CHAPTER 2
The party was in full swing. It hadn't been difficult to convince Herriman to throw the party for Rainbow because he had already been entertaining the same idea. The dining room was decorated with balloons and streamers, and filled with imaginary friends from all across the house. Mac was pleased to see that Rainbow was a bluish-green color, so it was obvious he was starting to enjoy himself. He was currently talking with Wilt and Coco about something or other. Mac took a look around to see what the others were doing; Eduardo was getting some punch, and Frankie was bringing more food out to the big table, which already had bowls of punch and various snacks across it. Madam Foster had also attended, since she could never miss a party willingly, though she looked a bit separated from it... or maybe just bored? Mr. Herriman was simply observing to make certain nothing got out of hand. That reminded Mac to go look for Bloo, who was nowhere to be seen at this time.
As Mac ran off looking for Bloo, Wilt was sipping his own punch, and looked down at Rainbow, answering a question, "Sure, I love it here, but it can get pretty crazy sometimes. I mean, you never know what unusual friends will come to live here. Just last week, we had a friend who had been created to play hide and seek, so that's all he did. For days. Like, even during the late hours of the night."
Rainbow chuckled, "Wow! Do you ever play?"
Coco said, "Co co co cococo co co co."
"Yeah," Wilt agreed, "I'm way too big for hide and seek. Now, you'd probably be good at it, Rainbow, since you're so small." Rainbow nodded, smiling; Wilt had to admit, he looked a lot more happy and confident than before.
Mac, in the meantime, had peered into the adjoining rooms, but found no sign of Bloo. He went over by Mr. Herriman, who said, "Ah, Master Mac. Enjoying the festivities, are we?"
"Sure, sure," Mac said, distractedly looking around. "Have you seen..."
"Master Blooregard?" Herriman interrupted. "I share your concern. It is only a matter of time before he makes some sort of disruptive attempt at garnering attention that will threaten the stability of this gathering."
"Exactly," Mac said, nodding. "So if you see him..." He trailed off as he finally spotted him: He had walked into the room from one of the side doors, casually moving through the crowd with a wide smile plastered on his face. Uh oh, Mac thought, that can't be good...
Bloo nonchalantly got a cup of punch from the table and sipped it. Mac ran over to him and demanded, "All right, what are you up to?"
Bloo shook his head, still smiling, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Mac jabbed a finger in his direction and said, "I'm watching you. I know you're up to something, and it won't happen..."
"Whatever you say," Bloo said, amused. He resumed sipping his punch, but then dropped it in surprise and pointed behind Mac, exclaiming, "Aah! What the heck is that?"
"Where?!" Mac said, spinning around. Too late, he realized what had happed and quickly turned back to Bloo, but he had already hopped up onto the table and out of reach, then jumped onto a large plate of gelatin dessert, using it to bounce up and onto the chandelier above the table. It swayed a little from his weight, but he had a good hold of it. Reaching down onto the chandelier, he picked up a megaphone that he had undoubtedly stashed there.
"Attention, everyone!" Bloo shouted through the megaphone. Everyone in the room stopped to take notice, and he continued, "Thank you all for coming to the party. I'm glad to see everyone's having a wonderful time, but now, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize why we're here. So I say..." He hesitated, reaching for a rope dangling nearby that he had cleverly disguised as a streamer, and pulled it, "...a toast!"
Immediately, slices of toast began raining form the ceiling. Everyone covered their heads as the toast bounced off of them and piled up on the ground and table. Mac didn't know what was worse: getting pelted on the head by the slices, or the horrible pun. But then, Bloo caught one of the pieces in his free hand and waved it, shouting, "That's right, a toast! To the bes--... er, second best imaginary friend in the house: Rainbow!"
Everyone applauded, and Rainbow smiled modestly, turning a very bright green. Mac was impressed... Bloo certainly didn't do anything without making a big deal about it, but it was nice to see him doing it for someone else for once. That was a little tamer than I was expecting, Mac thought... It's almost as if he still had something left...
Bloo shouted, "Now let's party!" A few other friends around the room took this cue and did their assigned tasks: the room lights went out and were replaced by colored dance lights, and some loud techno started playing. Almost everyone began dancing immediately, with only a few exceptions like Mr. Herriman, though for his frustration, he looked mildly pleased. Madam Foster finally livened up and was out dancing with the others. Rainbow definitely looked like he was having a good time; if nothing else, the party obviously succeeded in its original intention.
