Ellen looked curiously at Molly. ‘Our own particular light,’ she echoed.
‘Yeah.’
‘Little stars.’ Ellen’s face broke into a mad sort of grin. She pulled herself up and reached out her arms to Molly, and Molly dived in for a hug.
And Molly felt the warmth of everything pressed and held between them.
CHAPTER 21
Owl Hoots
Ellen’s mother almost cried with relief when Molly asked for a bowl of spaghetti for Ellen. She rushed it in to Ellen straightaway and forgot to offer Molly some. Molly was alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the smells of spaghetti bolognaise, which travelled straight to her empty stomach. But, she thought, if she kept thinking all the way home about how hungry she was, her Mama tree would make some fruit that would just taste exactly like spaghetti. Not spaghetti bolognese, as Molly’s mama was a vegetarian, but spaghetti with tomato and olives.
This was what Molly thought about as she hurried home. She clambered down the side of the valley that led to the small black creek, now bloated with the croaking of frogs. Above it bugs buzzed and danced. Night coloured the sky.
For a moment Molly wished she had told Ellen’s mother her secret. It had pounded frantically inside her as if trying to burst out and land snug in the lap of Ellen Palmer’s mother. Instead, here she was in the dusk, all alone, shouldering something bigger than her shoulders could carry.
From the other side of the valley there came a soft insistent hooting.
‘Is that you Pim?’ she called out.
Two more hoots sounded. Molly ran up the hill. Dilapidated sneakers and a khaki cap poked out from behind a bush. Pim had his hands cupped to his mouth and was making a whistling, hooting noise.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘Being a powerful owl. Did I convince you?’
‘No. Well, almost,’ Molly admitted. ‘Did you get my note? Where were you today?’ She was glad to see him.
‘Busy. I had stuff to do.’
Molly battled with a fleeting moment of jealousy. How could Pim have anything more important than their mission to turn her mama back? Molly started to climb the hill, towards her house. She didn’t care about Pim’s owl sound at all.
‘Hey, where are you going?’
‘Home. I’ve only got tonight left. The Grimshaws are coming tomorrow with the chainsaw,’ Molly said, just in case he had forgotten there was something more serious than owl sounds or other stuff to consider.
Pim caught up to her. ‘I know. I told my mum I was going to stay at a friend’s place tonight. I’m sleeping in the tree with you.’
Molly’s cheeks reddened. He said a friend’s place? She and Pim Wilder, friends? Yes, it was true. She and Pim had become friends.
As she pondered this, a large black car came powering towards them. They had to jump off the road to get out of its way, but not before Molly caught sight of Ernest Grimshaw at the wheel and Prudence Grimshaw, stiff as a peg, beside him.
‘Did you see that?’ Molly shivered. ‘It was the Grimshaws.’
Pim watched the car as it sped away. He shrugged. ‘Driving like that, they are probably just compensating for their small minds. Come on, let’s go before it gets dark.’
Above them was the glowing sky. Before them the road home. Molly smiled to herself. Now that Pim was there, everything was thrilling again. Everything was possible. The Grimshaws were defeatable. They weren’t as big as they thought they were.
Sometimes, she told herself, you can’t figure things out, you just have to live them out.
CHAPTER 22
Connections
As soon as they were back at Molly’s garden, Molly and Pim climbed the Mama tree. The leaves rustled soothingly. The sky was dark and pink, and everything felt soft and full, as if the day’s brightness had all been drunk and was now settling, sifting down, spreading.
Pim reached up and picked some fruit. Then he nodded at a rolled-up piece of paper that was lying on top of Molly’s nest bed.
‘Well, we can always go with plan B,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Have a look. It’s what I was working on yesterday. I brought it here earlier and then found your note so I went down to the creek to meet you.’
Molly began to unroll the piece of paper. Pim hadn’t forgotten their mission after all. She grinned and stood up, holding the paper against the trunk. It was a drawing of a tree, and around it were words that seemed to represent thoughts that had grown out of the tree.
It made Molly feel very serious. She felt she was getting closer. She grabbed the torch. ‘Come on, I think we need to get down to look at it properly,’ she said.
They unrolled the paper and lay it on the grass, pinning its corners down with stones. Maude sat on it. Molly called her off and squatted beside her to give her some love.
Pim shone the torch on it. The drawing lay before Molly like a strange, mystical map. Her heart leapt towards it.
What made it so entrancing? Was it that Pim had done it? Was it that he had done it for her? She read part of it again.
It seems sometimes to have wounds, which it grows around or over or despite them. (Like we do.)
Molly looked up at Pim. Did her mama have wounds too? Did she know that Molly was wishing for a mother like Ellen Palmer’s instead of her own? Was she hurt? Was that why she wasn’t coming back? Molly’s body twitched. She took in a sharp breath. Pim gave a curious smile. Molly ignored it. Now that her mama was gone, she wanted her back exactly as she was. That’s it, thought Molly.
