Miss Hunroe and Miss Oakkton looked shocked. Then they began tittering.
“What’s so funny?” Molly asked.
“You are fools!” Miss Hunroe said, laughing. “So you don’t know how to meego? That is hilarious!” She saw Molly’s puzzled expression, and added, “Meegoing is the term for morphing back into one’s own body.” She gave a shriek of laughter. “Hah! You don’t know how!”
“Hmm. Well, as I said, that’s the deal.”
Miss Hunroe narrowed her eyes. “Us telling you the meegoing secret before you tell us what we want to know is impossible,” she parleyed. “If we told you our secret, you’d never tell us yours. You’d be off out of here like a shot. No, the only way round is that you tell us the secret of morphing into humans first. Then we will tell you how to meego.” She laughed again. “The amusing part of this is that you don’t really have a choice. After all, you can’t keep morphing from creature to human to creature forever. You will hardly be able to sleep. Fall asleep in a body for too long, and you’ve had it. In any case, you can’t be in another creature for more than a few hours, for the creature starts to get its strength back. So, of course, when you sleep for more than a few hours in another creature or another human, its true owner will rise to take control of itself as you sleep. It will squash you, the sleeping you, deep down under it, and you will never get out. You will both be lost. Lost forever, in a rat or a bat or a gnat. Hah! No. You need the meego secret far more than we need the morph-to-human secret.”
Molly gulped and glanced at her brother. She could guess from his eyes that he too had been frightened by what Miss Hunroe had said. And that he too was wondering what other nasty outcomes there were in the world of body borrowing. She started to wish she hadn’t morphed at all.
The rat that was Miss Hunroe turned to the large scruffy rat that was Miss Oakkton. “Until now, I didn’t realize what an advantage we had!” Then, impatient suddenly, she spat at Molly and Micky. “You’d better tell us now.”
“Time to comply,” said Miss Oakkton, muscling forward. “Tell us! If you don’t, zere will be bad, bad consequences. I have no qualms about biting off your ears!”
Molly and Micky dropped their bodies lower on the shiny, cold floor.
“What, tell you so that you can get whatever you want in the human world? We’d be crazy to tell you,” Molly snarled.
“You can beat us up all you like,” Micky squeaked. “We aren’t going to tell you.”
“Perhaps I can morph into you and get the secret that way,” said Miss Hunroe sinisterly.
“Please do,” bluffed Molly. “You wouldn’t dare. That would be the end of you, you old goat.” She stared with hatred into Miss Hunroe’s eyes, wishing that she could hypnotize her. Miss Hunroe stared back, her eyes mean and cold.
“I look forward to ridding the world of people like you, Miss Moon,” she said nastily. “You have no idea how wonderful the world is going to be when I have my way. You have no idea! There will be hurricanes and droughts, and disease will cull. And people like you all over the world, millions and millions of you, will die. And what an empty paradise the world will then be! With only the chosen few left to enjoy it, it will be heaven!”
Molly stiffened. Miss Hunroe’s words were cruel and mad, but she made her predictions with a horrible certainty.
“Leave zem to me,” said Miss Oakkton, baring her knife sharp incisors. “A little torture will do ze trick.”
Suddenly there was a noise from above. All the rats looked up and froze. A dog had wedged its nose under the side of the drain cover and was now wrenching off the grille. All of a sudden, lots of light poured into the sewer. A Jack Russell stuck its pointy brown-and-white face down into the gutter. To all the rats he was a monster, a huge killer monster with a nightmare mouth. His growl chilled them to the core. His growl meant death.
Eleven
The Jack Russell barked ferociously down into the well of the sewer. It snapped with a terrible fury, ready to tear any rodent to pieces. Miss Hunroe and Miss Oakkton fled up the drain. Molly and Micky pushed their backs up to the cold, wet wall of the sewage gully.
“Run!” Micky cried, and turned tail. Molly started to follow Micky. Then she saw that behind the Jack Russell was a white-faced bulldog, and behind him, amazingly, a black pug! She gasped. She’d recognize that velvety face anywhere.
“I don’t believe it!” Molly the rat squeaked. “Micky! Micky, it’s Petula!”
As Micky stopped, so did Miss Hunroe and Miss Oakkton. Molly knew that time was against her. Hunroe and Oakkton were coming back. “Quick, morph into the white dog,” she whispered to Micky. “I’ll take the Jack Russell.”
And so, slinking flat to the wall to avoid the snapping jaws of the Jack Russell, Molly and Micky focused on becoming two of the canine creatures above.
Molly landed in the Jack Russell’s body with such an intensity that as soon as she arrived, his personality was flattened. Magglorian was overwhelmed.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, Molly thought to him. Please let me borrow you just for a bit!
Molly became aware of Magglorian’s brawny, nimble hunting body. His sense of smell was hers now. She was confronted with the stench of the sewer as the Jack Russell smelled it, reading so much more from its foul odors than she had as a rat. And, of course, she smelled rat.
Recognizing Miss Oakkton, Molly as Magglorian the Jack Russell growled as though to kill, and then, with hate-fueled determination, she bit. Molly caught Miss Oakkton’s filthy rat ear between her teeth, and she tugged. She pulled the rat off the ground and shook it like a rag. Then she tossed Miss Oakkton sideways so that she flew, legs splayed, through the air into the stream of pooey water that rushed through the gutter.
Molly dug deeper into the drain. With a sharp bite, she got a nip of the rat that was Miss Hunroe. Then the two rats screeched and scurried away.
Molly barked viciously after them, watching with satisfaction as Miss Oakkton’s tail disappeared up the sewage pipe. With it, Molly realized, had gone the secret of how Molly and Micky might morph back into themselves.
Then Molly turned to see Petula looking at her.
Petula stared at Magglorian. She frowned and put her nose in her paws. Now she was feeling that Magglorian had become Molly. It must be the stress of the situation. The pressure was getting to her. She shut her eyes and shook her head.
Then a very peculiar thing happened. Magglorian said, “Petula. I know this is going to sound very strange, but this is me, Molly.” Petula opened her eyes wide and edged backward. “Don’t be scared,” Magglorian continued. “I’ve learned how to change shape—it’s called morphing. And Micky’s learned it, too. Look, he’s morphed into the body of your friend.”
Petula was stumped. She hadn’t told the two London dogs Micky’s name, so this must be true—Molly, her lovely Molly, was in the body of the Jack Russell.
“Molly?” she said unsurely.
“Yes, it’s me.”
This really was very strange for both Molly and Petula. For though Molly, with her human mind-reading skills had, on a few occasions, managed to decipher some of Petula’s thoughts, and Petula, with her dog-given extrasensory skills, had been able to detect Molly’s moods and whereabouts, neither had been able to properly understand each other and speak to each other.