End Of The Rainbow
"Mon-ET!" Jubilee screamed out the back door of Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters.
"What is it, Lee?" Monet's supremely confidant and very imperious voice called back.
"What did you do to my coat?" Jubilee asked, angrily shaking her yellow raincoat in the air.
"What do you mean, what did I do to your coat? Your the one who wears it. I wouldn't be caught dead in that fashion disaster." Monet's uninterested voice drifted back.
"Oh yeah? Then what was it doing in your closet?!"
"I'm sure I don't know. It wasn't there this morning, or I'd have trashed the thing!"
"Why you little...!!!!" Jubilee's angry tirade was inturrupted by the appearance of Husk.
"Hey, Lee," Husk said cheerily, jogging in place. She mouthed the words blaring in her ears and adjusted the volume of her walkman. "What's up?"
"What's up? What's up! Ms. Saintly Croix up there, that's what's up!" Jubilee said, steam fairly rising from her head, "Do you know what she did? She took a bite out of my raincoat!!"
"What?" Husk laughed. Then her eyes fastened on Jubilee's coat, and her laughter abruptly stopped. There were two, quite large, bite marks on the bottom of Jubilee's coat.
"I would do no such-" Monet began haughtily, sticking her head out of a tree and catching sight of Jubilee's coat, "thing."
"Lee," Choked Husk, "That don't look human!"
"She's right," said Monet, cocking her head, "It looks like a bear or something...."
"ARGH!" Jubilee screamed,"Like there'd be a bear in the school!!" She turned and stormed back inside, slamming the door behind her and scaring a flock of birds into taking flight.
"Interesting," said Monet, before disappearing back into the trees.
Husk shrugged, turned up the volume on her walkman, and jogged on.
The leprachaun clutched the two pieces of yellow raincoat and laughed so hard he fell over.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Penance enjoyed peace and quiet. Especially the quiet. The best place to spend her days, she'd learned, was the garden-like room, so after her morning apple, she headed there.
The funny little man...called "Gateway"...was here already, sitting on a rock and soaking up sunlight. Penance remembered him. He'd taken her away from the other place. So to show how much happier she was, and to thank him, she found him a flower. It was a beautiful flower, blue and white with yellow around the edges. Shes stared at it for a long time, watching a honey bee buzz around it before deciding on a red flower, and a few ants crawl up in it.
"Hey you!" A tiny voice came to her. She ignored it, concentrating on the flower, forgetting for a moment that it was customary to answer when spoken to. Of course, it had been a long time since she'd understood words...
Something hit her shoulder, bringing with it a flash of pain. Frightened, Penance slid away and looked back to see who attacked her. Only a glint of gold and the serrated edge of a coin were behind her.
"That'll teach ye to ignore me! Nobody ignores Seamus O'Gregor without me ex-press permission."
Penance turned her head slightly and had the fortunate...or unfortunate...happenstance to see a living, breathing leprachaun. She had the chance to see him, that is, right up until he leaped onto her shoulder and held onto her ear.
"Ach, wee one," he said, his tone gentling, "So 't be that way, is it?"
Penance ignored the leprachaun, as much as she could, and went back to watching the flower. The bee was back, and the ants had almost reached the top of the flower.
"Well, then," the leprachaun said, "Why don't you pick the flower?"
Penance reached out for the bloom. Her fingers passed right through the stem, cutting it cleanly, and with a 'whoosh' of air, the head fell to the ground. The ants ran of into the grass and the bee buzzed off to find a more promising flower.
"No, no, no," said the leprachaun, jumping to the ground, "We can't have this!" He pushed up the small sleeves of his coat, and flipped the tail back. He winked at Penance as he set his hat back at a jaunty angle.
"A flower for the lass," he said. He brought his hand around from behind his back, and as he drew it closer to Penance, a flow grew. He handed it to her with a bow.
penance reached out her hand hesitatingly and took the flower. The stem bent slightly under the pressure, but didnt' break. it was perfect...blue and white with yellow around the edges and a trail of ants inside. The bee came back to see what all the fuss was about.
Her face glowing, Penance smiled at the leprachaun, and then ran to Gateway.
The leprachaun turned around with a deep sigh. "Ah, Seamus, is this what ye've lowered yeself to? Makin' flowers for lassies?" He sighed again, for dramatic effect, and then rested his head on his hands. After a minute, he suddenly stood straight up with a wicked gleam in his eyes. He turned to look at Penance and Gateway. With a mischevious smile, he reached behind his back and then pulled out his hand, getting wetter and wetter the closer it got to Gateway...
