Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars (10 page)

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 limpet, 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.'