Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

Outside the natural history museum, shielded from the high tower that Molly and Micky were in by bare winter trees and a Beefeater hot-dog stand, AH2 stood shivering in the winter sun.

“She’s definitely up there,” he was saying to someone on the other end of the cell phone. “Unless the device is faulty.” The other person said something, to which AH2 replied with a wry chortle. “Yes, she’s well and truly trapped. She’s like a fox in a hole now. I’ll get the proof, and then we’ll confront her—or I should say we’ll confront it.” He laughed happily. “Over and out.” AH2 slipped his phone back into his pocket and rechecked his tracking machine.

He felt good, for, like a fisherman after a clever fish, he’d been trying to catch Molly Moon since he’d first come across her in New York City. And today here she was, swimming near his net.

Molly was extraordinary. As soon as AH2 had encountered this Moon girl he’d known exactly what she was. Even her name gave it away! He didn’t believe the outlandish story that she was named after the box of Moon’s Marshmallows she’d been found in as a baby. Nonsense! No, this girl had superhuman, unearthly talents. She could make other people do exactly what she wanted. AH2 had concluded that, without a shadow of a doubt, this Molly Moon was not human. No, it was very clear that this “girl” was definitely neither he nor she but instead an it. For she was, as sure as hot dogs were hot dogs, an alien.

AH2’s real name was Malcolm Tixley. He was twenty-five and was in the Royal Air Force, and he’d been an alien hunter since he was five years old. His obsession began when he’d seen a green alien sitting on the wing of an airplane. He’d been traveling with his parents to visit relations in Tanzania, and the plane had been cruising at forty thousand feet, but the alien had been there, all right. It had even winked at him. His mother had seen the alien, and so had the flight attendant.

Ever since then he’d been hooked. At ten he’d joined the Y.B.A.H.A, the Young British Alien Hunting Association, and had risen through its ranks so that he was deputy in command. Thus his title, AH2—Alien Hunter Two. At eighteen he had joined the air force and become an excellent pilot. He enjoyed his work, but deep down, his main reason for flying was to see an alien again. At night he took classes in space studies.

“Strange weather we’ve been havin’, haven’t we?” the fat-faced hot-dog man asked, holding out a bun and sausage. “Hailstorms with stones the size o’ Ping-Pong balls and then bright, bright sunshine.” AH2 was so deep in thought he didn’t hear him. “Hungry for it, are ya?” the man asked.

“Wh-what? For what?” AH2 stammered, caught off his guard in his daydream.

“For the hot dog, of course. Are you hungry for it?” The hot-dog seller wiped his hands on a checkered cloth.

AH2 took the hot dog and squirted some mustard on it. “Actually,” he said, dropping some coins onto the tin counter, “I’m hungry to catch an alien.”

“Ah. Right. I see,” he said. “Very nice.”

“So you’re hypnotists too,” said Molly slowly. She paused as the maid placed her hot chocolate in front of her. “I don’t think I’ll be drinking that hot chocolate, then.” She eyed the well-dressed collection of women before her. “Am I right in thinking, Miss Hunroe, that you aren’t a tutor at all?”

Miss Hunroe nodded. She looked down shamefully and fiddled with her gold coin. “I do apologize for misleading you both, and your parents and family,” she said, “but it was necessary. Your parents never would have let you come if they knew my real reason for wanting you here.”

“Unbelievable.” Molly glanced sideways at Micky. As the full impact of Miss Hunroe’s deception became clear, a steely anger filled her. “You had no right,” she said. “You wouldn’t take normal kids out of their family house by posing as a teacher. If the police knew, they’d lock you up. Who do you think you are?” Molly turned and walked toward the door. “Where’s the key for this? I noticed you locking it. It did cross my mind that that was a weird thing to do. We’re going home. Now.”

By now Micky was standing beside her. Both of the twins felt extremely anxious. The truth was, they were clearly in a tricky situation, because these five women, all hypnotists, seemed to have the upper hand. But this didn’t stop Micky and Molly from saying what they felt.

“You’ve acted in a really underhanded way,” Micky said.

“Completely out of order,” Molly agreed.

