by Georgia Byng
“Yes! Thanks, you two. We found her!”
Magglorian sniffed the air and eyed the traffic that was building up on the road behind.
“Talking of pets,” he said, “I’d better get back to mine. They’ll be worrying.”
“Same ’ere,” said Stanley. “Mine’ll be leavin’ the market soon.”
Both dogs barked at Petula.
“Nice meeting you, Petula!” Magglorian said, wagging his tail.
“Good luck, girl!” Stanley added. He dropped a stone into the car. “And there you go, Petula, I’ve been meaning to give you that! A little present. Good-bye.” He gave her a cheeky wink, and with that, the two London dogs scampered away, dodging pedestrians and looking like they owned the streets. Then Petula jumped in the cab, picked up the present of the pebble, and shook herself down.
Ten minutes later, they had arrived back at the hotel where Black had stayed the night before.
“Come on up.” Black led Molly as AH2 and Micky as the Rasta past a gray-suited receptionist toward the hotel’s elevator.
“Is this where you normally live?” Molly asked.
“I live in a few places,” Black said, pressing the elevator button.
The doors pinged open and they all shuffled in.
“Just explain,” Molly said, tilting her head. “Why do you live in a hotel and how?”
“This hotel belongs to my brother. He inherited it from our mother when she died. The deal was, I got the equivalent in cash and an apartment to live in.” Molly watched bright numbered buttons light up as the elevator ascended through the building. “He’s a businessman now. He owns other hotels, too,” Black continued. “And of course the casino. I don’t really approve of that part of his business, but he let me have an office there and it seemed a waste to refuse on principle. I mean, he’ll continue running that gambling house whatever I say, and it’s an excellent location for my charity, so in the balance it’s a good idea.”
They all stepped out onto a carpeted landing. Then Micky stalled.
“Before we go into your apartment,” he said, “I’ve just got a few questions for you, Mr. Black.”
Black nodded. “Fire away. You need to trust me a hundred percent.”
“Firstly,” Micky started, “Miss Hunroe showed us some pictures. In one you were in the park, sitting on a bench with a woman, a woman in a hat with a bird on it, and you seemed to be hypnotizing her with a pendulum. How can you explain that?”
“Oh!” Black exclaimed. “Mrs. Moriarty! She’s an antiques dealer. She was selling me that pendulum. I collect pendulums, you see. She met me in the park because I couldn’t get to Camden, where her shop is. Hunroe is so devious,” he added. “That picture must have made me look really bad. I have the bill for it inside, if you want proof.”
“Hmm. And what about the man from Wiltshire Jams? There was a picture of you in a café looking deep into his eyes.”
“Yes, I know exactly the occasion you are talking about.” Mr. Black smiled. “I can’t believe Hunroe was photographing me then. The old man’s name is Sam. We call him Jammy Sam. He’s my uncle. I met him for a coffee, and he got a bit of dust in his eye. He wanted me to see whether I could get it out for him. I could show you some family photographs, if you like.”
Micky nodded. “Hmm.”
Molly interrupted. “Micky, I promise you, Black is fine. I’ve seen inside his head. Really, he’s good. You don’t need to worry.” Micky tilted his head to one side and considered the situation.
“If you say so, Molly.”
A few steps later, they were walking into Black’s hotel apartment. Molly recognized the French windows that she’d seen before from the outside. It was far fancier than Molly had imagined.
The sitting room was large, with a white carpet. There were two black doors at either end, and stone Indian sculptures of gods stood on polished stone stands along the walls. Some wore crowns of gold, others golden necklaces and earrings. One section of the wall was covered with pendulums—gold, silver, and copper; some pendulums encrusted with precious stones were draped all over the walls. Two huge mirrors on each end of the room made the space seem even bigger, and a fire burned in a black slate hearth framed by a white marble fireplace. A strange, swirling wire bush of a lampshade hung in the center of the room like a metal wasp’s nest, and lit scented candles filled the air with the warm smell of frankincense. Three white sofas were arranged around a low silver table that was piled high with books. In the middle of the coffee table was a golden sculpture of a goddess doing a yogic pose. And on each of the walls to the right and left hung strange portraits of women with two faces on the same head.
