Molly Moon & the Monster Music (6 page)

“Hey! Hang on a minute!” Molly exclaimed, shocked and affronted. “What are you doing?”

The old woman laughed and pointed at Molly.

“Hey!” she mimicked, echoing Molly. Like a spook from a nightmare, she started to wheel herself forward, her chair squeaking hysterically. Molly
stepped backward but still the woman approached. She wheeled forward until Molly was pinned against the window and the old lady was directly in front of her.

Her skin was thin, creased round her eyes and mouth in well-ironed pleats. Her eyes were long slits and her nose, which she was now wrinkling, was small and flat.

Molly was confused and, she had to admit, a little panicked. Why was this woman being so aggressive? Perhaps she thought Molly was an intruder? Molly assumed the woman was the
sobo
, the grandmother Hiroyuki had called to. She decided to see what was going on in the old lady's mind and so she summoned a thought bubble over her head. For a moment nothing happened. For some reason Molly had to try harder than usual to get a bubble to appear. Eventually one did. And to Molly's surprise, inside it was an image of herself with devil's horns. The picture was such a shock that Molly lost her focus and the bubble popped.

The old woman spread out a hand, splaying her bent fingers. As if her palm had eyes in it, she moved it in front of Molly's body from left to right and up and down. When she reached Molly's jacket pocket, the old woman pulled back sharply. Her eyes
opened in shock, and with a swift jerk of her wheelchair she moved away. Molly reached into her pocket and clutched her coin.

“Aieee!” the old lady exclaimed. With horror on her face, she continued reversing across the room, back to the dark corner where she had been before.

Just then Hiroyuki looked over the platform ledge. “You want to see room, Molly?” He came down the stairs and saw the old woman's socked feet sticking out from the shadows. “Oh, and this is Sobo, our grandmother. She probably too shy to say hello to you. She deaf and can't see well, but she very sweet. She like to hang out under stairs. Small spaces make her feel safe.” The old woman glared from the shadows, silent and wary.

Hiroyuki went toward her and bent into the darkness to give her a kiss. She said something to him in a low rasping voice. Molly felt sure it was something nasty about her. Why had the old woman turned against her? She didn't like it at all. She put her hand into her pocket again and began turning her coin over and over. It was time to change the subject.

“Why don't you live with your parents?” she asked Hiroyuki.

“We want to, but Mr. Proila say we have to live with him for band to work. He allow Sobo to come
here but not our mother and father. My parents sign contract—so now it cannot change.”

Molly stroked her gold coin. Instead of concentrating on what Hiroyuki was saying, she found herself wondering how much money Zagger made a year.

“One day we will all live together again,” Hiroyuki said. He placed the origami bird that he had made on the table.

Molly didn't hear him. She was totally absorbed in her thoughts. Her eyes fell on a building a couple of blocks away. It had a roller coaster on its roof.

“Wow! I'd love a ride on that! It must be awesome.”

If Molly had been her usual self, she would have been as shocked as Hiroyuki was by her lack of care for his troubles. But she wasn't her usual self. Thanks to the coin, she was growing into something else.

The phone rang. It was Miss Sny.

“What time?” Hiroyuki, who had answered it, asked. “Fine. Thank you, and can you remind him we've got two guests?” He replaced the receiver. “Dinner tonight at a restaurant called Mizu,” he explained. “We have to go whether we like or not. Mr. Proila wants to talk to us about big show
tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, he works us. But we like it . . . or at least Chokichi and I do.”

Petula padded into the room and peered at her mistress warily. The odd smell was back. A thin, sour lemon odor permeated the air about Molly, pungent as steam from a hot sulfurous pool. Petula shrank back.

Chokichi and Toka and Gerry came out onto the mezzanine. Gerry was holding three mice. “Look, Molly! Titch has got new friends!”

Toka laughed beside him, his own arms filled with well-behaved mice, too.

Molly barely smiled back. She wasn't interested in small talk right now. Instead, what made her feel good was that tonight she was going to meet one of the most powerful men in Japan. Since arriving she had become more and more keen on getting a place to live in Tokyo. Mr. Proila would be able to help her.

It was a long time since she had used hypnotism to get things for herself. Most people used their skills for their own ends. Hypnotism was her skill. So why shouldn't she use it to get what she wanted?

