Captain Giggle and the Day the Colors Went Missing

In the colorful town of Tippy-Town, mornings were never quiet.

The houses glowed lemon-yellow. The streets shimmered bubblegum pink. The trees sparkled minty green, and even the clouds came out fluffy and peach-colored, like the sky had been freshly frosted overnight.

And every morning, in his crooked little house at the top of Giggle Hill, Captain Giggle woke up smiling.

Because Tippy-Town was the happiest, brightest, sparkliest place in the entire world.

But on this particular morning…

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Captain Giggle yanked open his curtains — and gasped so hard he hiccupped.

Everything outside was gray.

Not a poetic, misty, watercolor gray. A boring gray. The houses looked like dusty laundry. The flowers drooped like sad noodles. Even the sky looked like it had skipped breakfast.

Captain Giggle blinked three times.

"Nope," he said. "That is definitely not normal."

He rubbed his eyes. Still gray. He bounced to the window. Still gray. He put on his Giggle Goggles — his most powerful piece of equipment, with extra-shiny lenses — and squinted dramatically through them.

Still gray.

"THIS," he announced to nobody in particular, "IS A COLOR EMERGENCY."

CRASH!

Momo the Monkey came swinging through the window holding a banana, the way Momo always entered rooms.

Except the banana was gray.

Momo stared at it like it had personally insulted him.

"My breakfast," he said slowly, "looks like an old sock."

Captain Giggle pointed dramatically out the window. "The colors are GONE."

Momo gasped so loudly he nearly inhaled the banana.

Outside, Tippy-Town looked miserable.

Children sat on porches frowning at toys that used to be red and blue and green. The birds had stopped singing and were just sort of standing there, looking confused. The rainbow fountain in the middle of town — the one that usually shot pink and gold and turquoise water in dancing arches — was dribbling like a leaky faucet.

"This is serious," Captain Giggle whispered.

"Very serious," Momo agreed.

"No colors —"

"No cheer."

Captain Giggle pulled on his Giggle Cape (he owned several), tied it with a flourish, and pointed at the sky.

"Then we have only one choice."

"Breakfast?"

"INVESTIGATE."

"Oh." Momo finished his sock-banana sadly. "Right."

The two friends hurried through town, and everywhere they looked, things had gone wrong.

The bakery's cupcakes looked like little gray rocks. A bunch of balloons drifted past, sad and fuzzy as dryer lint. The ice cream truck was open for business, but the ice cream had lost its swirls and its sprinkles and possibly its will to live.

A little girl named Pip sat on the curb, sniffling over an open box of crayons.

"My crayons," she whispered, "stopped being crayon-y."

Captain Giggle crouched down beside her, very seriously.

"Do not worry," he said. "We will bring the colors back."

Momo leaned in. "How?"

Captain Giggle paused.

"…I have absolutely no idea."

Momo nodded. "Excellent honesty."

Pip giggled — just a little. And for one tiny second, so fast you'd miss it if you blinked, the corner of one crayon flickered red.

Captain Giggle saw it. His Giggle Goggles fogged up with excitement.

"Hold that thought," he whispered.

They hurried on toward the center of town.

And there, in the middle of Giggle Square, on top of the rainbow tower that everyone in Tippy-Town could see from their windows…

The Great Color Spinner had stopped turning.

This was bad.

The Great Color Spinner was the heart of Tippy-Town. It was a giant, glittering wheel that twirled all day long — spin, sparkle, whoosh — splashing color out across the rooftops the way some towns get rain.

But now?

Still as a stone. A sad little puff of gray smoke leaked from the top.

"The Color Spinner!" Captain Giggle gasped.

Momo scampered up the side of the tower. He poked a button.

Nothing.

He pulled a lever.

Nothing.

He pressed another button.

HONK!

A rubber chicken popped out of a hidden compartment.

Captain Giggle blinked. "…That button may not be important."

Momo dropped the chicken over the side. "We need to figure out why it stopped."

Captain Giggle climbed up beside him and peered into the heart of the machine. Right at its center sat the Color Crystal — usually a glowing ball of rainbow light. But today, it barely flickered. A weak little bulb in the dark.

"What powers the crystal?" Momo asked.

Captain Giggle scratched his chin. Then his eyes went very, very wide.

"Oh no."

"What?"

"It runs on joy."

Momo blinked. "…Joy?"

"Laughing. Playing. Dancing. Inventing weird things. Being a little bit ridiculous on purpose." Captain Giggle looked out over the gray rooftops of Tippy-Town. "It runs on imagination."

Momo followed his gaze. Nobody was laughing. Nobody was playing. Everyone was just… moving from one thing to the next, heads down, like the town had forgotten how to look up.

"The town lost its joy," Momo whispered.

"And now," said Captain Giggle, "we are losing our colors."

He stood tall on the tower, cape rippling.

"Then we have another emergency."

"What kind?"

"A SUPER MEGA ULTRA GIGGLE MISSION."

The two friends got to work.

Captain Giggle made silly faces at people on the sidewalk. They walked past without looking up.