“Those pictures remind me of Miss Hunroe and her two-faced spinster friends,” Micky observed.
“Yes,” Black replied. “But the ladies in these pictures seem ugly on the outside but are beautiful people underneath—so it’s the reverse. They are Picassos, by the way.” Then he took off his wet coat and shoes.
A woman in a black uniform came in with a tray of delicate chocolates, which she put on the table, and some velvet slippers that she gave to Black. She took his coat and shoes.
“Glad you’re back, Mr. Black,” she said. “I was starting to worry.” She smiled at Leonard and at AH2. “Nice to meet you.”
“Kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree,” Black said mysteriously.
“Oh, good. Very glad to hear that,” the woman said.
“And thanks for the chocolates, Dot. Just what we need. Yum, those are the toffee fondant ones, aren’t they?” Black picked up the silver tray and offered one to Molly.
“Yes, Mr. Black. And that nice baker from Harrow’s dropped off some of those extra-special croissants he makes. So you’ll be happy at breakfast tomorrow.”
“Oh, well done, Dot. You are an angel. Looks like there’ll be a few of us for supper. Is it possible to have lobster?”
“Righty-o, sir.” Dot began to go. “By the way, Lily is a bit, erm…well, let’s say hot under the collar.” With that she went out.
At the same time, the double doors on the left of the room opened. There stood Lily Black in a black lace dress.
“Dad?” she said through gritted teeth. “Is that you?”
“Kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree,” said Black. “That’s our code,” he explained. “Just in case someone has morphed into me.”
“Who are these weird guys?” Lily asked, staring rudely at the two strangers in the room. “He looks like he thinks he’s James Bond, and he looks like he thinks he’s a reggae singer.”
“Cool down, Lily,” said Black. “These, believe it or not, are the twins you saw. Meet Molly”—he gestured to AH2—“and Micky, who at the moment is Leonard.”
Lily didn’t step forward to shake hands. Instead she scowled at Petula.
“We don’t know how to change back to ourselves,” Molly started to explain. “But luckily your dad said he’d teach us. In fact, we’re a bit desperate. We left our bodies yesterday, and we’re feeling a bit—”
“Discombobulated,” Micky suggested.
“Don’t some people find meegoing impossible?” Lily commented with a malicious glint in her eye. “It’s not easy, you know,” she said coldly to AH2 and Leonard. “So don’t get your hopes up.”
Fifteen
“Lily, Lily, please. If you can’t be helpful or nice, just go to your room.” Black sat down on one of the white sofas and invited Molly and Micky to sit on another. “Molly, Micky, make yourselves comfortable.”
Lily slumped down into a brown leather chair in the corner of the room and sulkily folded her arms. “Morphing, morphing, morphing,” she muttered, kicking the bottom of the chair with her heels. “And saving the world. All day long, it’s all you ever do.”
“All right,” Black started, ignoring Lily. “So meegoing is something you get the knack for.”
“If you’re lucky,” Lily interrupted.
“Lily!” After a very stern look at his daughte
r, Black continued. “Just because you can’t morph, don’t be jealous!”
“Thanks!” Lily replied furiously. “Maybe if you’d take some time to teach me, I’d be able to.”
Black went on. “It requires a knack, a skill. But contrary to what Lily is suggesting, I’m sure you’ll both get the hang of it immediately.” Lily smiled to herself as though she knew otherwise. Outside the skies lit up as another bout of lightning and thunder began. Petula dived under a cushion.
“Did you make a copy of the morphing lessons?” Molly as AH2 asked. “If we could read them, maybe it would be easier.” Black shook his head.
“I’m afraid I didn’t do that. Too risky. All sorts of people would be able to morph. There would be chaos.”
“You mean I might find the lessons and learn,” Lily grumbled. “And you wouldn’t want me learning any of that stuff, would you? Meanie,” she added under her breath. Black ignored her. She leaned back and began to turn the light switch off and on and off and on so that the metal wasp’s-nest lampshade glowed brightly, then dimmed, over and over.