As if Pim heard her, he said, ‘I think that the kind of magic we need is going to come from being close to things, I mean trees, animals, earth, sky. We’re all made of dirt or flesh and blood or sap and air and spirit and stuff. We are all sort of the same.’
‘So?’
‘So we should be able to connect one to the other.’
‘But how does that change Mama back?’ Molly felt desperate. What was her mama feeling inside that tree? Were her branches heavy? Was the sun hot on her leaves? Was she sad and worried and desperate too? Did she know it was only a matter of hours before her branches would be cut off? Molly couldn’t let that happen. But she couldn’t meld things together in her mind. Tree, sky, magic…Where was her mama in all of this?
Pim was shaking his head, as if something had lodged in it and he wanted to get it loose. He began to pace.
‘It’s all about connection. Magic. Life. Forces of nature. We have to find a way to hook into the forces of nature to make that connection with her,’ he muttered, as if he was thinking out loud.
‘I danced.’ Molly almost shouted this, and it came out unevenly, because she cut herself short, realising it had been a private thing.
Was dancing a force of nature? Molly wasn’t sure. Seals danced. Bees did too. And it counted for something, because the hat had come to her. A connection had been made. ‘I danced with Mama,’ she said. There, it was out. ‘And afterwards her hat flew off the tree and came to me.’
Now it was Pim who gazed admiringly.
‘You danced with her?
Why didn’t you tell me? That’s amazing. You did it then. You knew all along. That’s why you’re wearing that big funny hat!’
Molly frowned and touched protectively at the hat’s floppy brim. She spoke with some deliberation. ‘It wasn’t that I knew it. It was more that I felt it.’
‘A feeling, not a knowing,’ Pim said. He began to pace again. And then his finger wiggled in the air, drawing something down from it. But before he could make any calculation, before he could say anything, Molly leapt up.
‘Shhh.’ She held her hands still. ‘It feels…it feels…’
What did Molly feel? She needed quiet. She knew it was important and that it was more than Pim could work out, more than his wild thinking could uncover. But there was too much. She couldn’t look at the drawing. She couldn’t look at the Mama tree.
Molly knelt down on the grass again. Claudine appeared from beneath the lilac bush; she stood still and looked at Molly with a challenging stare, her eyes glowing in the dark. The garden seemed large and still and waiting: every tree listening with the tips of its leaves, every sprig of flower leaning towards her, expectantly. But was it waiting, or was it telling her what to do?
Molly put her hand on her heart and listened. Every current within her rushed towards it and swelled beneath it, wanting…
‘Every time I needed something, the Mama tree gave it to me,’ she said. That was it. From the very first vibration Molly felt when she’d needed to know her mama was there. And when she was scared of the dark, the tree had lit up and drawn her towards it. And when she was tired the branches had made themselves like arms to hold her. Yes, that was how it was.
It came to her now in a flood. She’d leant into the tree and felt faint with hunger, and the tree had grown fruit. And when she threatened to chain herself to it, it had grumbled, to help her change her mind. And then, of course, there had been the dancing at night, the speak-to-me dance, the wild, true, force-of-nature dance that had released the hat to her, as if her mama had thrown it off to say Well done! Well done, my darling.
Pim was watching her. ‘It’s true, Molly. It’s wondrous and true, I’m sure.’
CHAPTER 23
Yellow Roses
Saturday arrived with the same bristling fervour as the Saturday before, when Molly’s mama had accidentally drunk the acorn potion and turned into a tree. But instead of lying with her eyes shut against it all at the base of the tree, Molly slept soundly in the branches.
She was woken by Maude’s loud and frantic yelps. She sat up, dazed. It had been quite a night, and she took a moment to reassemble everything in her mind. She looked over to Pim. He was stirring in the branches.
Molly yawned and climbed to her feet. Her dress seemed to be standing up with her, in angles of creases and dirt. She tried to run her fingers through her hair, but it was too tangled. She grabbed the sunhat and pulled it on over the knots, and then lowered Maude down in the pulley system. Molly climbed along the branch towards Pim and pulled on his toe. Pim hardly had a moment to open his eyes before the sound of a loud roar hurtled through the air.
It was the chainsaw. Ernest Grimshaw was warming it up. Pim and Molly stared at each other in horror.
Moments later Ernest and Prudence Grimshaw arrived in the garden, wearing matching canvas hats and army-green gumboots. Ernest Grimshaw wrenched the chainsaw in the air and gave it a threatening rev. His eyes rolled slowly round the garden, and his stomach bulged beneath a black collared T-shirt. He suddenly yanked at the hawthorn bush and pulled its branches sideways, as if looking for something suspicious hiding there.
