Molly grinned. Pim had obviously been there. She plonked herself down and ate a whole bun immediately. She gave the other one to Maude and patted the basket for her to get in. And then Molly stood on the ground and pulled on the rope. The basket rose. Maude jumped out immediately and it took Molly quite a few goes to coax her into staying in till it got all the way up to the nest. Molly climbed up and made a hole in the owl picture so she could hang it from a twig.
Now the dark had begun to fall. Birds made their last noisy swoops through the garden. The sky had turned lilac and dusty and then the clinging black. Molly turned on the torch and aimed the light in arcs up through the leaves. Maude curled up beside her. Molly hadn’t brushed her teeth or had a shower, and she thought how nice it was not to have to do anything at all. In fact, she could stay awake all night long if she wanted to. She stared up at the stars peeping through the leaves. She could watch them all night, see what they did. But stargazing made her tired, and she fell asleep almost immediately.
Maude woke Molly early the next morning by barking.
‘What now, Maude? Are you just happy to be up in the Mama tree or is there someone here?’
The day was crisp again and seemed all polished and winking clean with sunshine. Molly lowered Maude in the basket and then swung herself down. She had developed quite a stylish and acrobatic sort of way of getting up and down from her platform. If someone was here, it was probably Pim Wilder.
But it wasn’t Pim. It was Prudence Grimshaw. She was rapping urgently on the door to the house and leaning to peer in the window all at once. Molly recognised the short grey hair and the colourless clothes that made her look ghostly and drab, as if she had arrived out of a dismal future.
‘There’s no one home,’ said Molly loudly.
Prudence Grimshaw gave a start and turned sharply, clutching an envelope at her neck. She looked embarrassed at being caught peering inside, but then she gathered herself and pursed her thin lips indignantly, as if Molly should not have crept up behind her and given her such a fright.
‘Where is your mother?’ she demanded.
‘Mama is out,’ replied Molly.
Maude let out a short bark as if to second this, and Prudence Grimshaw jumped again.
‘Well, when will she be back? I have to give her this letter.’
‘You can give it to me and I’ll give it to her.’ Molly reached out her hand.
Prudence Grimshaw held on fast to the letter and dipped her head very slowly as if to show her control over the situation.
‘It is a very important letter,’ she warned. ‘It’s about that…that…that tree.’ She ejected the word ‘tree’ with a shriek, and her arm swung up and stiffened accusingly as she pointed and glared ferociously at the Mama tree. The Mama tree did not shirk or blush.
Molly said nothing, but she began to feel very worried. Prudence Grimshaw dropped her arm and nodded her head with a there-you-have-it motion, and then she straightened her grey skirt and began to speak again.
‘Half of it is actually on our property. I can’t allow it. I won’t allow it. The mess!’ She added this last bit about the mess with a pointedly pompous tone, which made Molly imagine her sipping tea and using a red pen to cross out words on someone else’s writing.
Molly glared back at her and felt almost ready to charge. But she said nothing and only puffed out her nostrils to show her irritation. Prudence Grimshaw’s brow arched, and she thrust the letter at Molly.
‘The letter demands that your mother has the overhanging branches cut off. Otherwise, Ernest will do it himself and we shall send her a bill for his services. Make sure she gets it.’
Molly shook her head. She stammered, ‘But we can’t cut off the branches. How would you like it if we cut off your arms?’
The woman snorted. ‘A tree does not have arms!’ She turned to go. But she looked back with a sly frown.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school? There’s obviously a lot you haven’t yet learned. A tree with arms—I never heard such a ridiculous notion.’
‘And there’s a lot you haven’t learned too, like how to be nice for one thing,’ burst out Molly.
Prudence Grimshaw’s chin began to quiver. Her eyebrows did a jagged dance, and her breath came out in short rising snorts. ‘Well,’ she said and huffed loudly, ‘you, you should learn some respect.’
So should you, thought Molly, but she held her mouth firmly shut and kicked at some dry leaves that lay on the path. Then she swivelled around and tore back down the path to the Mama tree.
Once she was back in the tree, Molly tore open the envelope and read the letter.
Dear Madam,
The obnoxious tree that has suddenly grown on the border of our property has many branches overhanging our property. We demand that you remove these branches immediately. If this is not done by Saturday, we will be forced to cut them off ourselves, at your expense, and if they continue to grow we will take action to remove the whole tree.
P. & E. Grimshaw.
CHAPTER 14
The Battle Cry
Molly folded her arms across her chest. I’ll tear the limbs off anyone who comes near us with a chainsaw, she thought. And then she pictured herself chained to the branches, staring down at crabby old Prudence Grimshaw with her thin nose and pointy eyebrows and her sharp elbows and shrill indignation.
Nothing—thought Molly bravely, as she dodged an imaginary knife flung from Prudence Grimshaw’s cold heart—nothing, nothing, nothing will move me from this tree.
