by Janeta Munro
As Mum watched Tilly continue on down the street, she shook her head and wondered out loud, “Where on Earth did that grasshopper come from?”
Up above her, Roger ducked down below the window ledge where he couldn’t be seen and snickered into his hand.
Chapter 3
Right down at the bottom end of Melody Gardens stood a very old and very large tree known to everyone as Old Mai. She had been growing there for as long as anyone could remember and was honoured with the title of The Matriarch of Melody. No one knew exactly how old she was but it was said she had to be at least a thousand years old. Her bare branches stretched out wide and high and her trunk was so big around that Tilly and her best friend Macey couldn’t even join hands around her.
“Hello, Old Mai,” Tilly said as she laid her cheek against Old Mai’s smooth bark. “Today’s the big day and I’m so excited. I can hardly wait!”
She felt a vibration against her cheek and smiled. One of the things that Tilly loved about Old Mai was that she always responded when she spoke to her.
“Mum said to say hi and I just wanted to come and see you one last time before the spring-out begins.” Again Tilly felt the vibration and sighed. “I love you, Old Mai. You are my favourite tree out of this entire park and I think you’re amazing.”
She patted Old Mai’s trunk then took a few of steps back so that she could look all the way up to the top of the tree. It was a long way up.
Tap! Tap! Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She yelped her surprise as she jumped around to see who it was. She half expected it to be Macey but ... no one was there.
Tap! Tap! This time on her other shoulder. She sucked in her breath and slowly turned in the other direction ... still no one.
“Who’s there?” she asked as she anxiously looked around. A chill went down her spine and she swallowed hard.
A movement to her right snagged her attention and she spun around to get a better look. Sticking out of one of Old Mai’s branches and waving to get her attention was a cute little branch with five twiggy fingers. Tilly laughed with relief and waved back.
“I’m so glad that was you, Old Mai,” she said. “For a minute there, I thought you might have been a…. Oh, never mind. I was going to say a grasshopper but that sounds silly, even to me!”
The twiggy hand moved in a way that made it look like it was laughing. It looked so funny that Tilly threw her head back and laughed as well.
When she looked back at the twiggy hand, it was pointing at something above her head. Tilly instinctively ducked her head as a wave of panic washed over her. Maybe there was another grasshopper around after all! She was too scared to look up but the twiggy hand snapped its fingers to get her attention then reassured her with an OK signal. She sucked in a deep breath then hesitantly looked up. All she saw was a bare branch. She looked back at the twiggy hand with a questioning shake of her head. The hand made a shooing motion then pointed to the branch again.
“Ok,” Tilly said as she straitened up, “there must be something I’m supposed to see here … hopefully not a grasshopper.”
She scanned the branch up and down looking for anything unusual, but all she could find was a small cross just above her that was a couple of shades darker than the bark around it.
She put her finger on it then raised her eyebrows at the twiggy hand. It vigorously gave her the thumbs up.
“So I’ve found the X that marks the spot,” she said to the twiggy hand, “What now?”
The Twiggy hand made a shooing motion so Tilly took her finger off the spot and took a step back. When she did so, a low, growling rumble started deep under the ground and the earth around her began to tremble. Fascinated, Tilly watched as a bulging tremor emerged from Old Mai’s roots and travelled up her trunk then along the branch towards her. As it got closer to the spot, the tremor intensified. So much so the entire branch began to shake.
“Ahh….” Tilly sent a worried glance the Twiggy hand’s way. “Is that supposed to happen?”
Then, when the tremor reached the spot, the branch emitted a high-pitched whine. Tilly instinctively put her arms over her head and dropped to the ground.
BOOM!
Squealing with fright, Tilly put her fingers in her ringing ears. She wasn’t game to move. But after a while when nothing else happened, she timidly opened her eyes and looked up. She expected to see the branch above her shattered to pieces but…. What on Earth?
She jumped to her feet. The branch was completely intact. There wasn’t even a split or splinter to be seen.
