Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery (18 page)

M
olly and Micky stared at the wall in amazement. Every time a flash of lightning lit up the sky, the light of it shone through the stained-glass windowpane, past the etched lines there, and threw up defined shadows on the wall above the fireplace.

Quickly they ran down the balcony's spiral staircase and waited for another burst of light.

“Come on, come
on,
” Micky urged. “Don't let the storm stop now.”

Rain slapped against the window and thunder rumbled.

“Here we go,” said Molly. And then there was an enormous crack, as though two monster marbles were smashing into each other in the air above the museum.
Petula hid under a sofa. The sky filled with white light. Again and again, white light lit up the Earth, and Molly and Micky were able to read the wall.

“It's a map!” Micky declared. “With a sort of picture code. But the question is…is that shape a country or a city or a village or a
small
area of land?”

“And what do the pictures inside the shape mean?” Molly asked. “The first thing looks like a cloud. Then…are those trees? Is that supposed to be a wood? Put the two things together, and you get cloud trees or cloud wood. That doesn't make sense.”

“Cloud
forest
does, though,” Micky interjected. “There are places called cloud forests very high up in mountainous places where the trees are covered with cloud.”

“Where?”

“South America, I think. But we could find out for sure.”

“And those four tear-shaped things are definitely the Logan Stones,” Molly said. “Then there's…” Molly waited for a flash of lightning to light up the wall again. When it did, she pointed to a shape. “There's that. It looks like a spring—like a metal spring. Then there's the word
COCA
, with that squiggly line after it. Coca. That must be a place.”

“No, it's not a place,” Micky said authoritatively. “It's
a river. The Coca River. I know it's a river. I remember reading about it when I was six and thinking how it was a river made of chocolate, of cocoa. And that spring shape is exactly that. A spring—you know, as in the origin of a river. A spring. That whole thing means, ‘the spring of the Coca River.'”

Molly gasped. “Where is the Coca River, Micky?”

Micky frowned. “Let me think. What are the countries in South America? Um.” He paused and thought hard. Then he stared up at the wall as though for inspiration. Some lightning flashed into the room again, lighting up the wall. “I've got it,” he practically shouted. “That shape there is the shape of Ecuador. I know it is. This makes sense. Those books in the bookcase upstairs. Quite a lot of them were about South America, weren't they?”

Molly nodded. “
The Andes. The Aztecs.
Weren't the Aztecs the people who used to live in South America?”

Micky shrugged. “I think we've nailed it, Moll. Come on. Let's go up there and see whether there's anything else that can help us.”

Quickly the twins hurried back up the staircase to the bookshelves and found an atlas. They turned its pages to find its index. They searched for the word Coca. There was only one entry.

“The Coca River!” Molly read. Micky flicked back
through the atlas's pages while Molly held the flashlight.

“Page thirty-three, two C.” His fingers found the page. “This is extreme,” he announced. “It's in northwest Ecuador.”

He pointed on the map to an area that was colored gray. “See all that? That area is the Andes Mountains. And see that? That's a volcano. Look, there's the Coca River. There's where it starts. And you can bet that it's all cloud forests in the high mountains there. So that's where the Logan Stones are! In a cloud forest place, high in the Andes Mountains, near the spring of the Coca River.”

“Crikey,” Molly said. She looked outside at the terrible weather. “
How
are we going to get
there
?” The light outside again broke the darkness and showed the strange coded map on the wall.

“It's amazing,” said Micky. “Somehow Hunroe worked out the clue to here. Then she must have found all of this”—he pointed to the wall—“and got so excited that she made the natural history museum her headquarters.”

“And our great-great-grandfather Dr. Logan,” Molly added, “must have hidden the clue there in the window glass in the first place.”

Just then, Petula began to growl. She smelled
chocolate cookies, and the lavender smell was getting stronger. She poked her nose out from under the sofa and began to sniff. There was a noise from beyond the library door. Someone was making their way along the central aisle of the filing-cabinet room. They were carrying an umbrella or a walking stick, for their footsteps were accompanied by the
tap tap tapping
of something else that hit the floor as they walked.

