Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars

by Murray, Martine

  ‘Come on, Maudie. Let’s go to the creek.’

  They crossed the rickety bridge and Maude ran at a heron that was perched on the railing. The bird swerved off down the throat of the creek, which was full of reeds. The water slipped over the rocks and pooled at the tufts of bullrush. There was a steep bank on each side, which rose up to become a stout brick wall.

  Molly took off her sandals and walked along the wall. It was such a fat, smooth, sun-warmed wall that she lay down on it on her tummy, dangling one arm over the side, letting the warmth of the bricks soak into her cheek.

  Out of the daze of blue sky and croaking frogs came a voice.

  ‘Are you waiting for the sky to fall?’

  Molly propped herself up on her elbows.

  Pim Wilder was framed by the blue sky, his face dark with shadows. He sat on his bike with one foot on the wall. He wasn’t wearing the school top, but a T-shirt with stripes, which gave him the air of a drunken sailor.

  He looked at Molly as if he expected her to be either frightened or annoyed by his question and would almost enjoy it if she was.

  Molly, who had now successfully faced the night alone, reminded herself that Pim Wilder was only a boy and not nearly as frightening as the dark. She scrambled to her knees.

  ‘I saw you at the park. You had a ball of dirt in your hand,’ she said. It was best when feeling nervous or timid to behave in the exact opposite way.

  Pim was not deterred at all. He laughed. ‘Not dirt. It was a pellet. There’s a powerful owl nesting in that tree. That’s how you tell.’

  Only Pim Wilder could turn a ball of dirt into a whole journey of discovery. Molly resented and admired him for it, both at the same time.

  ‘They swallow their prey whole or in large chunks and then they spew up these little pellets of fur and bones, and if you look closely you can work out what they ate. I reckon that one had eaten a sugar glider or a ringtail. The bones were bigger than a bird’s. They eat kookaburras too, and parrots.’

  Molly didn’t like to think of sugar gliders or parrots being swallowed in chunks. She made a face to show this was disgusting, but Pim hardly noticed.

  ‘Have you heard a powerful owl call? It’s like this.’ He cupped his hands to his mouth and uttered two mournful hoots. ‘It’s the only one that really sounds sad, like a real owl call.’

  ‘And is it sad?’

  ‘Who knows? I doubt it, though. There’s nothing to be sad about if you are an owl.’

  ‘How can you know?’ Molly almost wouldn’t have been surprised if Pim claimed he once was an owl. But he didn’t. Instead, he seemed amused by her question. He leaned his bike against the wall, and sat down.

  Molly plucked a stalk of grass from the crack in the bricks and twisted it. She had said something that had interested him.

  ‘What about a baby owl who lost its mother? It would be sad,’ she continued.

  Pim stared at her. ‘Probably frightened more than anything, but I guess it would have to learn a thing or two pretty quickly. Did you wag school today?’

  ‘My mum’s gone away,’ Molly said.

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘He went away a long time ago.’ Molly tried to sound breezy. How strange that she was even telling him.

  Pim leaned forward. His expression glittered with curiosity. ‘So who is looking after you?’

  Molly tossed her piece of grass into the creek. ‘I’m looking after myself,’ she sang.

  Pim straightened up. He looked at her closely, as if to check she was the person he thought she was. His eyes were clear and piercing, but they were grinning at her too.

  Molly stood up and jumped off the wall, as if to shake off his gaze. Maude stood next to her. ‘And I’ve been eating as many chocolate balls as I like, for breakfast, lunch and dinner,’ she added.

  Pim let out a laugh.

  ‘Your mum goes away and leaves you all by yourself, and you stop going to school and eat chocolate balls for breakfast. That’s kind of weird.’

  Pim Wilder could see right inside her. Molly’s face was hot.

  ‘I’m not weird,’ she said, mustering more certainty than she really felt. And then, despite her doubts, or because of them, she spun around elegantly on her heel and began to walk away.

  ‘Well, that’s a pity,’ he called out. ‘I was just beginning to think at least one person around here might be interesting.’

  Molly stopped. She turned back and shouted, ‘I am interesting. And I’m in a really interesting situation. So interesting you probably wouldn’t be able to believe it if I told you.’

  He walked his bike up to her. ‘Try me,’ he said.

  And because he said it softly, and because he looked at her without any thought written on his face, but with the sort of blankness of an open window, Molly stopped.

  Could she tell him? Could she tell Pim Wilder? Was this the right thing to do? She hadn’t even told Ellen, and Ellen was her best friend. But perhaps Pim Wilder was the only person who might be able to know such a thing and not be afraid of it.

  ‘First, promise you won’t tell anyone else. And promise to believe me, too.’

  He opened his palms and lifted them towards her as if he was ready to take the weight of anything she might say.

  ‘I promise.’

  Molly took a deep breath. She put her hand on Maude’s head. She frowned.