“So back to you. How to do it,” Black elaborated, trying not to notice what Lily was doing. “All you need is to quiet your minds. You have to hold quite a few thoughts in your mind at once. Are you ready to do that?”
“Ready to juggle a hundred thoughts, if that’s what’s needed,” Molly said.
“Good. Well, I suppose the way back to your selves is a bit like a recipe with different ingredients. Get all the ingredients together, and then put them on the heat. I’ll tell you what the heat is in a minute. The first thing to realize is this. If you think about it, you haven’t lost your intellectual being. Both of you are in control of your minds. Even though you look like two men, you can actually remember everything of your own lives as Molly and Micky, can’t you?”
“At the moment they can,” Lily piped up like a poison-spitting jack-in-the-box.
“That’s it, Lily. You’ve been warned. Go.”
Grumpily, Lily slid off her chair and went to another room, slamming the door behind her.
“Sorry about that,” Black apologized. “Now where was I? Yes, so you have your mental selves. What you are missing are your physical selves. To get back to your bodies, you have to imagine them. What they look like and what they feel like when you’re inside them.” Black coughed and shut his eyes. His voice became like a hypnotic teacher.
“You must think of the time your own bodies, your Molly and Micky bodies, last felt physical pain. For me, for instance, it was when I nearly twisted my ankle running across St. James’s Park after you two when you were ravens. Next I want you to remember the last time your own body felt something good. Both of these things can be tricky. Recalling physical memories from your muscles isn’t as easy as drumming up memories connected to emotional feelings or memories to do with images. Now think hard.”
Both Molly and Micky cast their minds back to when they had last been in their own bodies.
“I had a cut on my finger, right along the side of my nail,” said Micky with delight, as though he’d just gotten a line of numbers in a bingo game. Molly wished she had something as obvious as that to recall.
“Um,” she muttered.
“Did you hurt yourself in the air vents inside the casino?” Micky asked.
“No.”
“That morning?”
“Yes!” Molly said, equally joyful. “I stubbed my toe on the bed’s leg.”
“Brilliant,” Black agreed. “And can you both actually remember the pain?” Molly as AH2 and Micky as Leonard both shut their eyes and concentrated hard. They both nodded.
“I think so,” Molly said.
“Good,” Black went on. “Now think of a good physical memory.”
“Do you remember how nice it felt to stretch our legs after we got out of Miss Hunroe’s car?” Micky asked Molly.
“Yes,” Molly replied. “I really remember that. Okay. So what’s the next step?”
“The next step is perhaps easier,” said Black. “Each of you must picture your real self as if looking in a mirror at yourself. Really see yourself and your reflection. Can you do that?
“Well, once you’ve got all these ingredients together—the good feeling, the painful one, the picture of yourself—layer them so that they are all present at once. Then rise up so that you are looking at your reflection from above. Last, do all this while you are staring at a space on the floor where you want to be. What you must do now is sort of push your imagined reflection, with the feeling of pain and pleasure, into this space where you want to be.”
“That sounds really complicated and really impossible.” Micky gulped. “It’s a kind of teleportation.”
“Yes, it is.”
Molly grimaced.
And so they began.
“I suggest,” Black said, “that you look in these mirrors.” He gestured to the walls of mirror beside him. “Stare at yourselves intensely. Stare straight into your eyeballs—and keep staring. If you don’t move your eyes, you’ll find that the face of the two men that you are now inside will drop away, and you can imagine whatever face you like. Imagine your own faces, and go from there.”
“I know this,” Molly exclaimed. “Ages ago I used to stare in the mirror and watch my face change.”
“There you go.” Black rubbed his hands together. “Are you ready?”
“Sounds difficult,” Micky mumbled.
As Molly glued her eyes to the sharp blue eyes in the mirror, she was suddenly overcome with a longing to get back to herself. She loved being herself, Molly Moon. Odd-looking Molly Moon with closely set green eyes and a potatoey nose. Molly Moon with blotchy, skinny legs and sweaty hands. Molly didn’t care what she looked like. She just wanted to be in her own body again.
