Angela Olson
Mrs. Flanagan’s 12th Grade
Principal or Director: Mr. Joseph Loomis
Mt. Vernon High
School, Greenfield, Indiana, USA
High
in the Scorbold Mountains, nestled snug between two average peaks, perched a
medium-sized village brimming with everyday, ordinary people. The one
magnificent wonder in this village was a glorious rainbow that stretched across
the valley each time after a rainfall. People in the country, those that knew
of it anyway, called the village by its given name, Hope's Ridge. The
villagers, on the other hand, simply called it the Ridge. "Hope never
solved a problem, yet," they would say. "Frivolous notion, that hope
idea," the others would agree. So on they went, going about their business
as good, common people do in a town where nothing unconventional happens and no
one does exceptional things. No one, that is, until the summer a certain little
girl turned ten.
Although
this little girl had lived all her life on the Ridge and followed all the rules
a little Ridge girl follows, the villagers noticed something different about
her. "Mark my words," Granny Talbat would say with a sniff of her
crooked nose, "that girl is trouble, pure and simple. I'd bet my whiskers
on it!" And she had whiskers to bet, too!
No one could put a finger on what made this little girl stand out from
the rest; she was a threadbare, bare-foot, big-grin girl, as skinny as a blade
of grass turned sideways. Truth be told, she was not much to look at, not at
first anyways. No, the difference was not in her appearance; yet, her sweet
smile and dancing eyes made people look twice and notice, somehow, that she had
something unique. Since nothing ever came of it, the villagers stored her away
out of their thoughts and concentrated on being as ordinary as they could.
That
fateful summer began as all Ridge summers had, with an average mix of rain and
sun. However, in about the middle of June, a tremendous thunderstorm swept in,
falling over the Ridge as if poured from a spring pump in order to scrub the
dinner dishes. The day-to-day workings of the town screeched to a rusty halt as
the villagers rushed home to save their pigs and chickens. They watched in
horror as the decidedly unusual rain continued into the velvet night that was
scratched and torn with slate-gray clouds and lightening. Finally, at dawn, the
downpour hiccupped twice, and suddenly stopped. As one, the townspeople stuck
their heads out their windows and smiled in relief. Only one person noticed the
disaster. The little girl, not believing her eyes, scrambled the rest of the
way out her window and ran to the bell in the center of town. As the villagers
responded confusedly to the clanging, the little girl jumped to the lip of the
well under the bell. "Didn't you notice?" she cried. "The
rainbow is gone!"
The people of the Ridge had been too concerned with their personals to discern the absence of the multi-hued brilliance that usually followed the rain, the one thing of true beauty and wild pureness in their niche of the world. The Village Square buzzed in amazement, consternation, and fear. "What does this mean?" little Mrs. Perkins asked in trepidation. "It's so gray!" Timothy Daiek exclaimed. This seemingly innocuous disappearance soon had the entire average village in an un-average uproar, for they knew that without the rainbow some intangible thread would be missing in their lives. "Well, somebody's got ta go fix 'em," grumbled old man Grange. "If we don' reweave that there rainbow before tomorrow next the sun's goin' ta take it mighty bad." But, no one could even imagine attempting such an impossible task. "It's pointless." Granny Talbat said with a snort. "Who can reweave a rainbow, you old coot?" "0l’ coot, eh? Why don’ ya take a looksee in the mirror, hag?" old man Grange wheezed back. Soon, all the villagers--but one-- were arguing, "I’ll go," a little voice said…but the arguments and foot-stamping continued. "I'LL GO!" shouted the voice again…and the villagers turned around in shock.
It
was the little girl, the one with something odd about her, who spoke.
"I'll reweave the rainbow. I don't know how, but I'll try." "But
that's impossible, to try would be absurd!" all the people cried.
"Absurd or not, I'll try it," the little girl said with determination
backing up her words. With that, she hopped down from the well, and walked
through the parted crowd, heading for her house.
Inside
her room, the little girl tugged a cracked, grainy chest from under her bed and
flipped it open. Folded in amongst her winter dresses and dolls she found her
most prized possession. It was a tiny walnut box, no bigger than her hand; and,
as she lifted the lid, all the colors of a rainbow spilled onto her fingers.
They were silk scraps, smooth as butter and glowing with a light all their own.
The seven different colors, from crimson to violet were the tools she would use
to complete her impossible task. With the silk fluttering like banners around
her fingers, she marched outside and through the village.
The
villagers experienced something they had never felt before, something that
ricocheted off their hearts and echoed deep inside as they watched the girl, so
little, so inconspicuous, walk resolutely through town. It was a desire to act.
. . .different, to help instead of stand by. The average people of the average
village turned to their average houses to bring out average belongings to help
an average girl complete an extraordinary task, and soon they began to feel not
so ordinary any more.