Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery (9 page)

“Good afternoon. Interested in April showers?” was how he introduced himself.

And that was how Petula met Stanley.

 

Now Petula was forty miles outside London, sucking a small pebble in the back of the open truck, her black
ears flapping in the wind. They were en route for the flower market in London. Petula had found out that April showers meant flowers. Stanley sat beside her, and all about them were boxes full of freshly cut flowers tied together with rope.

“Thank you for giving me a lift,” Petula said, watching the tarmac drop away from under the back wheels of the truck.

“My pleasure, sweet'eart,” the handsome bulldog replied. “Would have taken you days to walk to London.”

“It was so lucky I came across you,” Petula said. “How often do you pick up flowers, erm, April showers for the flower market?”

“Well, it depends. My man drives out to the country dependin' on what people are buyin'. They like their April showers in the Old Smoke.”

“The Old Smoke?”

“That's Cockney rhymin' slang for London.”

“So you come from London?”

“Oh, yeah. Born and bred. My man is a barrow boy.”

Petula frowned and put her nose up to the dark late-afternoon air to feel for Molly.

“Is the market in the center of London?” she asked.

“Not far. Near the 'ouses of Parliament. Just the other side of the river.” Stanley scratched his ear with his back paw.

“How long do you think it will take to get there?” Petula asked with a shiver.

“Oh, I dunno, we've covered quite a bit of ground already. I reckon it'll only be another forty minutes. You look like you're a bit taters in the mold.”

“Taters in the mold?”

“Potatoes in the mold. Cold.”

Petula nodded.

“I am. It's a bit windy out here.”

“Wish you had told me, luv. Could 'ave easily helped you with that. Wait there.”

“Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere,” Petula said. She watched as Stanley dragged an old sack from behind a crate and nudged it around her body. Petula smiled. “Thanks.”

The bulldog eyed her. Then he asked, “So these dustbin lids you know that are in trouble, you say you can feel where they are?”

“Dustbin lids?”

“Kids.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I can. And the closer we get to them, the stronger the feeling of them gets.”

“You must have a strong connection with them,
then. And this woman that you say has taken them, can you feel her?”

“No, I've only come across her once. Wish I'd bitten her ankles when I met her, and drawn blood. She smells of roses and thorns.”

“Well, she sounds a babbling brook,” Stanley commented.

“A babbling brook?”

“A crook. I mean, that's downright wicked, stealin' a couple of dustbin lids. But don't you worry now, Petula. I've got a friend who's joinin' us when we get to the market. The arrangement was, we were going for a good ol' sniff about. But now plans have changed. He knows central London like the back of his paw, and he's got a nose like a hound on him. We'll have a butcher's with 'im.”

“A butcher's?”

“A butcher's hook, a look. We'll have a look for your friends with him. Magglorian will help you find them.”

“I hope he can,” Petula said. “You see, it's all a bit more complicated. Erm. Do you know what hypnotism is, Stanley?”

M
iss Oakkton the ginger tomcat was out of breath. She watched the white cat that was Miss Hunroe as it slipped ahead, chasing Mr. Black, and she sidestepped into the entrance of a closed delicatessen. In a few seconds she had materialized back into her human self, this time in an olive-colored, ankle-length tweed coat with a hat and bag to match, carrying two baskets. The tomcat sat, dazed, by her feet. Miss Oakkton put down her baskets and put the ginger tom into one of them. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tortoiseshell pipe and an ivory tobacco box. Packing the pipe with tobacco, she lit it. For a few minutes she stood smoking, enjoying the peace and quiet. Then her phone rang. Lazily, she pulled it from her bag.

“Thank you, Miss Teriyaki. Yes, I vill be zare in a few minutes…. No, I am not smoking my pipe! What an idea! I stopped because a voman picked me up…. Well, of course not! No vun has picked
you
up, Miss Teriyaki, because your cat is not as attractive as mine…. You don't need to nag. I am coming.” Tutting, Miss Oakkton snapped her phone shut. “Interfering nag!” Then she refilled her pipe and lit it again. As she exhaled, a cloud of smelly smoke filling the shop alcove, a teenager drove his motorbike and sidecar into a parking space in front of her. Miss Oakkton stepped toward him.

“Excuse me, young man,” she began. The biker pulled his keys from the ignition slot and looked up. Immediately Miss Oakkton's large eyes had a hold on him. He couldn't look away, and for some reason, he felt he ought to do whatever this big muscley woman said. So, when she asked, he passed his motorbike keys to her.

“Now get off zat bike,” she said. The teenager did as he was told. Miss Oakkton put her two baskets, one with a cat in it, into the sidecar, and climbed onto the motorbike. It sank down under her weight. She started the engine. Then, laughing like a woman fresh out of the madhouse, she revved up the engine and drove away.

 

Flying along a London street on a blustery winter's night as a ladybug is difficult, as the tiny Molly and Micky were discovering. Huge double-decker buses driving past them made cyclonelike swirls of air that buffeted and knocked them. Then one gust blew to their advantage. It caught them up and cast them forward, inches from Black. With a few sturdy flaps of their bug wings, the twins had soon landed on his right shoulder and were standing knee-deep in the fuzz of his camel-hair coat.