“Quick!” Micky said.

“Petula!” Molly whispered.

Molly and Micky scurried down the balcony stairs and whipped across the downstairs room to the door. If they could slip behind it, they could just sneak out as soon as whoever it was out there entered. But there wasn't time. The door opened. The light came on. They ducked behind the sofa.

The room was suddenly lit with the warm glow of its orange lights. Molly stared at Micky and put her hand on Petula. In only a matter of seconds, the person would see the smashed picture frame. They listened to the person putting something down on the far table. They breathed heavily as they moved.

“Miss Suzette?” Micky mouthed the name to Molly and puffed his cheeks out. “Fat!” Molly smelled lavender in the air and nodded. She hoped so. Miss Suzette was small enough to handle. Molly imagined
Miss Suzette eyeing the room and discovering the mess, then seeing the disturbed bookcase upstairs. She hoped Miss Suzette would climb the balcony stairs to inspect. Once she was up there, they could escape. But as she was imagining this, a horrible thing happened.

Miss Suzette's large, fat face peered over the top of the sofa. “YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” she bellowed.

Like birds set to flight, Molly and Micky moved up and away. Dodging Miss Suzette's pink-fingernailed grasp, and the swishing of her mother-of-pearl walking stick, they ran.

“Come on, Petula,” Molly cried as she dashed over the broken frame, the wood crunching under her feet. Micky jumped on the coffee table, smashing a flower-filled porcelain vase and slipping on a pile of magazines. He hurdled the other sofa. It was Petula who got stuck. Miss Suzette reached out and seized her around the waist. She lifted Petula up, tipping her at a very uncomfortable angle, pinching her skin with her pincerlike grip. With a furious bark, Petula sank her teeth through the old woman's lacy dress sleeves and into her forearm.

Miss Suzette shrieked like a banshee, “
Aaaaah!
You ghastly dog!” and dropped her.

Petula leaped onto the sofa and ran along it to the
other end, where Molly caught her. Micky picked up Miss Suzette's sopping-wet raincoat, bunched it into a ball, and threw it at her so that it hit her in the face like a slop of seaweed.

“Hah!” Micky laughed. Miss Suzette tottered backward and fell in a heap on the floor, her petticoats puffing up to reveal huge lacy knickers. “Hope that makes you think twice before you hurt an animal again!”

And not wanting to hang around any longer in case Miss Suzette decided to morph into any of them, Molly, Micky, and Petula were away. They sped down the archive room and raced to the upstairs passageway. They skidded over the polished floors, Petula's claws skittering as they went. They long-jumped down the main stairs. And then they sprinted down the stuffed-bird corridor that connected the museum to its other side.

“Hope there aren't any more of Hunroe's friends here,” Molly said, panting and breathless, eyeing a stuffed owl.

The twins and Petula arrived at the side entrance. Behind them, they could hear the far-off echoing sound of Miss Suzette's clipped footsteps as she puffed her way down the museum stairs after them.

Molly paused by the night watchman, who stood like
a soldier awaiting orders.

“Thank you!” she said. “After we're gone, you will no longer remember any of Miss Hunroe's hypnotic instructions to you. No one will
ever
be able to hypnotize you again. And you will forget us, and you will be hypnotized no more by me,
except
you will do something for us. When Miss Suzette, the woman who's chasing us, arrives, you will stop her from leaving the building. Thanks.” Molly turned to leave, then stopped. “And I seal all of this in with the password…”

“Frilly Knickers?” Micky suggested.

“Yes, with the password ‘Frilly Knickers.'”

With that Molly, Micky, and Petula burst out of the building into the wet night. Rain drenched them so that they climbed into Black's car dripping.

“Got what we need?” Black asked.

As the car screeched away, Molly looked back at the museum's side door.

