Molly Moon & the Monster Music (23 page)

“You'll wear earphones?”

“You bet.”

“Then what?” asked Gerry.

“We'll hope he wants the new coin. Petula will help us.” Petula opened her eyes and rubbed her
nose with her paw. “I know it sounds vague, but I think we'll have to play it by ear.”

“And then what?”

“I'm not sure really. We escape, I suppose.”

F
our hours later, Molly and her friends were at the Tokyo Dome.

Rocky, Toka, and Gerry were inside. Molly, Dr. Logan, and Petula sat in the car.

Molly stared out of the window biting her lip. Her insides were a storm of nerves.

Dr. Logan patted Molly's hand. “Feeling all right? From what you've told me, you've had a lot of experience dealing with villainous people. Hopefully you are feeling sure of yourself.”

“Before, my hypnotism kept me sure of myself in dangerous situations,” she confided. “Now I've lost my skills, I'm not sure of myself at all. I feel like I'm about to be thrown into a pit to fight a monster, but I've got no armor and no weapons.”

“Just remember, whatever happens, I'll be there with the floom. Like a getaway car, it will be, erm . . . revving, I think that is the expression. I won't be able to get near the coin, but if you are in trouble, I'll help you get away.”

“What if I'm scared or panicking?” Molly asked. “Will I be able to concentrate enough to get on the floom?”

“If you focus your mind and keep a hold of yourself, yes.”

“And if I can't?”

“Then just grab hold of me. I'll stick with you, and hopefully we'll find an opportunity to surf away.”

Molly nodded. Her mouth was dry from nerves. She knew that if Mr. Proila didn't go for the bait, and if she was too scared to concentrate on flooming, she'd be stuck. Mr. Proila would have her taken away. Dr. Logan might be able to floom to her, but there was no guarantee that he could. The idea of being chopped up into lots of little pieces and scattered over Japan filled her with fear again.

Fifteen minutes later she tapped her grandfather on the arm. “Grandpa, are you ready?”

They got out of the car and heard the roar of the crowd inside the stadium.

“Proila's definitely onstage,” Molly said.

She passed her grandfather his earphones and pushed soft wax earplugs into her own ears. She picked up Petula, giving her a good cuddle. She hoped it wouldn't be the last time she'd kiss her pug's velvety ears. She clutched the pouch with the do-nothing coin in it and shut her eyes.

Almost at once they were moving. Molly opened
her eyes. Straight through the arena's thick walls they went, straight through the thousands of people in the auditorium.

Molly saw Mr. Proila. He was onstage, dressed in a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit and high-heeled boots, with guitars and banjos on stands all around him. He was clutching the music coin and seemed to be playing a harmonica, but it was music that neither Molly nor her grandfather could hear.

Dr. Logan brought them right up to the stage, as near to Mr. Proila as he was able. As the floom was still activated, no one could see them. Molly looked into the audience. She recognized one face from the news-papers: the prime minister of Japan.

“I wish I could just jump off and hypnotize him for you, Molly,” Dr. Logan said, “but I'm not as good as I was, and anyway, you know the music coin won't allow me close.”

Molly nodded. Then, holding Petula tight, she stepped off the floom.

The audience gasped. It was as if Molly and Petula had been spun out of thin air. Molly put Petula down onto the stage.

Mr. Proila stopped playing the harmonica. In fact, he stepped back in surprise and knocked a banjo off its stand.

The audience recognized Molly at once. They were still hooked on her. They loved her. And so they began to clap and cheer wildly.

Wasting no time, Molly swung toward Mr. Proila and held up the pouch. Girding herself with a courage that was paper-thin, she unfastened it. Turning it inside out so that it fit her hand like a mitten, she exposed the coin, her fingers gripping it through the leather.

Mr. Proila stood and stared. He'd been stunned by Molly's sudden appearance and now he was utterly perplexed by her behavior. He looked at the coin she held up. It glittered under the stage lights. He read Molly's lips.

“Look, Mr. Proila, I've got an amazing coin! With it I can appear and disappear and travel through space and time. And play wonderful music. You thought that you'd beaten me, but sorry, this coin is far superior to yours. I have BEATEN YOU!”