Underneath them, Black's giant body parted the night air with ease. His massive feet thudded on the pavement.

Around, the streets were heavy with light. Beautifully designed shop windows, with dummies dressed in the latest fashions and photographs of glamorous people having fun in the same clothes behind, shone out into the night. Late-night shoppers passed Black, their arms laden with bags, some brushing shoulders with him, so that Molly and Micky had to grip the camel-hair strands with all their might.

Cafés glittered invitingly; cars with white headlights and red brake lights beamed brightly. Red, amber, and green traffic signals blinked. And everywhere the noise of engines hummed—buses, trucks, cars, motorbikes accompanied by the sound of bike bells.
Clonk,
clonk, shuffle, thud, tap
went the people's feet on the street.

“The human being certainly dominates the world!” Micky observed.

“I know. It's frightening when you're only four millimeters high, isn't it?” Molly replied, wiggling her antennas.

As they settled down again, a mountainous building loomed up. Its stucco walls and pillars rose into the sky to a lofty gray slate roof. Dozens of windows punctuated each floor. They looked like eyes, and hanging underneath them were their balconies that looked like wrought-iron mouths. On the wall, in shiny gold, was the sign
THE GLITZ RESTAURANT
. Two torches with flames in their sockets burned on either side of it. A large window followed the corner of the building around so that the restaurant faced both the hat shop on one corner and a bus stop on the other.

Black paused before entering. He swung his bag off his left shoulder, tugged his coat from his arms, and seeing two ladybugs on his lapel, brushed them off with his hand. And then he entered the Glitz.

Molly felt like she had been charged at by an elephant. She tumbled through the air as light as a lentil and as helpless as a frog in a flood. She tried to flap her wings and regain her balance, but instead she flipped around and around so that the world was a blur. Then,
finally, she hit the wall of the entrance. With crumpled wings, she fell to the ground and bounced from her back to her front legs. Dizzy and stunned, she lay still.

A few minutes passed as Molly's senses slowly came back to her. She shook out her wings, then packed them into her shell-like outer layer, and she checked her body for injury. Surprisingly, she was fine—a bit shaken, but not hurt. Now she looked worriedly about for Micky.

Micky had landed closer to the pavement, where dangerous feet trod past, and he was spinning around on his back. Molly scuttled toward him and, with her face under his wings, heaved him over.

“I don't like being a—” Micky didn't finish his sentence, for a massive feathered monster was standing over them. A scruffy, mangy pigeon stared down at Molly and Micky, cocking its head as it contemplated the two tasty morsels.

With a sudden, vicious movement, it lunged. Its beak hit the paving stone between the two ladybugs, grazing Molly's left wing.

“Oh, no!” Micky was speechless.

“Hide!” Molly screamed.

Micky and Molly dived for cover where a small broken piece of masonry had left a tiny hole in the wall. But even in the crack they weren't safe, for the pigeon was hungry. It began to peck relentlessly at the stone,
determined to oust its supper.

“I don't want to be eaten by a
pigeon
!” Micky screamed. “I don't want to be chomped up by a…by a…beeeeak.”

“Just—just control yourself, Micky,” Molly said, squishing into the hole as far as she could. Then another beak began to peck at their hiding place, too.

“Two of them! Jeepers!” Micky screeched. “You know birds are related to dinosaurs! T. rexes, velociraptors, allosauruses!”

“Calm down, Micky,” Molly pleaded, starting to feel desperate herself.

“What do you mean, calm down? Those beaks are like car-sized pick axes.”

Molly's insides lurched with fear.

Calm. Calm. Molly tried to find some amid the terror of the moment.

“I know!” she gasped. “We should just morph
into
them!”

“What?”

“Morph, you ningbat. Like before.”

“But…but we have to find a pattern—there isn't one.”

“Yes, there is.” Molly gulped. “Look at the wall.”

Micky raised his eyes. It was true. The stone was covered with green mildew.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he stuttered. “Okay. I'll try and turn into the scruffy one.”

Molly and Micky grew quiet and focused, for they knew their lives depended upon it. Both stared at the green algae, ignoring the horrible pecking that threatened to snap them up. Molly saw a picture first. The strange pattern of algae began to look like a dog. Immediately holding this image to the side of her mind, she thought of what it was to be a pigeon. She looked at the beady, cold eyes of the bird that pecked so intently. She considered its feathers and wings.

And, amazingly, she found it quite easy to find the essence of pigeon.

Good-bye, and thank you! she managed to think to the ladybug.

For a millimoment, she was nothing. Then she got the watery tipping feeling as her mind and her spirit washed into the pigeon. The creature stopped pecking. Like a gadget suddenly without batteries, it stood stock still. Its pea-brained mind registered Molly's arrival. For a moment, it attempted to push her out. But its efforts were a futile grapple. In the next second, Molly eclipsed its personality and took charge of its body. She flexed her new, scrawny bird legs with claws on the end and stretched out her muscley wings. She peered out of its beady black eyes over her new pale, dirty beak.
Below her, the ladybug whose body she'd borrowed stood stunned as it recovered.