Through the football-sized porthole there, she could just make out the puffy figure of Miss Suzette and the night watchman blocking her path. He had her wrists in his hands and was shaking his head solemnly while she was struggling and shouting as though a demon possessed her.

“H
ad a nice little trip, did you?” Lily had finally emerged from her bedroom and stood on its threshold with her arms crossed. She was wearing a red silk bathrobe and red furry slippers. Her pajamas had pictures of roses on them. Her eyes darted angrily to the rattling French window and the balcony outside, where rain smacked down hard.

“Oh, Lily, we did ask you if you wanted to come too, so please stop being grumpy,” said Black. “Come and hear what Molly and Micky found out.” He gestured to the sofa.

“Come on,” Molly said. Lily shrugged and came over.

While Molly told Lily everything that had happened, Malcolm fiddled with the TV controls. Finally
he got a signal, and a serious-faced presenter, standing in a studio in front of a large weather map of Europe, appeared. The screen flickered, and her voice crackled.

“Our satellite pictures show heavy storms over the North Sea,” she said. “And what looks alarmingly like the beginnings of a
tornado
have been detected in Northern Europe, near the southern coast of Sweden. It's anyone's guess how this tornado will grow and where it will go, as the winds are proving unpredictable, but the National Weather Agency's advice to everyone tonight is stay at home and batten down the hatches. Don't make trips out unless they are
absolutely necessary
. And keep watching news and weather reports to see how this storm and tornado are progressing.” The woman gave a stern nod and the cameras switched to another newsperson, a dark-haired man in a suit, and his guest, an elderly man with white hair and a bushy beard.

“It's crazy out there, Professor Cramling. In all your years working at Cambridge University, you say you've never seen anything like this?” asked the anchorman.

“No. Never.”

“And how do you explain it?”

Professor Cramling scratched his hairy chin. “I can only assume,” he postulated, “that this weather
is the unexpected result of global warming. People expected weather to change—but not this suddenly. Every weather professional that I have spoken to is concerned, alarmed, confused.”

Malcolm flicked channels to look at the global weather and news reports. Lots of other countries were having strange, often fatally dangerous, weather, too. One channel showed a weather map of the world. It showed that Canada, America, Europe, and Russia were having snowstorms and blizzards, and Asian countries were having typhoons. Other countries were suffering from severe wet weather conditions similar to London's.

“But look!” Micky pointed to the world map on the TV. “Ecuador and other South American countries don't seem to have been affected at all!”

“All flights from British airports have been delayed,” a newsreader reported.

“Not good news,” said Malcolm, watching the birds'-eye TV footage of miles and miles of traffic stuck in a jam on the motorways to the airports. The massive queue looked like an electrical river, as the thousands of cars in it beamed out their red rear lights into the dark night.

“So what do you think?” Micky asked Lily. Lily narrowed her eyes and then softened, pleased that
someone valued her opinion. She knelt down on the floor next to Micky. “You see,” Micky went on, “we've got to get here.” He pointed to the atlas page that showed northern Ecuador. “To the top of that squiggly blue line. That's the Coca River.”

“And it's definitely the place where the weather can be changed? Where the Logan Stones are?” Lily asked.

“Hope so,” Micky said, making a face. “Because we're going a long way away for a mistake if we're not right.”

“It all seems a bit vague to me.” Lily sniffed.

Black, who'd been tapping away at his computer, now leaned back in his chair. “The source of the Coca River,” he announced, “is unknown. But the first signs of it are high, high up in the Andes, high above the cloud forest. At least they give GPS coordinates for this. So we can go there.” Black squinted at his computer. “We have to fly to a city called Quito in Ecuador,” he concluded. “And then drive from there up into the mountains.”

“Or we could get a helicopter,” Molly suggested. “That would be quicker.”

Lily suddenly frowned at her dad. “You're not thinking of going, are you, Dad?”

Black turned. His face blushed slightly, as though
he had done something naughty.

“Well, I had thought, erm, I ought.”