  ‘My mama accidentally turned herself into a tree.’

  She’d said it. The truth had been plonked right there on the shining gravel pathway between them. Molly shut her eyes against it and stood unsteadily, the sun flaring across her eyelids and making everything feel hot and scorched and indistinct. She felt she might cry, and because she didn’t want to, she rubbed at her eyes and blinked them open again.

  There was Pim Wilder, dark and still, surrounded by the bright, hazy light. He moved one step towards her, as if he thought she might fall. Molly hugged her arms around herself and her lip trembled.

  Pim stared back at her. His mouth had dropped open, and his eyes were round and green and full of wonder.

  She knew he believed her.

  CHAPTER 12

  Green-Bean Fruit

  Molly and Pim stood at the base of the tree. Pim craned his neck and looked up through the leaves.

  ‘Wow,’ he breathed. ‘The leaves are all different types. It’s…well, it’s an amazing tree. I mean she, your mother, the tree, I don’t know, it’s something. You can tell that.’ He shook his head, perplexed. He touched the trunk, then walked around it, as if somewhere there might be a clue that Molly hadn’t uncovered.

  Molly watched him. If it was this amazing to Pim Wilder, how would it be to everyone else? The Mama tree was startling and different from other trees and sooner or later it would be noticed.

  Of course, she thought with a sigh. Of course her mama couldn’t have become an unremarkable tree, an ordinary tree. Because her mama wasn’t an ordinary person. Molly leapt towards the trunk and, pressing her back to it, she held her palms against it protectively.

  ‘You can
’t tell anyone,’ Molly said. ‘Imagine what they might do if—’

  ‘Of course I won’t.’ Pim stepped back. He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘But, Molly,’ he whispered, ‘what are you going to do? I mean, what about your dad, for one thing? Can’t he help? Is he into this stuff, too?’

  Molly shook her head firmly. ‘Oh, my dad, my dad…’

  She felt confused. Her foot dug at the ground. She half wanted to tell him all about her dad, and she half wanted not to speak of him at all. ‘He’s lost somewhere in Cuba. He doesn’t know about potions, anyway. My brothers know a bit, but they’re far away too.’ She shrugged, as if it meant nothing.

  Pim put his finger to the back of his ear, puzzled.

  ‘So, your mother is a tree. And no one knows. No one except me.’ Molly could tell that he was struggling to make sense of it. She hoped he wasn’t going to try to comfort her.

  ‘I only told you because I wanted to ask you if you had some spare dog food for Maudie and Claudine. Well, Claudine is a cat, but she will have to put up with dog food, as it's going to be hard times for a while around here. But don’t worry about me. Look where I sleep.’

  Molly then expertly hoisted herself up into her nest of branches and leaves and peeped back over at him. ‘Only problem is Maudie can’t get up.’

  ‘You sleep there?’ Pim stood still, struck again, and Molly thought he looked at her with admiration. She ducked down in her nest of leaves.

  Pim began to pace again. ‘Of course I’ll get some dog food. But you can’t sleep there forever. I mean, it must be pretty great sleeping in a tree, but winter will be brutal. And anyway, we have to find a way to turn your mother back. Don’t we?’

  He’d said we have to find a way. Did that mean he was going to help her? Could he help? Molly perked up. She peered over her nest. Pim was frowning, as if already entrenched in thoughts about how to get her mama back.

  Molly felt suddenly very tired and very relieved, and she let go of something inside herself, something that she had been holding onto very firmly. Her whole body felt limp, but it roared with sudden hunger too. Below her, Pim seemed to be gauging the size of things with his arms.

  Of all the people, she thought, of all the people to share her biggest-ever problem. But there he was, with his loose, striped T-shirt, tapping at the trunk of the tree, already getting to work in some way. The thing about Pim was that he seemed to like working things out and he was eager. But, best of all, he wasn’t going to tell anyone. Molly climbed down from her perch.

  ‘I’m really hungry,’ she said. Her head felt strange and light. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud: she had just thought it and said it all at once, suddenly realising why she felt funny and not right and as if anything, any little thing might blow her over.

  Pim stood up and scratched his head. ‘I’m going back to my house. I’ll get some rope and some food and bring it back before it gets dark.’

  Before Molly could ask him about the rope, the tree began to make a noise, as if a wind had swept through it. But there was no wind. The branches trembled on their own, and neither Molly nor Pim knew whether it was the late afternoon light glowing through the leaves or whether the colours just suddenly became more vivid. As they watched, small pale-pink buds burst at the tips of the branches. They began to swell and grow plump and roundish until they hung pendulously like blood-plum-coloured mangoes. The tree slowly became still again, and the strange fruit hung there, wobbling slightly.

  ‘Wow,’ said Pim. His hands shot to the top of his head, and he half crouched, as if sheltering from the strangeness. He turned to Molly, his eyes burning with excitement. ‘I guess you’re used to this sort of stuff.’

