Everyone looked at Molly. Even Pim. What would she say? Ellen’s gentle pleading face. Pim’s dark eyes full of green and wonder. They flashed a warning, ever so quietly and quickly. Molly put her hands on the tree trunk. It felt warm.
‘Mama went to Cuba,’ she said, ‘and the Grimshaws are trying to cut down her tree.’
Ellen’s mother frowned. ‘But she couldn’t have left you all on your own and gone to Cuba? Surely? When will she be back? Who is your friend here? And what is going on with the tree?’
Ernest Grimshaw started up his chainsaw. Molly wrapped her arms even tighter around the Mama tree.
‘Move away,’ Ernest Grimshaw bellowed. ‘What sort of a woman goes to Cuba? The mother is mad. The family is deranged. The lot of them!’
Ellen’s mother stood tall. Her shoulders rose. She glared at Ernest Grimshaw.
‘If you lay a hand on Molly, or any other child here, or that tree, I will call the police. I’ll have you charged with assault. Now, back off.’
Ernest Grimshaw looked as if he’d just received a blow. He staggered back and lowered the chainsaw. His head quivered indignantly as he bit at his own rage.
Ellen Palmer’s mother, who seemed to think it impolite to watch him, turned back to Molly. ‘Molly, I’m taking you home with us and we’ll sort out whatever is going on. Maude can come too. And, look how well Ellen is now, all thanks to you and your mother.’ She smiled and took Molly by the hand.
Molly let go of the tree. Her arms couldn’t hold anymore. There stood Ellen Palmer, sparkly shoes, a house full of muesli bars, grinning and well and welcoming. There was Ellen Palmer’s mother, with her kind strong arms, taking Molly to the house, the warm house made of bricks, with rooms and walls and windows and a television and buttery cake in the oven. Everything she had always wanted. And there was her very own mama, her very own special, strange ill-fitting mama, transformed into a very special, strange, ill-fitting tree.
Molly shook her head. She sank down to the base of the trunk and wrapped her arms around it. She wasn’t afraid now. A great welling of feeling had erupted inside her, and it rushed up so forcefully that she pressed her hand to her chest, as if to quell it. Her body began to jerk and her eyes filled with tears.
Out came a sob, and then another. She wrapped her arms even tighter round the tree, and the sobs finally gushed out and tears streamed down her face, and her body gave way to it all. She wept as loudly and as fully and as wretchedly as anyone ever has. Her tears slid down the trunk and sank into the ground at the base of the tree.
‘Mama,’ she sobbed, ‘Mama, I need you. I need my mama.’
CHAPTER 24
One Tiny Bud
The Mama tree began to shake.
The leaves whirled like tiny windmills. And the branches trembled.
Pim looked up and backed away from the trunk. Ernest Grimshaw’s jaw dropped and so did his chainsaw. Prudence Grimshaw swept to his side and drew him back, croaking, ‘Ernest something bad is happening, something bad.’
Ellen Palmer huddled close to her mother, who put her arm protectively around her daughter and frowned in disbelief. Molly continued to sob into the shaking tree. She seemed to have fallen into a trance. Whatever was happening was happening because of her tears, and those tears needed to keep flowing to keep it happening.
The leaves whirled and the tree shook. And from the tip of the lowest branch, one tiny bud began to grow.
The branch creaked with the effort. It drooped and it trembled. And still the leaves whirled and still the tree shook. It sounded like a rocket preparing for take-off, whirring faster and faster, as if it might at any moment burst from the ground and shoot upwards. But one branch seemed to weigh it down, like an anchor. And at the very end of it, the tiny pale-pink, fleshy bud grew larger and larger.
Soon, it was as big as a football. It began to hum and to glow with a strange shimmering light, as if each microscopic cell within it was alight and pulsing.
Prudence Grimshaw grimaced and recoiled, and from her throat came a gurgle of revulsion. She grabbed Ernest Grimshaw’s sweaty, sausage arm and tried to pull him back. But he shook her off, and he crept forward, examining the bud with his small blinking eyes. Never in his life had he seen something that unsettled him as much. He picked up his chainsaw, ready to attack the growing bud.
Pim stepped closer. The branch began to crack and tear as the strange fruit continued to grow. The sound of whirling leaves and splitting branches became louder and more urgent. Ellen could hardly bare to look at the strange thing growing from the branch, but at the same time she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Finally she cried out, ‘But what is it? What is it?’
Ellen’s mother was completely still. She could barely speak. ‘It’s…I don’t know. But it’s growing.’ That was all she could say for certain, and she did like to be certain. She squeezed Ellen’s hand.
Molly raised her head. What was all the commotion? She had been so submerged in her own great storm of weeping that she hadn’t noticed anything else till Ellen cried out.
Molly’s face was tear-stained and dirty; her eyes were red-rimmed; her hair stood out in knots. She said nothing. Her mouth was just a little bit open, and her eyes were wide and calm as she caught sight of the astonished faces around her. But instead of sharing their alarm, she tilted her head as if the trance still had her, and stood up, twirling slowly on one foot, to face the thing they were all staring at.
