Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery (5 page)

“I remember finding it once when my parents were out. I wasn't that good at reading, but I knew the book was very, very special, as I'd heard my parents talking about it, and so I opened it and made an effort to understand it.” The woman stroked her black, limp hair as she remembered. “It was a very heavy book. Four flat stones were embedded in its thick leather cover, one in each corner! One was orange with red streaks in it, one was light gray with white-and-black cloudy parts to it, one was green and brown like the color of plants and earth, and the last was blue with white flecks in it, like waves and white foam.” Miss Speal then pursed her lips and suddenly reached into her coat pocket.

“Miss Speal,” cautioned Miss Hunroe soberly. But ignoring her, the thin raconteur pulled a small piece of blue stone from her coat pocket and thrust it up
toward the children's eyes so that they both could see it. It was a watery-blue-colored stone, mottled with patches of white.

“This is the blue stone from the book!” the woman announced. “It fell out, and I'm glad it did, because a few days later the book was stolen.” Outside, a crack of lightning broke through the sky.

“Miss Speal,” Miss Hunroe cautioned again. “Please try not to get overemotional about this. The children need to know about the book. Do you want to tell them, or shall I?”

Miss Speal sniffed, and her eyes darted to look at the sky outside. “Yes, yes. Well, inside the book was the title,
Hypnotism, Volume Two: The Advanced Arts
. There were about ten chapters, but I can't remember what all the skills were. It was intoxicatingly exciting, and I read it as though I had opened some sort of spell book.” As she spoke, she rubbed the blue stone. It was as though it was a talisman that brought memories of that precious evening back to her. Outside, thunder rumbled.

“MISS SPEAL!” Miss Hunroe now scolded the woman. “Please control yourself.”

Miss Speal put the flat stone back into her pocket and looked nervously at Miss Hunroe, rather as a dog with its tail between its legs might look at its master. “Yes,” she finished, her attention now on her audience.
“As I said, the book was stolen….”

“Before you learned any of its lessons,” Miss Hunroe added, helping her along.

Miss Speal looked bewildered for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Y-yes, yes, before I learned any of its lessons. I read the list of lessons but never learned them.”

“Who stole it?” Molly asked.

Miss Speal shook her head. “The devil knows.”

“But the important matter,” said Miss Teriyaki, impatiently, “is where it is
now
.”

“First things first,” insisted Miss Hunroe, reprimanding Miss Teriyaki and tapping her sharply on the wrist with her remote control. “I haven't finished explaining morphing.”

Miss Teriyaki put her hands together and humbly bowed to Miss Hunroe. “Sorry, sorry,” she said subserviently, readjusting the ice pack around her ankle.

Miss Hunroe pressed the button on her remote control again. “As I said, the elementary stage of morphing is into an animal, but the sophisticated level…” She turned toward the children and said very seriously, “The thing is that the second level of morphing is being able to change from human to human. And as you can imagine, anyone who could do this could become very, very powerful and influential.
Why, a person with this skill might choose to morph into the president of the United States of America!” Up on the screen came a picture of the president of the United States talking to an important-looking army official. A line of soldiers stood behind them both, saluting. “Or they might morph into the body of the president of China.” Now on the screen was a picture of thousands of soldiers standing at attention, saluting the Chinese president. “Once inside another person's body, they'd have control over that person's very
mind
and so of course their
actions
. Do you see how dangerous this could be?”

“Of course,” Molly said.

“And so,” Micky guessed, “you're telling us that the prime minister of this country is really someone else—that an evil hypnotist has morphed into his body.”

“No, not yet. At least I hope not.” Miss Hunroe crossed her arms. “But we
do
know that the book has passed into the hands of a very undesirable person. We know that he is highly likely to try to learn the book's lessons for bad ends.”

Miss Hunroe pressed a button on the slide controls, and up on the screen came a photograph of a leathery-faced man with a mop of dark hair. His skin was rough and pockmarked. He wore a smart pinstriped suit with a red tie and a brimmed homburg hat.
Molly recognized him from the thought bubble that had appeared over Miss Hunroe's head earlier.

