The Monster who Drank the Rainbow

Written by Rebbecca Hemmings

Children at Cannon Hill Park in Edgbaston were involved in an interactive Story making session.
This is the Monster they created.....

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There was once a place called Happy Village. It was called this because all the people there were very happy. They were always smiling, laughing and generally doing things that made them happy. Every time a villager saw another person, they would smile a big smile, wave a huge wave and gave each other massive hugs.

They did lots of things that made them happy. They played football. They went to the beach. They played lots of games. But the thing they liked doing more than anything was baking cakes. All kinds of cakes were baked every day. Every day the air in Happy Village was filled with the lovely smells of baked cakes. Lemon cakes, chocolate cakes, orange cakes, blueberry cakes, cherry cakes, strawberry cakes, cakes with sprinkles on, cakes with butter icing, and cupcakes. In fact they baked every kind of cake you can imagine. Baking and eating cakes made everyone even happier than they were before.

Well, except one person. The monster that lived in a cave on the edge of the village was very unhappy. He always wore a big frown on his face. He was sad because his job was to scare people but the people of the village were not scared of him. They were so happy that he could not make them sad. He had tried his hardest to scare the people by making ugly faces, jumping out at people and roaring, he even tried to wake people up from their sleep. But nothing worked! The people would just smile at him, give him a hug and offer him some cake.

This made him sad. He felt he was not a real monster. Real monsters were supposed to make people sad and scare them. He had not done that. So he stayed in his cave away from the people trying to think of ways to make the people unhappy. He thought that if he could make the people sad it would make him happy. He wanted to be happy more than anything in the world.

One day, on a walk back from drinking from the river, the monster noticed it had started to rain. As usual the people came out of their houses and danced and laughed in the rain. He rolled his eyes and grumbled, then started to walk back to his cave. Just before he stepped into his house, the sun came out. He then noticed the rainbow appear. All of a sudden the people cheered and danced, like it was Christmas. They had not seen the rainbow in months.

“Let’s have a rainbow party!” Said a villager.

The whole village cheered, some ran to get cakes, others skipped to get the party decorations and others hugged and danced around each other. The monster observed all of this miserably. That was until a brilliant thought entered his head. If he got rid of the rainbow (this thing that made the people even happier than when they were baking cakes), he would make them really sad. He saw the big straw he had used to drink from the river. He grinned and ran to the end of the rainbow.

Straight away he put the straw in his mouth and started to suck from the end of the rainbow. He drank the rainbow all up! When he had finished, the sky went dark and it started to thunder and rain. The people who were dancing in the street stopped, they looked at the monster in disbelief. Then as the monster had hoped, their huge smiles turned all the way down and they all became very sad. They were so sad that one by one they started to cry. The crying became so loud that it was almost became deafening. The monster smiled and skipped back home.

“Finally!” he said to himself. “I have made them sad! Yippee, I’m a real monster!” He danced a silly dance all the way back to his cave.

However, when he got home, he had a  horrible feeling in his stomach. He did not like it. He realised that he was feeling very bad. He felt bad that he had made the people cry. The people had not done anything bad to him. All they had done was smile at him, hug him and bake cakes for him. In fact they had been very kind to him.

He thought “If being horrible makes me feel like this, then I do not want to be like other monsters.”

He decided he needed to make people happy again. The only problem was, he did not know what to do. This made him really upset, so sad that he started to cry. He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. He cried so much that his tears started to go into his mouth. When they did, he noticed they had a beautiful taste. He had never tasted something so yummy in his life! He licked his lips and fell in love with the taste. Then he noticed a tear drop on his lap, and he was amazed! His tear contained all the colours of the rainbow. He could not believe it! The rainbow had not only made his tears taste delicious and they were also the same colours as the rainbow! This made the monster very happy as now he knew what he had to do.

The Monster ran around his cave and found all the sad movies he could find. He puts lots of jugs around him. He sat down on his sofa and watched the movies. These movies made him so unhappy that cried and cried and cried, like a big baby. As he cried, his tears splashed into the jugs. When he had enough tears, he smiled and got to work. He put all the ingredients together and baked hundreds of cupcakes using his tasty tears. They looked like the rainbow and tasted marvellous!

Once they were all baked, he ran out excitedly to the people with his cupcakes. He had a huge smile on his face but the people did not.

“What are you smiling at, you big bully?” said a little man. “You have made us all very upset and grumpy!”

“I am very very sorry. I should not have done it. But look, I have made some delicious cakes to make you happy again!” Said the monster.

 “We don’t want anything from you!  All these years you have tried to make us sad just like you and now finally you have. You have even taken our rainbow! We do not need anything from you, thank you very much.” said a woman who sounded very annoyed.

The monster talked to them again, “But, I have made these for you all. They are rainbow cakes. They taste beautiful, you will love them.”

“Keep them!” said the old man. With that, the villagers turned around and started to walk away. However, a little girl went up to the monster with her little sad face. She slowly took one of the cakes from the monster and she took a bite. As soon as she did that, her feet started to shake. Her knees began to wobble. Before she knew it, she was dancing like she had never danced before. She screamed out to the villagers, “Woo hoo! These cakes taste amazing! I feel happier than ever! You must try one!”

One by one the villagers curiously took a rainbow cupcake from the monster, never taking their eyes off him. As they did that their feet shook, their knees wobbled and they started to dance like they were on stage. They could not believe how happy the cakes had made them.

The rain stopped and the sun shone on the entire village.

“Wow these cakes look and taste great!” said the old man.

“How did you make them?” said the womanly, curiously.

“I made them with the essence from the rainbow.” Said the monster.

“These are the best tasting cakes I have ever had! Rainbow cakes are beautiful!” Said the little girl.

The villagers carried on dancing and celebrating. When all the cakes were finished, the monster smiled. The happy dancing villagers said “Thank you!” The monster had done what he came to do. As he was walking away, he felt a little tap on his shoulder. He turned around, it was the little girl.

She said, “Thank you for making us happy again.”

 “That’s okay. I am really sorry for what I did. I just wanted to be happy but being horrible does not make me happy. It makes me feel really awful and I do not like feeling awful.” said the monster.

The villagers stopped dancing and listened.

 “Monster, now that you are happy too. Why don’t you come and live in the village with us? We will make sure you never get sad again. You could bake more of your rainbow cakes for us.”

“Really? You would like me, a monster to live in the village?”

All the people nodded and smiled. The monster thought about it for a while and said, “Well, to be honest, I don’t think I have what it takes to be a scary monster. Yes, thank you I would love to live in the village.”

Everybody cheered and the old man shouted “Let’s celebrate!” With that, all the people danced and ate until the sun went down.

After that day, no one (including the monster) was ever unhappy ever again.

The monster had learned a very valuable lesson: Making others sad, makes you feel sad but making people happy, makes you very, very happy indeed. He liked being happy.