Momo juggled three pineapples, two oranges, and one extremely confused goldfish (the goldfish was returned safely). Nobody clapped.

Captain Giggle put his underpants on his head — his most powerful technique — and danced down Main Street.

One toddler giggled.

"PROGRESS!" Captain Giggle bellowed.

But the crystal only flickered.

Momo flopped onto a bench. "Maybe everyone forgot how to be happy."

Captain Giggle sat next to him. That thought made his stomach feel wobbly. Like the time he'd eaten too much rainbow cake. But less delicious.

And then —

"Heh."

A tiny laugh, drifting on the air.

Captain Giggle's ears perked up. He followed the sound across the square to the rainbow fountain, where a small boy was sitting cross-legged on the rim. He had a single gray crayon and a piece of paper, and he was drawing.

Captain Giggle peeked over his shoulder.

The boy was drawing enormous dancing spaghetti monsters wearing roller skates. One of them had a top hat. Another was carrying a tiny umbrella. They were, for some reason, having a tea party.

Captain Giggle stared.

"…That," he said, "is amazing."

The boy smiled a small, secret smile. "I like silly ideas."

Beside them, the fountain hiccupped. For one second — one whole second — it sputtered out a perfect arc of pink water before going gray again.

Momo gasped. "The colors reacted!"

Captain Giggle looked at the drawing. Then at the boy. Then at the fountain. Then at the gray, gray, gray town.

And he understood.

The Color Spinner wasn't just running on happiness. It was running on the strange kind of happy. The made-up kind. The kind that comes from inventing tea parties for spaghetti monsters and putting underpants on your head and making up reasons for things.

Tippy-Town hadn't just gotten sad.

It had gotten too serious.

Captain Giggle leapt up onto the fountain rim and threw both arms in the air, capes flying.

"WE MUST RESTORE THE SILLY!"

A woman walking by paused. "…How exactly?"

Captain Giggle grinned.

"WITH THE BIGGEST SILLY DAY THIS TOWN HAS EVER SEEN."

Word spread quickly.

The bakery, defiantly, started making upside-down muffins. Then upside-down upside-down muffins, which is just regular muffins, which somehow made everyone laugh harder than it should have.

Children dragged giant pieces of cardboard out of garages and started painting dragons. Then dragon dentists. Then dragon dentists who specialized in cleaning the teeth of even bigger dragons.

Momo organized a banana orchestra. (The bananas did not play well, but the audience was very supportive.)

Captain Giggle launched the Great Pretend Parade. By the end of the first block, the parade included a pirate dentist, a moon cowboy, a dancing potato wizard, three children stacked into one extremely tall giraffe, and someone's very patient dog wearing a tiny crown.

And slowly…

Very slowly…

Color came back.

A red balloon, here. A blue flower, there. A bright green kite that nobody could remember owning, suddenly flying high above the rooftops.

The Color Spinner twitched.

Spin.

Spin.

SPIN.

The crystal at its heart brightened — pink, then gold, then full rainbow.

Children laughed louder. Music tumbled out of windows. Captain Giggle climbed to the top of a rainbow slide wearing ten capes at once and slid all the way down them. Momo built a cabbage cannon and launched marshmallows into the cheering crowd.

And then —

WHOOOOOSH!

The Great Color Spinner exploded into rainbow light.

Color burst across Tippy-Town all at once. Rooftops glowed. Trees shimmered. The rainbow fountain shot up so high it almost tickled the clouds — which, by the way, had gone right back to peach-pink, exactly where they belonged.

Everyone cheered.

Captain Giggle wiped away a happy tear (with one of his ten capes).

"We did it."

Momo grinned. "We saved colors."

But then Captain Giggle looked around — at the laughing children, the upside-down muffins, the giraffe-children still trying to walk in formation — and got a thoughtful look on his face.

"You know what, Momo?"

"What?"

"The colors never really left."

Momo tilted his head. "They didn't?"

Captain Giggle pointed gently — not at the sky, not at the Color Spinner — but at the people of Tippy-Town.

"They were just hiding. In there."

The townspeople smiled. Pip held up her crayons — perfectly, gloriously crayon-y again. The boy with the spaghetti drawing waved his paper, which was now in color, and his spaghetti monsters were spectacular.

The Color Spinner glowed brighter than it ever had.

That night, Tippy-Town was beautiful again.

Warm lights twinkled in every window. Soft music drifted through the streets. The stars sparkled above the rooftops like a sky full of confetti.

Captain Giggle and Momo sat on the hill overlooking town, legs dangling, watching it all.

Momo yawned. "That was a very colorful adventure."

"The best kind," Captain Giggle agreed.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

Then Momo glanced sideways.

"…Captain?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you still wearing ten capes?"

Captain Giggle looked down. He counted.

"Oh," he said. "I forgot."

Momo burst into laughter. Captain Giggle laughed too. And down below them, all across Tippy-Town —

The colors glowed just a little brighter.

Because sometimes the best colors in the world come from imagination, kindness, and one very silly giggle.