The Rainbows and the Secrets, Christine Cox [first ebook reader .txt] 📗

hungry any more. It was a beautiful place. There was music: like our Happy Song, but lovelier. And there was a kind of golden glow -"
"The Golden Monkey!" exclaimed one of the Secrets.
"Yes," said One-eye. "I knew the Golden Monkey was near. And then Shadow arrived."
"Shadow!"
"Yes. Suddenly he was next to me. But he wasn't comfortable. Shadow didn't like it there. He complained that the golden glow was too warm and too bright. He said it made him sweat and it dazzled him. Then I saw -" One-eye hesitated.
"What did you see?"
"I saw Softpad and Snapper," he continued in a low voice. "They came towards Shadow."
"What did they do to him?"
"They were kind to him."
"Kind?"
"They were laughing and holding out their arms to him saying ' come and join us Shadow, come and be happy with us!'
"How could they want to be friends with him?" asked Jamie. "Why didn't they hate him?"
"They said they couldn't hate anyone. They were with the Golden Monkey and they were too happy to hate anyone. They said the Golden Monkey wanted everyone there, even Shadow."
"What did Shadow do?" asked Ellie.
"Shadow was angry. He snarled and pounced and tried to bite and scratch Softpad and Snapper. I did try to stop him then. I yelled at him to stop, but he wouldn't. It didn't matter though, because it didn't seem to hurt them at all. They just laughed more and said 'Lighten up, Shadow, we're with the Golden Monkey. No-one needs to fight here. Stay and be friends and enjoy yourself!"
"Did Shadow stay?"
"No he didn't. He spat at them and said he hated them and the Golden Monkey too, and he didn't want to be happy with them. He said it was too warm there and too bright and he preferred darkness and cold. Then Shadow started backing away from them, and away from the light, into a sort of - dark tunnel behind him." One-eye shuddered. "There was a rushing noise, and it seemed like the air in that tunnel was spinning round, like a whirlwind, sucking him in. It got faster and the noise got louder. And then it just stopped, and there was nothing but silence."
"And Shadow?"
"Gone. Vanished."
"Into the dark tunnel?"
One-eye nodded. He shuddered again and hid his face in his paws.
No-one spoke as the children and monkeys took this in.
Then: "That was quite a story," said Ellie.
"What about you?" said Jamie. "Why didn't you stay?"
One-eye hung his head. "I didn't deserve to be there," he said.
"Did the Golden Monkey send you away?"
"No. But those two were so happy, and so kind to Shadow, it made me feel worse about what I'd done. I knew I had to go back and try to make up for it. I wasn't ready to be happy like them. Then I woke up gasping for breath. The hippo had pulled me out of the water and he was holding me upside down in his mouth, shaking the water out of me. He put me down on the bank, and I crawled back to where I'd left Shadow."
"And Shadow was dead," said Jamie.
One-eye nodded. "So I asked the hippo to bring me here - to say sorry. I want to help Secrets and Rainbows be friends. I want to be friends with everyone. I don't want to be like Shadow."
Jamie looked from the Outlaw to the group of listening monkeys gathered around.
"What shall we do with One-eye?" Jamie asked them. No-one answered.
Then a Secret spoke up: "He did send the Warning Music to Softpad.. I heard it too, in my sleep. It woke me up."
"How do you know it was One-eye?" asked Jamie. "It could have been Softpad who sent it to you."
"No," said the Secret. "It came from the direction of cliff edge, before Softpad got there."
"I heard it too," said another Secret, and several others agreed.
"Well," said Ellie, "it's true he wouldn't put the creeper round my mouth. Shadow pushed him out of the way and did it himself. And I remember them arguing about going onto the ledge. That bit's true too. But you still did a terrible thing," she told One-eye. "If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have gone to the cliff-edge, and none of this would have happened."
"What shall we do with One-eye?" Jamie asked again.


