Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars by Martine Murray Page A

gliding
down to Molly’s feet.
    It was her mama’s sunhat, with the red ribbon dangling a little over the brim. She
picked it up and clasped it to her chest. And then she climbed back up to her bed
and lay down again.
    A shriek pierced the dark. It was, no doubt, Prudence Grimshaw, alert as a hyena,
attempting to scare a wallaby out of her garden. A chill crept along Molly’s spine.
She cuddled Maude and held on tight to the sunhat.



CHAPTER 19
    The Wrong Weed
    The next morning Molly yanked Mama’s sunhat out from beneath her, and tied the red
ribbon around her wrist. Because the Mama tree had sent the hat spinning down to
her, like a trophy, Molly knew she was a step closer to wherever she needed to be.
    ‘Well, Mama, I’m still here, and I’m not giving up either.’ She patted the branch
reassuringly, and for a moment she felt as if she was the mother. She wasn’t going
to give any attention to her loneliness today; she wasn’t even going to think about
it. She was going to think about someone else’s loneliness. Ellen Palmer’s. She was
going to do something about it too.
    Molly got up quickly and picked herself some fruit from the Mama tree for breakfast.
The flavours had changed. The white flesh now tasted like coconut and the green was
like celery-and-potato soup. Then she swung herself down and hurried inside to feed
Claudine.
    It was time to find the rest of the weeds for the green oil. Molly took Maude, and
they walked over the bridge to the woods where her mama had last collected herbs.
Molly carried her mama’s basket, and she wore the sunhat, which was slightly too
big and the brim made it hard for her to see ahead. She stomped along, looking down
and crouching every now and then to pick some curled dock.

    Molly and Maude walked for a while alongside the railway track where the path was
stony and the only weeds Molly found were plantain and some prickly lettuce, which
she didn’t pick as she had forgotten to bring gloves.
    Molly wished she could remember the exact recipe. She had a feeling there was nettle
in it and comfrey, which both grew in their vegetable garden. And she was certain
there was spurge and calendula and tansy. She needed strong herbs that could, for
instance, grow on a parched stony path. These would give the strength that Ellen
needed.

    Once home again, Molly set about making the green oil. She took down from the shelf
some of the tinctures from her mama’s collection, and the milky spurge sap that she
and Pim had squeezed, drop by drop, into a jar. She boiled up the fresh weeds and
mixed the strained water with the herb tinctures and some olive oil. She hoped that
would do it.
    She put the jar of sap with the bottled tinctures and read the names out loud to
make sure they all sounded as if they belonged. She closed her eyes and tried to
feel love; her mama said it was important. But all she felt was a strange tapping
at her heart as if someone was locked up in there and wanted to get out.
    Molly opened her eyes and let out a short, loud, busy sort of sigh. It was hard to
summon feelings exactly when you needed them.
    She lifted the bottle of calendula tincture and poured it into a mixing bowl. She
hardly noticed Claudine, who had been circling Molly’s leg beneath the table and
who now leapt onto the table, knocking over the jar of spurge milk sap. The sap spread
in a pale white, useless puddle on the table.
    Molly looked at it in horror. Claudine sniffed it disparagingly, as if to say, ‘It’s
not even real milk.’ She leapt down again and sat with her tail curled in, looking
elsewhere, as cats sometimes do when they think they might be in trouble.

    ‘Well, Claudine, if you think this is going to make me get you some milk, you are
very, very wrong, as now I think you are just a spoiled cat, and I am not in the
mood at all for trying to find you some milk.’ Molly threw her arms up. ‘You’ve ruined
my green oil. Ruined!’ she added dramatically.
    Molly pushed aside