Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars (12 page)

Molly's mama made an oil, a green oil, that was meant to cure everything. She could
give it to Ellen, as long as she could find the recipe and make it. Was the main
ingredient the sap of spurge weed? As Molly walked home she began to look out for
it.

When she arrived at her house she had a large bunch of spurge and her fingers were
sticky with sap. Pim was waiting at the tree, sitting there with
his back against
the trunk.

‘What's that for?' he called out.

‘We have to make some green oil for Ellen. She really
is
gravely ill. Miss Todd wasn't
exaggerating. She got a snakebite from a brown, and it has made her weak.' Molly
threw the pile of spurge at Pim's feet and washed her hands at the garden tap.

Pim picked a piece up and sniffed at it.

‘Molly,' he said. ‘How come everything in your life is so strange? And urgent? And
to do with plants and life and death?'

Molly frowned. She began to pluck rather violently at the spurge leaves. Strange
was exactly what she didn't want her life to be.

‘I thought you wanted to help,' she said.

‘That's why I'm here, isn't it? I like it when strange stuff happens. Especially
when it's big. When something's at stake.'

He shrugged, and Molly stopped plucking quite so crossly at the spurge. She hadn't
expected this. For one thing, Pim was a boy, and for
another, he hardly knew her,
or Ellen either. And he always seemed such a tough boy. She handed him a couple of
stalks.

‘You need to get the leaves off, and then we'll get the sap out,' she said.

‘But what about your mum? We're running out of time. Shouldn't we be working on that?'

Molly nodded. She hadn't forgotten, but picking the spurge had reminded her of times
she used to gather herbs with her mama, and the stirring of these old feelings for
plants had opened a part of her mind that she had been keeping closed. She had a
feeling this was important; it was going to help her get closer to understanding
the Mama tree. Perhaps it was like turning her mind over with a hoe and loosening
it enough that seeds might begin to grow.

‘Once this is done, we'll go inside and I'll show you Mama's notebooks. See if you
can find any clues in them. They won't be what you expect, though.'

Molly paused and screwed up her nose. ‘Thanks for helping me, Pim. That pulley you
built, well, it's so much nicer for me when it's dark to have Maudie up there with
me. You know I hate the dark.' What she meant to say was that more than anything
it was having him there with her, even right then, that made all the difference.
But it was easier to thank a boy for a thing than for a way of being. And Pim already
seemed awkward, as he bent his head and mumbled something about it being okay.

They sat outside under the Mama tree, plucking at the spurge and squeezing the sap
into a jar, while the tree bent its branches to shade them in the warm summer afternoon.

CHAPTER 17

The Red Notebook

Molly took Pim inside the house and handed him Mama's red notebook. It was a solemn
occasion; Molly had only ever invited Ellen inside before. Pim stood with his back
against the old wood stove in the middle of the room. He held the book reverently
as he gazed around. Molly loved the house on late summer afternoons, when the sun
was low and came in with a deep golden light and made the dust motes sparkle.

‘I tell you what, Molly. Even your house feels, well, it feels like a circus or a
gypsy tent. It's not
like most people's houses. You're lucky.'

‘Lucky?' Molly laughed. She sat down at the desk where her mama worked. Behind her
were shelves stacked with small amber-coloured bottles with white lids and labels
such as
Lion's foot
,
Loosestrife,
and
Loquat
written in black texta. ‘I bet if you
lived here you'd wish you could live in a normal house, same as everyone else.'

Pim snorted. ‘Why? Why would I want to be like everyone else? Boring. The world is
full of people just like everyone else.' He picked up a bottle. ‘Marshmallow! What's
that for?'

‘For softening, actually. When you're angry, you chew the root and meditate on your
heart becoming warm, and you try to bring that warmth
to the person you're angry
at.'

Molly was surprised she knew that. She was even more surprised she had told Pim,
especially since feelings of the heart were not something she wanted to talk about
with a boy. Perhaps she wanted to impress him with the things she knew that were
different from what everyone else knew.

