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

shoes. “Mandy and I have got the coolest trainers in town, haven’t we Mandy?”
“You bet!” agreed her friend.
“Did you buy them yourselves?” asked Jamie.
“Don't be stupid,” said Alice. “My Mum bought mine yesterday. I saw Mandy’s and just had to have some, so she bought them for me. My mum buys me anything I want, exactly when I want it,” she boasted.
“Well then,” said Jamie, “if you didn’t buy them, what makes you so clever? Anybody can have cool trainers if their mum spoils them. Teasing Poppy isn't clever. Can’t you see she’s purple?”
“Purple?” said Alice and Mandy together.
“I mean she’s miserable,” said Jamie.
“Let Jamie be the crocodile,” said Ellie suddenly.
“Yeah let him,” said another. “Go on Jamie.”
Mandy and Alice stood by looking sulky while the rest of the girls asked Jamie the crocodile if they could cross the water.
“Only Poppy can,” said Jamie “and anybody who wants to be friends with Poppy and make her yellow – I mean happy.” Every single girl in the line rushed across to the wall. Jamie caught Poppy. “You’re crocodile now” he told her.
Poppy grinned.


22

Two announcements and a celebration

At the end of term assembly, Mrs Gupta announced that after the holidays there were going to be Anti-bullying Monitors in the school. She named Jamie as one of them.
That evening, the family went out for tea, to celebrate. Jamie had a chocolate milkshake and a doughnut. Ellie had a pink iced cupcake, and a pink milk shake to match.
“I’m so proud of you Jamie,” said Dad.
“We are all proud of you Jamie! Aren't we Ellie?” said Vee, squeezing him so tightly that the doughnut got stuck on its way down. Ellie nodded vigorously, though in truth she felt a little jealous.
Then Ian said: “We’ve got some news for you both! I think you’ll like it!”
Ellie and Jamie looked expectantly at their parents.
“We’re moving,” announced Ian.
“Moving!” cried both children at once. “Where to? Where are we going?”
“He has got new job,” explained Vee. “It is twenty miles from here, I think.”
Jamie’s heart sank. Twenty miles! He’d have to leave school, and give up his post of Anti-bullying Monitor when he’d only just got it!
“I’m going to be a school caretaker,” explained Ian. “It’s a big secondary school, so there’ll be lots of space to ride bikes around.”
“But best thing is,” said Vee, “house that goes with job has four bedrooms, and big kitchen, and three reception rooms. So there will be plenty of room for us and baby too.”
Ian looked at his son’s unenthusiastic face and sighed. “It was what you wanted – more space,” he said. “I know it’s going to be hard for you both going to a new school and leaving your friends, but – the good news is, they don’t want me till after half-term.” It was now April, so this was a couple of months away. “We’ll probably move in the half-term holiday” he continued. “So you see, Jamie will get a bit of a chance to do his monitoring job.”
“Will we have to sell our flat?” asked Ellie.
“No,” said Ian. “That’s the other part of the plan. We’re going to rent it out, and get the money. So your mother won’t have to work in a nursing home.”
“And I won’t need to do dressmaking unless I want to,” said Vee. “Which I will, maybe, but not if baby comes.”
“And I shall try to spend more time with you all too,” promised Ian.
“It might be fun, moving,” said Ellie to Jamie later, when they were alone together. “The house sounds nice.”
“Maybe,” said Jamie. “At least I’ll get half a term at being a monitor. We’ll have to leave the jungle behind, though.” It had been difficult for Jamie to get to the jungle from the hospital; it would surely be too difficult to get there from their new home.
The few weeks till half-term went quickly.
Ian decorated most of the flat, ready to let it out. But at Jamie’s and Ellie’s request he left the jungle room untouched. ‘It doesn’t really matter,’ he thought. ‘It’ll only be a store room anyway. It’s not big enough for anything else.’ Jamie and Ellie thought differently: they thought that perhaps some other children might one day find their way through the wallpaper.
23