“His name is Theobald Black. He's a hypnotist. He uses his talents to embezzle money.”

“Embezzle. What's that?” asked Molly.

“It means,” Micky quickly explained, “when you get something—usually money—through trickery.”

“Yes, that's right,” agreed Miss Hunroe. “Mr. Black here picks on easy prey—rich old ladies or gentlemen. Here are some photographs we got of him in action. Here he is hypnotizing a very rich heiress who owns gold mines.” Up on the screen came a black-and-white photograph of Mr. Black on a park bench, holding a pendulum up in front of a small middle-aged woman in a hat with a stuffed bird on it. “And here he is taking control of an old man who has made a fortune in marmalade—”

“And jams, very good jams,” Miss Suzette interjected. “Wiltshire Jams is de company's name.” Now another picture came up. It was taken through the window of a café and was of Mr. Black sitting at a table with an old man in a bowler hat. Their faces were very close, and Mr. Black was staring into the man's eyes, as though hypnotizing him.

“He runs a casino, Black's Casino. On the screen, Mr. Black, dressed in black, was talking to the casino
doorman. “He has a daughter called Lily.”

Now a photograph of a girl of about seven with short, dark curly hair came up. She was dressed in a smart pink peacoat, with boots to match.

“As far as we know, she is not a hypnotist. But she is quite a number.” In the next picture, Lily was outside a restaurant with a furious look on her face. She seemed to be stamping her foot, and her hands were clenched in fury by her sides. “She was angry in this picture because her father couldn't get a table at the Orchid.”

“But if he's a hypnotist, surely he can get a table at any restaurant,” Micky said.

“I was at school with Black. I know what he's like. Selfish. No doubt he wanted to go home and didn't care what his little girl, Lily, wanted.”

“Lily Black—what a name,” Molly said. “So how do we come into all of this?” she asked, already half knowing the answer.

A new picture came up on the screen. Molly reckoned that a concealed camera must have taken it, for it was a photograph of the inside of Black's Casino. Uniformed croupiers stood behind roulette-wheel counters and at game tables, dealing cards to their customers. And stacked on the green baize tables were little towers of brightly colored gambling chips.

“The place is crawling with guards,” Miss Hunroe explained. “And there are cameras everywhere. There is no way that any of us”—she let her hand turn like a soft wing over the assembled women near her—“could get in to retrieve the book. We'd be spotted instantly. You see, we tried once before to get Black's time-travel crystals off him, but failed. In fact, Miss Teriyaki has the souvenir from that attempt.” Miss Teriyaki lifted her arm and showed Molly and Micky the long scar there.

“Didn't you call the police?” asked Micky.

“The police! We don't want them involved now! Black would only take further precautions to hide the book. Then we might never find it. Besides, we were trespassing. It was four in the morning, when the casino had closed. He could probably prove that we were attempting some sort of robbery. And don't forget, he's a hypnotist. Who knows what sort of witnesses he could drum up. He could hypnotize them to say whatever he wanted! We might find ourselves in prison!”

“You could always hypnotize your way out,” Micky tested her.

“True, but Black would always be a step behind. And get us put back in prison. We might end up there forever.”

“Indeed, it's not worth the risk,” Miss Teriyaki agreed.

“So,” Miss Hunroe continued, “the long, the tall, and the short of it is that now Black is well aware of us. He knows that he needs to protect himself. Even if all five of us went in using our hypnotic skills, we wouldn't stand a chance. He has taken precautions.” A picture on the screen focused on one of the casino guard's pockets and zoomed in close-up. Poking half out of it were some dark glasses with a swirling pattern on them. “Anti-hypnotism glasses,” Miss Hunroe explained. Molly nodded.

“Seen them before,” she said. “I saw a version that were like normal glasses with white swirls, not so dark as those ones. They work.”

“Yes, and when the guards put them on, they look simply like dark glasses,” said Miss Hunroe. “So when anyone suspicious approaches, they wear the glasses.”