Prudence Grimshaw stood, hard and grey as a steel spike, by Ernest Grimshaw’s side. Her smile stretched her face taut as she gave a self-satisfied nod at Molly. ‘Where is your mother? We have come to cut down this blasted tree. And then we’re going to shred it into woodchips. It makes a big mess. In the sky.’ She added this last bit about the sky with some satisfaction, as if it had only just occurred to her that this was the problem.
Molly backed herself up to the tree, and Pim did too.
‘You can’t cut this tree, not one little bit of it,’ Molly growled.
Maude barked.
‘We won’t let you cut down the tree. We won’t even let you touch the branches,’ added Pim.
Ernest Grimshaw jerked the chainsaw upwards and let it roar. He smirked.
‘Where is your mother? Letting you run wild again, I see. What sort of a mother is she? Wretched woman. Well, I don’t see how you can stop us.’ He revved the chainsaw again.
Murder, thought Molly. That’s what it would be.
Prudence Grimshaw now stepped forward, nose in the air. ‘If she had any sense at all, your mother would have removed the wretched branches. We told her to, and she ignored us. We don’t like to be ignored, do we, Ernest?’ she whined through her teeth.
‘Mama doesn’t want the tree cut down. It’s a very special type of tree; in fact, the only one of its kind, and if you were nice people you would see that! So, if you even try to cut it, we will call the police. And the Tree Protection Society. They would be very angry if you cut it down,’ Molly shouted back.
Ernest Grimshaw’s fat, sweating arms gripped the chainsaw with determination.
Pim suddenly grabbed Molly’s hand. ‘We won’t budge until Molly’s mum comes home, and if you lay a hand on us, we’ll fight you. We’ll draw blood if we have to.’
Ernest Grimshaw’s face ballooned, and Prudence Grimshaw began to quiver. Her eyes blinked rapidly. Ernest blasted, ‘Worms! You are disgusting little worms! Mangy mongrels. Upstarts! Worms! I’ll show you—’
Prudence Grimshaw let out one of her hyena screeches and flashed a warning glare at her thundering husband. ‘Wait.’ She glided forward, her fingers flexing like claws. ‘How dare you threaten us? How dare you? You will OBEY us. MOVE ASIDE!’
Pim let go of the tree and took a step towards Prudence Grimshaw. Molly wondered if he was about to tackle her.
‘I’ve got bad news for you, Mrs Grimshaw. We are not here to obey. We’re here to think for ourselves.’
‘And you should treat us with respect,’ yelled Molly, anxious to get her word in.
Ernest Grimshaw pulled his wife out of the way. He puffed up his chest and marched forward, as if into battle. ‘Brainless! Brainless fleas. That’s all they are. I’ll deal with them, Prudence.’
Then, without really knowing why, Molly opened her mouth and screamed. And the scream pierced the air and rang out over the valley.
Ernest Grimshaw glared.
Then Pim screamed. And the two screams joined in the air and shook. Prudence Grimshaw’s face crumpled at the sound.
Molly and Pim turned to face the tree and clung to it. They raised their faces, sending the scream up into the air.
Maude barked. Claudine paced.
Ernest Grimshaw’s large sweaty hands clamped onto Molly’s shoulders. He yanked her away from the tree. But she jumped straight back to it. Then Ernest Grimshaw tackled Pim. ‘Blasted dimwit pups! You are in my way,’ he roared.
‘Molly?’ Another voice rang out across the garden.
Molly swivelled, but she still clung to th
e tree.
Ellen came running across the garden. She held a bunch of yellow roses, heads down, in her hand. Confusion clouded her eyes, but she still came, in a strange sort of breathless gallop.
‘Who are you?’ she said, staring at Ernest and Prudence Grimshaw. ‘Are you all right, Molly?’
Everything stopped for a moment, as if to make room for Ellen.
‘Ellen, it’s the Grimshaws. Come here and help me protect the tree. Hold it and don’t let go,’ said Molly. ‘They want to cut it down.’
Prudence Grimshaw pounced forward. She fixed Ellen with a menacing stare, and her voice came out in a snarl. ‘Little girl, we are here to uphold our legal rights to remove a tree that is overhanging our property, and if you don’t want to get into trouble, I suggest you stand back.’
‘Don’t bother trying to reason with them,’ roared Ernest Grimshaw, and he lurched forward again and began trying to tear Pim off the tree.
Ellen stared in horror. Then, shaking herself into action, she lifted her arm high and whacked Ernest Grimshaw over the head with the yellow roses.
Ernest Grimshaw turned on her, eyes blazing, ‘Hideous, hideous worm—’
Ellen didn’t wait to hear what sort of worm she was. She hurled herself at the tree and held on, pale as a sheet. She sought out Molly’s eyes and together they opened their mouths and screamed.
Then came Ellen’s mother, striding across the garden. She was strong again; her hair had its old upright composure, and she wore her boots.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ Ellen’s mother looked accusingly at the Grimshaws. ‘It sounds like murder from the street. It’s just as well I was waiting in the car.’
Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars Page 9