Right down at the bottom end of Melody Gardens stood a very old and very large tree known to everyone as Old Mai. She had been growing there for as long as anyone could remember and was honoured with the title of The Matriarch of Melody. No one knew exactly how old she was but it was said she had to be at least a thousand years old. Her bare branches stretched out wide and high and her trunk was so big around that Tilly and her best friend Macey couldn’t even join hands around her.
“Hello, Old Mai,” Tilly said as she laid her cheek against Old Mai’s smooth bark. “Today’s the big day and I’m so excited. I can hardly wait!”
She felt a vibration against her cheek and smiled. One of the things that Tilly loved about Old Mai was that she always responded when she spoke to her.
“Mum said to say hi and I just wanted to come and see you one last time before the spring-out begins.” Again Tilly felt the vibration and sighed. “I love you, Old Mai. You are my favourite tree out of this entire park and I think you’re amazing.”
She patted Old Mai’s trunk then took a few of steps back so that she could look all the way up to the top of the tree. It was a long way up.
Tap! Tap! Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She yelped her surprise as she jumped around to see who it was. She half expected it to be Macey but ... no one was there.
Tap! Tap! This time on her other shoulder. She sucked in her breath and slowly turned in the other direction ... still no one.
“Who’s there?” she asked as she anxiously looked around. A chill went down her spine and she swallowed hard.
A movement to her right snagged her attention and she spun around to get a better look. Sticking out of one of Old Mai’s branches and waving to get her attention was a cute little branch with five twiggy fingers. Tilly laughed with relief and waved back.
“I’m so glad that was you, Old Mai,” she said. “For a minute there, I thought you might have been a…. Oh, never mind. I was going to say a grasshopper but that sounds silly, even to me!”
The twiggy hand moved in a way that made it look like it was laughing. It looked so funny that Tilly threw her head back and laughed as well.
When she looked back at the twiggy hand, it was pointing at something above her head. Tilly instinctively ducked her head as a wave of panic washed over her. Maybe there was another grasshopper around after all! She was too scared to look up but the twiggy hand snapped its fingers to get her attention then reassured her with an OK signal. She sucked in a deep breath then hesitantly looked up. All she saw was a bare branch. She looked back at the twiggy hand with a questioning shake of her head. The hand made a shooing motion then pointed to the branch again.
“Ok,” Tilly said as she straitened up, “there must be something I’m supposed to see here … hopefully not a grasshopper.”
She scanned the branch up and down looking for anything unusual, but all she could find was a small cross just above her that was a couple of shades darker than the bark around it.
She put her finger on it then raised her eyebrows at the twiggy hand. It vigorously gave her the thumbs up.
“So I’ve found the X that marks the spot,” she said to the twiggy hand, “What now?”
The Twiggy hand made a shooing motion so Tilly took her finger off the spot and took a step back. When she did so, a low, growling rumble started deep under the ground and the earth around her began to tremble. Fascinated, Tilly watched as a bulging tremor emerged from Old Mai’s roots and travelled up her trunk then along the branch towards her. As it got closer to the spot, the tremor intensified. So much so the entire branch began to shake.
“Ahh….” Tilly sent a worried glance the Twiggy hand’s way. “Is that supposed to happen?”
Then, when the tremor reached the spot, the branch emitted a high-pitched whine. Tilly instinctively put her arms over her head and dropped to the ground.
BOOM!
Squealing with fright, Tilly put her fingers in her ringing ears. She wasn’t game to move. But after a while when nothing else happened, she timidly opened her eyes and looked up. She expected to see the branch above her shattered to pieces but…. What on Earth?
She jumped to her feet. The branch was completely intact. There wasn’t even a split or splinter to be seen.
She stood on tippy-toe and peered at the spot the twiggy hand had been pointing to. A tiny green leaf, no bigger than the end of her thumb, was poking out of the middle of the X.
“What the heck!” Tilly exclaimed then shook her head. “That was a lot of effort for one little leaf, Old Mai!”
This was very unusual. Old Mai never leafed-out at this time on Spring Day and she never ever produced just one leaf. Why would Old Mai pop out a single leaf? Tilly wondered.
She lifted the leaf with her finger to get a better look at it. Gasp! Was she seeing things? She blinked and looked again. No, she wasn’t! Engraved into the leaf was her name, Tilly.
“Is that for me?” she asked the twiggy hand. When it gave her the thumbs up, she said, “Oh, my goodness!”
Just then someone called her name. “Tilly!”
When she turned towards the voice, she saw her best friend running towards her.
“Macey!” She called out and waved frantically, “Come and look at this!”