HEY, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RAINBOW? (excerpt)

Jefferson Watson Rain and I discovered a rainbow that stretched over the horizon where the sun was shining bright as that big fat diamond ring on Auntie Lula’s finger. Mama said she was a show-off because she was always sticking it in people’s faces and bragging. Well, today the sun was showing off just like Auntie Lula. And to be extra showy, it brought a rainbow with it.

Yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, red. I counted the colors. Six. It was a lolapalooza of a rainbow. If you paid close attention you could see it winking at you just above Tadpole creek.

I said, “Hey, Rainy, you see that big fat ole rainbow?“ We called him Rainy because Rain was his last name. He said that he could make it pour down buckets whenever he got ready. Nobody believed him, but once he scrunched up his face real tight, said some magic words and made noises that weren’t really words at all. In a matter of minutes, it started to rain. We all ran home while he sat there getting drenched with his hands folded not saying a word. After that, we stopped calling him Shrimp because he was so small. We just said, “Hey, Rainy.” And he’d say back, “Hey Alex.” It went like that. My name is Alex Harrison Brown. It’s a very plain name and I don’t claim to have any special powers like Rainy. At least, not so far.

Anyway, Rainy said, “What rainbow?” I said, “That great big…hey, what happened to the rainbow?” Rainy said, “I got it here in my pocket and I’m going to give it to Aubrey Henderson Lee. She promised to give me a pack of worms for fishing if I brought her a quarter, but this is even better.

Rainy was kind of big-headed and a caramel color like the candies that stick to your teeth. He had a scar shaped like a smile on his forehead and teeth the size of walnuts. No one knows how he got the scar and he brags that he was born with it.

“Oh, give me a break,“ I said. “You don’t have the rainbow. You can’t just snatch a rainbow from the sky.”

“Yes I can,” said Rainy. “I just did.”

I started to say some real mean things to him for saying such a dumb thing, but then I thought of the day that he scrunched up his face and made it rain. Maybe. Hmmm. I thought. Just wait and see what happens.

So then I smiled and showed my two fat dimples stuck to my face. Only girls should have dimples and I hated it. But I am kind of a smoky color so the dimples don’t show as much as they would if my skin were lighter. Nonetheless, dimples are definitely not cool. I wore a bandana tied around my neck to take the attention away from the girliness of my face with the dimples and all. Kind of a cowboy flair, but only cooler. I didn’t think it worked, though.

So I said, “Okay, I know where Aubrey lives. Let’s go there and you can show me the rainbow when you give it to her.”

He didn’t even answer me and we started out for Aubrey’s house. When we got to her door and rang the bell, her mother popped out her head and said that Aubrey was busy on the computer. She warned us not to trample her roses that were flashing their colors with the kind of pride the Bible warns against. I just ignored them and made a mental note that you could never trust a rose, not with those thorns just waiting for you to let your guard down.

“Oh. Well, I’ll just email it to her,” said Rainy.

“Email what?” asked Mrs. Brown.

But Rainy just hopped off the stoop and headed home. I followed him, and neither of us spoke a word. We rode our bikes under a sky robin’s egg blue with a sun peeking behind a puff of a cloud streaked with fire. The edges of the town looked about to light up as twilight scattered amber jewels everywhere like it had money to spend. We got home fast.

When we got to Rainy’s room with the computer I said, “Okay, Rainy. Let me see what you got.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rainy.

“You know. Where is that lolapalooza of a rainbow that you say you snatched right from in front of my face.”

He was on the computer, his fingers clicking away. Before I knew it, he hit this button and murmured something under his breath that I didn’t understand.

“That’s it,” he said. “I just emailed the rainbow to Aubrey. I don’t have it anymore.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me”, I said. “I’m going home.”

I rode home with my shadow bunching around me making me hard to see. I knew I’d better get inside before my mama started looking for me. She always said she would skin me alive if I was late, but she never did. I’m not sure what that means, but once I saw a rabbit skinned and it didn’t survive.

It was Wednesday, pizza night, and I wasn’t going to miss it. I ate three slices with mushrooms and pepperoni and forgot all about Rainy. But right around 7:30 the sky got black and I thought, “Uh oh.“ I looked out the window and saw this crazy, crooked finger of lightning point to what looked like Rainy’s house the next block over. Kaboom! I didn’t jump because I’m not scary or anything but I began to wonder. What is Rainy up to? Down came the rain. Then the phone rang.

It was Rainy. “You see that rain?” he said.

“Oh, I suppose you just made it rain, huh? You never did show me that rainbow,” and I hung up. For some reason, I started wondering where did he get that scar on his forehead.

I couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about Rainy and his special powers. I admitted to myself that the only reason I hung around Rainy when other people treated him mean and made fun of his size, is because of the praying mantis. But that’s another story.