The bucket of water hit Gateway full in the face.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"I'm telling you, Ev," Skin said to his friend Synch, pedalling his bike up the driveway with a look of grim determination on his face. "There's no way that Jewel's better than Fiona Apple!"
"Oh, come on, Ange!" Synch said idolly, zigzagging back and forth on his bike. "You've only liked Fiona since you saw her video!"
"So?" asked Skin.
"Sooo....She's not even competition for Jewel! Admit it," Synch said, taking his hands from the handelbar, " Just like your no competiton for me! Look, no hands!"
A sudden red blur ran right in front of Synch, and with a yell, he tumbled into a ditch on the side of the driveway. He pulled himself up off the ground and sat there, spitting dirt and glaring glumly at his bike.
Skin showed up at the top of the ditch, stopping his bike so that Synch was showered with dirt again. Synch reached up to brush off his head and transferred his glare to Skin instead.
"Hahahahahahahha," laughed Skin, doubling over on his bike,"Your so good, you went with no hands or feet!"
"Oh, shut up," said Synch, climbing out of the ditch and sitting down next to Skin. "I hope Banshee can fix that mess. What
was that thing that hit me, anyways?"
"Penance."
"Oh," Synch stared down morosely at his bike, "She was dripping wet!"
"So?" Skin shrugged, snickering,"Maybe she went for a swim in the lake. Hey, watch this...I'll show you how we do no-hands in the 'hood!"
Skin took off on his bike...and ran right into a tree that hadn't been there two minutes before.
* * * * * * * * * * *
All the rest of that day, strange things kept happening.
Chamber's jacket disappeared when he took it off to wash his face, and Monet found it later in the fruit drawer of the refrigerator.
When Jubilee went out to practice on the rings, she discovered one of them wasn't attached securely. After she'd already started her routine.
Banshee's bagpipes, his secret non-Irish hobby, were run up the flagpole with Emma's new brassiere. No one cared to stay around the main building after that sight.
Monet was attacked by an invisible squirrel when she went up to the treehouse. She was picking nuts out of her hair for the rest of the day.
Emma's entire room was plastered with "Kiss me-I'm Irish" stickers. She blamed Banshee and wouldn't speak to him after that.
The final straw was when Husk discovered the fruit roll-ups were all unrolled and the cut-out designs plastered all over the walls of the kitchen.
"That's it!" roared Banshee, "Whoever's doing this had better admit it right now!"
Nobody said anything. Emma looked out the window, disdainfully ignoring Banshee.
A gale of laughter from above had everyone looking up. There said the leprachaun, his hat about to tumble off his head and his arm hooked around a rafter. "Oh, but ye be good for a laugh," he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.
"A leprachaun!" Skin said, jumping up from his seat. "Catch him, quick!"
The leprachaun shook a finger. "Ye'll not be catching Seamus O'Gregor, lad, that ye won't!"
"Why you little rat!" said Jubilee, juming up and shaking her fist at him. The leprachaun just laughed harder.
"A leprachaun?" snorted Emma daintily, "I doubt it. Why would he be here if he was a leprachaun?"
"Because this is where me pot o' gold is," said the leprachaun, drawing himself up proudly, "I surely be a leprachaun, ye harpy! I'll be here while the Rainbow is."
A moment of horrified silence.
"Oh, get the looks off ye faces! The rainbow's not going to be here forever, y'know!"
A sigh of deep relief.
"What about my coat?!" asked Jubilee beligerantly, hands on her hips.
The leprachaun brought his hand out from behind his back slowly and tossed a yellow raincoat, freshly laundered and perfect, with a bow torwards Jubilee. He winked at all of them, tilted his head back, whistled jauntily, and skipping once, disappeared. Outside the last of the rainbow faded from the sky.
"I still say we should have caught him," muttered Skin.
A cartload of rotten fruit fell on him.
"Oh, ew," said Jubilee, wearing her raincoat,"Your cleaning it up."
The leprachauns laughter drifted back from the end of the rainbow.
The End
This fanfic is by Jeanne aka FlameWraith. She has six Generation X fanfics on my page. Through our correspondence, we have become good friends. She's great!
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