Small Wonders · complete story

Rainbow Everywhere

Tedray · Teamwork & curiosity

For a moment, Sunflower Station looked as though somebody had poured seven paint pots into the air. Red shone across the violet stars. Green circles glimmered on an orange wall. A blue sunflower appeared above a yellow bench. Even Ivo looked pink.

“I have become a very fashionable robot,” Ivo announced.

Pip laughed. Then he saw Lumi’s face. The little mint-and-cream robot was staring at the enormous display.

“That was supposed to bring everything home,” Lumi said.

Mira checked the station board. “The travel controls and ordinary lights are working. These are the decorative connections. Noor, shall we pause them while we look?”

Noor nodded and used the adult control panel. The colored movement slowed, then stopped. Comfortable white lights remained. Nobody needed to guess where to walk: the doors still had words and shapes.

Pip gazed at the rainbow muddle. “Could we keep just a little of it? It’s wonderful.”

“It is,” Noor agreed. “But those lights belong to communities preparing their own celebrations. We need to return them first.”

Lumi lowered a lamp. “I thought their stations were empty.”

Zuri opened her sketchbook. She had drawn Strawberry’s picnic, Moon’s bubble dancers and the gardeners on Mars. “They aren’t empty. Look how many people we met.”

Dandy sat beside Lumi rather than standing over the robot. “Your map was old. Now that we know, we can make it better.”

They made a list of the seven destinations. Mira contacted the station teams. Noor checked each reply and each return connection. Zuri put a picture beside every name. Pip counted the lights as they went home.

“One red circle to Strawberry,” he said. “One blue droplet to Moon.”

Orange returned to Vesta. Yellow went to Ceres. Green traveled back to the greenhouse, indigo to the rest station and violet to the music station. Each adult team confirmed its light had arrived.

The seven-spoke transfer trolley stood quietly beside them. Ivo examined one wheel.

“Seven spokes,” he said. “And six of my feet. I would like that difference recorded permanently.”

“It already is,” Zuri assured him. She drew the trolley beside the old yellow marks. At last, that clue had a clear explanation.

Lumi watched the last violet star disappear from the big display. “Now my party is very small.”

“Your visitors are still here,” Pip said.

That made Lumi look up.

Noor offered Pip a sheet of paper. “You can keep the beautiful accident as a picture. That will be your artwork, rather than somebody else’s borrowed light.”

Pip drew a pink Ivo, a blue sunflower and seven curling ribbons. Lumi helped choose a frame.

Just then, Dandy typed FESTIVAL on a test screen. The old program immediately opened a new borrowing request.

Noor stopped it before anything moved. “Here is another part we must change. This program thinks the word festival is permission.”

Lumi considered Pip’s picture. Then Lumi asked a question nobody had yet asked properly.

“How do I find out whether someone wants to lend something?”