Really, it all started with Brownie, my older brother. His real name is Nicholas Owen Brown. My parents said that no one was allowed to nickname him “Nick“, because Nicholas was the sacred name of the saint that looks after children. Since he is older than I am, I guess they figured he would watch out for me.

So since we couldn’t call him “Nick“, we just called him Brownie. Anyway, he is kind of coffee brown in a real smooth as a rain-washed pebble kind of way and it only makes sense. It’s a wonder that they don’t call me Smokey, but Alex is all I got.

Well, one day Brownie and I were playing in Mr. Abe’s backyard because Mr. Abe is blind and he can’t see us. He has the best mulberry bush in town and we went there to pick some mulberries. We always stay quiet as sneakers walking on a rain cloud. The other children that play there are loud and throw rocks at the house to make Mr. Abe come out. He is fearsome with bushy white eyebrows and a cane that he waves at the children to make them go away. My mom said if we ever did that, she would take away our TV for a year. She just might, so we just talk real quiet-like to each other while we eat the berries. Sometimes I think he knows we’re there anyway, but so far, he hasn’t told our mother.

So, we were sitting there with mulberry juice just dripping from our jaws when up pops this funny-looking green insect. It’s just sitting there looking dead at us. Brownie says, “Wow, look at that. A praying mantis.” Well, I didn’t know what a praying mantis was, but I didn’t say anything but “Mmmmhmmm,” because I don’t want my brother to tease me and call me dumb. He thinks he knows everything.

“Yeah, look at that,” I said.

He said praying mantis got its name because it kneels down and puts its front legs together as if it’s saying a prayer. Mantis means that it is a prophet that can see into the future to warn people, like if a flood is coming or something. And more than that, people say that it is sort of an alien because the head looks like the aliens from outer space with big slanty eyes. Brownie said it’s from another planet, but I didn’t believe him. But he said that people in Africa use it to help them find lost sheep and goats.

Then I poked my finger at the thing to show my brother that I wasn’t paying that much attention to him.

He said, “No! Don’t do that. It may be little but it’s wicked mean. It can use its antenna like a sword and it spits something that looks like molasses that can blind and even kill you.” He said he saw it grab a whole humming bird and eat it alive. And he said never, but never, kill a praying mantis or you would have very bad luck.

I said, “Right, how do you know?”

“I just know,” he said. I figured that Uncle Brownie told him. (That’s really where he got his name.) Uncle Brownie is the strange one in the family. Nobody knows what he does and he never says. He just takes trips all over the world and comes back with rocks that can bend, pictures of painted people, and once I saw a shrunken head. Now that was something to talk about.

So we just sat eating our mulberries looking at the praying mantis while it looked right back at us. Nobody said anything.

This happened about the time Rainy scrunched up his face and made it rain. Or that’s what he said. So I thought, hmmm, well if this little green insect can lead children home with its special powers, find lost goats and sheep, and even travel all the way from another planet, maybe Rainy did have some special power. And if shrimpy, goofy Rainy had magical powers, then I must certainly be able to do something, too.

I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind.

That night, lying in my bed wide-awake, I wondered where the rainbow really did go and if Aubrey found it in her email. Then there was the thunderstorm and the lightning that struck near Rainy’s house. Like if Rainy was just showing off like Auntie Lula with the diamond ring. But what I mostly thought about was that praying mantis and how you weren’t suppose to kill it or you would have bad luck. Brownie was really serious about that. That’s like somebody putting a curse on you after they are dead. That’s really spooky and kind of neat. If the praying mantis had the power to do that, then I must have magic, too. After all, it’s only a little bug. But what could I do? Whatever it was, I hadn’t done it yet. Maybe it’s because I have to do something special before I can get my powers.

Then something said to me, “Kill a praying mantis.” What? “Kill a praying mantis.” I looked over to the other bed where Brownie was sleeping. He didn’t budge. In fact, he was snoring a little. It couldn’t have been him. It was some voice that sounded out loud, but wasn’t. It was somewhere between my head and the window by my bed. Did it come from outside? I got up and looked out the window but no one was there.

“Kill the praying mantis.”

I put the covers over my head and covered my ears. Then I fell fast asleep.

The next day I woke up with the sun shining through my window with kind of a lemony splash just like it always did. The monster big elm tree right outside my room scratched against the window just like it was itching to start the day. The same as always.

But something was different. I wriggled my toes, blinked my eyes, and twitched my nose. Yes, there was something different. It was me. I felt that since lightning didn’t strike me down in the middle of the night for just thinking about killing that praying mantis, I was on the path to my power. So what if one little ole praying mantis was missing from the earth. There were enough others to find lost children and sheep. Surely, they wouldn’t curse me for taking one for a very good reason. Or would they?