Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

stopping, and morphing, for Black had been explaining them to her.

So Black’s plan was going well, Molly thought. If he got into the tower, he could use his hypnotism to steal whatever he wanted, and then he could get away with it scot free.

“Hmm. Yes, of course,” said Molly the queen. “I must say, I am very intrigued by the book. May I see it?”

“You saw it just now,” said Black slowly, his knuckles turning pale as he gripped his bag tightly.

“Yes. Yes. Again, I mean,” said Molly the queen, trying to dig her way out of trouble. “Is everything all right, Mr. Black?”

Black examined the queen’s lined face and tried to judge whether the girl who Lily had warned him of had invaded her. There was only one way to see. He would read the queen’s mind. So, concentrating hard, he silently asked the question, What are you thinking?

Molly felt a tickle above the queen’s eyebrows and all over her scalp, but she thought nothing of it. If she’d been aware, she might have been able to think very proper royal thoughts for Black to read from her mind. But she had no idea that Black could mind read, and so she had no idea that a bubble had appeared over her soft gray hair. In it were pictures of Black with the hypnotism book and the queen wrestling Black to the ground. There were other images, too, of the butler joining in, twisting Black’s arm into a half nelson. For this is what Molly was fantasizing.

“To the tower!” Molly the queen said. “Butler,” she added, “please take Mr. Black’s bag.”

At this point, Black got up.

“Oh, no, you don’t. No doubt you’re one of Miss Hunroe’s assistants. You’re interfering where you shouldn’t.”

At once Molly saw that the game was up. Jumping over the corgis—which was quite difficult, as the queen was wearing a straight tweed skirt—she dived for Black’s bag, knocking over the tea tray. Teacups scattered and smashed as they hit the ground. All the corgis began to bark frantically. With a swipe, Molly grabbed at the bag, but as Black dodged, she missed and fell head-first onto the delicate antique sofa, catching a cushion instead and knocking the whole piece of furniture so that it tipped over, throwing Molly on the floor.

“Get him, Micky!” Molly screeched, and Micky the butler leaped for Black. But as he did, Black lunged out and walloped him in the stomach. Micky the butler lay groaning in an armchair. Now Black ran for the door.

“Guards!” Molly shouted. “Stop him, he’s a thief!”

“Aarff! Aarff! Aarff!” the corgis barked in unison.

The staff and the bodyguards outside the room looked about them, confused. One moved toward where the queen was pointing, but he could see no one. It was as if Black had become invisible.

“Who, Your Highness?” the bodyguard asked. The lady-in-waiting beside him looked equally perplexed. A guard on the stairs was just as puzzled.

All the staff had been hypnotized earlier by Black—hypnotized not to see him come and not to see him go.

Meanwhile, Black’s footsteps grew more and more faint as he hurried farther and farther away, down the wide palace staircase to the main entrance. Molly glanced back to Micky, who, as the butler, was now standing up, rubbing his stomach. She ran to the room’s east window and looked out, her breath immediately steaming up the glass of its pane. Below was a view of the graveled palace drive. Two black ravens sat on the windowsill sheltering from the rain. “The ravens,” she said. “Quick!”

In a few seconds Molly and Micky were in the ravens’ bodies, blinking, fluffing their feathers, and stretching their wings. And then they began to look for Black. There he was, walking briskly, though trying not to look like he was panicked, across the gravel forecourt.

“Now!” Molly cawed.

She and Micky dived. Ravens were far more powerful than either the pigeons or the blackbirds had been. Beating their strong wings, they were like trained missiles. In the next moment, Micky tactically flapped his wings into Black’s face. Molly snatched the black bag out of Black’s arms, and then they were flying off over the traffic with it.

“Good lord, Smuthers!” the queen exclaimed, clutching the windowsill as she came to her senses. “Smuthers, I’ve just had the most disturbing experience, and it strikes me that you have had a similar one!”

“Madam!” her butler, Smuthers, replied, shaking his head and adjusting his waistcoat.

Inside the palace grounds, Black stood in the rain, watching as two powerful birds carried his priceless belonging away. Clumsily they flew, accidentally bumping into each other with their wings. The bag swung like an oversized pendulum beneath them.

“You haven’t won yet,” Black snarled, and ignoring the amazed soldiers, he began to run toward the open gates.

Miss Teriyaki and Miss Suzette now stood by the palace railings beside two cats—a ginger tom and a white Burmese. They all watched the ravens go. At once the cats began running. Miss Teriyaki and Miss Suzette were slower off the mark.

“So what you’ll do is stay close to us,” Miss Suzette instructed her hypnotized Chinese tourist. “When I shout, ‘Allez, allez!’ you will do what I told you to do. Now follow me.” The hypnotized Chinese woman nodded, understanding completely Miss Suzette’s strange instructions.

AH2’s gadget bleeped. “Ah, so you’re ravens now,” he said excitedly. Snapping his machine shut, he also swiftly set off in pursuit of the birds.

“This is so…diff…i…cult,” Molly cawed, gripping the bag with her claws and beating her wet wings hard so she didn’t fly into the top branches of a tree.

“It’s slipping! It’s so heavy!” Micky cried.

Below in St. James’s Park a child looked up from feeding the pond ducks. “Mama!” he shouted. “Looooook at de birds!”