Georgia Byng
Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery
For Christopher, with love
Contents
One
It was a winter afternoon. Briersville Park was sodden and…
Two
Molly and Micky Moon were sitting in an emerald green sports…
Three
Miss Hunroe clicked her fingers, encouraging Molly and Micky to…
Four
Outside the natural history museum, shielded from the high tower…
Five
Miss Hunroe stood alone beside a high, round table in…
Six
Molly glanced around the room suspiciously. “Can’t believe he left…
Seven
For a second Molly was all air, and then she…
Eight
Miss Oakkton the ginger tomcat was out of breath. She…
Nine
Molly hid her old-lady face behind her wine list. She…
Ten
A rat was practically the last creature Molly would ever…
Eleven
The Jack Russell barked ferociously down into the well of the…
Twelve
Miss Hunroe was in her lavish rooms back at the…
Thirteen
“I’ll be the butler,” Micky twittered. “You can be the…
Fourteen
Molly could hardly believe it, but it was true. Sharing…
Fifteen
“Lily, Lily, please. If you can’t be helpful or nice,…
Sixteen
Outside the French window, yet another flash of lightning lit…
Seventeen
“Do you really think Petula needs to come?” Black asked.
Eighteen
Molly and Micky stared at the wall in amazement. Every…
Nineteen
“Had a nice little trip, did you?” Lily had finally…
Twenty
Molly, Micky, Petula, Lily, and Malcolm sat in Black’s Mercedes…
Twenty-One
Molly was having a wonderful dream—that she was riding a…
Twenty-Two
Molly’s body hit the air. Freezing cold, it smacked her…
Twenty-Three
Everything was still now. Petula came to her senses. She…
Twenty-Four
The man arrived at a small cluster of thatched wooden…
Twenty-Five
Molly got stronger. She ate and ate, little bits here…
Twenty-Six
The birds of the forest had been up for hours.
Twenty-Seven
Petula trotted after Canis, who moved swiftly up the mountain…
Twenty-Eight
Molly was very, very hot. The heat of the Ecuadorean…
Twenty-Nine
“I’m not leaving here,” Lily declared stubbornly. She was sitting…
Thirty
Micky and Lily followed the friendly, scruffy dog through the…
Thirty-One
Rain slapped down on the outside of the termite mound…
Thirty-Two
“I wish you were here,” Molly said. She was on…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Georgia Byng
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
One
It was a winter afternoon. Briersville Park was sodden and glistening. Rain pelted down, hitting the vegetable garden path with a vengeance, smacking its green algae surface so that each drop split into a hundred smaller drops that bounced up again. Two frogs hid under the outstretched leg of a stone cupid in the center of a pond, and the orange fish there dived to its murky bottom for shelter.
Water dripped down AH2’s dark face. His black, snug, weatherproof trousers and jacket were covered in mud, since he’d just spent fifteen minutes crawling through three llama fields toward this grand house, Briersville Park. Now he pulled his ski mask back behind his ears so that he could better hear. Children’s voices, whoops, and shouts, and the sound of barks were coming from the other side of a high wall.
There was a heavy door set in the brickwork, but he didn’t dare use that. Instead, taking first a furtive look about to check he wasn’t watched, he put his hands on the leafless branches of an old apple tree that was fastened to the wall. With the ease of a trained soldier, he climbed up to its crest.
There she was. He was certain. The alien girl who went by the name Molly Moon was playing at the edge of a swimming pool with two boys who AH2 guessed were the same age as the Moon girl—about eleven years old. One was the black boy AH2 recognized from an ad that he and Molly Moon had starred in. Beside him was another boy who looked like he was the alien girl’s twin. He had similar light brown curly hair and the same potato-shaped nose and identical strong but closely set green eyes. Was this boy an alien, too? AH2 twitched. Then he got a shock. All of a sudden a large, gray object that he had presumed to be a sunken blowup dinghy emerged from the pool. It was an elephant, and it squirted a few gallons of water at the children, drenching them further and making the small black pug that was with them bark. The children laughed and shouted at the elephant before it tipped its body back toward the deep end for another swim.
AH2 shook his head in nonplussed amazement, then returned to his task. Quickly he unzipped his front jacket pocket and pulled out a small, loaded rifle, resting it on the top of the wall. He peered through its sights. Molly Moon’s head and shoulders came into view. Her wet hair fell to one side, exposing a fairly wide expanse of her neck. AH2 gritted his teeth. If only Molly Moon would stop jumping up and down and if only that look-alike boy would get out of the way. AH2 waited patiently until Molly Moon’s neck was aligned in the red target circle of his rifle’s sights again. He waited for the elephant. His aim was to use the animal as a distraction and to shoot at the same moment as the elephant hosed the children down.
The elephant rose up from the water and fired. At the same time, AH2 pulled the trigger. His dart hit first; the water hit Molly Moon a split second later. Everyone screeched, and in the commotion of the moment Molly Moon’s yelp was lost. She reached up and cupped her neck.
“Ow, Amrit!” she complained. “That water had a stone in it!”
“Bingo!” AH2 murmured. He dropped silently from the garden wall and ran toward the llama fields. Running swiftly and darting behind the animal-shaped bushes there whenever possible, he made his way to the far woods beyond, to where his black car was parked. Slipping into the front seat, he took off his ski mask and his jacket and reached for the brown package on the passenger seat.
Drying his hands, he unpacked the red, radiolike box inside it and pulled out its antenna. Switching on the device, he pointed it in the direction of Briersville Park, to its gardens and its swimming pool. The machine bleeped reassuringly.
“Got you, alien Moon girl,” AH2 said with a satisfied smack of his lips. He picked up his phone and tapped in a message to his superior, AH1.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Two
Molly and Micky Moon were sitting in an emerald green sports car, speeding up the motorway under a heavy gray sky. Molly felt like some sort of pet animal, as she was stuffed in the cramped space behind the two front seats where her twin brother, Micky, and their new tutor, Miss Hunroe, sat at the wheel.
Miss Hunroe was very glamorous looking and not at all like Molly thought a tutor should be. Her hair was peroxide blond and kinked so that it almost formed stairs down the side of her head. Her hazel eyes, which Molly could see in the rearview mirror, watching any approaching cars that might be trying to overtake her, were large and long lashed. And her pale skin had a clean, translucent beauty. Her cheeks were tinged a pretty, wholesome pink. Her clothes were very unteacherly, too.
She wore a smart cream suit with a silk shirt underneath, and on one of her red-nailed fingers, she wore a heavy gold ring with an emerald embedded in it.
She steered the car with her left hand. Her right hand, meanwhile, held a gold coin. As she drove, she flipped it along her fingers so that it turned like a rolling wheel in between her knuckles. Every time another car obstructed the fast lane, she would flip the gold coin, saying, “Heads!” or “Tails!” She’d catch the coin on the back of her right hand. If she won the toss, she’d flash her lights and drive really close to the car in front until the vehicle moved over and let her pass. Then she’d speed off—well over a hundred miles an hour—until the offending car was a long way behind.