Lily Black's face now turned red as a temper rose up in her. “There is no way you are going,” she said with a firmness that was a bit scary. “You know what the doctor said. You mustn't fly. Your heart can't take it. You will have a heart attack.”

“What?” Micky asked.

“Dad is absolutely not allowed to go on planes,” Lily explained. “If he does, he might have another heart attack.”

Black swiveled around, his face now crestfallen.

“Lily's right, I'm afraid,” he said. “Molly and Micky, I would love to come, but the condition of my heart just won't allow it. Firstly, the flight wouldn't be good for me, and secondly, my doctor has given me strict instructions that I must not go to areas of high altitude. High altitudes are dangerous for people with weak hearts, you see.”

Molly shrugged. “Okay. We're used to doing things on our own. But it would be good if Malcolm would come. Will you come, Malcolm?” Malcolm nodded. “Thanks,” Molly said, relieved. “Anyway, Mr. Black, we'll need someone here. Someone who knows what's going on.”

“We'll need walking boots and clothes for a steamy
climate,” said Micky, his appetite whetted for the trip. “And detailed maps of the area. Actually, who knows what it'll be like in the cloud forest? We'll need matches, water-purifying tablets, food rations, bug repellent, penknives, flashlights, a few necessary medicines. How about tents and sleeping bags and mosquito nets?”

“Well, your plans are already over,” said Lily, hoisting herself up onto the back of the sofa and pointing at the muted TV. “The airports are closed.” As she spoke, thunder rumbled overhead. Petula jumped off the sofa and buried her face under Molly's leg.

“You're right,” Molly said.

“Hell,” Micky cursed. “If we can't get out to Ecuador, we're skewered. This is the end.”

“Mr. Black,” said Molly, “couldn't we hypnotize people at the airport and then hypnotize a pilot?”

“We
could
,” Black mulled, “though it would be quite something to hypnotize a pilot to do this. It will be dangerous flying, you see. The pilot should really be fully alert. And as you know, some people, when hypnotized, are not fully alert.”

“You wouldn't have to hypnotize me to do it,” Malcolm piped up. Everyone turned to look at Malcolm Tixley. They stared at him as though he had just announced that he'd laid an egg. “Come on, Molly,” he
said, “you've been in my head. I'm an air force pilot.”

“Of course you are!” Molly exclaimed. “But…but what about a plane? Can you get us one?”

Malcolm thought. “I know the man to hypnotize to get a plane authorized. I can arrange to meet him at Northolt Air Base tonight.”

“Will it be safe to take off?” Lily asked. “I mean, the weather's
really
bad.”

“Oh, I've flown in hundreds of storms before,” Malcolm reassured them. “We just need to get up above the cloud as quickly as possible. Then it will be plain sailing.”

“Airplane sailing?” Molly said with a smile.

“You got it.”

 

Miss Hunroe was perched elegantly on a green baize stool in a clearing in a rain forest. A wall of rock was the backdrop to where she sat. A thin stream of mountain water gurgled from a crack in the rock there. It filled up a small pool and then drained deep into the earth beneath.

All about were luscious, broad-leaved trees, with vines climbing through them. Bushes and long-stalked ferns covered the ground nearby.

Two huge, teardrop-shaped rocks flanked her. One was a fiery red-and-orange color and the other blue,
though not merely one blue. This stone was turquoise and azure, and sparkling blue flashed from deep within it. Two more granite “eggs”—one of these made up of complicated gray tones with flecks of fluffy or wispy white in it, and another a cacophony of greens—were in the clearing, too, completing the circle of Logan Stones. Miss Oakkton, stout as a stuffed cabbage, sat on a low box between the blue stone and the gray stone. Miss Teriyaki sat cross-legged on a brightly woven rug on the ground between the gray stone and the green stone. Miss Speal was on a rough, makeshift, wooden bench between the green stone and the red one.

In the middle of the ring of Logan Stones was an ancient termite mound the size of a giant toy wigwam, with turrets and twisting towers like a mad sandcastle. A mist of low cloud hung in the air above and draped the trees like a silken veil. It filtered the sun's rays so that the space where the ghastly women sat was filled with warm green sunlight.

