Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

“Absolutely,” Micky replied. “Wow, it’s wet out there.” A rumble of thunder rolled through the sky as if in agreement.

Black turned off his engine. “Here are a couple of flashlights for you. You may need them. We’ll wait for you here.” He consulted his watch. “Remember, if you’re not back by midnight, I’m coming in.”

Molly read the luminescent clock on the dashboard. It was ten fifteen. “We’ll be fine,” she said, far more confidently than she felt. “Don’t worry about us. Anyway, Malcolm, your red box can still track me, right?”

“Yes,” said Malcolm, pulling his gadget out of his pocket and switching it on. It bleeped reassuringly.

“Good. And you never know, we may find my time-stopping crystals and time-traveling gems in there somewhere. Then, wow, everything would be really cool. Ready, Micky?”

Standing in the rain outside, Micky rang the bell. Water seeped under the elastic wristband of Molly’s jacket. She held Petula tight.

A light came on inside the building and the night watchman, an elderly, whiskered man with a blue uniform, came through the inner safety door of the museum and peered out through the football-sized peephole of the main door. He couldn’t see much as the glass was so wet, but it was clear that the two people outside were children. He knew how dangerous the London streets could be at night, so he reached behind him to lock the safety catch of the inner door, and then he reached for the bolt of the main door.

“Hello, are you two all right?” he asked. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there.”

The little girl came forward.

“We’re lost,” she said in a wobbly voice. “We’re lost. We ran away from home, see, and now we’re lost.”

“Ran away from home? Lost? Dear me!” The night watchman glanced out at the empty, black, glistening street that bounced with rainwater. Then he looked at the two straggly, sodden children and their black pug. They were harmless.

“Come on in, then,” he said kindly, beckoning them inside.

“I’m very sorry,” said Molly as the old man led them through the second door into the museum, toward his office. “And thank you very much.”

“What on earth are a nice couple of kids like you doin’ runnin’ away from home?” the watchman asked. “That’s what I want to know.”

Molly considered the man. Hunroe would have definitely hypnotized him, she thought. Hypnotized him not to be hypnotized by anyone else. Hunroe would have locked her hypnotism in with a password. But if Molly found out the password, then she could override Miss Hunroe’s hypnotism. So, using the skill that no one else knew she had, she opened a thought bubble over the man’s head, and she asked him, “What is the password that Miss Hunroe used to lock in your hypnotism?” The old man frowned.

“I’m sorry? I don’t think I understand your question, dear. Come into the office and have a hot chocolate or a cup of tea or something. We’ll sort everything out there.” But as he spoke, a picture of an apple appeared above his head. Then she switched on her eyes.

As the hypnotic lasers of her pupils beamed into the old man’s, she said, “I unlock your previous hypnotism with the word ‘Apple,’ and now, I’m sorry, I mean, you are a very nice old man and all that, but until I set you free, you are now completely and utterly under my power.” Like a creature born to obey her, the old man stood obediently in front of Molly.

“How did you know the password?” Micky asked incredulously. Molly shrugged casually.

“No, that’s weird, Molly. How did you know?”

“Intuition,” Molly fibbed. Micky held her gaze and tilted his head as though he found this difficult to believe.

“Really?” he said.

Minutes later, Molly, Micky, and Petula were being led by the hypnotized night watchman through the museum in a passage lined with stuffed birds. Ahead, in the musty gloom of the main hall of the museum, they could see the massive skeletal legs of the diplodocus.

“We’ll see you later, then,” Molly whispered to the old man. “Wait by the side door to let us out.”

The watchman nodded and smiled.

“Right…you…are,” he whispered back in a halting tone.

Molly and Micky paused and surveyed the dark, cathedral-proportioned space with its grand staircase that split into two, curving around to join the first-floor balcony. Petula sniffed the air and tried to read its swarms of smells. The overriding odor was floor polish. Under this was the smell of ancient bones, and old fur, and the smell of that afternoon’s visitors’ footsteps, which had brought in scents from the street. And Petula could detect that onions and garlic had been fried a few hours before and a croissant had been eaten upstairs. The scent of lavender blossom flickered through the hall as though someone wearing it had recently walked by. Sensing that the coast was clear now, though, Petula tapped Molly on her leg with her paw, nodded, and stepped forward.