She stood on tippy-toe and peered at the spot the twiggy hand had been pointing to. A tiny green leaf, no bigger than the end of her thumb, was poking out of the middle of the X.
“What the heck!” Tilly exclaimed then shook her head. “That was a lot of effort for one little leaf, Old Mai!”
This was very unusual. Old Mai never leafed-out at this time on Spring Day and she never ever produced just one leaf. Why would Old Mai pop out a single leaf? Tilly wondered.
She lifted the leaf with her finger to get a better look at it. Gasp! Was she seeing things? She blinked and looked again. No, she wasn’t! Engraved into the leaf was her name, Tilly.
“Is that for me?” she asked the twiggy hand. When it gave her the thumbs up, she said, “Oh, my goodness!”
Just then someone called her name. “Tilly!”
When she turned towards the voice, she saw her best friend running towards her.
“Macey!” She called out and waved frantically, “Come and look at this!”
Chapter 4
Tilly and Macey had been friends since they were toddlers. They were both eleven years old. In fact their birthdays were only one week apart, and they practically did everything together. Where Tilly was small and solid-looking, Macey was the opposite. She was tall and athletic with a mop of curly brown hair, dark olive skin, and large brown eyes. Today she was dressed a lot like Tilly, only her dress was pale lavender and she wore boots instead of shoes.
“Look what Old Mai just did!” Tilly said when Macey got close enough.
When she saw the leaf, Macey’s mouth gaped open. “It’s got your name on it!”
“I know!” Tilly was nearly bursting with excitement. They looked at each other in awe for a moment then grinned.
“That’s so cool!” Macey said, “Are you going to pick it?”
Tilly glanced towards the twiggy hand. She should probably ask first.
“Oh!” she said, “It’s gone!”
“What’s gone?” Macey raised her eyebrows then looked in the direction Tilly was pointing.
“The twiggy hand is gone. It was there just a moment ago.”
While they searched all over Old Mai’s trunk and lower branches for the twiggy hand, Tilly filled Macey in on everything that had happened.
“Well … I’m not sure what I should do now,” Tilly said when they found no sign of it. “I would like to pick the leaf and keep it but … I don’t know…. I have this feeling something’s going to happen to it later on. Maybe I should just leave it where it is for now.”
Macey gazed at Tilly for a moment then asked, “Are you sure?” When Tilly nodded, she said, “OK, then we should probably get going back to your house. It’s almost time for the spring-out to begin.”
Grabbing Tilly by the hand, Macey turned to go. Two seconds later she stopped so quickly that Tilly face-planted her in the back.
“What is it?” Tilly asked when she noticed Macey staring at one of Old Mai’s branches. “Did you find the twiggy hand?”
“Ah…,” Macey took a couple of steps closer to the branch. “No. But…,” she crept even closer to Tilly’s leaf, “I think I just saw a grasshopper heading towards your leaf.”
“What? Oh, no! Not another one!” The colour drained from Tilly’s face and she wriggled and jerked as though she had just been doused in slime.
“Don’t worry,” Macey said, “I’ll get rid of it for you.”
Macey
slowly inched along until she stood beneath the grasshopper then quickly reached up and grabbed it. “Be right back,” she said.
Tilly watched Macey walk over to the fence at the end of the park and toss it to the chickens on the other side. She couldn’t bear to watch them squabble over it. It made her gag. Turning away, she hurried back to her leaf.
“Don’t worry, little leafy,” she whispered to it. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Right, mission accomplished,” Macey said as she ran back to Tilly. “Let’s go.”
“I’m not sure if I should leave my leaf now. What if another grasshopper comes along while we’re not here?” Tilly chewed on her bottom lip as she stared at Macey.
Macey put her hand on Tilly’s shoulder and looked her square in the eye. “I have a feeling Old Mai knows what she’s doing and I don’t think you have to worry about your leaf getting eaten.”