A
s they were all jet-lagged, everyone grabbed a few hours' sleep.

When Molly wandered out of her room, Chokichi was already up, practicing his karate. Molly watched as he went through his routine. He moved elegantly
back and forth in front of the large apartment windows, cutting shapes with his body. When he had finished he bowed solemnly to Molly before going upstairs to change.

When everyone was up, the boys' grandmother wheeled herself into the middle of the sitting room and switched on her hearing aid so that she could hear her grandsons. Without acknowledging Molly, she kissed the three boys and they lavished presents from Ecuador upon her.

After this, Molly was given a new T-shirt with a smiling skull on the front, and Gerry a yellow leather jacket that Toka had recently grown out of. The mice were put away, and then, ready for their supper with Mr. Proila, the brothers and Molly, Gerry, and Petula left the apartment.

As the glass elevator descended, they saw Mr. Proila and Miss Sny below. He had donned a white silk suit and was pacing up and down the lobby area, gesticulating madly.

As they drew level with him, they saw that he was talking on the phone and that his face was twisted with fury. The elevator doors opened and they heard his gravelly voice shouting in a language Molly didn't recognize. Miss Sny was listening in on an extra handset so that she could tell Mr. Proila in
sign language what the person on the other end of the line was saying.

Mr. Proila raised his eyes and, without pausing, looked away from Gerry, Molly, and Petula, giving them as much attention as he might a stack of chairs.

Molly noticed that the top of the little finger on his right hand was missing. All that was left was a stump that twitched as he talked. And when he pulled his jacket sleeve back in exasperation at his stormy conversation, Molly saw that his arm was black as ink. In the next second she realized that this blackness was a tattoo. She wondered how far up his body it went. She saw a flash of tattoo on the skin under the collar of his shirt as well. He was obviously covered in them.

Beyond the door of the building a large chauffeur-driven limousine stood waiting. The usual crowds filled the sidewalk, and six bodyguards stood there like pillars.

When Mr. Proila's phone call was over, he swaggered over to the children.

“So,” he began, addressing Hiroyuki disdainfully in his thick Russian accent. His voice was slightly loud even when he wasn't shouting; presumably his deafness meant he couldn't hear himself. “These are your
little
friends”—an odd thing to say as he
was so short himself. He pointed at Gerry. “A hobo, a scruffball, a stinkball. Your old jacket, Toka, doesn't disguise that.” Turning to Molly he commented, “This one can have her nose operated on as soon as she's fully grown. The surgeons can work wonders. But the eyes, too closely set. Nothing to be done about them, I'm afraid.”

Molly was momentarily stunned. No one had insulted her like this in a very long time. What with the mean grandmother and now with this rude man, Tokyo was beginning to feel hostile. But before she had time to think to turn her green eyes upon Mr. Proila and let them ensnare him with hypnotism, he had put on his dark sunglasses and turned away.

“Sorry about his manners,” Chokichi said. “He is perhaps the rudest person you will ever meet. Don't take it to heart. He is sick.”

“The good thing,” said Toka, “is that you can talk behind his back and he can't hear what you say. Look!” Toka stepped up toward Mr. Proila and said loudly, “You are an ugly, stupid, rude toad, Proila . . . See?” He turned back to Molly.

But in the same instant, Mr. Proila's hand came slamming down on Toka's shoulder. “Not insulting me, I hope, Toka. I felt your step. Felt your breath, boy. Watch it!”

Toka shrank back toward his brothers.

Mr. Proila and Miss Sny sat in the middle section of the limousine, partitioned from both the driver in the front and the children in the back as they drove to the restaurant, followed by two of the bodyguards in a car behind them.

“You're going to love this,” Chokichi said to Molly as they stopped.

Inside the triangular front door of the restaurant, three kimono-wearing hostesses greeted them, bowing low. Their lips were red, their cheeks were pink, and each of them had their dark hair gathered in a bun decorated with sticks. Behind them was a giant fish tank. It covered the whole back wall, as high as the upper floor, where the restaurant's clients sat. Inside the tank was a rock garden with bright weeds and colorful water flowers. Freshwater fish of all sorts—salmon, trout, carp, and ayu—swam about in there, glooping and gliding. The hostesses presented them all with slippers.

