Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars Read Online Free Page A

Molly shook her head. This was
all very confusing.
    She called out to her mama, ‘Can we go now? I’m hungry.’
    Her mama looked up with surprise and then grinned. ‘Of course. I think I’ve found
the one I need.’
    Molly didn’t want to ask how her mama could tell one acorn from another, because
she knew the answer would be something she didn’t want to hear. So they got on their
bike and rode along the gravel path all the way home. Neither of them spoke. Molly’s
mama hummed as she rode, busily thinking out her new potion. Molly was wondering
about Pim Wilder and his mysterious ball of dirt.

    That night Molly’s mama stayed up all night, reading her books on plants, scribbling
notes and making drawings in her red notebook, pounding leaves and roots, extracting
drops of plant essence and dropping them onto copper chloride plates of crystallised
salts, boiling others, or soaking them in vodka. She was making a potion stronger
than any she had ever made before.
    Molly woke in the night to see her mama completely entranced by her work, bent over
the small wooden desk with a determined frown on her face. She lifted the dark bottles
and vials and droppers, fell to her knees to rummage through the baskets of dried
plants and seeds and roots, and flipped vigorously through her books on the uses
of herbs and weeds.
    Molly sighed and rolled over. The activity of her mama’s thinking was like a strange
insistent wind rustling through the dark night, seeping into her body and making
her turn and twist and anticipate something. What is about to happen, and why do
I feel it’s big? she wondered.
    It’s just what happens, she reassured herself, when Mama starts making potions. You
wake up in the night and you get feelings. Feelings that creep and skitter within
you like a frightened mouse darting for the corners and holes, feelings that never
quite announce themselves either.
    And with that thought, Molly fell back to sleep.



CHAPTER 7
    Borage Tea
    When Molly woke up, her mama was still working. She moved slowly now. She rubbed
at her eyes and leaned, swaying and blinking, into the light. She looked as if she
might fall asleep and fold down in a small, dishevelled pile on the floor.
    ‘Mama, did you stay up all night? You need to go and sleep.’ Molly stuck her hands
on her hips.
    Her mama smiled faintly and sank down into the chair.
    ‘All I need is a cup of borage tea. We’ve got a tree to plant today.’ She picked
up a jar and pointed to the acorn in a brown liquid inside it.
    It was Saturday. The house was bathed in the scents of lemon and rosemary oil, which
had burned all through the night. Maude lay in her basket, one large black ear cocked
in case there was movement. Claudine had taken advantage of Mama’s empty bed and
lay curled up and sunken into the yellow doona. The sky outside looked bright and
promising, and all was quiet at the Grimshaws’.
    Possibly everything could be all right after all, thought Molly. But possibly everything
will go wrong too, she thought as well. It was her habit to think one thing and then
the exact opposite. What would it be like to be Ellen Palmer this morning? Or what
would it be like to be Pim Wilder? She knew what Ellen would be doing, but what about
Pim? She couldn’t imagine what he did when he wasn’t at school. Look at things through
telescopes? Map the stars? Make papier-mâché angels? Molly knew that Ellen would
be on her way to pony club. With her camel-coloured jodhpurs and her hair in neat
plaits. Ellen wouldn’t have to worry that her mama had stayed up all night long.
    ‘No,’ said Molly, accidentally out loud.
    ‘No?’ repeated her Mama vaguely. ‘Oh, you’re right, the hole. I’ll dig it now.’ She
stood up, rubbing at her back and reaching for her straw hat.
    ‘I’ll dig the hole,’ Molly offered politely.
    ‘No, you make the borage tea.’
    Molly was relieved, but she felt a little guilty for not sharing in her mama’s eagerness
to plant the