Tilly took in a deep breath and puffed it out as she considered what Macey said. She was right, of course.
“OK, Old Mai,” she said as she patted the branch above her, “I’m going to trust you to take care of my leaf. I’ll be back for it later.”
Unseen by either of the girls, Roger watched them walk away. He waited ‘til they were out of sight then slipped out from behind a nearby tree. He snuck over to Old Mai and stood beneath Tilly’s leaf.
He’d been searching for his grasshoppers ever since he’d managed to sneak out of his house earlier. He’d almost caught Salina, his only female, but she’d taken flight just before he could get hold of her. Unfortunately, she had headed straight for Old Mai and the two girls standing under one of Old Mai’s branches.
He’d been upset when Tilly’s mum had squashed the grasshopper that had landed on Tilly earlier but that was nothing compared to what he felt after watching Macey toss Salina to the chickens—he was furious! Revenge would be sweet.
He lifted his hand and opened it right beside Tilly’s leaf. “There you go, Fritz,” he said to another grasshopper, “breakfast time.”
Chapter 5
“I’m sure it’s too early for grasshoppers,” Tilly worried as they walked back up the street. “They usually come about four weeks from now, don’t they?”
“I thought so,” Macey shrugged. “Maybe they’re just early this year.”
“I sure hope we don’t have a swarm of them again this year.” Tilly kept glancing around as she walked.
“Well, I for one am not going to worry about grasshoppers all day,” Macey said. “It’s Spring Day, remember … your favourite day of the year? Are you going to let a couple of grasshoppers ruin your whole day?”
Tilly frowned. “Well … no.” She stopped and took in a deep breath. “I am not going to worry about grasshoppers anymore!” she vowed.
“Good!” Macey poked her in the ribs. “Feel better?”
“Ow!” Tilly grabbed her side. “I did until you poked me in the ribs!” Tilly poked her back.
“Hey!” Macey protested, “I didn’t poke you that hard!”
Tilly laughed and ran up the street. Macey chased after her. By the time they got back to Tilly’s house, they were covered in red poke marks and in a very giggly mood. Their parents were waiting on the steps when they got there.
“Happy Spring Day everyone,” Tilly said.
“Happy Spring Day,” they all replied.
Tilly’s mum came over to her and draped an arm across her shoulders. “You OK, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” Tilly replied, smiling up at her, “all good.”
“That’s my girl,” Mum said and winked at her.
“Not long now,” Tilly’s dad said as he looked from his watch to the girls.
Tilly clapped her hands and bounced on the spot. “Come on, Macey, let’s go over to Jack.”
They ran to the middle of the park where another old tree stood.
All the trees had names but Jack was the only one who had his name carved into his bark. He was a large tree, almost as large as Old Mai, and just like her, had bare branches that spread out wide and high.
According to folklore, the founder of Jackston had carved his name into Jack’s trunk when he was a young boy. He and his family had been passing through the area at the time and years later, he had returned as a grown man with a family of his own. He had founded the township of Jackston and made his namesake the very centre of the town.
Tilly and Macey didn’t have long to wait before a deep rumbling could be heard coming from the base of this very same tree. They held their breath and braced themselves.
The ground all around Jack started shuddering as he emitted a sound like the whine of a turbo engine. Tilly put her fingers in her ears and leaned forward.
WHOOMP!
Jack burst into full leaf! Thousands of shiny green leaves shimmered all over his branches within the blink of an eye.
The sudden force of his leaf-out made Tilly’s hair and dress fly up and she had to take a couple of steps backwards to regain her balance. She looked around at everyone else recovering from Jack’s leaf-out and laughed. The spring-out had begun.
Roger eagerly watched as his grasshopper approached Tilly’s leaf. It had been a long time since any of his grasshoppers had eaten fresh leaves. He knew Fritz would quickly devour it. But just as Fritz neared the leaf, Roger heard someone approaching. He glanced about for a suitable hiding place then dashed behind Old Mai’s trunk. Life wouldn’t be worth living if his mum got word he was out looking for his grasshoppers!
