A Ring And A Rainbow. Deanna Talcott

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      Prologue

      “Rain’s stopped,” six-year-old Hunter Starnes announced.

      Beside him, Claire Dent, five, huddled on the back stoop of the Starnes’s cabin, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her skinny legs.

      Claire shrugged, and set her chin, fixing her gaze on the wispy dark clouds overhead. Momma and Daddy had been fighting again, and she guessed that was the reason they’d spent the afternoon at the cabin outside of town, talking to Hunter’s mom. She’d heard Momma say Daddy had lost his job again, and Claire knew what that meant: She wouldn’t be able to take treats to school next week for her birthday, and she probably wouldn’t get any presents, either. Her mother would mix water in the tomato soup instead of milk, and they’d have to start eating that pukey oatmeal again, instead of cereal.

      Claire kept studying the skies, watching, waiting. “Look,” she said suddenly, straightening. “A rainbow.”

      “So? Last time we saw a double one.” Hunter started picking at a scab on his knee, as if he didn’t care about some silly old rainbow.

      “You s’pose there’s really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Hunter?”

      “I dunno. Maybe.” He stopped picking and looked up, out of the corner of his eye.

      “If we found a pot of gold, what would you do with it?”

      “Me? Heck,” he swore, wiping his hands on his shorts, “I’d buy everybody in Lost Falls ice cream. And you and me? We’d share one of those big sundaes with all the whipped cream and cherries and stuff. Twenty-seven scoops of ice cream. Just for us.”

      Claire smiled, thinking of it. “We’d have a party.”

      “Heck, yes. With balloons, and a band, and everything. And we’d invite everybody. Even that crabby Mrs. Harris.”

      Claire turned to look up at him, surprised. “You’re not still mad at her?”

      He shrugged. “Nah. I didn’t mean to step on her stupid old flowers, no matter what she says. I mean, it was the only baseball we had. And since the rest of the guys were afraid to go in her backyard it was up to me to get it back.”

      “You’re pretty brave. I wouldn’t have done it. Not for nothin’,” Claire said.

      “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. That’s what my dad says.”

      Claire thought about that for a few moments. “If there was anything I ever felt like I had to do, it would be to make sure my Momma had a real nice house, and that she wasn’t cryin’ all the time. And I’d make my Daddy a doctor or somethin’, so people looked up to him, and that way he’d always have a job.”

      Hunter looked at her, and his eyes went kind of soft, like toffee that was melting in the sun. He slipped off the porch rail and came down to sit beside her on the steps. With one grimy hand, he awkwardly reached over to pat her bony knee. “Your daddy could be a doctor, Claire. If he wanted. Look how nice he stitched up Rufus, when he got hit by that car.”

      Claire nodded, and instead of thinking about how her father had sewn the jagged cut on Rufus’s back leg, she fixed her gaze on the rainbow, vaguely wondering if wishing on it would be enough to make her dreams come true. Every time she was with Hunter, she thought she was the luckiest girl in the whole wide world. Last week she’d even gotten him to play “wedding” with her—even though he’d made her promise not to tell.

      She’d worn her Grandma’s long white fuzzy robe—the one that she’d dug out of the ragbag—and Hunter had worn the top hat that he’d gotten at the circus last year. Although they couldn’t remember all the words, Hunter figured if they said the “till death do us part” stuff, that ought to do it.

      Thinking back on it, Claire impulsively leaned over and gave Hunter a dry-lipped peck on the cheek.

      “Yuck!” Hunter drew back and wiped at the spot. “Claire! Quit it! Girls don’t go around kissing boys.”

      “I wasn’t kissing boys,” she said defensively. “I was kissing you.”

      As if that made all the difference, Hunter forgot about it and sat back. The rainbow grew brighter, the colors more distinct. “Okay. Hey? You wanna find it?”

      “What?”

      “The gold at the end of the rainbow.”

      “You bet,” Claire said, unconsciously echoing her daddy’s favorite phrase.

      Hunter bolted off the steps. “Finders keepers!” he yelled, racing ahead of her and into the woods.

      Claire ran after him. They clambered over the split rail fence and scrambled through the thicket. They splashed through the creek and dashed over the sodden ground and into the field.

      “Over there,” Claire pointed. But when they looked up, the rainbow had dimmed.

      They ran harder and faster, until Hunter held his side and Claire was out of breath.

      “Wait. It’s—it’s gone….” she faltered, her face pinched. They both looked at the place the rainbow was supposed to be and turned around—and around. Until they were dizzy, and they were certain it was gone.

      “We waited too long,” Hunter said finally. “Maybe next time.”

      There was nothing left to do but trudge back to the cabin.

      “I thought for sure if we found it everybody would be happy,” Claire said finally. She blinked back one hot tear before Hunter saw it and called her a crybaby. “At least for my mom and dad, and everything.”

      “You know, Claire,” Hunter said, when they got to the fence, “I’ll bet if we buried a little gold, the next time we had a double rainbow, it would make more. Lots more. And then all we’d have to do is just go dig it up, and we’d have all we’d ever need. We could do all the things we ever wanted to do. We could help everybody.”

      “Really?”

      “Sure.”

      Claire stopped and looked at him, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Hunter? I know where to get some gold.”

      “Yeah. Right.”

      “I do.” She climbed over the fence and started walking faster. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

      The car still stood in the driveway, and her mother’s purse was still in СКАЧАТЬ