It was now the size of a foal, kicking within its own skin, struggling and wriggling on its stalk. The strange, flickering light grew brighter, and the hum reached a high pitch, a boiling-kettle squeal. Molly held out her arms, as it grew even bigger. It seemed to be too heavy now for the stalk to hold it.
‘Get back,’ Ernest Grimshaw shouted at Molly. How could he let a young girl get closer to the thing than he was? He started up his chainsaw. ‘I’ll get it,’ he yelled.
Whether Ernest Grimshaw really was going to cut it, no one will ever know. Pim suspected Ernest Grimshaw was too afraid to go near the strange fruit, but, just in case, he dived at Ernest Grimshaw’s gumboots and brought the horrible man down in a thudding, cursing pile of pummelling arms and pig-like grunts.
Ernest Grimshaw’s legs flailed and thrust, and Pim held tight like a cowboy riding a bucking bronco.
The growing thing now shone like a small sun, casting a pulsing light into the whole garden. The tree winced and shivered and creaked above it. Molly thrust her hands towards the light.
Ellen gasped in horror. Wasn’t Molly scared of it? Then Molly, still holding her hands to the light, began to sway and stomp and shake. Was she dancing? No one knew what she was doing, least of all Molly.
The light began to turn red, and the hum became higher in pitch as if something was gaining speed. And the more Molly twirled and leapt, the more it grew, the higher it hummed and the brighter it shone.
It seemed to be building towards some sort of terrible explosion. The tree swayed and let out a thunderous crack. Ellen screamed and flung her hands over her ears. Prudence Grimshaw let out a shrill cry and clawed at Ernest Grimshaw, who was still grunting as he battled with Pim on the ground.
Molly began to crumple. She sank towards the ground as if her stre
ngth had been zapped.
And then, in one final jolt, the sky lit up as bright as a bolt of lightning. For just one second there was an eerie silence. No one could see anything. The sky was as white and bright as silver. And in that one dazzling moment of silence and brightness, the tree disappeared.
And out of the air fell Molly’s mama.
She landed on her bottom on the grass. Then she stood up and frowned, rubbed at her bottom and limped towards Molly, who had fallen in a lump on the grass. Maude dashed to her side, wagging her tail furiously.
‘Well,’ Molly’s mama said to the stunned crowd, after she had gathered Molly up, ‘I’m not usually one to make an entrance, so please forgive me if I don’t invite you all inside. I need a bath, and I think Molly does too.’
CHAPTER 25
Prudence Grimshaw’s Gumboots
Molly and her mama were a wild and dishevelled pair. No one seemed to know what had happened or what was real and what was not.
Prudence Grimshaw took one look at them and immediately fainted. Ernest Grimshaw scrambled to his feet and backed away in horror. He took Prudence under the arms and dragged her, like a sack, out of the garden. In fact, the last view anyone had of the Grimshaws was Prudence Grimshaw’s green gumboots caught in the gate as Ernest tried to angle and jiggle her around it.
A few days later there was a For sale sign on their house, and Ernest and Prudence Grimshaw never even returned to claim their turtle, which did reappear, only it had yellow cockatoo feather wings stuck on it and it was raised on the flagpole.
Pim was thrilled by the great transformation that had happened before him. He was the only one who had not taken fright at all. He picked up the chainsaw and laughed. ‘Mr Grimshaw forgot his weapon,’ he said. ‘Good thing he remembered his missus.’
Ellen Palmer and her mother stood frozen and gaping; though after a minute, Ellen Palmer’s mother remembered her manners and she closed her mouth and tried to smile. She kept looking at the spot where the tree had stood, and then she looked at Molly and her mama. She shook her head, and walked gingerly towards them holding out Ellen’s bunch of yellow roses.
‘Your tree just vanished…that whole huge tree… just went…into the air…’ she said. She stopped to make sure this was right, turning her head back to the spot and pointing. ‘And you appeared.’ She shook her head, knowing this wasn’t possible. But it had happened; she saw it with her own eyes.
Molly’s mama opened her mouth to talk, but Ellen’s mother quickly intercepted. ‘There’s no need to explain. We’re relieved you’re back, and we only came over to thank you and Molly for making Ellen well again. We’re so very grateful.’
Molly’s mother smiled.
‘It was Molly who helped Ellen, not me.’
Molly looked up at her mama, and then at Ellen’s mother, and then at Ellen. Everything was as it should be.
Ellen looked at Molly shyly. She opened her mouth to say something, but when Molly winked at her, she closed it and winked back.
Molly whispered, ‘Thank you for coming.’
Ellen took her mother’s hand and waved goodbye.
Only Pim remained. He turned to Molly, his face plastered with the broadest grin.
‘Not exactly plan B, but brilliant anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘And you showed those brutes.’
