I go to check if Ivy is in there and see it is empty, except, at the bottom, there is a book. The door creaks again as if nudging me. I pick the book up. It looks old, and has a brown leather cover with gold initials engraved in the centre: H. M. I gasp. Those are my initials. Hattie Maxwell.
I hear running footsteps. I turn and see a flash of red run down the hallway. Ivy! I tuck the book in my backpack and go after her. I’m gaining on her with large steps. She’s just ahead of me and I reach out and grab her by the scruff of her dress, while she strains to keep going.
‘Ivy! You shouldn’t run off like that!’ I say, taking her firmly by the shoulders.
Ivy turns and looks at me with her large hazel eyes, two spots of colour glowing on her cheeks. She holds her right arm up on a strange angle and says, ‘Where’s the library? I can’t find the library.’
‘We’re not at the library, stupid! We’re at Hummingbird House.’
I hear Mum call from outside.
‘Come on, Ivy. We’ll get in trouble for being in here.’
I take a last look around as we leave, wondering who lived here. The house feels so grand and solid. I grip Ivy’s hand tight so she can’t get away. Her other arm is still weirdly in the air. I shake my head. I bet whoever lived here didn’t have to deal with a stupid little sister or a Big Split.
When we climb back out the window, Mum runs to us and sweeps Ivy into her arms.
‘What’s wrong with your arm, Ivy?’ asks Mum.
‘It’s a perch.’
‘What?’ I say.
‘My arm is a perch. For my pet eagle,’ says Ivy.
‘What eagle?’ I ask.
Ivy stares at me. ‘You can’t see him? Eagle can see you.’
I sigh. Most kids would have a nice imaginary friend – maybe something like Mr Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street or a creature with cute floppy ears and a big swishy soft tail or maybe just you know, an imaginary little girl called something weird and old-fashioned like Tracy. But no. My sister Ivy seems to have an imaginary eagle. Which is perched on her arm. Looking at me.
‘What’s the eagle’s name, Ivy?’ asks Mum.
Ivy rolls her eyes. ‘Eagle.’
I wish it would stop looking at me. In fact, Eagle is starting to freak me out. I try not to think about it. Instead I run to my mullolly tree.
The trunk is so thick I can’t get my arms around it as I hug the tree hello. I look up through the massive twisting branches dancing into the sky. I love this tree.
I know you are wondering what a mullolly tree is. How do I know you have never heard of a mullolly tree? Because it’s a special name we made up. Mum and Dad and me. Let me tell you all about it.
Me and Mum and Dad (and now Ivy) have always loved this place. We would play in the park for hours and drift into the garden and explore. There’s never been anyone living here and Mum used to wish she could buy the house. Before Ivy was born, Mum and I would climb the tree most afternoons. Being in the tree is one of my earliest memories. Those vague memories that flash as pictures in my head – shapes of blue sky in the gaps between leaves and sunlight glinting on dark round berries about to burst with juice. In spring, when the berries are ripe, we would sit there and stuff our faces until we were covered in purple stains. You see, the mullolly tree is sometimes a mulberry tree. But every year since my fifth birthday it’s always been my special mullolly tree.
That morning I woke up and there was some wool tied to my bed and a note:
Good morning, Hattie. Follow the string!
So I did. The long length of wool led out of my room, down the hallway and into the living room, where it ended with a picnic basket and a treasure map and Mum and Dad standing there grinning. I could tell that the map was of the park and Hummingbird House.
That was the day we had a picnic on the verandah of the house and a treasure hunt in the garden and I found my presents, including my precious Sailor Moon alarm clock. Then Mum said we should climb the tree and eat the berries, but she couldn’t get up because she was pregnant with Ivy. I thought it was strange that she told me to get some berries, because the berries are ripe at Halloween every year and never on my birthday in May. Dad gave me a push up into the open branches of the tree. When I got up higher, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The tree had grown lollies instead of berries!
I still can’t believe how special that was. A lolly tree! I sat up there and grabbed juicy jubes and golden wrapped chocolates and even sprouting lollypops. It was cold but the sun was shining and my breath came out in sun-sparkled puffs as I yelled down to Mum and Dad, ‘This isn’t a mul-berry tree – it’s a mul-lolly tree!’
And it’s true. Some of the year it grows mulberries and sometimes, mostly when you least expect it, the tree has lollies.
Last year, when Mum had just moved into her new house, I could see the ripe mulberries and said we should climb up and scoff them but Mum was too sad and we kept walking. I think it was because she didn’t want to risk running into Dad. It was the first year in my whole living memory that we didn’t bother to climb up and eat berries. A lot has changed with the Big Split. Too much. I just want things to be back how they were. For Mum and Dad to be back together. And for the mulberry tree to have lollies again. I press my cheek to the rough bark, listening to the leaves whispering.
‘Come on, girls,’ calls Mum, gathering up all the bags. ‘Let’s go out this way,’ Mum says, leading us out the front to the street so we have no chance of glimpsing Dad’s house. But as we leave, we have to get through a high wire fence that was not there last time we walked past. There’s a small sign and Mum starts reading it out loud and I mean loud because the more she reads it the louder her voice gets, especially on the words ‘Planning permit!’, ‘New development!’ and ‘Ten storeys high!’. Mum’s face goes as pink as her hair and I think there is steam coming out of her ears.
‘Does this mean they’re going to demolish the house? Does this mean they’ll chop down our tree?’ I ask in a panicked voice.
‘It means,’ says Mum, ‘that we’re going to fight to save them.’
I wonder what Dad will say about this?
WALKIE-TALKIES
I can’t believe that Ivy can hold her arm in that position all the way home, but she does. None of us talk on the way and my mind is whirring with what is happening to Hummingbird House. We walk inside the house and Ivy places Eagle carefully down on the back of the kitchen chair. Looks like Eagle is going to hang around for a while. I squeeze past Mum on the other side of the table and go to the sink to get some water. Ivy is scratching Eagle and makes kissing noises at his invisible beak. I wonder how I am going to cope with that bird of prey living in the house with us. Mum’s house is really small. The walls and shelves are filled with odd bits and pieces, and every time I come back, I try to pick the new thing from the picture I have in my mind from the week before. It’s like a spot-the-difference game in my head.
‘You’ve got two new ceramic donkeys and … a giant wooden fork.’
‘Yes!’ says Mum. ‘Well spotted.’
It’s good to be home with Mum. But it’s strange too. The house smells of paints from the laundry that Mum uses as a studio and of the fresh lemon ginger cake on the table and of roses from the front garden. I miss everything about here sometimes. Even the way the front gate squeaks and how the toilet doesn’t flush properly.