"...So then, Mac and Bloo pull up in the Foster's bus," Wilt told Rainbow as they walked through the halls after the party, "and they're surrounded by cops and other angry people. You should have seen the look on Frankie's face!" Wilt chuckled at the thought of that day; looking back, it was all kind of funny now.
"That's crazy," Rainbow said with a grin as they went into Wilt's room he shared with the others; right now, it was empty except for them. "That had to have taken a while to sort out."
"You don't even want to know," Wilt remarked. He sat down on the bed; it was Bloo's bed, but as long as Bloo wasn't using it, it was usually okay. "Hey, there's something I wanted to talk to you about; is that okay?" he asked, patting a spot next to him.
Rainbow hopped up onto the bed and sat down, looking up at Wilt, "What is it?"
"Well," Wilt told him, "I'm sorry to bring it up, but you see... I know what happened to you, why you're here."
"Oh..." Rainbow said, lowering his eyes and turning blue again slowly. "You heard..."
Wilt nodded, "If you want to talk about it, I'll listen. If that's okay, I mean..."
Rainbow didn't look up, but nodded slowly. He hesitated, then spoke quietly, "M-my boy... his name was Kevin... He created me because... because his parents used to fight a lot. I... I cheered him up, but I also helped the family... It took a while, but they changed. They never fought again, thanks to me... things couldn't have been better after that, and Kevin was happier than he'd ever been."
"Kevin was lucky to have someone great like you to help out," Wilt said understandingly.
Rainbow's color became a much deeper blue, and he said, "But now... now I don't have anyone..."
"You have us," Wilt reminded him. "The friends at Foster's will always be there for you."
"Thanks," Rainbow said, some of his green returning. "I guess I'll get used to it eventually. What about you?"
"I love this place!" Wilt said with a smile. "All of my best friends I made while I was here."
Rainbow looked at him quizzically, "Really? That's... well, I don't know..." He looked hesitant.
"What is it?" Wilt asked.
"I'm sorry, Wilt," Rainbow said. "Maybe it's just the way you described it, but... I kind of got the impression they didn't respect you that much..."
"Huh?" Wilt said, surprised, "What do you mean?"
"Well, that story you just told me," Rainbow pointed out, "when they wanted you to lie for them. I understand doing it for friends, but it goes along with those other stories you told me before... it really sounds like they're just taking advantage of you sometimes."
"But I like helping my friends," Wilt declared proudly. "Nothing brings me greater joy!"
Rainbow shrugged, "I understand helping others; I did it myself, after all. But friends help friends, and that means they should help you, too. Do they help you? Or do you only help them?"
Wilt stopped to think about this, then said, "I don't want to be a burden.."
"Wanting something for yourself isn't being a burden," Rainbow said, hopping back down from the bed and looking up at Wilt again. "It's being a person. It's normal, and you can't be afraid of that."
"Yeah..." Wilt agreed, "I guess..."
Rainbow brightened a little and said, "But hey, don't mind me. I'm sure they're really not like that at all. You probably do get what you want at least once and a while, right? Sorry if I jumped to conclusions there." He started for the door, and then hesitated, "Are you coming?"
"I'll be along in a bit," Wilt replied, and Rainbow disappeared out of the door with a small wave and a smile. Wilt smiled back until he was gone, then his expression fell and he sighed to himself. His thoughts drifted to an incident once when all he wanted to do was watch a important basketball game, and his helpful nature forced him to miss it. They hadn't given him an inch, and it was as if they didn't care about what he wanted. Wilt always prided himself on being generous, but Rainbow was right; that generosity was seldom returned.
He looked down at the bed he was sitting on... another example of his unpaid kindness. He had offered it for Bloo's use, and never once did anyone offer him a place to sleep; he had to resort to sleeping under his former bed. And that was just the tip of the iceberg; he began thinking about countless other times he had sacrificed something and got nothing...
Wait a minute, Wilt thought; I shouldn't get all worked up over this. I mean, it's not like they're doing this on purpose. Some people tend to forget, that's all. They aren't doing this just because they know they'll get away with it. Or... or are they...?
"C'mon!" Bloo demanded with a grin. He stood in the dining hall next to another imaginary friend, one shaped line an arrow wearing a Native American headdress. Bloo had directed the request at Mr. Herriman, "Say Chief's name again! Do it! C'mon!"
"Honestly," Mr. Herriman said, perplexed and slightly annoyed, "I'll never understand what you find so amusing when I address Master Chief; there's nothing unusual about his name..." Bloo broke into fits of laughter again; he didn't know what was better: the joke, or the fact that Herriman was oblivious to it.