‘You can eat mallow. Most people think it's a weed, but it's actually more nutritious
than spinach.' She tried to sound casual. ‘Is that why you hung the angel on the
flagpole? To be different?'

Pim grinned. ‘Nuh, I'm not trying to be different. Truth is, I like to find ways
to make school more interesting. I have a whole book of photos of that angel in all
sorts of different places.'

‘What do you want to learn at school?'

‘Not footy, that's for sure. And not multiplication tables. I want to know how stuff
works. And how to make one thing become something else. Light, for instance, or
sound. What does it feel like to fly? How does an albatross guide itself as it flies
across the ocean? What's a star? It's
not your kind of magic, but it's something.'

Molly considered this. How could a boy not like football and like light and sound
instead? These were not
things
that he liked; they were what coloured the world,
what gave it a certain feeling. She was about to reply that the magic was not hers
but her mama's, but she stopped herself. She'd always hidden anything that belonged
to her mama's world. But maybe having a feeling for plants was just like having a
curiosity for how things work. Maybe Molly should start her own red notebook, take
care of her knowledge. Knowledge was valuable, after all.

‘Smell this. It's meadowsweet,' she said, handing a bottle of tincture to Pim. ‘We
might use it in the green oil. It gives the ability to change directions.'

Pim whistled. ‘Right. So a herb can help you change directions? I'm not saying I
don't believe, but I'd like to see for myself.'

Pim bent his head to examine the red notebook. He drifted to the couch and sat down
next to
Claudine who let out a large miaow of protest. When Pim showed no sign of
moving, Claudine leapt from the couch and circled Molly's leg sulkily. Molly, however,
was busy pondering what Pim had said and she hardly noticed Claudine. She hadn't
ever imagined anyone would be interested in knowing about weeds. And it hadn't occurred
to her that knowing this stuff could be something to be proud of.

Molly took the meadowsweet tincture and put it on the desk next to the jar of spurge
weed sap. What else did her mama put in the green oil? Fat hen, three-cornered jack,
curled dock, sow thistle, prickly lettuce, sticky weed, chickweed, yarrow. All these
Molly could identify easily. Her mama used the leaves in pies or salads and boiled
the crushed roots in syrup or made ointments by mixing boiled, chopped leaves in
lanolin.

‘Wow, this stuff is pretty out there! Listen to this,' Pim interrupted her thoughts.
‘You know what it makes me think? Maybe it's not a potion that's going to turn your
mama back into a person. Maybe it's something we have to do. A sort of ritual, or
a dance?' Pim went on excitedly, ‘This page talks about merging with the plant. I
think that's what happened: your mother merged with the tree. One thing became another.
So, maybe you should try to merge with the tree too.'

‘We should dance with the tree?' Molly did a shonky pirouette.

Pim closed his eyes and put the notebook on his head. Molly laughed. He opened his
eyes and grinned. Then he came towards her. ‘No,' he said cautiously. ‘Not
we
dance
with the tree.
You
dance. I think it's something you have to do.'

Molly wasn't sure she would be able to create the right feeling on her own.

Pim headed towards the door. ‘I better get going. Mum will start getting worried.'

‘Are you coming back?' Molly's voice was thin, and it came out with a tremble. It
wasn't that she was scared to stay there alone, because actually she felt safe sleeping
in the boughs of the Mama tree, safer than anywhere else. It was more that she felt
lonely, lonely in the way you feel when your life feels so very different from anyone
else's. When Pim was there, she felt a little sense that he was sharing her problem.
Even if it wasn't his mama and he couldn't feel what she felt, as least he knew about
it. And once he left, she would be alone again.

‘Well, I'll come back after school tomorrow.'

‘Okay,' said Molly stiffly. She watched out the window as he grabbed his bike, swung
a leg over the bar and glided out of sight. And then she went and lay down next to
Maude in the last golden beam of sunlight that spilled in through the window.