One day Ajax the monkey was enjoying a juicy fruit in a tree branch, when he accidentally dropped the fruit, and it fell to the jungle floor with a thud. Ajax swung down and dropped next to it. Just as his hand was about to close again on the delicious half-eaten fruit, he stopped short, staring at something else on the ground.
It was black and shaped a bit like a box with part of a black tube sticking out of the side. Ajax knew what it was. He had seen one before. It was a camera.
Ajax had himself been photographed by humans. He had sat in tree branches eating fruit and watching the humans with their cameras.
Ajax even knew how to hold the camera and which button to push. But when he pushed it, nothing happened. Ajax wrinkled his brow.
He turned the camera around, pushing buttons. Until he heard a tiny beep … and a little screen lit up. Then Ajax held the camera up to his eye, and pushed the picture-taking button again.
Click.
**
“You’re sure there are no carnivores?” The nervous little yellow bird hopped after Ajax. “Who’s orange? Who’d you get for orange? Please let it be a clownfish.”
“For the last time—no carnivores. Relax,” Ajax snapped. He was surrounded by animals. A bright red cardinal perched calmly on a tree stump. Ajax looked around. “Where’s the frog?”
“Here,” came a voice on the ground.
All the animals craned their necks and stared at the ground.
“I can’t see him. Get the frog to sit on that leaf.”
A couple animals began carefully prodding at the ground to find the frog.
Suddenly there were shrieks, and a cloud of birds shooting into the air, and a tiger appeared.
The tiger strolled slowly into the midst of animals, who backed up nervously.
The goldfinch screamed and was about to dart away when Ajax deftly reached out and caught him. “Stay,” said Ajax.
“You said no carnivores! You said no carnivores!”
“Tut is a vegetarian.”
The goldfinch erupted into panicked laughter. “That’s a lie! You can’t put me next to a tiger!”
“I have to. This photo is called the Rainbow of Life. Orange and Yellow go next to each other.”
“I haven’t eaten an animal in a year,” stated Tut.
Ajax reached out and dropped the trembling goldfinch onto a log.
The cardinal sat on Tut’s head. The frog had been found and was sitting on its designated leaf. A blue morpho butterfly alighted next to it. And on a rock at the end was a big, beautiful purple starfish.
“Looks lovely, lovely,” Ajax said with the camera to his eye. “Goldfinch, get on the other side of the frog, please. Yellow comes before Green.”
The poor whimpering goldfinch hopped a few inches closer to Tut.
“Now on the count of—what’s that snake doing?”
There was a snake between the butterfly and the starfish.
The goldfinch screamed and flew up into a tree.
“I’m Indigo!” said the snake.
“You’re what?”
“Indigo!”
“Indigo, you’re ruining the photo. Please slither over there.”
“No, no, that’s my color! I go between blue and violet. ROY G BIV.”
“What’s he talking about?” Ajax asked into the ear of a little black bear next to him. The bear shrugged.
“I’m Indigo, it’s a bluish color—it’s even in my name—I’m an Indigo Snake.”
“We already have blue. Look at the beautiful butterfly,” Ajax said. “And anyway you look—sort of dark gray. And you’re ruining the photo. Please go away.”
The snake slithered away sadly.
The goldfinch was persuaded to come down again, and Ajax took the photo.
**
“I spent seven hundred dollars on that camera,” Anthony told his friend Ned as they trudged back through the jungle. “I just can’t leave without looking.”
Click.
Anthony and Ned looked at each other.
Click.
“Sounds like a camera,” Ned remarked.
“It came from over here.” Anthony pulled back a tree branch. The two men saw a tiger sitting still with a cardinal on its head, with a group of animals facing it, in the middle of which a monkey was holding a camera, taking pictures.
Emily H.
