Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery (3 page)

“Nice car, Miss Hunroe,” Micky commented. “A classic Porsche, isn't it?”

“Yes, well, we all have our weaknesses,” Miss Hunroe replied, her rose perfume filling the cold morning air as she opened the car window. “I'm afraid it's a bit small, though. It's only really designed for two people. One of you will have a tight ride in the back.” She held out her coin. “Toss?”

Molly took the coin. It was heavy—solid gold, Molly suspected. And it wasn't like a normal money coin. It was plain, except for the picture of a musical note embossed on one side. It fitted snugly into her palm and felt really nice to hold.

Molly lost the toss and so climbed into the back. In a minute or two they were motoring up the drive, past the llama fields where the animal-shaped bushes stood dotted like leafy zoo creatures. Ahead of them, the morning sky smoldered with pink light.

Miss Hunroe reached out to the dashboard. “Let's see what the weather's going to be like today,” she said. With the flick of a switch, the car's radio was on.

“…the skies should be fairly clear over all the country,” a weatherman was saying, “though there
are blustery winds and cloud forms building near London. Quite a bit of rain may be on the way. We recommend—”

“Damn!” Miss Hunroe snapped the radio off. “How irritating. I'd wanted it to be perfect weather today. Someone's interfering with it. Hah.”

M
iss Hunroe clicked her fingers, encouraging Molly and Micky to follow her toward the natural history museum.

She led them through two tall black gates in the museum's railings and down a slope, past a large rectangular outdoor skating rink. A white expanse of glinting ice sparkled in the gray noon light, and a few happy skaters wobbled or glided about in bobble hats, coats, and gloves. A slim Japanese woman in a red felt tutu and smart red boots pirouetted and then came to an abrupt halt when she spotted Miss Hunroe.

“Hurry, Miss Teriyaki!” Miss Hunroe called to her. “The meeting's now!”

“What meeting?” Molly asked.

“The meeting to meet you, of course,” said Miss
Hunroe mysteriously. “I've got quite a few surprises for you two today.”

Molly looked at their tutor and then at the stylish woman out on the ice. No wonder she had never enjoyed school before! Miss Teriyaki was now skating very fast to the rink's exit. Too fast. For in the next second, a large man stepped nervously onto the ice. She crashed into him and fell, her leg twisting horribly beneath her.

“Ow. That looks nasty.” Molly winced. She and Micky stopped to watch the woman being helped up. She was obviously in pain. “Miss Hunroe,” Molly called after her. “Your friend…”

Miss Hunroe walked briskly on, oblivious to the accident. She was already a hundred yards ahead, climbing the broad stone steps to the museum's main entrance. So Molly and Micky followed. They admired the building's brickwork. They pointed at the animals and the imaginary creatures and monster-face gargoyles that were carved in stone under the tall windows.

“Spooky,” Molly commented, and she and Micky stepped in through giant brass-ornamented doors into the building's entrance vestibule. They walked up the steps through interior doors that led them into the museum proper.

Inside, the ceilings were enormously high, high as the vaulted roof above. The walls were built with orange and white bricks, which made the hugeness of the interior seem pretty and almost cozy. Then at the end of this tall exhibition room was a very wide set of stairs that rose and parted like two branches of a tree, going left and right up to balconies. And in the center, before the stairs, jarring all sense of coziness, was the massive black skeleton of a diplodocus dinosaur.

Molly and Micky paused to absorb the atmosphere and to look at the lonely, ghostly remains of the dinosaur, but already Miss Hunroe was steaming up the stairs, her cream patent-leather boots clipping on the marble steps. Molly and Micky followed. They had both suddenly become slightly irritated by Miss Hunroe's speed. Both had now been reminded that with a teacher, even a glamorous teacher, students do what they are told.

“I'm not used to being led about like a kindergarten kid,” Molly grumbled to Micky. “You know, the last time I went to school was over a year ago.”

“Well, I've been bossed about
much
more recently than that,” said Micky. “It stinks. Hope she doesn't turn into a dictator.”

“A what?”

“A dictator.” They took the left branch of steps that
went upstairs. “A dictator is a leader of a country who just does what he wants, who tells everyone how things are going to be without asking them, without anyone voting for anything.”

“Yeah, well, let's hope she doesn't turn into a dictator,” Molly agreed. “You know, I don't think Miss Hunroe is quite as unteachery as we thought she might be. I think she's got a great big thumb and wants to keep us under it.”

They walked up to the museum's upper gallery level. Here they passed display cases full of stuffed apes. Some were glaring with snarling mouths, others stared with doleful eyes.

