Rainbow The Colourful Crow

• Matthew Houssenloge, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2019

Once there was a crow called Blacky that lived in a crumbling and poor village. He was the blackest of all the crows in the village; no-one was blacker than he was. Unfortunately, like all the crows, he got tired of his black colour. He wanted to be rainbow like the parrots. So, he got busy.
He tried swimming in juice, but it made his feathers all sticky & smelly. He tried painting himself, but the paint gave him a rash. He even tried eating food colouring, but the taste was so bad it made him sick for days! Nothing seemed to work.
Then a rainbow appeared in the sky. It seemed to brighten the sad little village, and this gave Blacky a bright idea. He filled a bucket with water and headed straight toward the rainbow, lining up the bucket with the rainbow’s rays. Soon, the water turned rainbow and Blacky jumped in. To everyone’s surprise he turned red. He turned orange. He turned yellow. He turned green. He turned blue. He turned indigo, and he turned violet. To Blacky’s absolute delight he had finally turned Rainbow!
He was so happy to finally be a different colour. Now he could fly with the parrots. Blacky decided to call himself Rainbow from then on. He was the envy of all the birds. He was the most colourful bird in the village.
One day when Rainbow was flying with the parrots a silver glimmer caught his eye. Forgetting about the others, he went and followed the glimmer. What he discovered was a giant chest of sliver and gold!
He closed up the chest so nothing could fall out and called to his friends. Three black crows appeared out of nowhere and started tying up the chest with vines. Then they picked up the vines and carried the chest all the way to the village.
When the Chief of the village saw the gold & silver, he was filled with joy. “Come with me, you clever bird”, he called to Rainbow, then he jumped onto his donkey with the chest and headed to the town nearby.
The next day Rainbow & the Chief returned with unusual building materials. The village people started rebuilding the village. Rainbow and the other crows helped by carrying materials and drawing bamboo blueprints using their beaks. In a few weeks’ time the village was huge and looked brand new. Soon traders were coming into the town and buying things from the village.
Eventually Rainbow caught the eye of one of the wealthy traders. “Not only are you beautiful, but you are intelligent also. Would you like to come and live with me”? While Rainbow was sad to say goodbye to his friends, he looked forward to making new friends, and many more adventures.