Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars (9 page)

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.

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.