“Incredible to think we're descended from them,” Molly said. “I suppose they're just like us, though—some are mean and selfish and some are kind and thoughtful.”

They walked past glass boxes full of examples of insects. A model of a termite the size of Petula raised its ugly pincers at them.

“Urrgh, look at that ant!” Molly said.

“It's a termite,” Micky corrected her. “I like termites, they're cool. They make huge mud-castle constructions that they live in.”

At the end of the balcony corridor were half a dozen steps veering to the center of the building. Here
the roof was very low. Its underside was paneled and painted with examples of plant species.

“
Atropa belladonna.
Deadly nightshade,” Miss Hunroe declared, sweeping her hand toward the paintings. Beside the letters was a picture of an herb with oval leaves and dull purple flowers and black berries.

“That's a nasty one, isn't it?” said Molly.

“Yup,” Micky answered. “If a person eats that, they get poisoned and they can't walk properly. And that one, too.” He pointed to a picture of a plant with white flowers. “
Conium maculatum.
Hemlock. That paralyzes you if you eat it. Amazing! It looks so pretty, doesn't it?”

“Don't judge your flower by its prettiness,” Molly agreed.

“Hurry up,” tutted Miss Hunroe, only visible for a second as she poked her head back through the door in an oak partition in front of them. It was the entrance to a section of the building called the botanical library.

“I suppose this is one of the surprises,” said Micky. He pointed to a sign that read
BY INVITATION ONLY. PLEASE OBTAIN PASS
.

He and Molly looked at each other and began to trot as they tried to catch up with Miss Hunroe. They followed her into a long room with desks laden with books and papers along each side of it. Miss Hunroe hurried past the desks toward two large, wooden-framed glass
doors. These swung back behind her as she blasted her way through them, one catching Molly's shoulder.

“Ow! Slow down, lady,” Molly muttered, rubbing her arm.

Now they were in an arched, high-windowed space that housed columns and columns of fitted oak filing cabinets. These rose from the ground to the ceiling everywhere. A block of tall wooden cabinets punctuated even the center of the room.

“The archives,” stated Miss Hunroe, without a backward glance.

Molly saw that in front of each window was an alcove with a desk and a chair. And here museum workers busied themselves on computers, all of them too buried in work to bat an eye at the visitors.

“First a diplomat's parking permit, then access to all this. Miss Hunroe seems to know people,” said Micky. “What's she doing now?”

Miss Hunroe stood at the end of the room in front of a set of drawers.

“Crumbs. Looks like lessons start here,” said Molly.

As she and Micky arrived by Miss Hunroe's side, their new tutor smiled so that her hazel eyes shone. Then, with a naughty expression on her face, she pressed the drawer beside her so that, instead of
popping out, it went
in
. And to Molly and Micky's immense surprise, the whole of the double-fronted cabinet before them turned on a pivot, becoming yet another door—this time a secret one.

“Oh, my giddy aunt,” said Molly.

“Your what?” asked Micky.

“It's an expression,” whispered Molly, following Miss Hunroe through.

On the other side of the door, which now snapped shut, the space was similarly filled with towering filing cabinets. Like a businesswoman late for a board meeting, Miss Hunroe quickened her pace and marched through it.

“Miss Hunroe, I think you should know,” Micky said. “Your friend had an accident.”

“Sounds like her!” the tutor replied.

“Where are you taking us, Miss Hunroe?” Molly asked, beginning to feel uneasy. She'd had enough experience with strange situations to know that this one didn't feel entirely right. “It's all a bit mysterious, this. I'd prefer it if you told us what was going on.”

Micky flicked his hair from his eyes. “Molly doesn't like surprises, you see,” he explained. “In the past she's had a few nasty ones, so…”

“Oh, don't worry, you two,” said Miss Hunroe, flinging her words over her shoulder. “This is all
completely aboveboard. Just a few more steps, and everything will be nearly revealed.” She came to another door and turned its porcelain handle, leading Micky and Molly into yet another room. They both stepped warily inside.

“Now we're in one of the museum's towers!” Miss Hunroe announced excitedly, closing the door, locking it, and quickly pocketing the key. “Do you see—the roof is pointed! Lovely and light, isn't it, with its big windows? It's a sort of very smart library.” She pointed up some stairs to a balcony above, where bookshelves hugged the walls. “Exquisite, isn't it?”

