Collection of Stories for Demented Children (4 page)

The bunnies looked up at Drippy in surprise.
“I didn’t know rainbows could talk,” the black one remarked in a
gloomy voice. “I hate rainbows.”

“Of course rainbows can talk, although I
don’t know why I waste my time talking to bunnies. Here I am trying
to be polite when I’m having a miserable day and you respond by
saying you hate me,” Drippy grumbled. He hopped a little to the
left to get just the right angle of the sun through the light
springtime drizzle falling on the rich green forest below.

“I’m always miserable,” the black bunny
stated miserably. “I don’t like rainbows because you always seem so
cheerful and bright. When you come around, it means the clouds are
going to go away and the sun is going to shine. Plus, you don’t
have my favorite color.”

“What’s your favorite color?” Drippy asked
out of mild curiosity. He prided himself on having nearly every
color in the spectrum even if most eyes couldn’t see all of
them.

“Black,” the bunny answered cheerlessly.

“Don’t mind Emo,” the chestnut-colored bunny
said in dulcet tones. “If it gets sunny, he might be expected to
hippity-hop and he hates that sort of thing. I’m Haylo. What’s your
name?” she asked pleasantly.

“I’m Drippy. I can sympathize with not
wanting to hop. I’m getting tired of it myself,” he responded while
hopping a little more to the left to adjust for the angle of the
sun again.

“What happened to your right leg?” Haylo
asked with concern, using a paw to point at the place where
Drippy’s missing leg used to be.

“It was stolen by a leprechaun who took it
from me to mark where he buried a pot of gold. I was distracted
while the little green jerk snuck up,” Drippy growled angrily.
“Then I couldn’t hop fast enough to catch up, so he got away,
laughing gleefully the whole time.”

“Didn’t it hurt when the leprechaun took
it?” Emo asked. “People try to steal my feet for luck. It seems
like it would hurt.”

“Yeah, it hurt a lot,” Drippy admitted
sadly. “I was bleeding red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
and violet.” The drizzle carelessly shifted back to the right and
he hopped to stay with it. “If you don’t need that tree, I’m going
to use it as a leg. I’ve seen humans with wooden legs, so I’m going
to give it a try.”

Without waiting for an answer, he placed his
right arc on the maple tree. Using rainbow magic, Drippy swirled
his colors down through the branches and trunk all the way to the
roots. The green leaves and brown trunk turned all the colors of
the spectrum as Drippy lifted it up, tearing the roots out of the
ground. From there, he moved toward a large hillside with a better
patch of rain that the sun was admiring. He didn’t notice that
massive amounts of wet dirt fell on the two surprised bunnies that
he left behind.

The tree was a little taller than his other
leg, causing him to lean as he stumped across the landscape. It was
very annoying, so Drippy pounded the tree into the ground, hoping
to squish it to a more appropriate size. The pounding helped a
little, but not much and Drippy finally decided to ignore it.

He arrived at the prime location and basked
in the glow of the low-lying sun over the western horizon. The
droplets of water falling from the clouds danced in the rays and
turned pretty colors as they slid to the ground. The tree leg
complicated the journey for a lot of the raindrops, but Drippy
didn’t care. He was grateful not to have to stand on one leg all
the time.

“Hey! That’s my spot!” an irate voice
thundered from his left.

Drippy looked at the rainbow striding
resolutely toward him on two perfectly good legs. “I don’t care.
It’s my spot now,” Drippy growled defiantly. “Go find another
drizzle to stand in.” He used the roots of the tree to help stand
his ground. The other rainbow angrily bumped into him, but Drippy
didn’t budge.

“This is supposed to be my drizzle! It’s the
best spot around and you stole it!” the newcomer accused. He
studied Drippy for a moment and his tone went from hostile to
curious. “Why do you have a tree for a leg? It looks very odd.”

“It’s called a peg leg. I’ve seen humans
with them,” Drippy answered.

“Oh, right. I remember those were popular
among pirates a couple hundred years ago. Hey, let’s make a double
rainbow. The sun’s just right and this drizzle looks like it’s
going to last awhile.” Without waiting for an answer, the rainbow
thinned, reversed his colors and stretched over Drippy. “My name’s
Bowring. What’s yours?”

