The Grapevine Elves and the End of the Rainbow (Part 2)

He took a slightly soggy fry out of the box and looked at it like you would a particularly interesting but still slimy banana slug (go to Seattle to see those). He bent it carefully and stated, “I’d guess about 3 hours from the fryer and 13 minutes since the box was dropped. They have a head start but we can beat them to the end of the rainbow.” Ella could see the rainbow ahead of them…and on the other side of the road !!
“How can we get to the end at all?” she asked, “we’d have to cross the road and Mom said we couldn’t.” Ella was very careful to obey her mother, especially on this side of the grapevine. She saw the look her mom always gave her when she said she was going for a “walk” with Jake and Julie. Grown-ups clearly didn’t believe in elves but there was always something about that look. The rule was always, “don’t cross any roads.” Ella had a pretty strong feeling about not crossing roads here.
“No worries,” broke in Julie, “we know a shortcut. We know a shortcut to everywhere.” Ella looked down the road in both directions. It seemed to go a long ways. Julie just gave her a smile and headed down a path that angled back away from the road. After three left turns Ella was sure they were going around in circles, but they never seemed to cross a path or the road. It seemed like the little ones should be getting tired, but they seemed to just be enjoying the walk. Jake was walking next to Ashton and telling outrageous stories about Bogwort habits. “You couldn’t do that!!” insisted Aaron, who had been listening, “your fingers would fall off.”
“I’ve seen it myself,” said Jake with a confident tone, “Trust me, Bogworts are about as gross as you can get and not leave a slime trail.” He paused and looked ahead, “We’ll have to be quiet now. We’re almost there.” Sure enough, Julie raised her closed fist at a right angle and then motioned all the kids to get down and they crawled under the bushes towards the edge of a wonderfully huge field of clover. The rainbow could be seen plunging down right in the middle of the field, colors as bright as the frosting on one of Aaron’s birthday cakes Grandma would make when they visited over New Year’s eve. They could also see Bogworts over to their left, just arriving at the edge of the field.
“But we can’t reach the end of the rainbow,” explained Aaron, very quietly. When we try to get close, it will just move further away. My teacher says it’s just light reflected from water drops in the air.”
“That’s right” said Julie, “We won’t get close to the rainbow. It will get close to us! Now here’s the plan,” and she whispered to Ella a simple set of instructions. “Can you do it?” she asked, looking Ella right in the eyes. Ella pressed her lips together and put her chin out (just a little. She didn’t want to look like Jay Leno). “We’ll do it,” she said, “I trust you and Jake. We’ll get away with it.” With that she took her little train of brothers and sister and cousin around the edge of the field, to the far side, just inside the trees. “OK,” she said to the group as she took a deep breath, “This is it!! Let’s go.” And she led them skipping out into the middle of the field.
It took a lot of courage, from every one of them, to skip into a field where they could see a huge bunch of Bogworts coming in on the other side. What the Bogworts saw was someone else skipping up to the end of the rainbow. The end of the rainbow that held “their” treasure! With a roar the Bogworts started running straight towards the kids.
Ella stopped where Julie had told her and kept calm while she slowly counted out loud to seven. (She counted to seven because that’s what Julie said to count to; not Ten, not Three…Seven). What was toughest was counting to seven with her eyes shut, and all the kids eyes shut.
At “Seven” the children opened their eyes to a field now filled with color. Sure enough, as the Bogworts had run towards the rainbow it had gotten further away from them. Now it surrounded the kids and there was the pot of treasure right at their feet. “Grab the pot, Aaron, and let’s get out of here,” yelled Ella, and she headed at a run, with her hand firmly holding Livia, back into the forest. She could only hope that the elves would come up with the distraction the plan needed.

{to be continued}

© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.