Georgia Byng: Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

If Miss Hunroe and her horrid gang were now termites inside the mound, turning it into some kind of termite-built weather-changing chamber, and if Miss Hunroe had the colored stones with her, too—well, inside the termite mound was where Molly must go.

For a split second Molly wondered if she should destroy the mound, but then thought better of it. For if she did, all the bad weather Miss Hunroe had already caused might be set like that forever in the stones.

Molly didn’t want to become a termite. The idea of becoming a termite, with big pincers and a poisonous bite, and then of coming face-to-face with other termites, was terrifying.

One termite paused near the entrance of the mound. It was carrying a large piece of bark and struggling in the rain. Molly took a deep breath. Clearing her mind of all worries and negative thoughts, she began to concentrate.

“I’m not leaving here,” Lily declared stubbornly. She was sitting on a mossy rock with her shoes off, beside a stream. “I’ve got blisters, and it’s too wet. There’s no point anyway. We’ve been walking for ages, and we’re just as lost as we were before. We’re stuck in a stupid soaking-wet forest on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. And I’ve got four mosquito bites from last night.”

Micky was halfway up a nearby tree.

“You remind me of what I used to be like,” he said. “I used to grumble a lot. Hey, there’s a good view from here.”

“Of what? Trees? Lovely.” Lily threw a stone hard so that it hit a rock and cracked in two.

“Actually, I can see a road.”

“

“Really?” Lily stood up.

“No, not really. But I might have.”

Just then a dog came out of the forest. Lily took one look at it and screamed. Frantically she stepped deep into the stream, right up to her waist. “Wolf!” she yelled. “Micky! There’s a wolf! ”

Canis looked at the screaming girl. The fear smell coming off her was electric.

“RUUUUAARFF!” he barked, which meant, “It’s okay.”

The girl backed farther into the water so that it was up to the chest.

Then Canis smelled the boy. It was very strange. The boy had an odor distinctly like Petula’s mistress. Canis followed his nose and squinted into the tree. Now he could see the boy and was struck by how similar to the girl he looked. He was from the same litter; in fact, he must be the girl’s brother whom Petula had spoken of. Canis smelled that the children were nervous about him, and so he gave them a sign not to be scared. He wiped the air with his paw four times and then lay on his back to show his tummy. All the while, he wagged his tail a lot.

“He’s not a wolf.” Micky laughed. “Lily, look, he’s a pet!” Carefully Micky came down from the tree, and gently he approached the animal. He stroked Canis’s tummy. Canis grinned at him.

Gradually Lily waded out of the stream. Once both the children were close, Canis took the material of one of Micky’s trouser legs in his jaws.

“What? What are you…” Micky started. Canis began to tug, trying to pull the boy toward him.

“I think he wants us to follow him,” Micky said. Then he exclaimed, “Lily, if he’s a pet, then that means he must belong to somebody! They can help us find the others!”

Lily nodded, and for the first time since they’d crash-landed in the forest, she grinned. “What are we waiting for?” she said. “Let’s go!”

At that precise moment, three miles away, Molly was nothing. She had left her own body and was careering through the air toward the termite that she’d singled out near its earthy mound. And in the next second she was becoming it.

Molly’s personality poured into the termite’s unsuspecting black-armored body, and at once Molly felt, from top to toe, totally termite. The termite’s character was more robotic than the other creatures she’d inhabited. Molly saw that all this insect ever thought about was light, dark, work and rest, food, food, food, build, build, build, and its colony and the queen. The importance of the colony was hardwired into the termite’s reasoning. The existence of other termites and the queen was a huge part of this termite’s sense of self. And the survival of the colony was the prime desire of each and every one of the termites in it.

Molly noticed how light the piece of bark that the termite was carrying felt. If she were human, a piece of wood this much bigger than herself would feel like the weight of a piano. It would squash her flat. Yet this load felt as light as a schoolbag. Then a raindrop hit her. Its force knocked her sideways. Molly realized that she must get under cover.

The termite mound ahead was massive. The Logan Stones around it seemed like mountains that touched the sky. Molly saw fellow termites trotting through the water and mud toward a low entrance in the side of the mound, their six legs working along the ground so that they moved incredibly fast. Carrying the lump of sweet-smelling wood in her pincers, Molly the termite followed them. She fell in line and was soon brushing sides with other termites. Molly was scared by their alienlike heads, but she was determined not to let alarm take hold of her. If it did, the other termites would sense her fear, and it would spread like wildfire through the colony.

The tunnel into the insect palace was dark, but Molly soon found her black eyes adjusting. She followed the termite ahead of her, who was carrying a piece of bark, and found herself in yet another smooth-walled corridor. Ignoring the thought of how deep into the mound she must now be, she continued to tail the other termite. Other passages joined her tunnel and other busy termites bustled across Molly’s path as they made their way to other parts of the labyrinthine mound or walked past her in the opposite direction, heading outside. It was rather like being in the passageways of an underground train station. The termites were as unfriendly as strangers in a city and as preoccupied as people on their way to work. Despite this, Molly sensed a thin, metallic buzz that rattled through the air. The termites were talking to one another.

Molly took a right turn, a left turn, and an upward turn, all the time not really knowing what her plan should be or where she should go to find Miss Hunroe. Molly’s guide dropped away to the right, into a burrow with high ceilings where other bits of bark and rotting vegetable matter had been dumped. Molly dropped her load, too, but instead of following the other termite again, now she chose her own direction. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to do, but oddly, she felt a pull. Just as the giant Logan Stones had done earlier, it was as if Molly was made of metal and there was a magnet drawing her. It was pulling her deeper inside the termite mound. She hoped that the stones from Hypnotism, Volume Two: The Advanced Arts were somehow responsible.

Soon the tunnel ended. It opened into a large oval chamber. Four other tunnel entrances were dotted about the walls, and a little weak light filtered through a hole in the side of the mound’s roof. Molly could hear the rain hitting the shell of the mound. It sounded like a frenzy of drums.

Fewer termites scurried in and out of this area. Some were busy working at the walls, regurgitating something sticky from their mouths and smudging it on them. Beyond, in the depths of the chamber, termites were dropping sweet-smelling food in front of what looked like a ginormous, sluggish caterpillar. This monstrous creature was at least two hundred times the size of the termites. It lay as still as an obese person on a daybed, oozing a slime that smelled of wood and moss. Molly knew instinctively that this revolting-looking thing was the termite queen.