Miss Hunroe was totally unruffled. “I do understand your reaction,” she said. “And if this is really how you feel, of course you are free to go. But I have one favor to ask. Please just listen to why you are needed here. If you still feel the same way afterward, we respect your decision and you can, of course, return to Briersville Park immediately. We will get you a chauffeur-driven car to drive you home as soon as you would like.”

Like birds cooing around her, the other women voiced their agreement. “Yes.”

“Yes, we will.”

Molly looked at Micky and raised her eyes to the ceiling. He narrowed his eyes at the female crowd, then made a tiny gesture of a shrug to Molly. Molly breathed out irritatedly. “It better be good,” she said, returning to the third sofa and leaning against its back.

“And quick,” Micky muttered, joining his sister.

“Well, we spotted you quite a while ago, Molly,” Miss Hunroe began. “Word got to us that you had moved into Briersville Park. We were suspicious to start with. We were aware of the huge success you had had in America, starring in a Broadway show, and we calculated how much money you had made.” Miss Hunroe pulled some cuttings from newspapers out of an envelope. They were from American newspapers.

“‘Moon is out of this world!’” Miss Hunroe read. “‘Molly Moon has eclipsed Davina Nuttel and taken her part in Stars on Mars. Last night the whole of Manhattan was alive with the gossip. Who is this Molly Moon? Nobody knows…’ And so it goes on.”

Molly hung her head. She was slightly ashamed of how she had conned her way to the top in Manhattan.

Miss Hunroe continued. “At first we thought you were a bad egg. But then we saw how you used the money to help the other children in the orphanage that you grew up in. We saw your loyalty to them, especially your good friend Rocky. Then it all clicked into place. We realized that that huge twenty-five-room house, Briersville Park, was in fact your family home. For though you are called Moon, you are really a Logan—the great-great-granddaughter of Dr. Logan who wrote the phenomenal book Hypnotism: An Ancient Art Explained.”

Molly bit her lip. It was really odd how these women knew so much about her life.

“I don’t know whether you realize this, but the world is full of hypnotists,” Miss Hunroe stated. “Full of people who have mastered the ancient art.” She paused. “It has to be said, very few are as good as you. It’s an honor to meet you,” Miss Hunroe said smoothly. “My friends and I are elite members of the National Society of Hypnotists. Only a small proportion of these registered hypnotists are truly talented. There are very few time stoppers, and there are even fewer time travelers. What’s more, I have yet to come across a mind reader….”

A shiver went up Molly’s back as Miss Hunroe spoke. She wondered whether Miss Hunroe somehow knew about Molly’s secret mind-reading skill. Molly really didn’t want this to be exposed now. Her heart galloping, Molly decided to read Miss Hunroe’s mind again. She knew that what she was doing would be invisible to everyone in the room, and yet she found her nerves were on edge as she did it—as though this time, she was going to be caught. What are you thinking? Molly thought to Miss Hunroe.

A bubble popped up again over the blond-haired woman’s head, and as she continued to talk, pictures in it, illustrating her words, appeared.

“As you might suspect, Molly and Micky,” Miss Hunroe continued, “not all hypnotists are good, kind people. Hypnotism can be used for a person’s own fulfillment, and if that person has no morals, and they don’t know the difference between right and wrong, these bad hypnotists can use their powers entirely for themselves. They can easily become powerful, influential, rich. Yes, bad hypnotists can be destructive without a care for the damage or suffering they are causing others.” Above Miss Hunroe’s hair, the thought bubble filled with pictures of different people in wonderful surroundings—a gray-haired woman in a large, lavishly furnished room, a Mexican-looking man sipping a cocktail on a yacht on a calm sea somewhere hot and tropical, and an ugly, tall man posing in front of a casino called Black’s Casino with a cigar in his hand. Then fast cars shot through the bubble, as well as racehorses and jet planes.

“I believe that you learned how to hypnotize from your ancestor Dr. Logan’s book. Am I right?” Now above Miss Hunroe’s head was the picture of a bespectacled man in Victorian clothes with a potato-shaped nose.

“Yes, that’s right,” Molly admitted.