"All right, break it up," Frankie said, shooing Bloo and the others out of the hall, which was still littered with streamers, punch glasses, and slices of toast. "I've got a lot of cleaning to do, and if you aren't helping, then scram." Mr. Herriman left as well to attend to some other house duties.
Meanwhile, Eduardo was carrying a large trash bag and was picking up trash from the ground as he moved across the hall. After Frankie finish getting everyone else out, she came back over and said, "Thanks for staying to help, Ed. I appreciate it."
"Si... I no mind helping you and senior Herriman," Eduardo said with a smile.
Frankie picked up some cleaning supplies and started wiping down the table, glaring off in the direction Bloo and the others left and saying, "I'm glad to see some people helping, instead of just getting in the way. It's nice to have a hand once and a wh--..." She blinked in surprise as she saw Rainbow enter the room, and said, "Hey, little guy, what's up?
Rainbow was a faint green, so he was probably in a good mood. He said, "I wanted to help clean up, if I could..."
"Oh, you don't need to help," Frankie told him. "This was your party; I don't want to make you work because of it."
"No really, it's all right," Rainbow said.
Before Frankie could respond, Eduardo called over, "Frankie?" He was holding up the empty punch bowl, "Is this trash?"
Walking over and taking it, she said, "No, Ed... look, I'll just take it to the kitchen, okay?" She started off towards the kitchen, picking up a few plates while she was at it. "Rainbow, if you really want, then I guess you could help Ed with the trash." Rainbow nodded, and Frankie took the armload of dishes and the punch bowl with her as she headed out towards the kitchen.
Rainbow walked over and picked a few things up from the ground, arranging them in piles to make it easier for Eduardo to pick them up. He said, "I wanted to thank you guys again for the party; it meant a lot to me."
"De nada, senior Rainbow," Eduardo said. "I like parties, and..." He was suddenly shocked out of what he was saying as he picked up a piece of toast; a spider scurried out from underneath it. Eduardo gave a yelp and jumped onto the dining table, dropping the trash bag to the floor. He stood shivering in fright, fixing his eyes on the spider nervously.
Rainbow wandered over and looked at the spider, then up at Eduardo. "Are you afraid of spiders, Ed?"
"Si, si!" Eduardo exclaimed. "They trying to get me! They trick me by hiding under the toast!"
Rainbow reached down and picked up the spider. It was huge in his tiny hands, and he turned a slight shade of yellow while he was holding it, but carried it over to the window, hopping up on the sill and letting it go outside. Afterwards, he changed back to green.
Eduardo climbed down from the table breathing a sigh of relief, "Gracias..."
"It's all right," Rainbow told him, and the two of them began cleaning up the trash from the spilled bag. "You shouldn't be afraid of something like that..." he told Eduardo.
"But you were scared too," Eduardo said. "I saw you change color!"
"Well yeah," he said, "I was a little scared holding it; after all, it was huge compared to me, and maybe if there were a few of them they could have hurt me, but I was brave anyway." He looked up, "No, I mean you shouldn't be afraid of them, you specifically. They'd be dangerous to someone like me long before they'd ever be dangerous to someone like you."
Eduardo protested, "But they... they out to get me..."
Rainbow shook his head, "No they aren't. They're not smart, Ed; they just crawl around looking for food, and don't even know anything about us. You should never be afraid of something that can't think well enough to be dangerous to someone your size."
"So... they not out to get me?" Eduardo asked, starting to feel even more relieved. "And neither are the bugs?"
"Don't be silly," Rainbow said with a smile. "There's a better chance of one of the friends in the house being out to get you. The bugs should be the last you'd suspect of something like that."
"I guess you right..." Eduardo said, then added, alarmed, "Wait, one of...? What?"
Rainbow waved it off, "Never mind. It's just an example. Everyone here is great; why would any of them have any reason to dislike you?" He scooped the last of the trash into the bag and said, "If you take that out to the trash, I'll go let Frankie know we're done, okay?"
"Okay..." Eduardo replied, picking up the garbage bag and leaving the hall. As he headed for the trash cans outside, his mind raced... Could someone be after me? No, they all mi amigos, they all like me... As he thought this, dozens of instances invaded his thoughts: times he had smashed something by accident that belonged to someone else, times that he had simply gotten in the way. Mr. Herriman could have still been upset over the imaginary dogs he let in, or any number of friends upset due to his problem once with fleas. It suddenly occurred to him that any of them could have a reason to want revenge on him...