Miss Hunroe wore a smart khaki-colored suit and a gauze scarf over her head. Batting flies from her face with a white-gloved hand, she suddenly slapped her neck.

“Blasted bugs! Why is it they always want to eat me?”

Miss Oakkton, cloaked in green, squatting on her
box and puffing away at her tortoiseshell pipe, said, “Zay don't seem to like the smoke of my pipe. Would you like to borrow it?”

“Certainly not,” Miss Hunroe retorted, curling her rosebud lips. “I don't like your smoke either.”

Miss Teriyaki dug in her pink silk bag and produced a small white canister. “Repellent?”

Miss Hunroe shook her head. “I'm already doused in it. Any more and I'll be highly flammable.”

The four women were still in silent concentration for a moment. “It's not as easy as it seemed it might be,” Miss Hunroe commented. She pulled out her coin from her pocket and began flipping it along her fingers.

“No, but ve vill get ze hang of it,” Miss Oakkton replied optimistically. Miss Hunroe sighed happily. Miss Oakkton chuckled like an old turkey. “And is everyone over the altitude sickness?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, yes,” the women lied.

“Good. So everything is going as planned. And almost all of us are doing so well,” Miss Hunroe said mysteriously. Immediately the group was set on edge. “Miss Teriyaki…” Miss Teriyaki looked up with a
terrified look on her face, expecting a terrible scolding. Miss Hunroe quelled her fears. “I admired the way you intercepted Black's bag and made off with it.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Hunroe,” Miss Teriyaki said, as though she'd just been given a prize. “I'm glad you noticed.” She smiled smugly at the other women.

“And Miss Speal,” Miss Hunroe continued, “the cake you made today was splendid.” Breathing out a huge sigh of relief, Miss Speal started tittering nervously and idiotically. “But that's enough hysteria,” Miss Hunroe added sternly. Miss Speal was quiet.

Miss Hunroe went on. “Miss Oakkton and Miss Teriyaki…” The two women's eyes widened as they awaited Miss Hunroe's words. “You have been marvelous hunters! Miss Teriyaki, I am glad your leg is better, and I am impressed by your use of the poison arrow pipe, and Miss Oakkton, you throw knives with the accuracy of a circus performer! Without you two, we wouldn't have had fresh meat. Thank you!” The two women in question nodded their heads as they accepted their praise and sniffed at the other woman in the circle.

“Miss Speal!” Miss Speal sat up like a child who'd just been caught smashing a window.

“Yes!”

“Well done, Miss Speal, for the lessons you have given me on weather morphing. Your personal experience, having owned that blue stone for so long, has been invaluable. But—”

“Yes, Miss Hunroe?” Miss Speal replied in a timid, spooky half whisper.

“
But
, I am afraid, Miss Speal, there is a problem.”

All eyes turned on Miss Speal, who sat on her bench looking as though a pack of tigers surrounded her. Miss Hunroe glanced at the cloudy sky, as if in despair, and then moved her gaze to the thin woman. In a tight, quiet voice she began.

“Everything was so nice, Miss Speal. So tell me this. Why, why oh why, did
you
go and spoil it? What did you think you were
doing
to that bird when you cooked it? Giving it a trip to hell and back?” Miss Speal was speechless. Miss Hunroe went on. “You ruined it. It was disgusting. Burned to a cinder and baked to a dry mess.”

“But Miss Hunroe,” Miss Speal whined in self-defense. “I followed the recipe exactly—”

“Nonsense!” Miss Hunroe interrupted. “It was quite the most disgusting meal I have ever eaten. When I think of all the trouble that Miss Oakkton and Miss Teriyaki went through to get it!”

Miss Speal sank into her bench as six hard eyes bore
into her. She bowed her head and shook it from side to side.

“Forgive me. I will take more care next time, Miss Hunroe, I promise. I promise. I promise.”