The library was indeed splendid and luxurious. Its furniture, shelves, and balconies were made of polished walnut decorated in Art Deco style, with ebony inlaid motifs of leaves and flowers and hummingbirds. On the level where the twins stood was a fireplace with a large framed picture of a feather-shaped tree above it, and in front of this, a big, low coffee table laden with books. On the other three sides of this table were three sofas. Molly noticed that the window's panes had stained-glass patterns and back-to-front writing etched there, too. Writing that was designed to be read from outside, she supposed. Yet how anyone might read it when the tower was so high, she didn't know.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Miss Hunroe
invited. Then she reached into her suit-jacket pocket and took out the gold coin. She flipped it, guessing, “Heads!” and then looked at the result in her palm. “Heads you win. Would you like hot chocolate?”

“Yes, that would be great.” Micky shrugged.

“Unless.” Molly faltered. “Unless you have concentrated orange squash?”

“Concentrated orange squash! Certainly not! Wait here on this ottoman, and I'll be back in a trice.” She disappeared through a door in the corner of the room, and Molly heard her clapping her hands.

Micky picked up a glass paperweight with a black narcissus flower inside it. Then he wandered over to the bookshelf by the fireplace, where he began to look at book titles.

Molly walked across the room to look out the window. It was a blustery day. A sheep-shaped cloud above the leafless trees in front of the museum was changing its form and beginning to look like a wolf.

“We're very high up,” she said to Micky.

“We are in fact 'ere.” An elderly voice with a French accent suddenly piped up behind Molly, making her nearly jump out of her skin. The end of a silver walking stick tapped the glass of an old drawing of the museum that hung on the wall. “We're almost in the top of zis tower.”

Molly turned to see the smile of a brown-faced old lady with a blue rinse hairdo. A string of pearls, white as fresh snowballs, hung around her neck. The wrinkly woman was dressed in an ankle-length gray-blue suit that was embellished with waves of frills from top to bottom. She smelled very strongly of lavender. She peered inquiringly through silver spectacles.

“I didn't give you a 'eart attack, did I?”

“Of course you did, Miss Suzette,” said Miss Hunroe, returning. It was then that Molly and Micky saw the others. Like cats entering a room, two other women had also quietly come in. They had settled on a long sofa under the balcony. “Now, Molly and Micky, sit here,” Miss Hunroe continued, gesturing to the sofa in front of her, “and let me introduce you to everyone.”

Molly and Micky observed the women. Taking up most of the room on the long sofa was a large, muscular woman in a wide, tentlike, seaweed green dress and white gloves. She had a mop of blond hair that was scraped into little buns on either side of her head, so that she looked as though she had strange second ears above her own. Her face was ruddy and scrubbed looking. Squeezed next to her was a small, heron-thin lady with thin, black, shoulder-length straight hair parted down the center of her head. She was still in her coat—a charcoal woolen one. Her hands were soapy white; the
veins on the back of them were blue and pronounced.

There was a knock at the door. The Japanese skater, who was still in her red tutu, but with moon boots on instead of skates, hobbled in, helped by a maid in a blue apron. She was assisted toward the sofa, where she too sat.

“So sorry. I slipped. Had a bad fall. Twisted my ankle,” she said. She took off her right boot, and the maid lifted it up onto a stool. Another maid came in with a bag of ice and a towel and gave it to the Japanese woman, who packed it around her swollen ankle. Molly noticed that she had a long, straight scar up her right forearm and wondered what accident had caused that. The two maids left, and the Japanese woman leaned back.

The large woman in green pulled a small harp out of her bag and passed it to Miss Hunroe. “I collected it from the menders,” she said in a deep voice. “Before I forget, here it is.”

“Oh, thank you,” Miss Hunroe said, taking the harp. “Do we have to do bandages now?” she asked the Japanese woman, frowning at her.

Molly nodded politely at the gathering, but not feeling at all comfortable now, moved back toward the fireplace, near Micky. “Weird,” she said under her breath to him.

When she turned back, she found that the lady with the blue rinsed hair was now perched on the arm of the long sofa with the others and Miss Hunroe had moved to stand proprietarily beside it. Each of the women smiled warmly toward the twins. Suddenly a nervous giggle rose in Molly's throat. The situation was so
odd
. And the peculiar women looked so
funny
, as though they were birds roosting on the branch of a tree. But they weren't trying to be funny, she knew, and this made Molly want to laugh even more. She didn't dare look at Micky, because if she did, they both might start to giggle, and they mustn't laugh—they were supposed to be on best behavior today.

“So,” began Miss Hunroe, rather more grimly than Molly expected. “Prepare yourselves. We have some surprises for you.”