  Molly shook her head slowly. ‘No, not really. Not at all. But I wonder…’

  ‘What?’ Pim took his hands from his head and straightened up. He gazed at the tree, which now looked even more magnificent.

  Molly reached up to the lowest-hanging fruit. The skin was firm. She pressed her nose to it, and because it smelled good she pulled it off.

  ‘I wonder if Mama heard me say that I was hungry.’

  ‘You think she grew these for you to eat?’ Pim reached up and touched one, but he didn’t pick it.

  ‘If I lie in the tree, I can feel her there, so I’m sure she can sense me too. I think I can communicate with her, in a way.’ Molly blushed. It embarrassed her to admit this to a tough boy like Pim. Would he think it was weird to talk with a tree?

  But Pim whistled and gazed in wonder at Molly and then at the tree, as if all this was exactly the sort of thing he found interesting, and then he rocked back and forth on his heels and blew out a long breath.

  ‘You should definitely eat it, then,’ he said.

  Molly dug her fingers into the skin. It was hard, almost like the bark of a tree, but underneath it was a moist green inner casing. She tasted a bit of it.

  Green beans, she thought, it’s just like green beans.

  Beneath the green bit was soft, creamy flesh, which came easily away from a shiny brown pip. It was sweet and juicy, with a hint of nuttiness.

  ‘What’s it like?’

  Molly handed it to Pim. ‘Try it. The white bit is delicious. It’s like lychees and almonds and vanilla custard. The green bit is like—’

  ‘Green beans! Exactly like green beans,’ Pim laughed. ‘Next thing we know, we’ll turn into a tree too, or a frog or something.’

  Molly almost laughed, but her mouth was full. She ate the whole fruit, even the green-bean part. And then she ate another. She had no fear of turning into a frog.

  ‘Of course. Mama made it like green beans because she always wants me to eat green vegetables.’

  Molly felt better. Was it the fruit or the feeling that her mama was still there, still looking after her? She felt hopeful and warm, and she opened a little more to the mysterious, whispering forces that had swallowed her mama.

  Pim stared at her. Could he see? Could he sense them too? His gaze fixed on Molly, his eyes flashing with thoughts. It was the look that frightened others, but Molly didn’t feel afraid. She had nothing more to hide now. She took a bite of her fruit and stared straight back at him.

  Pim grinned. ‘You eat it,’ he said, ‘I’ve already got a mother forcing green beans into me. I’m going to get that dog food.’ He turned to go.

  Molly watched him walk away. His odd, loping walk, as if his legs were made of string, was familiar in a way, but now he seemed different. Maybe it was just that she saw him differently because he had become the only person who knew. Somehow Molly knew he was exactly the right person to know. She reached up to pick more fruit and sat at the base of the tree leaning her back against it.

  ‘Thank you, Mama,’ she whispered. ‘But I’d like it if you came back now and made some black-eyed pea stew.’

  CHAPTER 13

  A Letter

  Finally, there was a proper team: Molly, Pim, Maude and, somewhere prowling the outskirts, Claudine. Claudine had watched the bursting of the fruit from the veranda. She lay on the day bed, stretching every now and then as if she was more interested in the look of her paws than the activities in the tree. But, still, Molly didn’t have high
expectations of Claudine. What did feel odd was that Ellen wasn’t part of the team. Ellen was always Molly’s first choice for anything.

  Molly took Maude to the wild orchard that spread over the creek flats. She took Mama’s basket with her and she picked some peaches. Then she climbed down the other side of the hill to the oval, and she watched some school kids playing cricket. When she tired of this, she and Maude wandered up the path by the railway, and Molly swished at the clumps of long grasses with a stick and scavenged some last blackberries.

  On the way home she climbed the back fence of Mrs Mulligan’s overgrown garden, while Maude ran round the long way, and she picked some blood plums. Mrs Mulligan was too old to pick them herself. Molly left a pile of them on the back-door step with some peaches too. She didn’t feel like talking to Mrs Mulligan, though. She liked feeling she was captain of her own evening, and she walked slowly back along the street, as the windows of houses began to light up.

  Once back at her own house, Molly cut up the remaining peaches and plums and put them in a pot with some honey and cinnamon to stew. Then she decided to serenade Maude with her ukelele, while she waited for the fruit to cook. It was always nice to sing to Maude, as Maude wasn’t superior like Claudine, and she didn’t try to sing along like Mama did. Molly sang long and loudly and almost let the peaches burn.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get better at cooking,’ Molly said to Maude after they’d eaten the stewed fruit. Then they scrambled through the garden to the Mama tree, which waited quietly for them even though something had changed while they were out.

  There was now an elaborate pulley system slung over the lowest tree branch, and attached to it was a small wooden platform on which Maude’s basket had been wedged. In the basket were two fruit buns, a can of dog food, a picture of a powerful owl and a torch.