THE PUDDLE PIXIES - CHAPTER 6 - THE PIXIE WHALE

One day, Puddle Pixie Anna woke up early and looked out of the window. There were the puddaloes, all lined up along the bank bobbing gently on the water, waiting for the working day to begin.
Peering closer, she saw a strange white shape moving through the grey water in the puddle. It moved backwards and forwards, and Anna thought it looked like a smooth shiny submarine.

But this was no submarine! Suddenly a jet of water shot up into the air, and a huge tail flicked up and crashed down SPLASH into the water. Yes, this was in fact - a WHALE!

Now, as everyone knows, whales usually live in the sea. But Pixie Whales can live in any kind of water, and so, sometimes, after lots of rain has fallen, a Pixie Whale can swim from sea to puddle, then from puddle to puddle to puddle, through the narrow channels which run between them. However, when the sun once again gets hot in the sky, sometimes the channels linking the puddles to the sea dry up, and whales can become stranded in a puddle a long way from their home in the Faraway Sea, until the the rain comes again to fill up the channels and they can return home.

So there was the whale, swimming up and down the puddle outside Anna’s house. He saw Anna watching him out of her window, and gave her a cheery wave with his flipper.
‘Ahoy there’
he shouted (for all Pixie animals can talk to Puddle Pixies, the Pixie language being universal.)
‘My name is Wilfred Pixie Whale. What’s yours?’
Anna replied :
‘I am Puddle Pixie Anna, and I live here. But what are you doing in our
Puddle?’
‘I was out for a bit of a swim earlier on after the rain, and I must have
come too far, for when I tried to swim back to the sea, the channels had
all dried up, so it looks as if I will have to stay here until the next
downpour!’
‘Oh dear,’
said Anna.
‘Don’t worry, I will make sure you get some food’.

With that, she disappeared from the window, and a few minutes later she stood on the Puddle bank with a basket of pixie bread and some sweets for her new friend Wilfred.
This went on for several days, and Anna and Wilfred became good pals, and looked forward to their mealtime chats, when Wilfred told Anna tales of all the wonderful places he had seen.
One starry night, the rain began. It started of as very fine, sparkly rain, and Wilfred hoped their might soon be enough water to fill the channels which would enable him to swim back to the sea.

He looked up at the sky, wondering if their was enough rain on the way to get him home, when suddenly his eyes widened and his great mouth fell open in wonder.
He had seen something truly amazing.
‘Anna, Anna, come and have a look at this’
he called.
‘What is it?’
Anna replied, pushing her knuckles into her drooping eyes to wipe the Sleepy Sandman away. She yawned with a mouth almost as wide as Wilfred’s.
‘Look up quickly’
said Wilfred excitedly, pointing upwards with his flipper.

She looked, and looked, and LOOKED, her eyes growing wider and wider as she saw, there in the sky above the puddle, a beautiful moonbow, shimmering and shining in the glow of the moonlight.

Now, a moonbow is such a rare thing, you are probably wondering what it is.
Very, very, VERY occasionally, when the sky is clear, the stars are twinkling like frosty snowflakes and the moon is shining very brightly, sometimes, just sometimes, it will start raining with exactly the right sort of rain which can cut through moonbeams and create a beautiful arch in the sky, just like a rainbow; not multicoloured however, but in wondrous shades of silver, grey and diamond white.
‘Oh, a MOONBOW’ sighed Anna.
She had heard of them, but had never seen one before.
She quickly ran to tell her parents.

As soon as they heard there was a Moonbow above the Puddle, Anna’s Mum and Dad were wide awake and running hither and thither to wake the other Puddle Pixies. Soon, the older Puddle Pixies were running down to the bank and launching the puddaloes. You see, in the same way that the Pixies could catch rainbows and make them into things like boots, umbrellas and raincoats, they could do the same with moonbows; but because they were so rare, the silky clouds of moonbow silk were so valuable and so entrancingly beautiful, that they were fit only for a Queen.

‘Quickly Pixies’ called Dad, ‘Get as much as you can before it disappears.’
Soon all the puddaloes were laden with the shimmering, shining material; then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the moonbow vanished. As they unloaded their precious cargo, Dad said : ‘This is all thanks to Wilfred. We had better give him a special gift tonight!’

But Wilfred was nowhere to be seen. Then, far away in the distance, Maxie Pixie spotted a silver stream of water shooting towards the sky, which was now becoming lighter as day dawned. While the pixies were busy collecting the Moonbow, it had quietly rained enough to fill the channels, and Wilfred was swimming home.
‘Never mind’ Anna said
‘I will make him a special moonbeam scarf and keep it for him until
the next time he comes. I am sure the Pixie Queen will be happy to spare a little of the silk; after all, if it wasn’t for Wilfred, we would never have
seen the Moonbow!’

So Anna went sleepily back to bed, and slept happily, dreaming of her friend on his way back to the sea, and thinking how fine he would look in his new scarf.