“I’m Drippy.” He didn’t feel like talking
and wanted to find a secluded drizzle where he could be alone, but
there was no way he was going to mess up the grandeur of a double
rainbow. Drippy made his colors brighter and richer, showing off
his beauty to the world. There were no people around to appreciate
it so deep in the wilderness, but rainbows existed for the
universe, not people.

“Hi, Drippy. So are you really a pirate? You
have a peg leg and you stole my spot from me, but you don’t have an
eyepatch or a parrot.”

Drippy sighed, shaking loose a few extra
droplets of rain. “I’m not a pirate. My leg was stolen and I didn’t
want to keep hopping on one leg. This tree seemed like the best
idea. It’s not perfect, but it’s growing on me.”

“I wouldn’t want a tree growing on me. That
sounds uncomfortable. Who stole your leg?” Bowring asked as though
they had been best buddies their entire lives. He was getting on
Drippy’s nerves.

“A leprechaun stole it to mark his pot of
gold. I couldn’t catch the little jerk in time.” The color red
became a little brighter than the rest as he remembered how angry
he was.

“Ahh. You were in Ireland then. Yeah, it’s
dangerous for rainbows there,” Bowring sympathized. “At least
people don’t hide their children in huts like in the Amazon or call
us snakes like aborigines in Australia used to do.”

“I’d rather deal with that than lose a leg,”
Drippy responded sadly. The conversation was really starting to
depress him. “At least they just point and say we bring them
disease.”

“Remember when Iris used to ride us around
the sky all the time?” Bowring said with a laugh. “Good times.”

“I stopped going to Greece because of her,”
Drippy responded grumpily. Having goddesses streak across the sky
on his back really chafed him.

“You’re a real downer, Drippy. The sun’s
setting and the clouds are parting. I’m going to chase the horizon
and find a nice drizzle where I can be happy.” Bowring jumped
toward the sun, switched his colors back to normal and set off to
glimmer in new territories.

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t trip over a mountain.
I’m just going to sit here and be miserable,” Drippy mumbled.
Bowring didn’t reply because he was too far away by that point and
probably wouldn’t have listened if he could have heard. Things
became quiet except for the steady drizzle falling over the leaves
of the forest. The wildlife had hidden themselves away to keep out
of the rain. Plus, the sun would be setting soon and most would go
to sleep for the night while the nocturnal animals came out to
play.

Drizzle fell in that spot for the next half
hour before the sun dipped below the horizon. It wasn’t too often
he stayed in one place for such a long period of time. After the
sunset, Drippy rested in the moisture awhile. Most rainbows always
moved west to chase the sun, but he liked the nighttime. Even
though people couldn’t see them unless the moon was just right,
rainbows still existed and could travel from place to place. Drippy
liked becoming a moonbow sometimes. People said he looked white,
but their eyes just couldn’t see the gentle colors that shone
through nighttime drizzles.

A droplet of an idea had been forming in his
mind while he stood there enjoying the peaceful, untouched vistas
before him. As the sun finally disappeared, he turned and began
stumping back the way he had come. A good-sized rock was loose on
some hills nearby and he took an experimental kick with the tree.
The rock launched into the air with a loud thunk and made a
whistling sound as it flew nearly a mile away. A couple of branches
cracked off the tree and Drippy knew it wouldn’t last long if he
kicked too many rocks, but kicking something was an option not
normally available to rainbows. Their misty bodies passed right
through things. It was hard to hold onto the tree, but Drippy was
strong for a rainbow and would be able to last with it until he was
able to implement the idea.

The peg leg made walking difficult and
uncomfortable, but he made good progress throughout the night and
into the morning, even across the Atlantic Ocean. Drippy was on a
mission.

***

“Mam . . . why’s that rainbow drippin’
syrup?” the young lad asked from the dining table. Rainbow colored
maple syrup had just squished out of the rainbow’s odd tree trunk
leg, through the window and into his oatmeal. He was just about to
pour honey into the bowl, but set the bottle down instead.

“Just eat your pancakes, love,” his mother
told him, too busy taking care of his baby sister to pay attention
to the peg-legged rainbow walking through the yard.

The lad shrugged, stirred the syrup into his
oatmeal and took a big bite. It tasted pretty good, so he smiled
and ate happily.

