THE RAINBOW Part One

Story I wrote a few years ago during the time I ran the Galashiels Writers Group.  I wrote five parts/stories altogether.  This is the first.  Aim to update them all this year, and maybe add some more.    The Galashiels group weren't only for writers from Galashiels, it was where the group met, and I was never very good at names or titles.  It was the first thing I thought of when I started the group. I aimed to change it later but it stuck and the rest is history!!              

You could say it all started on a bright hot sunny sort of July day, with Mike as miserable as miserable could be.

For Mike didn’t like the sun. Except after lots and lots of rain. For Mike loved the rain. For Mike loved Rainbows. His favourite thing in the whole wide world. And Mike had made himself a promise that right on his next birthday, he was going to search out the end of the rainbow. Search out the pot of gold for his mum and dad, and he would get double pocket money every week for millions and millions of years.

Mike didn’t like the sun for other reasons as well.

When it was sunny his mother would always be onto him; Mike get yourself outside; Mike get a bit of fresh air about you; Mike, it’s the only way to make new friends.

Mike wasn’t too sure if he wanted to make new friends. He’d had plenty of friends at their old house. Their old house was way better. He didn’t know why they had to move house, especially here to a place full of old people, some even older than his mum and dad.

Mike decided.

He was going to sit right where he was, at the big double windows overlooking their back garden. Sit right there and pray his hardest for the rain to pour, all summer long, right down on top of Selkirk.

His hometown.

His new hometown.

Yuk.

His mother was groaning, and running outside double quick.

Mike pressed his face tight against the window.

It was raining.

Yippee.

And it rained for over an hour. Then it stopped, and soon enough there was the rainbow. And Mike couldn’t believe it. Maybe he wouldn’t have to wait until his birthday to search out the end of the rainbow after all.

For there it was.  Right smack in the middle of his garden. One end of it anyway. And all the colours glowing and painting patterns on the wet grass.

He shouted on his mother to come and look, double quick.

His mother was in the kitchen.

“I’ll be through in a minute Mike. I’m busy.”

In a minute, always a minute, and Mike huffed and puffed, and stared at that rainbow. Mike decided.

It was going to be his own very special rainbow.

His rainbow.

So maybe that’s when it really started with Mike not waiting for his mother to come and have a look, running outside instead and leaving the front door wide open to the world as usual. His mother shouting after him, as usual. Mike deaf to it all, as usual, running helter skelter right round the house, stopping at the very edge of the rainbow.

Yes, at the very edge, then pushing his head forward, right into the glowing colours.  He felt the greens, and the blues, and the yellows, and all the colours wash across his face, shimmer in front of his eyes.

He leaned deeper into the rainbow. Something dark and round on the ground before him, and just out of reach.

The pot of gold?

It had to be.

His mother shouting on him.

Mike pulled back out of the rainbow.

He listened.

His mother shouting something about lunch.

Fresh raindrops landing on his nose.

Soon the rainbow would be gone.

What was he to do?

It would only take a moment to grab the pot of gold.

He decided and took a deep breath and stepped all the way into the rainbow.

He reached for the pot of gold and his hand went right through the something dark and round, which wasn’t the pot of gold at all, but a black, dark hole. And then his whole body, including his face with the astonished look on it, tumbled right after.

And he fell and twisted and slid down walls that glowed with greens, and blues and yellows, and all the rest, that glowed all the brighter, as if someone was turning up a switch, the further he fell.

Then the colours were gone and he landed with a thump and a bounce on the hardest of concrete.

“Are you okay son?” Asked a voice.

A hand reached down to haul him up.

Every last bit of Mike nipped and groaned.

The voice said. “That was some fall son.”

Mike blinked all around. He’d landed on a pavement, alongside a wall, at the end of a street that was for definite not his own.

“Like you fell from the sky there son.” Said the voice. “Must have tumbled over that wall there. Somehow.”

Mike rubbed at his shoulder, felt a huge bruise, he was certain. Then he looked up at the voice, and gasped, and forgot all about the bruise.

His grandfather towered above him.

His grandfather, but not really his grandfather. 

“Sorry son. Didn’t mean to give you a fright.” The voice said.

Not really his grandfather, for this was his grandfather when a young man. The grandfather   of the old photos; photos that Mike loved searching through. And one of them, his favourite, with his young grandfather showing off a new baby.

Mike’s mother.

In the photo his young grandfather was standing tall in his own garden, in his stripy trousers, and shirtsleeves, and with all his hair, and smoking a pipe. Exactly as he was right now.

“Is your mother somewhere around son?” His young grandfather asked, and moved Mike’s way. And Mike dodged, and ran as fast as he could go, with his young grandfather shouting after him. And Mike didn’t stop until he’d ran forever, only stopping to hide behind a sign that was big and black, with one of the letters just about rubbed out.

He could read it though.

AIRDRIE.

That was where his grandfather had been born.

Centuries ago.

And he was old. How could he be young? Mike knew he was old. He just did.  

And how could Mike be in Airdrie?

Mike looked this way and that for the rainbow.

Not a sign.

And right above him nothing but blue skies.

He wanted to cry.