The Golden Monkey

The afternoon before moving day, when nearly everything was packed into boxes, the two children went back to the jungle. They were almost sure it would be their last visit.
They opened a window with Jamie's phone and wriggled through, arriving on the bridge. The first things they spotted were two neat rows of wigwams on either side of the river, standing in the shade of big trees, and well away from the mud: ten sturdy-looking coconut stores on the Secrets' side, and ten on the Rainbows'.
Then they heard music, like a thousand tiny, joyful bells. Tufts came skipping onto the bridge, bright yellow with delight, accompanied by a little crowd of yellow Rainbows, and Secrets singing the Happy and Excited Song. Tufts leapt up to hug each of the children in turn.
"It's all finished!" she cried gleefully. "We're going to have the biggest party ever! The parrots and even the hippos are coming. We've just been waiting for you to get here! We can have the party now!" A cheer went up from the monkeys. "It'll be a mango party!" shouted some of the Rainbows. "No, a coconut party!" contradicted some Secrets. "It'll be both," said Tufts.
"Great, but can we see the stores first?" asked Jamie.
They inspected the Secrets' and then the Rainbows' stores, accompanied by a band of skipping, proud, exuberant monkeys. Their first impressions had been right: the stores were strong and well built. They were all full of coconuts. "They're fantastic!" said Jamie. "Brilliant!" agreed Ellie.
In a clearing on the Rainbows' side, the party began. As many mangoes as possible, and an awful lot of coconuts, were eaten, and a great deal of coconut milk drunk. Ellie invented a game for them to play. It was based on one of her own favourite games, which she'd played at the seaside: crazy golf. She got Jamie to help her make an obstacle course by digging holes, making slopes and channels in the earth, and bridges from stones and branches. The animals had to roll coconuts over, under and through the various obstacles to land in a hole.
They all loved this game, even the hippos, who were hopeless at it. But after a while, they had made a total mess of the obstacle course. So, with Ellie's help, they made up other games: a kind of boules with the coconuts, and a game of catch with mangoes (which the hippos couldn't manage at all.)
The games kept the animals amused for hours, while green, multi-coloured and shocking pink parrots squawked overhead, making comments and giving advice.
Ellie and Jamie were watching a group of Secrets and Rainbows play catch. The monkeys stood in a circle and one threw a mango to another, who had to catch it and throw it on to someone else, at random. Meanwhile, another mango was introduced, and then another, till there were several mangoes flying across the circle quite fast. If anyone dropped a fruit, he or she was out of the game. The monkeys who were left in last won the mangoes.
As Ellie was watching, she suddenly became aware of a flutter of bright pink feathers, and Angelica perched gently on her shoulder. Ellie was delighted to see the parrot again. There was something she’d wanted to ask. “Angelica” she said, “how does anybody know there are only three parts to the Story? Might there be four or five, or even more?”
“Of course there will be more parts to the Story,” said Angelica. "The Story isn’t finished. It’s still going on."
"It'll go on without us," said Ellie. "We won't be able to come here any more."
"We won't be able to get here from where we're moving to," added Jamie.
"That's sad," said Angelica. "But you've already done all you can do to help the monkeys. You've helped them enormously by making them realise that they all have to look after the jungle together and share all the fruit in it. Now they'll have to manage on their own. "
"I bet they'll still quarrel," observed Jamie.
"Of course," replied Angelica. "But that's something you've helped them with too - learning how to sort out their quarrels without getting violent. They'll have to do that for themselves too, now."
"Will the Story ever be finished?" asked Ellie.
“It will be finished," said Angelica, "when the Golden Monkey returns."
“When will that be? When?” This was from Tufts, who was out of the game and had joined the conversation.
“That,” answered Angelica, “depends on the monkeys and parrots and even the hippos: all of us who are part of the Story. When we can all live together happily, looking after the jungle and sharing the food, making sure everyone has enough to eat; when there is no more fighting, and no animal ever hurts or is nasty to another on purpose; when every monkey and hippo and parrot - every animal - is the friend of every other animal - then the Golden Monkey will return."
"Not for a long time then," muttered Tufts, disappointed. She had hoped it might be soon, but now she couldn't imagine that it would be. The monkeys still had an awful lot to learn. They were all sharing the jungle now, and there hadn't been any violence since that dreadful time when Snapper and Softpad were killed, but there were still plenty of arguments and unkind words among them.
At that moment, one of the monkeys in the catch game sent a mango sailing through the air, right out of the circle. It was caught by a small Secret who was hovering on the edge of the gathering. "Well caught!" shouted Jamie. Then he realised who the small Secret was: One-eye. It had been a particularly good catch, considering the little monkey had only the one eye. The "Outlaw" had been watching the party, not daring to join in. Ellie noticed how thin he had become on his meagre diet.
"He's got our mango! He'll steal it!" shouted a couple of Secrets.
But the Secrets were wrong, because One-eye was not running away, but heading towards the circle of monkeys. He was bringing the mango back. He threw it to the nearest monkey, then turned and walked away.
Tufts watched him go, and said to Angelica: "If we have to be friends with every other animal - does that mean him too?"
"Of course!" squawked the parrot.
"But he's bad," protested Tufts.
"He did bad things," corrected Angelica. "He isn't doing bad things now. And he's sorry."
The animals started to get tired. Most of the hippos wandered off to their mud bath. The monkeys squatted on the grass and tried to sing. Jamie taught them "Ten green bottles hanging on a wall." But the Secrets (not knowing what bottles or walls were, but being fond of green) insisted on changing it to: "Ten green parrots perching on a tree".
The Secrets were very tuneful, but the Rainbows sang flat. With one or two remaining hippos rumbling along with them, they made a strange noise. And all of them were hopeless at getting the numbers right. "Six green parrots, perching on a tree," sang the monkeys. "One fell off and then there were ..er… " "Three!" suggested one. "Seven!" offered another. "A hundred and ten!" boomed