***

Drippy stumbled over the fence of a house. A
little bit of maple squirted out of the tree into an open window
and he hoped no one would notice. He saw that his rainbow magic
turned the sap into sweet syrup and marveled at how wonderful it
was to be a rainbow. It only took a few more steps to move away
from the village and continue on to his destination.

Ireland had some of the best locations for
rainbows to show their colors, making the country irresistible in
spite of the leprechaun infestation. Often times the skies were
deep cobalt blue while the sun lit rocky fields of grass. The
contrast made colors stand out brilliantly, flowing power into the
rainbow’s existence. The best locations were all along the coast in
the rainy springtime. Churning waters crashed against white stony
cliffs that were covered by emerald grasses, adding stark beauty to
the already vibrant sight of a rainbow.

The place where he had lost his leg was
further inland toward the north and he was almost there. Finding
the leg would be difficult because leprechauns were exceptional at
hiding things. They had magic that would disguise it even from a
rainbow.

“Why in the world are you walking around on
a tree like that?” a melodious voice sounded from a nearby rain
shower. Drippy looked in that direction and saw a pretty rainbow
basking in a soft sprinkle. The morning sun reflected through the
drops of water to give her rich colors that stretched over
scattered farms. “I’ve never seen such a pretty tree . . . in fact,
I’ve never seen a maple tree in Ireland, let alone one with all the
colors of the rainbow,” she said, amused.

Drippy stopped and looked at her in
embarrassment. “It’s from across the pond. Dragging it over the
Atlantic was difficult . . . I probably could have left it and
grabbed another tree here, but I’ve become rather attached to
it.”

“I’ve never known a rainbow to use a tree
for a leg. It’s very odd. Did a leprechaun steal yours?” she
guessed intuitively while shifting a little to match the rays of
the sun as it rose higher in the sky.

“Yes, and I’m going to get it back from the
little bugger . . . as soon as I find him.” Drippy became
thoughtful for a moment before deciding to share his plan with her.
“I can kick things with this peg leg, so I’m going to find the
leprechaun that stole my normal leg, kick him to England where
he’ll be miserable, and then get my original leg back.”

The girl rainbow stared at him. “That’s just
silly.”

“I don’t care. That’s what I’m going to do,”
Drippy grumbled as he stumped off determinedly on his quest.

“It’s not really a peg leg!” she called
after him. “It’s a just a maple tree!”

He pretended not to hear the comment and
moved faster over the soggy ground. A short while later he was
above the forest where his leg had been taken. There was no clue
where the leg might be or even if it was nearby. Leprechauns were
sneaky and it was likely that this one had taken the leg somewhere
else entirely. He began walking back and forth through the trees,
methodically searching for any sign of his missing leg or the
leprechaun.

For the next few days, Drippy combed the
forest back and forth in his quest, ignoring all the tempting rain.
It was difficult to resist his basic nature for standing in sunlit
drizzle to create splendor for the universe to behold, but he was
determined. Finally, on the morning of the third day, he came
across a napping leprechaun. He wasn’t the one that had stolen
Drippy’s leg, but perhaps he might have information.

Drippy grabbed the leprechaun with the roots
of the tree, which were looking sad after being out of the ground
for so long. He slapped the little green man a few times with a
branch, not just to wake him up, but also because Drippy was
frustrated by that point and wanted to establish who was boss.

“Wha? . . . Hey! . . . Ow, ow, wha’ the . .
. ow!” the leprechaun hollered in confusion. “What’s yer damage ya
big, dense rainbow?”

Drippy whapped him with a branch again. “My
damage is that I’m missing a leg, which was stolen by one of your
friends. I want it back and I’m going to slap you until you tell me
where my leg is.” Drippy whapped him once more to prove his
point.

“Ow! I dunna know where yer stupid leg is or
who tuk it. Wha’ the world ya doin’ wi’ a tree leg? I ne’er saw a
rainbow wi’ a tree leg!” The little man struggled and tried to get
away, but the roots were too strong.

“It’s a peg leg. Now tell me where I can
find the little creep that took my leg or I’ll squirt sap all over
you. And talk normally. Trying to figure out what you’re saying
makes my orange drip.” He squeezed the leprechaun for emphasis.
Drippy’s orange color really was starting to drip on the ground. A
frog was splattered by some and croaked.