The car bumped over the potholes. The air from the open windows flapped my hair against my face. “Woof! Woof!” I pretended that I was goofy and slobbery, like Chief. Chief lives next door. His ears fly back like crazy wings when he hangs his head out the window.
“Charlie, I don’t understand dog. Can you use English to tell me about your day?” Mommy asked.
I told her how I had played tigers with Liam. We used blocks to build a castle for the king of the people who live on Saturn’s rings. We used the corners of our sandwich baggies to make space suits for the Lego men who were going to visit the King of Saturn’s rings.
Mommy interrupted me. “Are you excited about the weekend, Charlie?”
“Why? Is Nana coming over?” I asked.
“No. It’s Pride. Do you remember yesterday when we hung the rainbow flag by the front door? We talked about our favorite parts of the parade last year. You said you liked the colorful costumes, remember?”
I remembered talking about it yesterday. And I remembered going last year. But I also remembered that it was only almost fun. It was like going to the boardwalk when you’re too short to go on the Ferris wheel. Like going to Petsmart when your yard’s too small for a dog. The parade had costumes and balloons. It looked like it was fun for the people parading. All we did was stand on the curb and peek around the people who crowded in front of us.
“Maybe we could play trains instead,” I suggested. We could set up my trains in the yard, so that the insects who lived in the lawn would have a way to get from one patch of sun to another. Mommy could even be in charge of loading and unloading the passengers.
Mommy turned onto our street. “Trains are good, but we can play trains any day. Pride is a special day.”
“Maybe instead you could make chocolate pudding, and we could use it to make paintings of the man in the moon,” I said. Pudding doesn’t really count as a dessert because it’s made of milk. My teacher read us a book about a boy who milked cows on a farm. I figure that the man on the moon probably milks the cow that jumped over the moon when he wants pudding.
Mommy sighed as she parked the car. Maybe she was worried that I’d ask for a pet cow. Maybe she was hungry for pudding. And then I remembered something from school. “You know who is hungry, Mommy? The letter C. Its mouth is always wide open. Like it’s going to eat the “harlie.” Today I drew teeth on the—” Wait. Something was different about our deck.
“Mommy, look over there. What’s that?” I pointed to the spot on the front deck, right under where Mama and I had hung the rainbow flag last weekend. There was another rainbow flag spread out on the deck like a picnic blanket with a punch bowl and little plates of cookies.
Mommy smiled at me. “We better go find out, Charlie!”
I undid my seatbelt and tugged at the door handle until it came open. I bounded up the stairs to the front deck and crouched beside the punch bowl. I looked from the little plate of cookies to the smattering of rainbow candies that covered the flag. I dipped my finger in the punch bowl and then put it in my mouth to taste. Yummy.
Mommy kneeled beside me. “Wow! What do you think this is?” she asked me.
Before I could answer, Mama opened the front door. “What’s all the excitement about, you guys?”
“Look, Mama! Someone was having a picnic!”
Mama sat down beside us. I showed her the little cookies covered in rainbow sprinkles and the big glass bowl with ice cubes and tiny cups floating in it. I fished one of the tiny cups out with my fingers and filled it with juice. “It tastes like lemonade.”
“I wonder who was having this picnic?” Mama asked.
“Look! They left footprints!” Three different sets of tiny footprints ran off the deck. At the edge of the porch, I picked up a miniature silver wand. “They dropped this when they were running away.” It sparkled in the sun, and I felt a twinkle of magic. I tucked it safely into the front pocket of my overalls.
“Who do you think it was?” Mommy asked.
I fingered the wand in my pocket with its tin foil star on the top and glanced at the powdered sugar footprints.
“It was the Pride Fairies,” I declared.
“Of course,” Mommy replied, smiling. “Why didn’t I think of that? Do you think they’d mind if we had some of their picnic?”
“I think we should,” I said. “They want us to drink their fairy bowl soup and eat their fairy cookies.” I picked up one of the little graham cracker squares covered in rainbow sprinkles and began to eat.
“Why do you think they left before we got here?” asked Mama.
“They got scared away.”
“By us?”
“No,” I explained. “They know we’re good guys because of the flag.”
“What then?”
“They were scared of the Color Monster. He’s like the Cookie Monster from TV, only he eats up colors instead of cookies. He’s very scary to Pride Fairies because he could eat up all their colors and then they wouldn’t be able to make the parade all sparkly and rainbow-colored.”
“The Color Monster?”
I nodded and popped another cookie in my mouth. “Pride Fairies really, really like colors. All the rainbow colors. See how they have pink fairy punch and cookies with red and blue and green sprinkles? And there are all these little candies.” I stuck one in my mouth. “Red, orange, yellow, purple. It’s like how I have to drink milk because it makes my bones grow, and how Popeye eats spinach to be strong. They eat all these colors to make themselves magical fairies.”
Mama scooped up a handful of candies. Mommy leaned back against the side of the house and picked up a graham cracker square. I smiled, thinking how lucky we were that the Pride Fairies had come to our house.
And then I saw it.
“Oh no!” My hand flew up in front of my mouth. “Blue is missing!”
“Blue is missing?” Mommy asked.
“Look at all the candies and sprinkles. There’s red and orange and yellow and green and purple, but no blue. The Color Monster got it!”
“That is horrible. What should we do?”
“It’s extra horrible, Mommy! The Pride Fairies need all of their colors to make the Parade magical. Now the floats will be all grey. The cheerleaders will drop those people who jump in the air. And the Pride Fairies will have no way to get back to the Rainbow Kingdom. We have to do something!”
I could build a special radio phone out of cans and call the king of the people who lived on Saturn’s rings to come and help. But it would take him too long to get here. Saturn is very far away.
I could make a cannon out of a paper towel roll, and when we go to the parade, I could shoot at the Color Monster until he gave back the blue. But Mama wouldn’t like that. She doesn’t even let me shoot at the roly poly bugs when they’re being cowboys and robbing the trains in the lawn.
I could make a big sign that said “Go Away, Color Monster!” with giant scary fangs in the C. But what if the Color Monster hasn’t learned reading yet? Besides, maybe the Color Monster isn’t bad. Maybe he just likes colors a whole lot and doesn’t know it’s wrong to take things from fairies.
Then I knew.
“I will be a Rainbow Knight and defend the Pride Fairies against the Color Monster. I will make a cape out of the Pride Fairy Picnic blanket and a sword out of a paper towel roll. I will make stickers with my glitter glue to give to everyone at the parade, so that if the Color Monster wants any more colors, he will want the sparkly glitter glue colors, and he will leave the Pride Fairies alone.”
“That’s an excellent plan,” said Mommy. “Maybe the Bronsons would even let you bring Chief. He could be your trusty steed.”
Mama laughed. “But you can’t ride him or the Bronsons will say no.”
“Chief can come?” I felt like jumping. “That would make the Pride Fairies very happy.”
“We can ask. This year we’re walking with a group of other families, and I know that some of them are going to bring their dogs too. As long as Chief is on a leash, it should be fine,” said Mommy.
“We’re parading?” I was going to be a Rainbow Knight parader with a rainbow cape and a trusty steed. This was going to be the best Pride Parade ever.