Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

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!”

Another raven flew past. “What’s in?” he cawed. “Wormsies?”

Molly glanced below and behind and saw Black’s large form charging across the muddy grass of the park. “Oh, no, Micky! He’s after us.” She didn’t see that to his rear, waddling and hobbling as fast as they could, and out of breath, were Miss Suzette and Miss Teriyaki. Beside them trotted their red-haired tourist, and ahead of them ran two cats. And a little distance behind them was AH2, who was watching the whole procession in fascination.

With difficulty, the ravens carried the swinging bag through the rain toward Westminster Abbey. Diving toward an arch into a large, tree-edged square beyond it, they found themselves surrounded by scores of schoolboys. Then they flapped and fluttered through another, smaller arch into what looked like an ancient courtyard.

“This is perfect,” Micky croaked. “Let’s morph into some of these boys.”

They dropped the bag and hopped territorially onto it. In the distance, they heard the sirens of police cars. A slow clap of thunder rolled through the sky above.

“Maybe the queen reported Black,” Molly the raven said. “Maybe he’s been caught.”

“Come on, let’s change. Who are you going to be?” Micky asked. Molly picked a boy with dark hair.

“I’ll be him,” said Molly. “And there’s a good pattern in the doodle on his schoolbook.”

“Okay,” agreed Micky. “And I’ll be him.” He nodded at a freckle-faced boy. “And remember, we have to see them as babies because they’re not adults.”

In a jiffy, the twins had morphed. Molly became a soccer fanatic called Max.

For a moment, Molly paused. She was shocked. This was the first time she’d ever been male. And it felt very different. Her body was tougher, with parts she’d never had before. Her blood felt hotter and coursed through her veins in a wilder way. Her feelings were less bothersome and seemed deeper inside her. And when a soccer ball was kicked past her, she had an urge to kick it, in the same way that as a dog, she’d wanted to chase cats.

Micky, now a boy called Jo Jo, shooed the dazed ravens off the bag. “Molly? Are you there? What are you waiting for?” Molly snapped to and picked up the bag.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

But as she turned, Black came charging into the courtyard. To make things worse, two sly cats and Miss Teriyaki and Miss Suzette followed him. It was then that Molly saw that none of the other boys about her were carrying bags, and so the bag she held, with the precious book in it, was easy to spot. Theobald Black, Miss Suzette, and Miss Teriyaki all moved toward her. Molly saw that she was cornered. Students began pointing at the white and ginger cats.

Molly thought quickly. She couldn’t run, but she could morph. A camera-bearing Chinese tourist had meandered into the courtyard. For one thing, she was athletic looking. For another, she was closer to the arch that led to the road. She was, Molly realized, the best person to morph into. Molly began to change. As she did, she lobbed the black bag high up into the air, over the heads of the cats, over the schoolchildren, and over Miss Suzette, Miss Teriyaki, and Black, toward the Chinese woman. Her plan was to arrive in the Chinese woman’s body, catch the now falling bag, and then run.

As Molly morphed, she was unaware of Miss Suzette’s words that were shouted into the damp air. “Allez, allez!”

As Molly’s spirit washed into the redhead’s body, she felt her arms reach up for the bag. But at the same time, she was aware of something else—something odd. The Chinese woman’s character hadn’t sunk out of sight. She hadn’t relinquished control of her body or her mind at all. To Molly’s horror, it was as if the woman had expected Molly’s arrival.

And she had. For this was Miss Suzette’s “little trap.” She had predicted that Molly might need a perfect getaway body. So she had hypnotized the Chinese woman to expect Molly’s invasion. However hard Molly shoved at the woman’s mind and tried to spread out in her brain, nothing happened. It was impossible to destabilize the woman’s position, to dislodge her, and to take command.

“Eeeeeeek!” the Chinese redhead shrieked. To the students in the courtyard, she looked like a person fresh out of the madhouse. She jumped about clutching a big bag, shaking her orange locks, and wriggling about as though she was doing some sort of crazy dance. And a slim Japanese woman in a red raincoat, walking with a stick,