'You must be the only person in the country who hasn't,' said Clement. 'Maxwell Marvel is an expert hypnotist — he gives people suggestions and orders after he has made them go to sleep. When they wake up they do all kinds of funny things. Then, at an order from Maxwell Marvel, they go to sleep again. When they wake up again, they can't remember a thing about it.' Grandpa laughed. 'I've had a few evenings like that myself.' Gran looked at him. 'Er . . . when I was much younger, of course,' he added quickly. 'Mum would really like to see that show - I just know it,' said Winston. 'Yes, but how do we get your Mum on a television show? Won't it be expensive? How will we get the money?' I asked. 'Relax,' said Winston. 'All we have to do is write to the television company and they'll send us the tickets free — that's where they get their live audiences from! All we have to do is make sure we let them know in time for the show.' We all agreed that this was a great idea. So we did it. Aunt Molly, of course, was at first unwilling to go along with it. However, we had all made the decision for her and we wouldn't take no for an answer. In her heart, though, she did not really care what happened to her, not since her dear Dally had gone. But she went along to please her boys because she cared deeply for them, and did not want to disappoint them. The television studio — the place where the show took place - was not at all what Aunt Molly imagined it would be like. She thought it would be like the inside of a theatre or a cinema. It wasn't. It was full of lighting and sound equipment. There were all kinds of people around whose job it was to make sure that everything worked properly. The audience itself was smaller than she expected. She could see the star of the show, Maxwell Marvel, nervously brushing his jacket in full view of the audience. 'Don't worry, Mum,' said Winston with confidence. 'It's always like this in a television studio. They're just getting ready for the show.' Aunt Molly was sitting in the middle of the second row between the twins. I was there, too, along with Grandpa, who, from time to time, took little drinks from a small bottle of something he kept in his pocket. He was smiling. Gran had stayed at home. 'Hey, the show's starting,' said Clement. A man came out and told some jokes to make everybody feel more relaxed. He explained how the show was recorded for television and what was expected of the audience. Then the lights went down and the opening music to the show started. Maxwell Marvel came into the centre of the studio, full of smiles. The audience clapped for a long time. Aunt Molly had seen this show many times on television, so she knew what to expect. Even so, we could tell that she was getting excited. We could see her smiling. It had been a long time since we had seen her smile like that. Then the show began. Maxwell Marvel asked for some people from the audience to be hypnotised. Quite a few of the audience were willing but only about ten were chosen. They came on to the small stage and were immediately hypnotised by Maxwell. They were told to do the strangest things - such as behaving like farm animals, or dancing at a disco, or acting like famous people. And they did everything they were told to do! Even the quiet looking ones were persuaded to do things that
looked completely different from their usual behaviour.