Margaret and the Moth Tree (15 page)

“You'll come, won't you?” said Margaret, after a minute. “You'll come live in town, too?”

“Oh!” said Pip. “But Margaret, I couldn't live in a town.”

“What do you mean?” said Margaret. “Of course you could. It can be like an adventure!”

“An awfully big one …” Pip said, and his voice was so quiet that the blowing of the wind almost blocked it out.

Margaret opened her mouth to argue, but then she looked at her friend and saw, for the first time in a very long time, just how small a creature he was. And then her throat felt very tight.

It is an inconvenient thing, in moments when you most need to tell someone something, that your eyes begin to burn and words seem to get stuck in your throat. Margaret wanted to tell Pip many things: how he and the moths had saved them all; how, if not for them, she would have had a very different life. But she could only manage to say one thing.

“I'll remember you always,” said Margaret. “You're my first friend.”

She could barely hear Pip's next words, and she had to concentrate every bit of her energy on her ears just to make them out. When she did, they were barely louder than the rustle of the leaves.

“And you're my Margaret.”

She looked down at the small gray creature in her hand, and he looked up at her. Leaning forward, she gave him a soft kiss on the tip of his wing, and he tilted his head to her. Then he did three fantastic loop-de-loops in the air and flew up into the treetop.

When Margaret crawled through the brush and out into the day, she ran into the open arms of her new parents. They drove down the dusty road away from the orphanage, away from the waving orphans and Hannah's smiling face, and away from the tree that held Margaret's secret. And that was the first day of what would be a very loving and wonderful new life.

But whenever Margaret saw a pair of tiny wings flutter by, or touched the bark of a gnarled old tree, she thought of her first friend.

Whenever she felt lonely or sad, she would go to a green place, away from the clatter and noise of the city. She would close her eyes, and she would stay very still. And she would listen.

And sometimes, from very far off, she could swear she heard the laughing voices of the moths.

About the Authors

BRIT TROGEN
and
KARI TROGEN
are sisters who grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. Brit studied molecular biology and now lives in New York City. Kari received an MA in English and creative writing before moving to Toronto. They decided to write a story together while on a road trip through the Maritimes.