20

One-eye tries to make amends

The monkeys argued. Some thought One-eye should be sent back to his cave to live as best he could as an Outlaw. But the hippo had gone, and One-eye was too weak, for the moment, to walk that far. Some thought he should be thrown back in the river - but none of them was willing to do it.
They were all tired after their hard work and in low spirits because it had been wasted. They were glad they would not be bothered by Outlaw raids any more, now that Shadow and Thrasher were dead, and they were not much interested in the small, one-eyed, half-drowned Outlaw that remained. In the end they just left One-eye where he lay, in the mud near the riverbank, and went off into the jungle again.
When they had gone, Ellie said: "He can't stay here in the mud." So she and Jamie carried him away from the riverbank and laid him in the shade of some trees. Then they too went home.
One-eye slept under the trees for most the day. He was woken in the evening by the chattering of monkeys who had come to look at the wreck of the wigwam and discuss what to do with it. He hid himself away, ashamed to be seen by anyone, and quietly ate what was left of the coconut, which Ellie had left tucked under his paw. Then he made himself a hole in some undergrowth, and crept into it to spend the night.
He was up before dawn the next day. He looked at the collapsed coconut store. "Must help," he said to himself. "Must make up for what I've done. Can't make up! But must try to!" And he went off into the jungle.
When Tufts and some more monkeys arrived, to set about rebuilding their wigwam, they found that One-eye had made a collection of small tree trunks, and was dragging along another to add to it. "Can't build - big - store," he explained, panting. "Too big - falls down. Build lots of small ones."
The other monkeys looked at each other, and realised that there was no reason why the coconut stores needed to be big, as long as they built enough of them.
"He's right," said Tufts. "Let's use the small tree trunks, and make sure we dig them deep enough into the ground this time."
By the time Ellie and Jamie arrived, the first small wigwam was nearly finished. Over the next few days, Secrets and Rainbows worked together, and the children came to help as often as they could. The plan was to build ten wigwams on the Rainbows' side, and then ten more in the Secrets' territory.
"And when it's all finished, we'll have a big party," said Tufts.
One-eye was allowed to work with them. No-one would talk to him, and he was only allowed one piece of coconut or a small (usually mouldy) mango each day to eat. They probably wouldn't even have let him have that, if Ellie had not insisted that he must be fed. At night, the monkeys chased him out of the jungle, so he was obliged to sleep on the hippos' grazing ground, where there was no shelter. He didn't want to make the long steep walk back to the cave: he was too tired, and it reminded him of Shadow and the awful things that had happened.
But in spite of no-one's speaking to him, of being half-starved and made to sleep out in the open, One-eye worked harder than any of the others, and never complained.


21

Human crocodiles

On Jamie's first day back at school, as he walked through the playground, the boy he’d pushed off the bench was standing with the two giggly girls from Jamie’s class, Mandy and Alice,. The boy called out: “Where’ve you been, Jamie?”
“Suspended!” said Mandy in a mocking tone.
“For two weeks!” said Alice. “He must be really bad.”
Jamie started to get angry. He stopped, and was about to turn on the three of them, when suddenly he remembered a red, snarling monkey-face, with bared teeth - Snapper, the first time they'd met. He remembered Shadow attacking Softpad on the ledge. He remembered Snapper and Softpad falling to their deaths. He remembered the angry hippo threatening to smash the bridge. Then he thought of how he'd made the hippo laugh. "Stupid monkeys! Don't let them get to you!" he'd told the hippo. "Stupid kids! Don’t let them get to you!” he told himself.
He turned to face them. “I wasn’t suspended for two weeks,” he said calmly. “I had an accident.”
“In your pants?” said the boy, and the girls hooted with laughter.
Jamie frowned. "Stupid kids! Don’t let them get to you!” he told himself again; but it was hard.
“He’s getting mad,” said Alice.
“He’s turning into a wild beast,” said Mandy. She made a growling noise.
It gave Jamie an idea. "That's right!" he said. "I'm a stampeding hippo!" Jamie lowered his head, opened his mouth wide, and, roaring loudly, charged at the three children. They shrank back, cowering, as Jamie pulled up just in front of their frightened faces. They were actually scared of him! Jamie was astonished. He was only fooling around, but they were scared of him! They were just silly kids that got frightened when he did animal impressions. Why did he need to worry about them? He smiled. “Any more wild beasts you’d like me to be?” he offered. They didn’t answer. “See you later then,” he said cheerfully, and walked off.
Later that day, at playtime, he saw Mandy and Alice playing “Please Mr Crocodile, may I cross your coloured water?” with some other girls. Mandy was the “crocodile”. She stood by the wall, while the others formed a line opposite her. Ellie was one of the girls in the line.
“Please Mr Crocodile,” they chanted, “may I cross your coloured water?”
“Only if you’ve got the colour pink,” answered Mandy, and two girls who had pink in their socks ran across to the wall, while Mandy tried to catch one of them, to be the next crocodile. But they touched the wall before she could get them, so they went back to the line and Mandy had to have another go.
Standing next to Alice in the line was a new girl called Poppy. Poppy’s clothes were grubby and she was wearing a pair of dirty white trainers. The sole had come loose on the right one.
Alice looked critically down at Poppy's feet. “Wow!” she said in a loud, sarcastic voice. “That is one cool pair of trainers you’ve got there Poppy!”
Hearing her friend’s voice, Mandy the “crocodile” turned round and sniggered.
Jamie looked at Poppy. If she was a Rainbow monkey, he thought, she would be purple.
“Please Mr Crocodile,” chanted the girls, “may I cross your coloured water?”
“Only if you’ve got cool trainers!” called out Mandy gleefully.
Only Alice ran across. “I've got cool trainers,” she said with a smirk. She had an expensive new pair of the latest design of the most fashionable brand sitting at home in her wardrobe, though at that precise moment she was wearing black school