Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery (14 page)

“I
'll be the butler,” Micky twittered. “You can be the queen.”

“The queen? Are you joking?” The feathers on Molly's head stood up on end.

“Come on,” Micky coaxed, “she's only another human being.”

“But I don't know if I can behave like the queen!” Molly tweeted.

“Of course you can. Just be ever so royal and polite. Listen, you'd be helping her.”

“But I can't see her face, so I can't imagine her as a child,” Molly objected. “So how can I morph into her?”

“Your work's been done for you,” Micky pointed out. “That portrait there with the girl holding the
puppy is of the queen when she was about six.”

Molly and Micky began staring at the edge of the green-and-white carpet beside the floorboards near the window. It had a pattern of leaves and flowers that twisted around one another. Soon Molly had captured an image of a strange cottage with a tall spindly roof. She immediately turned her attention to the portrait of the young princess. Micky had been right. The picture was so good it made Molly's task very easy, and within seconds she had harnessed the cottagey image, linked it with the princess's face, and, as though these pictures were magical charms to pull her, Molly was at once shooting out of the blackbird's body straight for the queen's.

Like a rolling tsunami wave, Molly crashed into the old lady's mind, overpowering her personality like a breaker overpowering an unsuspecting swimmer. Part of Molly felt apologetic and rude to be pushing into Her Royal Highness's mind, but she knew she mustn't show weakness, for if she did, the queen's character might get the upper hand, and that would be disastrous.

So Molly took charge, and as she did, she apologized to her. I'm so sorry, she thought to her. Erm. Your Majesty. It's for your own good.

Molly was overwhelmed by the queen's memories
and her knowledge. Molly saw giant ships that the queen had launched, swinging bottles of champagne at their hulls. She saw private yachts and huge stables filled with the queen's racehorses. She saw wonderful palaces with parks around them where the queen lived and went on holiday, and she saw memories of all sorts of parades and celebrations that had been given in the queen's honor. This was mixed with an unexpected ordinariness of character that made the queen feel just as normal as the other humans Molly had morphed into. Molly saw how she loved her family, her grandchildren, her dogs, her horses, and her friends. She saw how she was wishing the butler had brought her a chocolate muffin.

“Cor!” Molly found herself saying. Her accent as the queen was extremely posh.

“Is there anything wrong, ma'am?” Black asked; something in the queen's tone put him on edge. Molly wondered whether the queen had been hypnotized by Black. She didn't think she had been, but she couldn't be sure.

“Everything is perrrfect,” Molly the queen replied, trying desperately to get a grip on herself. “Cor is the nickname of one of my corgis—the big scruffy one. His full name is Cor Blimey. It's Cockney, don't you know. He was just being naughty. You didn't see it, but I did.
Ha, ha. Oh, dear!” Outside, the sergeant was shouting his commands in the changing of the guard. The marching of the soldiers was perfectly synchronized as their feet hit the ground with precise rhythm. “Isn't the marching comforting?” Molly said. On the ground by her feet, three corgis turned to look up at her quizzically. The big scruffy one began growling. “Be quiet, Cor!” Molly tutted.

“You were saying?” Black began.

“What was I saying?” Molly asked unsurely, picking up her teacup and sipping at it. Clumsily she spilled some on her lap. “Oh. Ah, um, butler! Have you got a napkin?”

Black watched suspiciously as the royal butler came toward the queen brandishing a linen cloth. Black eyed the queen and her snarling corgis. Instinctively, he picked up his leather bag with the hypnotism book inside it.

“There you go, My Highness,” said Micky the butler, mopping away at the queen with the napkin. Molly pushed him away, knowing that a butler would definitely not start rubbing the queen's knees. Two of the corgis began to bark.

“You were offering,” Black went on, “to make arrangements for me to get to the Tower of London, to put the book safely there.” Now Black did not feel
comfortable at all. Lily's warnings rang loud in his ears.

Molly the queen eyed his bag. She supposed the book was inside it, and she marveled at Black's cunning. It was very clever of him to be using the book as an excuse to get into the Tower of London, she thought. Why, once he was in there, the riches at his fingertips were immense. The crown jewels were kept there, including the biggest diamond in the world. And she could see in the queen's memories that she had already been persuaded that the book was very, very precious and dangerous. She already had some knowledge of hypnotism, time traveling, time 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!”

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.