Molly Moon looked down at her pink, blotchy legs. It wasn't the bathwater that was making them mottled like Spam; they were always that color. And so skinny. Maybe one day, like an ugly duckling turning into a swan, her knock-kneed legs might grow into the most beautiful legs in the world. Some hope.

Molly leaned back until her curly brown hair and her ears were under the water. She stared at the fly-specked yellow paint that was peeling off the wall and at the damp patch on the ceiling where strange mushrooms grew. Water filled her ears and the world sounded foggy and far away.

Molly shut her eyes. It was an ordinary Novem-ber evening, and she was in a shabby bathroom in a crumbling building called the Hardwick House Orphanage. She imagined flying over it like a bird, looking down at its gray slate roof and its bramble-filled garden. She imagined flying higher until she was looking down on the hillside where Hardwick village lay. Up and up she went until Hardwick House became tiny. She could see the whole of the town of Briersville beyond it. As Molly flew higher and higher, she saw the rest of the country and now the coastline, too, with sea on all sides. Her mind rocketed upward until she was flying in space, looking down at the earth. And there she hovered. Molly liked to fly away from the world in her imagination. It was relaxing. And often, when she was in this state, she'd feel different.

Molly had this special feeling tonight, as if something exciting or strange were about to happen to her. The last time she'd felt special, she'd found a half-eaten packet of candy on the pavement in the village. The time before, she'd got away with watching two hoursof evening television instead of one. Molly wondered what surprise would greet her this time. Then she opened her eyes and was back in the bath. She looked at her distorted reflection in the underside of the chrome tap. Oh dear. Surely she wasn't as ugly as that? Was that pink lump of dough her face? Was that potato her nose? Were those small green lights her eyes?

Someone was hammering downstairs. That was strange; no one ever mended anything in Hardwick House. Then Molly realized that the hammering was someone banging on the bathroom door. Trouble. Molly shot up and hit her head on the tap. The banging outside was very loud now, and with it came a fierce bark.

"Molly Moon, open this door at once! If you don't, I'll be forced to use a master key."

Molly could hear keys rattling on a ring. She looked at the level of her bathwater and gasped. It was much too deep and well over the allowed level. She pulled the plug out and wrapped herself in her towel. Just in time. The door swung open. Miss Adderstone was in and darting to the bathtub, her scaly nose wrinkling as she discovered the deep, draining water. She rolled up her polyester sleeve and pushed the plug back in.

"As I suspected," she hissed. "Intentional flouting of orphanage rules."

Miss Adderstone's eyes glinted spitefully as she took a tape measure from her pocket. She pulled the metal strip out and, making excited slurping noises as she sucked on her loose false teeth, she measured how far Molly's bath had gone over the red line painted round the sides of the tub. Molly's teeth chattered. Her knees were now turning blue and blotchy, and the palms of her hands began sweating, as they always did whenever shewas excited or nervous.

Miss Adderstone shook the tape measure, dried it on Molly's shirt, then snapped it shut. Molly braced herself to face the wiry spinster, who, with her short gray hair and hairy face, looked more like a Mr. than a Miss.

"Your bath is thirty centimeters deep," Miss Adderstone announced. "Allowing for the amount that had already been deceitfully run out while I was knocking at the door, I calculate that your bath was actually forty centimeters deep. You know that baths are only supposed to be ten centimeters deep. Your bath was four times that deep, so you have, in effect, used up your next three baths. So, Molly, you are forbidden to have a bath for the next three weeks. As for a punishment . . ." Miss Adderstone picked up Molly's toothbrush. Molly's heart sank. She knew what was coming next.

Miss Adderstone glared at Molly with her dull, black eyes. Her face heaved in a monstrous way as her tongue dislodged her teeth and moved them around in her mouth before settling them back down on her gums. She thrust the toothbrush at Molly.

"This week you will be toilet monitor. I want the toilets spotless, Molly, and this is the brush you'll be using. And don't think you can get away with using the toilet brush, because I'll be watching you."

Miss Adderstone gave one last, satisfied suck on her teeth and left the room. Molly slumped down onto the side of the tub. So the something that she'd felt was going to happen tonight was simply trouble. She stared at her worn-out toothbrush, hoping that her friend Rocky would let her share his.

As she picked at a loose thread on her balding old towel, she wondered what it would be like to be wrapped up in afluffy white towel like the ones in TV ads.

Softness is the sign,
Everyone feels fine,
Wash your towels in . . .
Clou-oud Ni-i-n-e.

Molly loved ads. They showed how comfortable and happy life could be — filled with friends — friends who were always happy to see Molly when she visited them in her mind.

Wrap yourself in luxury time
Clou-oud Ni-i-n-e...

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Hypnotism

Molly Moon is no ordinary orphan. When she finds a mysterious old book on hypnotism, she discovers she can make people do whatever she wants. But a sinister stranger is watching her every move and he'll do anything to steal her hypnotic secret...

As a child she loved acting and so at 18 went to The Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After college she began to paint and write.She had always written poems and songs but now she started writing stories.

Her first were in comic strip, a medium that she worked with for five years. The Sock Monsters was her first published book in 1995 - a comic strip story for 5 - 7 year olds.

Georgia lives in a house in London full of old and new art, as her husband is the conceptual artist Marc Quinn. Marc keeps all sorts of strange things in the fridge - once he had to keep a Canadian frog in there as it was hibernating and had to be kept cold. They and their family, Tiger (17), Lucas (6) and Sky (2) love to travel, their favorite destination being India.

Georgia Byng is the author of

MOLLY MOON'S INCREDIBLE BOOK OF HYPNOTISM

MOLLY MOON STOPS THE WORLD

MOLLY MOON'S HYPNOTIC TIME TRAVEL ADVENTURE

MOLLY MOON MICKY MINUS AND THE MIND MACHINE