Mr. Proila gulped as a lightning-fast series of thoughts flew through his head.

Firstly, his instinct told him that this Moon girl's new coin was better than his. Secondly, it occurred to him that this meant that the Moon girl was now incredibly dangerous to him.

Greed got the better of him. Mr. Proila could al
ready feel the new coin's power. He knew he must have it before Molly whizzed off anywhere. He switched off his microphone. His hand shot out. He grabbed at the new coin.

“Thank you so much!” he exclaimed. His laughing voice was now inaudible to the crowd. “You stupid child! Now I have both coins. You'll have to show me how it works later, but for now it's on with the sh . . .” Mr. Proila was about to fling his arms out in exhilaration—to momentarily hold both coins up to the lights in a gesture of victory—but he stopped. The effort was too much, he thought. He felt fabulous enough without gloating. “Yes . . . yes. On with the shhhh . . .” he said with a smile.

He dropped down on his knees and looked at the amazing new coin in his hand. The very energy inside him seemed to flow more steadily around his body because of it. He could feel his blood moving down his legs and up the other side of him as though it were a magical, life-giving sap that he had never noticed before. His feet felt heavy and grounded, like the roots of a tree. In fact, his legs felt like the trunk of a tree. His body and arms its leafy branches—his head a mass of blossom. And then, the heaviness of this feeling started to grow lighter and lighter. The blossom of his mind felt as
if it were blowing away. The audience was clapping and he was floating . . . floating away.

All that Mr. Proila could feel that had any weight to it now was the new coin he had taken from the girl—that girl whose name he couldn't remember. The coin with its circle marked in the center of it. Or was it a zero? A nothing?

Molly watched hopefully as Mr. Proila's countenance changed. She willed the new coin to do its work. Mr. Proila's expression dropped from angry and authoritative to dreamy. The hand holding the new coin grasped it tighter and tighter while the hand with the old coin in it grew looser and looser.

And then the music coin fell. To Molly, it was as if it were falling in slow motion, for so many conflicting thoughts raced through her mind as it dropped.

“It's mine! Mine again at last!” one part of Molly delighted.

Then another part of her snapped, “No! It's never to be yours again. Leave it.”

A third urged, “If you pick it up and use it one last time, you can fix all the bad stuff that Mr. Proila has done. And there's an audience out there. Mr. Proila's bodyguards, too. What are you going to do about them?”

As the music coin dropped onto the stage and rolled across the ground, Mr. Proila slumped down. Molly's eyes lifted and engaged with the audience. She picked up Mr. Proila's electric guitar and spoke into the microphone.

“HELLO, TOKYO!” she shouted. “It seems Proila is a bit tired!”

The audience laughed, thinking Mr. Proila's exhaustion and his sitting on the stage was some sort of act.

“So,” Molly went on, gesturing to Dr. Logan at the side of the stage, “I'd like you to meet my great-great-great-grandfather.” The audience laughed again, as of course this was a joke—no one's great-great-great-grandfather was alive.

Molly stepped up to the music coin, lying where Mr. Proila had dropped it, and pressed her foot on it. Immediately she could feel its power as it tried to commune with her again. Like an evil spirit it wanted its power over her back.

Petula watched Molly, unsure what was happening. “Molly! Leave the coin!” she barked.

“What are you doing, Molly?” Dr. Logan called anxiously from the edge of the stage. He held his earphones firmly in place, for he was suspicious
about what Molly was planning to do.

Then Molly did something that completely horrified Toka, Gerry, and Rocky, who were observing from the wings, and Dr. Logan and Petula. Molly picked up the music coin and put it in her pocket! Taking a white electric guitar, she began to play.

Petula took hold of Molly's pant leg in her teeth and she began to tug.

But Molly played. And she played more brilliantly than ever before. Gerry, Rocky, and Toka watched helplessly from the side of the stage, their attempts to push past a guard unsuccessful.

The audience stood in awe—many with their mouths hanging open. Molly's music was far superior to Proila's. His had been good. But Molly's was heavenly.

The crowd would have been amazed at what was really going on in Molly's head.