He lowered the trash bag into one of the trash cans outside the house, then turned around to look at the building. He could see friends passing by the windows once and a while. Some of them seemed to stare at him before moving on, and he continued to get that creeping feeling of uneasiness, like someone was watching and waiting quietly, waiting for his guard to be down. Swallowing once, he cautiously reentered the house, though he was no longer certain it was safe...
What a crazy day, Mac thought, as he walked down the hall back to Bloo's room. I hope we did some good for Rainbow; he was definitely in better spirits; I haven't seen him blue once since the party started, and it looks like he's definitely warming up to Foster's. As he approached the door, Wilt emerged, and Mac said, "Hey, Wilt. Is Bloo in there?"
Wilt seemed distracted, and said, "Oh... uhh... no, haven't seen him. Sorry..."
Mac noticed that Wilt was a little less spirited than usual. He said, "Wilt, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Mac, I just... have a lot to think about," Wilt told him. He forced a small smile and continued down the hall. That was weird, Mac thought, but then shrugged it off and went into the room. Sure enough, Bloo wasn't inside, so he sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.
The door opened a few moments later, but it was Eduardo. He peeked inside the room, and then fixed his eyes on Mac, "Oh, senior Mac... it okay; I come back later..."
"Don't mind me, Ed," Mac said. "It's your room too, after all..."
Eduardo replied quickly, "No, it okay, adios." and slammed the door shut. Mac could hear him stomping away quickly down the hall. What's going on? Mac wondered. Both of them are acting strange...
The door reopened, and Bloo slid into the room, declaring, "You may now begin praising me for coming up with such a good idea. Rainbow's happy, we all had a party, and everything's awesome again." He did a little dance for a moment until he saw Mac's expression. "What? Too awesome?"
Mac frowned, "Bloo, we've got another problem. I just can't put my finger on it, but Rainbow's behavior is a little strange. I think he misses his family a lot, and he's relying on our support too much. We need to find him a home."
"That's easy," Bloo said. "Little guys like that find families in no time..."
"That's not what I mean," Mac explained. "The strange way he's acting is affecting other people too. We don't need to find just any family for him; we need to find another family similar to his."
"I guess, but how?" Bloo asked.
Mac lay back on the bed and stared at the bunk above him, "That's just it. We can't go back to his old family, because they're gone. So who else would know? How do we find out what his family was like?"
"Ask him," Bloo suggested. "Easy enough."
Shaking his head, Mac sat up and said, "And get him all depressed again? No, we've gotta see if we can find out on our own." Mac pondered for a moment, and then said, "We should take a look at the house. See what we can find out there. Just looking at the kid's room should give us enough info to go on."
"Cool, I've never visited a murder crime scene before!" Bloo exclaimed.
"Yeah," Mac said; the thought hadn't occurred to him. The idea of going into a house where a family had been murdered was a little unsettling, especially since the killer hadn't even spared someone as young as a five-year-old kid. The thought frightened him a little, but he reassured himself that nothing could happen...
"So where do we start?" Bloo asked.
"The police station, I guess," Mac answered. "They can tell us where the house is."
Bloo started rummaging through some dresser drawers, saying, "Hold on, I've got a few things that'll help..."
"Like what?" Mac said, not convinced.
Bloo found what he was looking for and quickly put them on. It was a Sherlock Holmes style detective hat, and a plastic bubble pipe shaped like the famous detective's. "There we go, all set!" Bloo exclaimed, and whipped out a magnifying glass for extra measure.
"Bloo," Mac said, "we're not investigating anything; we're just trying to find out what his family was like."
"Find out through clues," Bloo pointed out.
"Whatever, let's just go," Mac said, getting up and heading for the door, with Bloo close behind. As they left, Mac added, "And get me a set of those next time, will you?"
Rainbow sat alone in his room; his color had faded back to blue as he was doodling on some paper with a set of crayons. When he completed what he was drawing, he held it up to take a look at it. It was a smiling child, with "Kevin" written across his shirt. He stared at the drawing for a while, then shoved it under his bed and got a new sheet of paper, taking some red and purple crayons and drawing pictures of Wilt and Eduardo. His color shifted to green as he viewed his handiwork, and after a few moments of thinking, he put the purple crayon away and started drawing again. When he was done, there was a little picture of his own self standing between them...
To be continued…