Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

stepped toward the odd Chinese woman. She relieved her of her bag and calmly made off with it. Miss Suzette waddled after her, and two cats followed them, their tails in the air.

Molly, meanwhile, was stuck. Stuck in the Chinese woman’s body, neither able to take control of it nor to leave it. For just as Miss Suzette had hypnotized the woman to withstand Molly’s body borrowing, she had also instructed her not to let Molly go, to hold her for as long as she could. The woman was like a dog with a bone and wouldn’t let go.

“I WILL NOT LET YOU GO!” the Chinese woman shouted at the sky. “I WILL NOT LET YOU GO!” Then Molly felt something else happening. Something super strange. Someone else was morphing into the Chinese woman’s body, too.

For a few seconds, Molly was terrified, for she had no idea who had come to share the tourist’s mind and body. She simply felt this person’s arrival, like a massive downpour of water. It was overwhelming, breathtaking, and shocking. And it sloshed in the space that was already uncomfortable with both Molly and the Chinese woman fighting for command. It joined them there like some unwelcome, uninvited guest.

“GET OUT!” Molly shouted. These words came out of the Chinese tourist’s mouth. “GET OUT!” the woman yelled at her hands. Students about her thought that she was having a fit. One hurried off to fetch the school doctor.

As Molly struggled, it was as if a veil lifted. Because as the person who had joined them settled, Molly saw who it was. The person was Theobald Black.

Fourteen

Molly could hardly believe it, but it was true. Sharing the same head space proved it. Theobald Black was a good person.

He really did run a charity that raised money for children’s homes. He really had wanted to put the book in the queen’s Tower of London, so that it was safe. And he didn’t own Black’s Casino—his brother, Geoffrey Black, did. What was more, he knew about Miss Hunroe and her horrid accomplices. He was a very good hypnotist, but not a time traveler or a time stopper. And he could even read minds. Molly tried to absorb as much information as she could.

Meanwhile, Black was trying to help Molly—help her to extract herself from the hypnotized Chinese woman’s viselike grasp. And as he wrestled the Chinese woman’s force away from Molly, Molly had a chance to escape. She needed to find the boy, Max, again. There he was, sitting on a step, looking confused. Ignoring the Chinese woman’s efforts to suck her back in, Molly focused on the boy and the pattern on his book. Soon Molly was whipping through the air, and a second later, she was back in Max’s body. Molly as Max looked up at her freckle-faced friend.

“Is that still you, Micky?”

“Yes. Molly, is that you?”

As he spoke, the red-haired woman gave a shriek. “I won’t let you win!” she shouted.

“You’ll never guess what,” Molly hurriedly explained to Micky. “Black is in the Chinese lady now, and he’s a good person. We got him all wrong. We’ve got to help him!”

“You cannot leave!” the Chinese woman was bellowing to her feet. The shocked pupils who were still in the courtyard could see that this woman really wasn’t right in the head. They stepped respectfully away from her in hushed silence. Micky eyed a nearby tap and a bucket that was under it.

“I read this thing about fighting dogs,” he mumbled, half to himself. Seconds later he was filling the bucket with water. And a moment after that, he was coming up behind the Chinese woman.

In a split second, he had emptied the contents of his bucket all over the woman, whose mouth opened to scream, though no sound came out. Shocked, she stood bolt upright. Everyone was silent. Children gasped in disbelief at Jo Jo’s behavior, and then with admiration. For the drenched woman finally stopped raving. Sopping wet, she slumped to the ground.

Amid the chaos, Black materialized in the wet schoolyard holding an umbrella, which he calmly opened.

A third of a mile away, Petula, Magglorian, and Stanley arrived at Buckingham Palace.

“Cor, can smell the corgis from ’ere,” said Magglorian, his nose puckering. Petula raised her head to the rain and wrinkled her forehead at the sky. She hated lightning.

“Oh, dear, we’re too late, she’s not here,” she said, disappointed. Her face turned like the dial of a compass toward Westminster Abbey. “That way!”

“Righty-o,” said Stanley cheerfully.

“Let’s push on,” said Magglorian. “It is getting really wet. Over there is near the Houses of Parliament, where the politicians live. That’s near my home, too.” And so the dogs set off through the sheets of rain.

Black glared up at the blackening sky. Behind them, a teacher arrived and began comforting the tourist.

“A lot is at stake. We must prioritize.” Black nodded over to the Chinese woman. “She’s in safe hands now.” Urging Molly and Micky, who were still schoolboys, to move on quickly, he helped them navigate their way out of the courtyard.

They followed Theobald Black around the school’s tree-lined square. The rain was pelting down. In the distance, they could still hear police sirens.

“I expect you two will be wanting to meego back to your own bodies,” said Black, pulling up the neckline of his coat to conceal his face as much as he could. “I can teach you.”

“Wow, that would be brilliant,” Molly gasped.

“That would be incredible,” agreed Micky, adding, “It’s amazing how wrong we got you. We had you down as a really bad man.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything people tell you about a person,” Black said gruffly. “You know the old saying—never judge a book by its cover.”

Molly looked up at him. He was unattractive, it couldn’t be denied. His thick, grayish skin was ugly and pitted, but now that Black was looking directly at her, Molly saw that there was a kind twinkle in his eye.

“I’m sorry we thought you were bad,” Molly apologized. “You didn’t deserve it.”

“Hunroe and her friends seemed good,” explained Micky. “They painted you as a dishonest, two-bit slime-ball to fit their story. How much do you know about Miss Hunroe?”

“A lot. I know her very, very well. I went to school with her. She was as nasty then as she is now. Miss Popular, she was, with every teacher thinking she was an angel. She liked to have sycophantic followers….”

“Syco what?” said Molly.

“Sycophantic,” Micky intervened. “It’s when a person blindly follows another person, doing whatever they want like an obedient dog. That’s called being sycophantic.”

Theobald Black nodded. “Hunroe liked her followers exactly like that. They’d all look up to her and behaved as though they hoped some of her Hunroeness might rub off on them. I suppose she was always glamorous. They all wanted to be her and would do whatever she wanted.”

“Sounds like the gang she has now.”

“I’m sure. Miss Hunroe wouldn’t be able to exist without her obedient followers. She had a particularly evil thuggy helper at school called Bartholomew. She used him to do her dirty work, to bully people, to get what she wanted. She hasn’t changed.” They walked under the old arch at the entrance of the school. “And now she’s gotten what she wanted—the book. And she’s gone.”

“But I haven’t!” came a smug response behind them. Black and the schoolboys spun around.

AH2 stood behind them, looking proud as a cockerel. Smiling, he thrust his hand forward. In it was a red box.

“Who on earth is this person?” Black asked Molly.

“He’s an alien hunter,” Molly replied matter-of-factly. “Somehow that gadget of his can always tell where I am, whoever I am. He wants to be my contact on Earth.”

All of a sudden Molly got some inspiration. She was feeling a little guilty about keeping Max from his lessons,