‘From you, Mama,’ she said out loud, correcting herself. ‘Nothing will remove me from you.’
Molly lay down as if to shelter the Mama tree with her body, and she clung to the tree because she felt very upset. Her world seemed to have been eaten up by Grimshaws, chainsaws and loneliness. She tried to close her mind’s eye. She wrapped both arms tightly around the branch that held her and squeezed everything she had towards it.
And that was how Pim Wilder found her.
‘Hiya,’ he called softly, as if not wanting to startle her. ‘You coming to school?’
Molly lifted her head, but she didn’t uncurl herself from the branch.
‘Something terrible has happened,’ she declared with a sniff.
Pim took a step closer.
‘What’s happened?’ Pim’s voice was steady and reassuring and even familiar now. Molly uncurled herself and sat on her platform looking down at him. ‘The Grimshaws are going to cut off the branches. Mama’s branches! They could be Mama’s arms.’ She clutched again at the nearby branch with one hand and with the other she waved the letter. Then she folded her arms and lifted her chin. ‘I’m going to chain myself here and never come down.’
Pim blew out a low, whistling breath.
‘You’re gonna get pretty tired of holding on.’
Molly glared at him.
Pim frowned back. He scratched his head and blinked into the sun, which had risen behind the Mama tree and given it a momentous quality. Its long dark branches swept up the sky and its leaves glistened. Molly sat clinging on like a lim
pet, full of resistance.
In that moment, Pim looked at her as if he understood something that she didn’t. This just made Molly crosser. He couldn’t be counted on to react properly. He was not looking like someone who had just been told of imminent disaster, or like someone who realised that he stood on the brink of a great battle. Pim Wilder just looked calmly interested.
Molly frowned and looked away. She shouldn’t have relied on Pim Wilder. Her problem was catastrophic. She plucked a fruit off the branch. Now that Pim had returned, so had her appetite. The weirdest boy at school was now making things look normal and possible. It was confusing. Confusing and catastrophic and strange. She bit hungrily into the green-bean fruit.
Pim’s voice sailed up into the tree. ‘You know, you look like a little stray cat stuck up there.’
‘I don’t care how I look. I’ve got more important things to worry about,’ Molly retorted, spitting a pip in his vicinity. Pim picked up the pip and looked at it in the palm of his hand before he pushed it into his pocket.
‘Maybe we should work out a plan that doesn’t mean chaining you to the tree.’
‘But what else can we do?’ Molly said, with some irritation.
Pim rocked back on his heels as if he was astride a magnificent horse, perhaps even a unicorn. Then he swung himself up onto the platform.
‘We’ll find a way to stop them, once we put our minds to it.’
Molly shook her head. Her mind was already stretched. Pim ignored her and began to think. He tapped Molly’s discarded fruit pip against the branch. It made a tick-tock noise.
‘You’ll interrupt the vibrations,’ warned Molly.
Pim peered over the fence into the Grimshaw’s bare yard. He glanced at the letter and then sat on the platform and dangled his legs over the edge.
‘The way I figure it, you’re in a bit of trouble and vibrations aren’t going to get you out. Your mother is a tree or, to put it another way, this tree is your mother, and in three days’ time your neighbours are going to cut off her branches. We either work out how to stop them or we work out how to turn your mother back.’
Molly was momentarily impressed. What Pim Wilder said had the cool, reasoned tones of something that might be true. Yet she wasn’t sure she liked it. This was her trouble, not his. Who was he to suddenly sound knowledgeable? What would he know? He might know how to make a pulley system, but he didn’t know one thing about potions or herbs or vibrations or anything.
Molly dug her heels down and wrapped her arms around the branch. She would stick to her original plan. Her plan. She shut one eye and leaned her ear against the branch.
‘Shouldn’t you be at school, Pim?’ she said.
The tree rumbled. Indeed, it seemed to Molly that a deep, painful groan swelled up from its trunk and hummed down the branches. She lifted her head in surprise.
‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered.
‘What?’
Molly frowned. If Pim hadn’t heard it, then it must have been meant just for her. It was her mama sending a warning. Perhaps her mama didn’t believe in Molly’s plan to chain herself to the tree either. Molly wriggled uncomfortably. She let go of the branch. For a moment she said nothing and neither did Pim, though he did smile at the owl picture stuck on a twig.
Pim swung himself down. ‘Well, I’m going to school, then.’
‘Wait,’ Molly said. ‘We turn Mama back. We do it before Saturday, and if we don’t, then I chain myself to the tree.’
Pim smiled. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said.
Molly rolled off her branch and somersaulted down.
‘And you’re really good at making pulleys. Thanks, on behalf of Maude, especially, and for the buns too.’
