Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

“You slab of rotton sushi!” Miss Teriyaki hissed. “Please control your—your butt next time, Miss Oakkton.”

Miss Oakkton lifted her head proudly. “I thought it smelled rarzer good.”

At dawn, Molly woke to the sound of Petula’s clawed paws clipping across the wooden floor. Molly drifted back to sleep. She woke a few hours later. The sun was still coming up. She drank some water and sat up to see Cappuccino the monkey sitting on her windowsill.

“Good morning, Cappuccino. How are you?” Molly asked. The monkey nodded and then turned to look into the forest. He began to chatter.

“Sorry, I don’t understand you,” she said, getting out of bed. Then she went outside. Bas was already dressed, stirring a saucepan on an outdoor fire. A kettle sat beside it.

“Porridge?” he asked. Just then Cappuccino began to shriek and jump up and down, pointing into the bushes.

Something was moving in the undergrowth behind Bas. The leaves swayed and rustled as if something was crouching there, ready to pounce.

“Bas!” Molly called. “Watch out!”

Bas snatched a stick from the fire. Its end was smoldering. “Where?”

Then, in answer, the thing in the bushes let out a cry. A human cry.

“Molly, it’s me, Malcolm!”

Moments later, with Cappuccino watching, Molly and Bas were helping Malcolm up the stairs to the hut. Malcolm’s injuries looked worryingly bad. He had a nasty gash in his calf, and his ankle was swollen and raw and pink. His face was scratched as though someone had rubbed it with thorns.

“I landed in a huge spiky plant. That was after I hit a tree and tumbled through it,” Malcolm mumbled as they laid him down on the veranda daybed.

“Bas’ll sort you out,” Molly said. “He knows exactly what plants can help you.” Her head spun as a thought occurred to her. “Did you see the others?”

“No,” Malcolm croaked. “I don’t know where they are.”

Molly’s heart sank.

“Bas, can you fix this?” Malcolm gasped with a look of desperation in his eyes. “My calf looks like it’s going gangrenous. I don’t really want to have my leg chopped off.”

“Gangrenous? What’s that?” Molly asked. Bas wrinkled his nose as he inspected Malcolm’s bloody wound.

“It’s when an untreated infected wound goes bad,” he explained, “because the swelling, which is something Malcolm’s got very badly in his ankle, has stopped the blood flow. So the white blood cells that normally fight the infection can’t get there.”

“Can you help him?” Molly whispered.

“Luckily for you, Malcolm,” said Bas, licking his lips as though he was really excited, “I have some special little friends that can help you. I began cultivating them yesterday as part of an experiment.”

With that, Bas hurried off to his hut. Molly took Malcolm’s hand.

“How did you find me?”

“The tracking device…it’s in my pocket. I’ve been crawling day and night. I knew I had to get to you. Had a feeling you’d have been lucky.” Malcolm smiled.

“I’m very glad to see you, Malcolm. You flew that plane brilliantly, by the way.”

Malcolm grinned. “It was a bit hairy.” Then he frowned. “I wonder what happened to the others.” Molly shook her head.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

The door of Bas’s hut swung open again. Armed with all sorts of medical supplies, he hurried back to them. As he passed the fire, he picked up the kettle off it. “Perfect timing,” he said. “Just boiled.”

Molly sat on a chair beside Bas and watched. First of all, he washed his hands in the rainwater tap. Then he disinfected them with some medical alcohol that smelled sharp. Next, he set to work on Malcolm’s leg. He took wads of cotton gauze, and using first hot water and then the alcohol, he cleaned Malcolm’s gash. Malcolm winced and bit his lip. Then, when the wound was clean, Bas lifted a shallow plastic container out of his bag.

“What’s that?” Malcolm asked, worried. Bas nodded.

“This is going to surprise you.” He peeled back the lid of the container. To Malcolm and Molly’s horror, there in the container was a mass of little white maggots.

“Maggots!” Malcolm gasped. “They’ll eat me alive!”

Molly’s tongue stuck out as she felt sick.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Bas assured them both. “Maggots are brilliant with gangrene. You see, they like to eat rotten flesh. They don’t eat good healthy flesh. So, what we do is put them on your wound, and the little fellows will eke out all the nasty gangrenous stuff and the bad bacteria and then, when their work is done, I will put them back in their container to, erm, well, to digest!”

“You’re joking,” Malcolm said, his eyes wide. “They’re revolting.”

“I’m one hundred percent serious. These are your friends.”

At these words Molly found herself giggling. The idea of Malcolm having a party and all the little maggots being invited because they were his friends had occurred to her.

“Sorry,” she said, knowing that it wasn’t very tactful to laugh. But still she kept laughing.