He peeked around Old Mai’s trunk and saw an old woman leaning on a cane beneath the branch Fritz was on.
“Oh! Go away, Chime Maker!” he muttered under his breath.
He couldn’t hear what she was saying but it seemed the Chime Maker was in full conversation with Old Mai. She was often seen talking to Old Mai and it was said that Old Mai talked back to her.
Roger found her a little intimidating. She was really old, a hundred and ten in fact. And although she was just a little woman with creamy white hair drawn back in a bun, she had these knowing eyes. Whenever those pale blue eyes were trained on him, he wanted to squirm. He was convinced she could read his mind.
“Hello dearest, what do we have here?” the Chime Maker asked Old Mai.
She inspected Tilly’s leaf carefully and then beamed a delighted smile when Old Mai replied in a voice only she could hear.
“Oh, wonderful!” she said as she gently touched the leaf with a gnarly old finger. “This is very exciting news.” A wave of happiness washed over her and a tiny shiver of anticipation tingled down her spine.
She then motioned towards the grasshopper that was keeping a cautious eye on her. “I see you have company.”
She chuckled at Old Mai’s response.
“Well, my dear, I will leave you to it,” she said as she patted Old Mai’s branch. As she turned to go, she smiled. “I’ve waited a long time for this, my darling. I’m very much looking forward to meeting your Tufling tonight.”
Roger watched the Chime Maker walk off towards the centre of the park before emerging from behind Old Mai. He went and stood under Tilly’s leaf and searched for Fritz. But Fritz was nowhere to be found.
“What the heck!” Roger said. “Where are you, Fritz?”
He looked up and down the branches but couldn’t see him anywhere. A sudden thought crossed his mind. “I bet that rotten Chime Maker took my grasshopper!”
Chapter 6
“Here it comes,” Macey said.
The girls nervously hopped from one foot to the other while they waited. The bare ground surrounding them was vibrating so much that the little rocks on top were jumping around all over the place. Within seconds, grass began to spring up out of the ground. Sprouting lines of light and dark green grass streaked across the ground in every direction. As they did, they formed intricate patterns and shapes throughout the park.
Tilly and Macey chased after a dark green streak that looped and twisted so fast they had to sprint t
o keep up with it. They soon gave up and flopped down on a large patch of freshly sprung grass. In no time at all, the entire park was covered in a beautiful green carpet that looked and smelled so good. The girls rolled around on the grass, enjoying its cool freshness.
“It’s so nice to have green grass again,” Macey said as she plucked a long, dark strand.
“I know,” Tilly sighed as she ruffled a patch of lime green. “I love new grass.”
“You love everything that springs on Spring Day. Well … everything except maybe grasshoppers.”
Tilly rolled her eyes. “Grasshoppers don’t spring on Spring Day, Macey. They invade afterwards…. I hate grasshoppers!”
Macey laughed. “I know!” As she stuck the end of the grass in her mouth, she said, “One of these days you’re going to have to face your fear of grasshoppers. You know that, don’t you?”
“Huh!” Tilly stared at Macey in amazement, “Funny you should say that! Mum just said the same thing to me this morning!”
She flipped onto her back and thought about it for a moment. An unpleasant sensation came over her and a chill ran down her spine. “I know I do,” she said quietly then let out a weighty sigh, “And someday I will but … hopefully not today.”
She got to her feet then reached a hand down to Macey. “Come on.” She changed the subject. “Let’s go watch Lola.”
Now Lola … was something else! She wasn’t exactly a large tree but what she lacked in size, she certainly made up for in her blooming. She was one of the most popular trees in the park because she could really put on a show.
Tilly and Macey wound their way through the gathered crowd ‘til they found a good spot near the front. The air all around them crackled with the energy Lola was giving off and their scalps began to prickle with static. While they waited for Lola to begin, they fidgeted with nervous anticipation.