All the children changed their shoes, as did Miss Sny. But Mr. Proila ignored the slippers that were offered to him.

“Pah!” he spat, and, straightening his white jacket, he marched up the stairs.

The upstairs room was unbelievable. Most of the
floor consisted of the surface of the fish tank Molly had seen downstairs, so it was like a large pond. It had five big wooden boats in it. The boats were fixed so that they were completely stable. Inside each was a long table, with enough space around it to seat twelve.

Chattering people sat at these, enjoying fish suppers—cooked or as sashimi (raw slices of fish, beautifully presented). Little flasks of Japanese sake wine and spouted bottles of soy sauce stood on the tables, and the people ate with wooden chopsticks. Everyone was relishing the novelty of the restaurant and this is why:

Fish swam in the water around the boats, and customers fished for their own supper. Once a fish had been caught, waiters took it to the chef, who killed, gutted, and prepared it for eating.

At the farthest table, a young boy had just caught one. He was shielding his face as it struggled and flipped on the end of his line, splashing him. His family laughed as he grappled with the net.

“Horrid!” said Gerry disgustedly. “Molly, you know I'm a vegetarian, don't you? I . . . I don't like killin' things and I 'specially don't like eating them.”

Molly put her hand to her mouth. “Oh dear. Sorry, Gerry. Can you handle it? Maybe they have a
vegetar—” But before she could ask for a vegetarian menu, Mr. Proila had distracted her. He had started to shout at the restaurant's maître d'.

“NO! NO! I BOOKED TWO WHOLE TABLES! Who are these peasants on my table? Get them off it. If you don't get rid of them now, I will close this place down. And what's more, you will find yourself swimming around in that tank and being eaten for supper.”

The maître d' looked terrified. Cowering and obedient, he followed Mr. Proila's orders.

“Mr. Proila”—Hiroyuki stepped in front of his manager so that he could read his lips—“we don't need two tables. Come on . . .” But Mr. Proila flapped his hand irritatedly at Hiroyuki to shoo him away.

Once the table had been cleared, Mr. Proila, like a horrid schoolboy who had just bullied a class full of kindergarten children, pushed his way to the best seat in the restaurant, at the end of one boat. Another big boat now sat empty beside it.

Riffling through the fishing rods there, Mr. Proila chose what he obviously thought was the nicest for himself, dropping the others on the floor. Laughing in a show-off way, as though everyone must surely be wanting to watch him have fun, he began casting
his line.

“Come on!” he shouted to the band boys. “COME ON, ZAGGER!”

The rest of the people in the restaurant now realized who the boys were. Silly fans that they were, they now thought it quite appropriate that they should all clear the way for Hiroyuki, Chokichi, and Toka and their party.

Embarrassed to have caused such a commotion, the boys found places to sit on the boats. Molly and Gerry and Petula sat down, too. And everyone (except Gerry) found themselves a rod to use.

“COME ON, YOU SLIMY HORRORS!” Mr. Proila roared. “LET'S SEE YOU!” He stood up and peered frustratedly into the pond. “Where the hell are they? YOU HAVEN'T STOCKED YOUR POOL!” he yelled to the maître d'.

“Sir, we have,” the man replied, making sure Mr. Proila could read his lips. “You must be more quiet, then they will come.”

“Quiet?! What are you talking about? If this was my restaurant I'd keep the fish so hungry that they'd be eating each other! I'd keep them so hungry that they'd come up and take the bait even if a rock concert was going on in here.”

“If we kept them that hungry,” the maître d' ex
plained gently, “there wouldn't be much flesh on them for you to eat when you caught them.”

Hiroyuki, Chokichi, and Toka quietly got on with their fishing, ashamed of Mr. Proila and the fuss he was making.

“Ridiculous!” Mr. Proila spat. Then his phone, vibrating in his pocket, distracted him. He passed it to Miss Sny to take the call, then, turning to one of his bodyguards, said, “Go to Fongi's. Get me some bluefin tuna. Don't want any of this boggy pond fish anyway.”

The bodyguard nodded and left at once. Mr. Proila then got off the boat to march up and down the platform part of the restaurant, speaking with fierce intensity to Miss Sny, who translated what he was saying to the person on the other end of the telephone line.