“If you don't mind me adding, Miss Hunroe,” Miss Teriyaki said, “we also think that Black has given the guards voice-scrambling devices to put in their ears. Because we think that if Black has worked out how to counteract hypnotic eye glare, it's highly likely he will also have thought of voice hypnosis and how to block that.”

“Yes, correct, Miss Teriyaki,” Miss Hunroe said,
visibly irritated by Miss Teriyaki's interruption.

“So
how
,” demanded Micky, “can
we
be of any help?”

“I expect,” said Molly, “it's got something to do with the daughter.”

“Yas, you are right!” cried Miss Oakkton, slapping her knees.

“Yes,” Miss Hunroe agreed. “You see, the thing is this. The
only
people who the guards ever interact with normally are the children who are Lily's school friends. They never put on their anti-hypnotism glasses when Lily's friends come around for a playdate.”

“Of course,” Miss Suzette explained, “we could have hypnotized one of dese children to go in to fetch de book, but we felt that to use an innocent child would be unfair….”

“Yes, most unfair,” Miss Oakkton agreed. “Poor leetle things.”

“Our great hope,” Miss Teriyaki interjected, “is that you two could go to the casino with the excuse that you have to see Lily, your school friend.”

Miss Hunroe unfolded a sheet of paper with an architectural diagram of the casino on it.

“Once inside the building,” Miss Hunroe said, “you could access the private parts of the premises. With this map, you can see the vents and conduits that
carry the pipes and cables from room to room, and you can access Theobald Black's office. You could use your special crystals and freeze time and get the office keys.”

“I haven't got my crystals,” Molly replied.

“But aren't you wearing your crystals now?” Miss Hunroe asked, eyeing her neck. “You have some sort of pendant on.” Molly pulled out the chain with the black pug, the silver elephant, and the two blackbirds on it.

“Oh, no. These are just our pets.”

Gasps of disbelief and disappointment erupted from the ladies opposite.

“That's a pity,” declared Miss Teriyaki. “We ought to fetch the crystals.”

“No time!” squeaked Miss Speal. “Oh, lord. We're already risking it. What on earth are we going to do?” She began wringing her little hands as though she was trying to squeeze water out of wet socks. “Maybe your parents could send them up on a motorcyc—”

“NO!” interrupted Miss Suzette. “They might ban Molly and Micky from helping us.”

“Even though it's for the bigger cause?” asked Miss Teriyaki.

“They wouldn't be happy about letting us help,” said Micky. “They think Molly needs a bit of time being normal.”

“Which is why they advertised for a tutor,” added Miss Hunroe. Then she pursed her lips. “Oh, dear. Molly, Micky—I'm really not comfortable about this anymore. If your parents wouldn't approve, then I don't feel we should go against their wishes.”

Molly considered the assembled assortment of women. She could see why they were worried. The idea of a maniac learning how to morph into another person was scary.

“How do you know he's not a morpher already?” Molly quizzed.

“We don't.” Miss Hunroe flipped her coin as though the coin's action of turning like a tossed pancake in the air was a comfort to her. “We know the book came into his possession a month ago. Since he's only had it for a short time, the chances are he can't morph ye—”

“How—” Micky asked.

Miss Hunroe cut him short. “An anonymous person called us.”

Molly studied the ladies in front of her. “If you don't mind me asking,” she said, “how come you lot know each other? How come you are involved in all of this?”

“Well,” Miss Hunroe explained, her lips pausing for a second to blossom into a brief rose shape before moving to talk again, “as I said, there is a society of
ordinary hypnotists. We met there. We were invited to join a group of
elite
hypnotists—though it has to be said we are all merely hypnotists, not time travelers or time stoppers. We vowed to use our powers to help people in the world. We try to sort out any foul play.”

“We want to catch the dodgers before they dart,” whined Miss Speal.

“Grab ze codgers before zay grunt,” finished Miss Oakkton.

“We are like Wonder Woman, I suppose,” explained Miss Teriyaki, smiling. “We root out crooks like Mr. Black. It is such a pity you haven't your time-stopping crystals. What's more, there is not time to get them.” She turned to Miss Hunroe as though the situation had moved on and Molly was now irrelevant. “I will go in, Miss Hunroe.”