He wanted back to Selkirk.

He curled up tight and felt his body ache, and his eyes ache, and his eyes close, and open, and close...

“Here he is.”

Mike’s eyes shot open. It was darker now, but not really night.

The huge bloated face of a woman stared down at him.

Mike jumped back.

“Its okay son.” The woman said. Then she shouted back over her shoulder. “Archie.”

Mike shivered and shook at the sound of heavy feet pounding all the closer.

Archie arrived. Archie was Mike’s young grandfather.

“You can fairly shift yourself son.”

Mike let himself be pulled to his feet. Everything his mother and father had drummed into him rattled about inside his head.

“Never speak to strangers.”

He was confused.

These weren’t strangers. Where they?

He was confused and kept quiet, and only half listened to his young grandfather, as he asked Mike his name, and where he lived, and all sorts of questions; and the woman murmuring something about taking Mike up to the police station. And Mike wasn’t sure about that. And before he knew it they’d stopped by the wall, at the end of the street that for definite wasn’t his own.

 “We’ll have to find his mother.” His young grandfather said to the woman.

For the first time since he’d spied the rainbow in his garden, Mike felt the smile on his face.

The woman noticed.

“That’s better.” She said. “We’ll find your mother. No need to fret.”

Mike smiled up at his young grandmother. For that’s who the woman was.

Mike knew.

Mike stared and now his young grandmother’s face didn’t look at all bloated.  Well maybe a little bit.

But her tummy? A different matter all together.  Like she was hiding a thousand million footballs under her plain red dress.

His young grandmother rubbed at her swollen stomach, and smiled down at Mike.

“Our first you know.” She said. Then. “Have you any brothers and sisters?”

Mike shook his head.

His young grandmother seemed to find that really sad. Mike couldn’t understand that. Mike didn’t feel sad about it at all. Mike frowned and remembered what his mother and father had told him the night before.  When he was trying to watch THE SIMPSONS.

“Mike. You’re going to have a little brother or sister.  Isn’t that great?”

He hadn’t said a word.

Then his mother had gone and sat right in front of him, and he’d had to bounce this way and that to spy the TV over her shoulder.

“It’ll be really good Mike.” His mother had told him. “I know what its like to be an only child. To have nobody to play with.”

Mike didn’t want any little brother, or even worse, Yuk upon yuk, a little sister.

What could you do with a little sister?

Mike thought of something, and smiled to himself.

“Any idea where your mother could be son?” His young grandfather asked.

Mike tried to think of an answer. Anything. For how could he explain that he’d fallen through a rainbow?  He couldn’t. So he thought and thought and couldn’t think of a thing, and when he’d stopped thinking he suddenly noticed that his young grandmother was gone.

“Grannie.” He said.

“Eh?” Said his young grandfather. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.” Said Mike.

His young grandfather looked puzzled.

“Well at least you’ve got a tongue.” He said. “That’s something.”

“Where’s gran...I mean the lady gone?”

His young grandfather pointed to a small lane that led down another hill on the other side of the road.   “Just away down to the shop. That’s all.”

Mike felt real cold all of a sudden and shuddered at the sight and the rattle of a van at the top end of the street.

A COOP van.

Something his mother had told him once upon a time.

Mike tried to remember.

Mike watched the van disappear around the corner. He could still hear it rattle.

He remembered.

He ran.

“Heh where you going?”  His young grandfather shouted after him.

 But Mike never heard a thing, running right across the road, and jumping right onto the opposite pavement, and down the lane. His young grandmother was nearly at the bottom. Then there was another road with the COOP shop on the other side.

“No.” Shouted Mike. Then he really shouted. “Granniiiiiieeeeeee.”

She never heard, and seemed now to be trotting faster than ever, as the lane got steeper and steeper.

Mike tried to think real hard as he stumbled and ran.

What was his Grannie's name? She didn’t know she was his Grannie. She didn’t know she was a Grannie.

She was almost at the end of the lane.

Mike remembered.

Mike stopped and gathered up all his breath and shouted like he’d never shouted before.

“Jeannnnnn.”

His young grandmother shuddered to a stop, and turned slowly.

She looked startled and frowned and blinked, and during that blink came a huge bang, and the sound of something squealing, and then the van twisting, and spinning past, and missing the young grandmother, by the width of a hair on her head.

For a long moment Mike stood. And his young grandmother stood. Then the pounding of feet behind him. Then the rush of air as his young grandfather flew past him, and Mike felt the drip of rain on his face.  And down it came, hard and straight with his young grandfather sheltering his young grandmother with his jacket.

And she was okay. She was. And Mike turned and ran back up the lane. For he knew. He didn’t know how. But he did. He knew the rain would stop, quickly. And it did.

And right back on the pavement, by the wall, he waited, and soon enough the rainbow was there. Mike stepped right into the colours.

Mike fell and landed on the soft wet grass of his garden.

His mother emerged from around the side of the house.  She had that look on her face. Mike knew that look.

“Mike.” She said. “I’ve been shouting forever on you. Come on now.  Lunch is served young man.” 

And he ran, right past his mother, and around the side of the house, and in his very own front door.