Molly wasn't thinking anything at all about the music she was playing. It was imperative that she didn't. Instead Molly had filled her mind with something else—the word that Do had taught her:
aum
.
Aum
filled her mind from back to front, from side to side, and top to bottom just as Do had suggested it might be able to. It blocked out everything else. So while Molly's hands played on
automatic, doing the music coin's bidding, her mind was protected. She didn't even hear—not a note—and so she was not a slave to the coin. Molly was taking the coin's power without it taking hers. Her fingers held down frets and strummed and picked on strings, working a musical frenzy on the instrument. And the music she made ensnared her audience, but it had absolutely no effect on her.

When she'd finished, the audience exploded.

Molly reached her hand into the pocket and took the coin out. She bowed to the audience and as she bent lower, as if to pat Petula, she gave the coin to her dog. “You look after this now,” she whispered. She nodded to Dr. Logan and smiled at her friends in the wings, who she could see were watching her with wide, terrified eyes.

Then Molly's eyes sought out the prime minister. There he was, applauding enthusiastically. When she caught his eye the prime minister even put two fingers up to his mouth and whistled shrilly. Molly held her hand up to the audience. Immediately it fell silent.

“Thank you,” Molly said. “Glad you liked the show. Now I have something serious to talk to you about. So if you don't mind, please will you listen for a few minutes.” Molly glanced over at Gerry
and made a thumbs-up signal to him. She beckoned at Toka, who came and translated her words into Japanese. “I think a lot of you will know that some strange new laws have been passed in Japan. Whale hunting has been made legal again. So have dogfighting and cockfighting. I am sure that many of you think this is wrong.”

The audience murmured and a few shouts of agreement rang through the arena.

Now Molly spoke directly to the prime minister, who was staring at her adoringly. “Mr. Prime Minister, I know that you and your cabinet have recently been persuaded to change these laws—but please, for all the animals, and for the Japanese people, and the people of the world, and for me, please will you change the laws back?”

Molly stepped up to the VIP box and she thrust the mic toward the politician. She hoped that the brief burst of music she had played had been enough to affect him.

The prime minister of Japan bent his head closer to the microphone. “Of course,” he agreed. And he put his hand out to Molly to shake on the promise.

A
fter lots of bowing to the enthralled audience, Molly and Dr. Logan helped Mr. Proila to his feet. They bent him over, helping him to bow, too. The audience laughed, assuming it was a comedy act. They cheered as Molly and the old man led Mr. Proila off the stage. Petula followed, with the music coin safely in her mouth.

Backstage, Gerry, Rocky, and Toka were waiting.

“How did you do it, Molly?” Rocky asked. “How did you resist the coin?”

“By not letting the thought of it into my head,”
Molly said. “It's a trick Do taught me.”

“The whales will be so happy,” Gerry said, hugging Molly around the waist.

“Well, after the trouble I caused, Gerry, there was some fixing to do.”

“The trouble
I
caused, you mean,” Dr. Logan said. “Petula's doing an excellent job of being its guardian now.”

Petula wagged her tail and Molly bent down to give her a stroke. “Good girl, Petula.”

Now everyone's attention fell on Mr. Proila.

“So what do we do with him?” Toka asked. “He's good for nothing.”

“That's because he's got the do-nothing coin!” Gerry laughed. His hat bobbed as Titch ran about in its lining.

Rocky touched Mr. Proila's arm. “Wow,” he gasped. “He gives off a sort of relaxed vibe.”

“We don't want him losing that coin,” Toka said.

Mr. Proila's hand was clamped vise-like around the do-nothing coin, in contrast to the rest of him, which was as floppy as a jelly.

“He needs to be somewhere where he's watched,” Toka said.

“How about takin' him to the old monk you met?” Gerry suggested.

“I could take him now,” Dr. Logan said. “In the state he's in, he's the perfect passenger. I've carried hypnotized people before. The board seems to accept them as under my power. Once he's at Do's monastery, everyone's safer.”

Everyone agreed that this was a great plan.

“But poor Do,” Gerry said, “havin' to look after this lump.”

“He won't mind,” Molly reassured Gerry. “He'll see it as a Zen challenge.”