Tillo and the Upside-Down Rainbow

It was early morning in the enchanted forest. Tillo the wise turtle was slowly, carefully polishing the glass of his glowing lantern when he paused and noticed something highly peculiar happening in the bright sky directly above Whisperwood. There was a massive, brilliant rainbow. But it was completely, undeniably upside-down.

The deep red stripe was at the very bottom. The bright purple stripe was at the very top. It curved severely the wrong way entirely, drooping down in the center so it looked exactly like a sad frown instead of a happy, towering smile. “Well, now. That is certainly not right at all,” Tillo murmured to himself, tilting his head to the side to see if it looked better upside down. It did not. Mira, the energetic fairy, flew rapidly over, her translucent wings sparkling in the morning dew. “Tillo! Did you see the grand rainbow? It’s totally backwards!

Whimsy the sprite bounced furiously out of a nearby blackberry bush, laughing. “Maybe the sky is just confused today! ” “Skies do not have sides, Whimsy. That is scientifically inaccurate,” Puffin the small dragon said calmly, standing firmly on a low branch. Even so, his bright eyes narrowed with curiosity as he studied the strange rainbow. “If there is a mystery, we must follow it,” Tillo declared calmly, his magical lantern glowing with a quiet, steady light. “Every river has a starting spring, and every rainbow has to start somewhere. ” The four friends began their walk, trailing the direction of the strange rainbow. They journeyed deep through the magical Shimmer Glade, where every wide leaf naturally reflected a different color. The drooping rainbow seemed to point directly toward the ancient Hollow Hill in the deepest part of the woods. As they got closer to the hill, they noticed the environment acting very peculiar. The colors around them were all slightly, strangely wrong. Bushes full of plump blueberries were bright, glaring orange. Sections of the vibrant green meadow grass possessed an undeniably pinkish, bubblegum tint. A usually yellow butterfly flew past looking very concerned about being deep, shiny purple. “Everything is completely mixed up! ” Mira said, hovering nervously over a rock.

” Whimsy giggled wildly, bouncing with joy through a thick patch of bright red daisies that absolutely should have been pure white. Finally, they pushed through the vines and entered the dark opening of the Hollow Hill. Inside, glowing in the center of a cave, they found the source of the problem: the legendary Color Spring.

The Color Spring was a tiny, incredibly powerful magical fountain that erupted with pure, liquid light, painting all of the forest’s vibrant colors every single morning. However, today, a rather large, heavy oak acorn had fallen straight down from the ceiling right into the delicate spout, mostly blocking it. The spring was loudly sputtering, choking, and spraying raw liquid colors in all the wrong directions under intense pressure. A heavy stream of dark purple was shooting rapidly into the section where the light blue should be. Yellow was mistakenly firing sideways into the red pool. “Ah. No wonder everything outside is upside-down and backwards,” Tillo said wisely, nodding his head. ” Puffin stepped carefully to the edge of the magical fountain. Studying the flow with focused attention, he reached forward with his small claws and firmly pulled the stuck acorn free with a loud pop. —a stunning, perfect, rushing fountain of harmonized colors sprayed majestically high into the cave air. Red, bright orange, warm yellow, rich green, deep blue, indigo, and brilliant violet—all flowed gracefully and easily in perfect, beautiful order once again. The friends hurried excitedly outside the cave to check the sky. High above the forest canopy, they watched as the strange, upside-down rainbow slowly faded, flipped itself completely over, and brightened into a proper, magnificent, smiling arc soaring across the sky.

Down on the forest floor, the orange blueberries quickly faded back to their delicious, natural blue. The pink grass instantly went back to being healthy green. The purple butterfly looked down at its own wings, clearly immensely relieved to be bright sunshine yellow once more. “Hooray! ” Whimsy cheered, doing a series of rapid backflips over a mushroom. Tillo smiled his slow, kind smile and carefully set his glowing lantern down on the soft moss. “We didn’t actually fix the endless sky, little Whimsy. We merely helped the forest’s spring do its proper job. ” Mira flew over and leaned affectionately against the turtle’s sturdy shell. ” Tillo simply chuckled softly. And high above them, framing the entire magical sanctuary of Whisperwood, shone the most perfect, vivid rainbow the vast forest had ever seen.