Pim cupped his hand to his mouth and sent two long hoots over the Grimshaw’s fence, and then he picked up his bike. ‘The battle cry,’ he explained. ‘Are you coming to school? You want a dink? It might not be a cool double-seater, but it goes.’
CHAPTER 15
Best Friends
Molly sat on the rack on the back of Pim’s bike. It was much less comfortable than the yellow bike and she yelped when they went over the kerb.
‘Sorry,’ Pim said, ‘I warned you.’
‘You don’t have to ride like a maniac, though.’
‘I do actually, if you want to get there on time and you should go in before me so nothing looks out of the ordinary. Otherwise, everyone at school will start wondering.’
‘Not just everyone at school, the authorities too,’ said Molly, with a shudder as she thought of her chocolate balls crammed in the fridge. ‘And they’ll take me to an orphanage and whip me if I’m bad.’
‘And you’ll probably die of pneumonia too, and be buried in a shallow grave and—’
‘Not funny,’ grouched Molly.
But Molly’s absence hadn’t gone unnoticed. It turned out she was quite late, and when she entered the classroom things were already underway.
Miss Todd threw her arms in the air. She was holding a pair of scissors in one hand. Her red hair was bundled in an extravagant bun as usual and her dress, which was a bold lilac-and-purple floral, hugged her large, round body with the air of drama that Miss Todd liked.
‘Molly, dear, I was just about to call your mother to find out if you were unwell too.’
Ester Morhigg stood beside Miss Todd and stared at Molly.
‘We’re making get-well cards,’ Miss Todd explained, taking Molly protectively by the shoulders. ‘Have you been unwell?’
‘No,’ said Molly. ‘My mama was unwell and I had to take care of her.’ She tried to keep her explanation as close to truthful as possible. Her mama thought that the truth was important, and somehow the things her mama thought mattered more now than they had before. Before, when her mama talked about things such as truth and kindness, Molly had never paid much attention.
Before Miss Todd could inquire further about her mama’s health, and before Molly would have to entangle herself further in her small dance with the quiet untruth, Molly asked who they were making get-well cards for.
‘Why, for Ellen Palmer! She’s gravely ill. Would you like to make a card too?’
Molly gazed around the class to make sure this was true. Ellen was not there.
Miss Todd’s words ‘gravely ill’ boomed in Molly’s head. What did they mean? Was Ellen, her best friend, lying on her bed with her eyes closed, deathly pale? Molly took a piece of coloured card and headed for a desk. And why had life suddenly steered so far off course? First her own mama and now Ellen, her best friend.
‘Why is your hair so messy? Looks like a bird’s nest,’ said Ester Morhigg. ‘Look at my card; I drew a horse. Ellen likes horses.’ She shoved her card in front of Molly’s face. The horse was running across a field of green.
‘I didn’t know Ellen liked horses that much,’ Molly said softly. Perhaps she didn’t know Ellen as well as she thought. Perhaps Ester Morhigg knew her better. Ellen was gravely ill and Molly didn’t even know. Her heart wobbled with an unfamiliar weight.
Molly stared at her blank card. She picked up her scissors. Her hand shook. A large tear rolled dow
n her nose and dropped onto Ester’s horse card. Miss Todd let out a gasp and flew to Molly’s side. Molly stared in horror at the damp blob on the card. It was as if she had leaked. She wiped her eye and bit at her lip, determined no more would escape. She had promised herself never to cry, and she wasn’t going to give in now.
‘Molly. What’s the matter? Is it your mum?’ Miss Todd patted her back.
Molly nodded, and then she shook her head, and then she felt so confused she had to close her eyes and hold her breath and make everything stop. Then she stared at Miss Todd’s big wide eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I’m all right. I’m just tired, and I haven’t got any lunch, and I’m worried for Ellen.’
All these things were true, but perhaps the truest of all of this was that she was worried for her mama, and this was the one thing she couldn’t say.
Miss Todd nodded. ‘You poor lamb. Come on. I’m going to take you to the tuckshop right now. Is your mother still in bed?’
Molly wished her mama was in bed. She just nodded, happy to be glided out of the classroom and to land in the tuckshop where she ordered a sausage roll with sauce. After that, Molly felt she could face the rest of the day at school. But as soon as the bell rang, she ran all the way to the bridge where she found Pim waiting for her, just as they had arranged. He was leaning over the rails, staring into the creek.
‘I’m not coming home right away,’ Molly said dramatically. ‘Ellen Palmer is gravely ill, so I have to go and visit her.’
‘Ellen Palmer? Gravely ill? Who said that?’ Pim scoffed, as he tossed his bag on his shoulder.
‘Miss Todd.’
‘Miss Todd? But Miss Todd exaggerates everything. She thinks you’re potentially dying if you cough.’ Pim threw a stone in the creek. It landed with an undramatic plop.
Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars Page 6