Prudence Grimshaw stood, hard and gray 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 wood chips. 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 trunk, 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 chain saw upward 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 chain saw 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 chain saw 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 toward 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 on to 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 swiveled, but she still clung to the 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.”
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 chain saw. 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 away from the tree and lowered the chain saw. 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 on 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, offering to take Molly to the house, the warm house made of bricks, with rooms and walls and windows and a television and a 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 around 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.”
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 chain saw. 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 takeoff, whirring faster and faster, as if it might at any moment burst from the ground and shoot upward. 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 chain saw, ready to attack the growing bud.
Pim stepped closer. The branch began to crack and tear as the peculiar fruit continued to grow. The sound of whirling leaves and splitting branches became louder and more urgent. Ellen could hardly bear 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 tearstained 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 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 chain saw. “I’ll get it,” he yelled.
Whether Ernest Grimshaw really was going to cut it, no one will ever know. He was looking too afraid to go near the fruit, but, just in case, Pim dived at Ernest Grimshaw’s rubber boots and brought the horrible man down in a thudding, cursing pile of pummeling arms and piglike 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 toward 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 leaped, the more it grew, the higher it hummed, and the brighter it shone.
It seemed to be building toward 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 toward the ground as if her strength 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 toward 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.”
Molly and her mama were a wild and disheveled 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 rubber boots 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.
But right now, Pim was thrilled by the great transformation that had happened before him. Like Molly, he had not taken fright at all. He picked up the chain saw 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 toward 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 had seen it with her own eyes.
Molly’s mama began to speak, 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 good-bye.
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 might well have ended up as a half-chopped tree, but her mind couldn’t find the words to thank him properly. Instead, she scooped up her mama’s sun hat, 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 one long arm and threw the other arm indelicately into the air, as if throwing it away, in an awkward fit of jubilance.
As he walked toward 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.
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.
Molly & Pim and the Millions of Stars Page 9