Molly shook her feathery self and observed the inside of the pigeon's mind. She saw rooftops and streets as though from a bird's-eye view. She saw a great white sculpture of a woman with no arms, on which the pigeon liked to sit on sunny days.

Then she noticed that the other pigeon was still pecking at the ladybugs and knew that Micky hadn't managed the morph yet. Quickly Molly gave the scruffy pigeon a sharp jab in the neck. For a moment she thought the creature would peck her back, since he was bigger than her. But instead it went very quiet.

“Is that you, Micky?” Molly asked.

“Just made it,” the scruffy pigeon replied, his voice a coarse trill. “Let's fly up to that corner balcony before we get into any more trouble.” With the ladybug flying lessons under their belts, the twins flapped up to a balcony.

“Scary being a ladybug, wasn't it?” said Micky as they landed. “Suppose it's fine if you're on a rosebush in the summer, eating aphids.”

“Yes,” Molly agreed, folding her wings. “And then, scary to be an aphid.”

Below, the traffic flowed past, a river of machinery.

“You know we're in trouble, Molly, don't you?”
Micky suddenly said. “We can morph from animal to animal, but we don't know how to morph back into
ourselves
. I mean, we have to choose the creature we want to morph into, don't we? But Molly and Micky, the
real
us, aren't here…. The question is, where
are
our bodies, Molly?” A cold wind ruffled the feathers on his neck. Instinctively, he puffed himself out to keep warm.

“Maybe,” Molly said, “we have to morph into a
human
first, and then maybe we'll feel how to do it.”

Molly peered down at the two streets below. Near the hat shop was an alley where she could see some rats foraging near a smelly bin. She looked down at the main street.

“That old couple waiting for a bus,” she said. “How about them? You be the man, I'll be the woman.”

The old woman was dressed in a brown-and-yellow tweed coat with a green hand-knitted wool hat on. She was sucking on a piece of candy and clutching her brown handbag tightly with mittened hands. She had a weatherbeaten face, pink cheeks, and little brown eyes that glittered behind round spectacles, and her gray hair was as thin as cotton candy. The old man wore a flat, dark blue beret and a nylon raincoat. Molly saw that imagining the old woman as a child wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought. She wondered whether mind reading would help, so, pulling her thoughts
together, Molly sent out the message, Old lady, what are you thinking? However, to Molly's disappointment, a bubble didn't appear above the woman's head. It was as if mind reading was something Molly could only do in her Molly Moon body. Molly shrugged her bird shoulders. She supposed it didn't really matter. The book hadn't said that mind reading would help a person to morph.

“Are you ready?” Micky the pigeon asked. Molly nodded. And they both began.

Molly looked about for a pattern. The bus shelter was good, as it had glass on the front of it that was stained with old watermarks. The drips definitely looked like mountains. Holding these in her mind, Molly did her best to imagine the old woman as a child. She would have been smaller and thinner, Molly thought, and much less wrinkly, of course. She would be wearing a child's coat and hat, with a satchel instead of a bag. Molly's eyes considered the old lady's face and drank it in. And as though she had a magic eraser, her imagination erased the crow lines around her eyes and the puppetlike marionette lines around her mouth. The creases of her brow and the puckering around her chin dissolved, and the old lady's mottled skin was replaced by the fresh complexion of a child.

Molly pulled the image of the water-stained
mountain range into the center of her mind. And as the two visions merged, Molly aimed her being at the old lady. She felt herself shiver and quiver, and suddenly she lost all sensation of her claws, her wing tips, and her tail.

“Good-bye, and thank you!” Molly managed to cry as she whizzed away. In a split second she couldn't feel her pigeon body at all. But this moment was minuscule, for in the next, the pouring feeling swished through Molly.

“EEK!” the old lady shrieked.

Molly had done it! She'd morphed into a
human
body. The idea of it was so miraculous and the sensation so spectacular that for a moment Molly was half stunned with amazement.

“Are you all right, dear?” her husband asked with concern.

Molly floundered for a second as the shock of her situation overwhelmed her. Then, seeing that the old woman's personality was stronger than she had reckoned on, she concentrated hard. Molly felt like she was wrestling with the lady's spirit, trying to pin her down. Molly was winning, but not entirely. Finally Molly took control, and the woman's personality was submerged. As soon as Molly felt she was in charge, she thought apologies to her, explaining to her what
was happening. At once, she felt the person who she was in relax.

Molly felt strange. It was extraordinary to be in another human body, and it was an extra shock to be in an
old
one. Her bones were creaky and stiff, and she could hardly register her muscles. Her bottom was fat and bulgy, and it was very peculiar having two lumps on the front of her chest.

On top of the physical sensations were the mental ones. Molly was at once familiar with the woman's life and her personal history. She didn't see every memory at once, of course, for there were billions of them tucked away in the old lady's mind. But Molly knew that she was called Sofia and that the man beside her was Wilf, her dear husband, who she had married fifty-four years before in a church in Rome.