She’d been a ladybug, a pigeon, an elderly lady, a beautiful young woman, a rat, a dog, a blackbird, the queen, a raven, a schoolboy, a crazy redheaded Chinese tourist, and finally, a pilot obsessed with aliens. She’d been male and female, young and old, furry, winged, fat, thin, fit, unfit. And not one of those bodies felt quite as good as her own. Each body had felt like a piece of clothing that didn’t suit her. Molly wanted her own imperfect, but perfect for her, body back.
So, as if nothing in the world mattered as much, Molly stared hard into the mirror, into AH2’s eyes, and tried to see her real self. She imagined herself in jeans and a T-shirt. She imagined her scruffy hair and as many of her other features as she could. And soon AH2’s reflection began to disappear from the mirror, to be replaced by a faint and then a very definite imagined image of herself, Molly Moon. Molly saw her own face crystallize, and then her torso come into focus. Next came her arms and hands and her legs and feet. Simultaneously, Molly tried to remember both the wonderful feeling of stretching out her own muscles and limbs, as well as the feeling of how it had hurt stubbing her toe. Molly had all the ingredients.
Now came the most difficult part. Molly found a space on the floor. With all the intent that she could muster, she planted the phantom version of herself into that space. Her eyes throbbed as she stared. It was as though they were getting bigger and bigger, and suddenly as though they were becoming hollow. Something was happening now, and Molly had no control over it. As though she had blown a crack in the wall of a dam, she now felt herself shooting like spraying flood water out through the crack—out of AH2’s eyes, into the space on the floor. Her being gushed out of him.
And then she felt herself turn upside down, as though she were diving. Below her, she saw the crown of her own head—her own Molly Moon head. In she dived. Her own body greeted her like a long-lost friend. And then Molly came up for air and took a breath. Molly was well and truly back.
“What the—?” AH2 began. He staggered to the other sofa and collapsed.
“Whoa! Man!” Leonard gasped, sitting down.
Sensing a change of energy in the room, Petula pulled her head out from behind her cushion. At once she saw that Molly and Micky were back
. Delighted, she jumped onto the floor and ran over to Molly, barking.
Molly bent down and gave Petula a huge hug. Then she turned to see what had happened to Micky. There on the chair sat Leonard, looking dazed and confused, and three feet away from him stood Micky, except it wasn’t Micky as she knew him. It was a furry Micky. His face and body were as furry as a brown bear’s.
“Uuuaaargh!” he yelped, leaping about and pointing at his hairy arms and stomach. “This isn’t me!”
“Oh, um. Right,” Black said. “Calm down, and don’t worry. This sort of thing is completely normal. Let’s see. I wonder what you did wrong. You just got your skin wrong, really. So do it again, but next time imagine your usual skin.”
So Micky had another go. This time it worked.
“You did it!” Black exclaimed, clapping his hands with delight.
“But I haven’t got any clothes on!” Micky replied, frowning down at his bare legs. He quickly grabbed Petula’s cushion.
“You didn’t imagine them, that’s why.” Molly laughed. And then she couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, Micky, you’re so funny!” Molly was so relieved that she lay on her back laughing until her ribs hurt. As she rolled around, Dot entered the room and handed Micky his old clothes, freshly laundered and nicely folded.
“I think these are yours? I came across them yesterday evening in the casino office. And,” she said, passing Molly her charm necklace, “I think this is probably yours.”
“Oh, thank you!” Molly beamed. She fingered the animals on the chain. A pug, an elephant, and two blackbirds. She put it on and smiled.
“Congratulations, you two,” said Black. “That really was an achievement. To get it right first time is not normal.” He smiled, but then a bolt of lightning flashed outside the apartment window, and his expression changed. “You are, thank goodness, safely back in yourselves, Molly and Micky….” His voice trailed off, and he glanced up at the dark clouds. Rain was now dashing heavily on the window. He gazed back into the room, his eyes falling distractedly on AH2. “But unfortunately, Hunroe has the book. And I’m afraid that the whole world is probably now the most unsafe it has ever been.” Black’s voice trembled slightly. He looked out of the window again. “And you two may think that you’ve seen terrible danger, but I’m afraid that in days to come things are going to be worse.”