Molly grinned. Without Pim, her mama may well have ended up as a half-chopped tree, but her mind couldn’t find the words to properly thank him. Instead, she scooped up her mama’s sunhat, which had fallen to the ground exactly where the tree had once stood. She frisbeed it to Pim. ‘Just so you don’t wake up in the morning and think it was all in your imagination.’
Pim laughed. ‘And, just so you know, you were right: that was the most interesting situation I’ve ever been involved in.’
He tucked the hat under his long arms and threw the other arm indelicately into the air, as if throwing it away, in an awkward fit of jubilance.
As he walked towards the gate, Molly’s mama called out, ‘Nice tackle, Pim. Thank you.’
Pim saluted again, then jumped over the gate and rode off on his bike.
CHAPTER 26
Pinholes of Light
Molly and her mama lay head-to-head on the seesaw and ate what was left of the chocolate balls. They both had clean, wet hair and scrubbed feet and were dressed in their most worn-in comfortable clothes. Maude lay happily at the foot of the seesaw, and Claudine sulked warily on the fence. The Gentleman crowed, even though it wasn’t dawn. He must have sensed the evening’s triumph and wanted to add his own note to it.
‘She’s cross with me for going away,’ said Molly’s mama, who had given Claudine a tickle under the chin to try to coax her down. ‘She does take things to heart.’
Molly tried to imagine Claudine taking things to heart. Claudine never seemed to feel anything except from a distance, a place above them all, a clean, quiet, properly ordered place.
‘But could you see, Mama?’ asked Molly, sitting up and wondering if her mama had watched the whole drama.
‘Well, I could feel you; I could feel quite a lot actually. But it wasn’t till I felt that you needed me that I found the energy to turn myself back.’
She sat up and faced Molly on the seesaw. Molly squirmed and let out a long sigh. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about that, especially all those tears. She sensed her mama was working up to one of her talks. There she was, though, her real mama, exactly as she always was, still slightly messy and mismatched, a faded T-shirt, blue spotty skirt and bare feet.
Her mama gazed intently back: a little thought danced across her eyes. She smiled and, leaning forward, she put her hands on Molly’s cheeks.
Here it comes, thought Molly.
‘You know, Molly,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of brave people out there in the world—fighting wars, risking their lives, making speeches—but there’s another sort of courage. What you did took real courage. You showed your heart to everyone. You didn’t care what anyone thought. If you hadn’t had that courage, I would still be a tree. Now, that’s a kind of magic you didn’t know you had.’
Her mama laughed. Her hands fell to her knees and she bounced the seesaw high.
Molly was still confused. ‘But Mama, I didn’t even know what I was doing.’
Her mama leaned forward and slapped the seesaw triumphantly. ‘Exactly. You followed the wisdom of your heart. And you gave me the last bit of strength I needed.’
‘And Mama, all the time I wanted to be just like Ellen, but now I’m glad I’m just like me. I can be Ellen’s friend and Pim’s friend, and I can be me.’
Molly liked the way this felt. It was as if a great weight had fallen from her, and she bounced the seesaw as high as she could and felt she might float up into the evening sky. Her mama laughed too and all the laughing tumbled out, careless and free, filling the air with its own sort of weather.
The evening was deep and low and quietly hovering on the edge of night. Cockatoos shrieked now and then in the pines. Everything seemed to brim and swell and to stand poised, ready to turn, or change. Molly felt ready. For what, she wasn’t sure, but it seemed something had opened inside her.
&
nbsp; There was a strange order of life, and she could feel it around them right now.
‘Pim looks like an interesting boy,’ said her mama.
‘Yes, he is. Come and I’ll show you the picture he drew.’ Molly jumped off the seesaw and her mama followed. The drawing was still pinned to the ground with stones. They bent over it and read out the things Pim wrote about trees, and Molly’s mama nodded and seemed impressed that Pim was so very thoughtful about things that weren’t quite certain and measurable.
Finally, Molly’s mama groaned and unbent her knees and windmilled her arms in the air and said she had to walk, after having been a tree for so long. The worst thing about being a tree, she explained, was that you couldn’t walk or run or leap, and these were all the things she was aching to do.
So they went with Maude, running and walking and leaping up the hill. They stood on the top of it in their favourite spot next to the two gum trees, which always seemed like two old men, watching and sharing the occasional observation on the game. From there the town was a huddle of roofs and trees and streetlights, and on the other side of the hill lay the train tracks and the cricket oval, all bare and shorn like a bald spot.
Above them was the darkening sky and the large white moon. One bright star shone in the sky, but all the others, the millions of others, weren’t there yet.
Molly thought about all the stars, getting ready to shine, waiting for the dark. They needed the dark. She slipped her hand into her mama’s. The air was cool; the low sun shone through the long, dried summer grass, and made it look as if their hill was covered in fine golden straws.
‘Mama, even though it is the most terrible thing to have your mama turn into a tree, now that it’s over, I think I am almost glad it happened.’
Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars Page 10