did exactly as she’d been told and went to bid her guests good-bye. She was dressed handsomely in a violet feathered dress, but although her face and hands were spotlessly clean, her hair looked as though it had mud in it. What was more, the Chinindian president could smell a distinct farmyardy pong when he bent low to bow his good-bye.
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said, trying not to breathe in.
As they were airlifted off the mountain, the visitors all commented on their marvelous trip.
“What a happy country!” they agreed.
They had no idea how close some of them had come to losing their minds.
The scientist Molly had saved from the mind machine sat with a computer open on his lap. He was taking notes about his interesting trip, convinced that he had spent the day studying new forms of oxygen-making jellyfish.
Professor Selkeem’s dognakes had brought him and Micky to the palace laundry room in the depths of the building. They had entered through the secret hatch near the ceiling, and the dognakes were now gliding down the metal laundry machines’ sorting arms. They deposited the two boys on the floor.
Professor Selkeem immediately went for the door but found it locked.
“Damn!” he cried. “You’re a lychee!” he shouted at Micky. “We’re both lychees in a tin! And who’s got the tin opener?! Will Ai Mu come and open the door? No, she won’t come here today!”
Micky ran to the door and, frothing at the mouth, began to bang on it.
“Rockeee!” he shouted.
“No ears there,” the professor said, sitting down on a pile of sheets and frantically opening his laboratory bag. “Too deep in the building. Must try to open it.” His dognakes curled up protectively about him. He pulled out a black object and, getting up, advanced toward the door. “Crack the door locks. Just find the weakness in the code and manipulate it with the magnet.” He began passing the black object in his hand over the doorframe. “Don’t stir your noodles, little chili head. We’ll get their blood.”