Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery by Georgia Byng Page A

his front legs in agreement.
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    From her window-ledge vantage point, Miss Hunroe twitched her tail furiously.
    â€œBlack’s got the book,” she hissed angrily to the fat ginger cat. “And somehow those children have morphed.”
    â€œAll is not lost,” Miss Oakkton, the ginger cat, replied. “Zay probably read ze lesson on morphing into humans. We can at least get zat information from zem. Zay have no idea who we are yet, so we have ze advantage. If we can learn zose lessons from ze brats, we are halfway to achieving our aims.”
    â€œWe just need to follow Black,” purred the fluffy Miss Suzette, who had hopped back up beside them.
    â€œShh,” meowed Miss Hunroe, highly irritated by the turn of events. “Follow me.” Turning, she leaped off the window ledge.
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    Micky and Molly took flight and, still a little unsteady, followed Black out of his office, slipping past him as he switched off the light. Micky, it had to be said, was better at flying than Molly. She tipped from left to right like an erratic seesaw. She found the noise of her wings much louder than she’d expected. Not as loud as the blades of a helicopter, but the whirring, flicking noise meant she could hardly hear Micky when he called over to her.
    â€œRelax, Molly. You look so serious!”
    â€œHow can you tell?” she yelled back.
    â€œYour antennas are too stiff!”
    Molly noticed there was a distinct smile on the black, glossy face of Micky the ladybug. Now it was his turn to laugh.
    â€œOkay, I’ll try to relax!” she shouted, and she gave a sigh as she flew. Immediately the flight improved. “Less turbulence now!”
    Molly and Micky flew high in the casino room, dodging the massive golden chandeliers that now seemed as big as buildings. Molly looked down. The green baize card tables seemed like green fields, and the casino customers were like huge giants. Ahead of them, Theobald Black’s head bobbed slowly up and down as he negotiated the crowds and crossed the room.
    â€œQuick!” Micky shouted as Black reached the revolving door. “We have to get through.” He dived kamikazelike toward the revolving segment of the door with Black. Molly misjudged her speed and hit the glass. Surprisingly, the collision didn’t hurt as much as she thought it might, but it did cause her to tailspin.
    â€œPull out, pull out!” Micky screeched, and like some sort of super bug he jetted below Molly and budged her upward so that she moved forward as the door turned. In the next second they were blown out into the cold night air of the street.
    â€œThanks! I could have been squashed there, Micky. Thanks.” Molly shuddered as she regained control of herself. Both ladybugs treaded air and watched Black set off. “The best thing to do would be to land on him, and get a free ride.”
    â€œGood idea!”
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    Opposite the casino, standing on the marble porch of a very smart jewelry shop with his brown collar up, AH2 heard his red tracking device beep. Pulling off a glove, he quickly tugged it out of his pocket to consult it.
    Molly Moon was coming out of the casino. AH2 looked up expectantly but, to his puzzlement, saw only a dark-haired man in a camel-hair coat. As he stepped out to turn right, so AH2’s gadget told him that MollyMoon was also turning right. In fact, she seemed to be following him. She was invisible . AH2 gulped. If Molly Moon was an alien, perhaps the true alien form was like this—invisible! Why, if this was true, there might be millions of aliens living on Earth without humans having the slightest knowledge of them!
    Then something else grabbed AH2’s attention. Those cats! There they were again! They’d come out of the alley and were darting from shadow to shadow in pursuit of the man. AH2 waited until Black, the Molly Moon alien phantom, and the cats were all a safe distance away, and then he began to