Billy Conderson was shoveling mashed potatoes and roast beef into his mouth as fast as he possibly could, eyeing his older brother Boscoe warily. Boscoe was seated across the table from him, also shoveling dinner into his mouth as fast as he possibly could, though we was staring with an air of forced disinterest at the window, where the yellow orb of the sun was turning the horizon bright shades of red and orange. Sitting next to Billy was the eldest Conderson child Margerie, who was staring with unforced disinterest at her plate and the potatoes and green beans she was picking at.
Billy brought his fork to his mouth, counting down the bites left on his plate. He could probably finish his portion of roast beef in three more bites, and then that last hunk on the serving platter would be all his. Mrs. Conderson had a hard-and-fast rule that no one could take seconds until they had finished everything on their plates first. He glanced at Boscoe’s plate. They were just about even.
Billy took another bite. Two left. Another bite. One. Another bite.
In a sudden chaos and clatter, the two boys simultaneously lunged for the serving platter in the middle of the table. Billy reached the roast first, but Boscoe’s hand bumped the edge of the platter which upended it, sending the bit of beef flying. The boys watched, dismayed and mesmerized, to see where it would land.
To their morbid delight, the piece of meat landed with a satisfying plop in the middle of the plate belonging to their teenage sister. Potatoes splattered into her face, and beans rolled into her lap. With a horrified shriek she lept to her feet.
“Ugh, you carnivores are so disgusting!” she yelled, and stomped out of the room.
“Kids, no fighting!” they heard their mother half-heartedly call out from the kitchen, where she was preparing the blueberry cobbler for dessert.
Billy and Boscoe looked at each other and burst out giggling as they heard Margerie huffing up the stairs. As if girls weren’t already hard enough to understand, she was a teenager and a vegetarian. Boscoe might have been Billy’s dinner-eating rival, but at least they understood each other.
Boscoe grabbed the roast off of Margerie’s plate and cut it in half, handing one piece to Billy. The smell of the cobbler was wafting pleasantly out of the kitchen, and the sky outside had mellowed to deep shades of indigo and violet. They heard a door upstairs close and reopen a few moments later, and Margerie came traipsing back down the stairs a little less huffily.
She slipped back into her seat, wearing her artist’s smock as protection against spilling beans and Boscoe’s hockey mask as protection against splattering potatoes. She pulled up the mask, winked at the boys and took a bite of her remaining dinner. When Mrs. Conderson came in with dessert a few minutes later, all three of her children were laughing comfortably, and as she served up the cobbler, Margerie said, with fork poised, “ready boys? Get set! GO!”
Elisa
Annie jumped from the back of the pickup truck before it came to a complete stop. Her two braids whacked her sweaty violet dress as she landed in the dead grass with a thud and a giggle.
“Nice roll,” laughed her twin brother, Andrew, as he rolled up beside her.
“Tootsie roll!” Annie hollered as she sprang to her feet and bounded towards all the commotion. The sky blazed red and hot as the sun sank behind the ferris wheel. This was Annie’s first ever night at the county fair!
The first thing Annie did was, well truth be told, she chewed on her braid. She did this all the time without thinking. But while she was chewing on the indigo ribbon that didn’t quite match her dress her eyes were peeled looking for Johnny Hansen. She knew without a doubt that he would be here tonight, sporting his bright blue FFA shirt. Johnny showed cattle, and even though Annie didn’t want to have anything to do with the huge orange beasts, she wanted everything to do with Johnny.
“Well, hello there darling?” Annie heard a high-pitched voice out of the crowd. She prayed it wasn’t directed at her. To her dismay Miss Campbell, her old music teacher soon loomed before her, though not by much. She was rather stooped by now and Annie was too close for comfort to her ancient yellow teeth.
“Annie! Over here, quick!” yelled Andrew from the ferris wheel line.
“Gotta go!” Annie held her breath and darted past Miss Campbell.
“Thanks,” she panted when she reached her brother.
“Yeah, it looked like you needed some help.” He smiled slyly, “Plus.” He nudged her and pointed up the line. There was Johnny Hansen—with Amanda Singer, dressed to kill in a green skirt that Annie’s father would never let her out of the house in!
“What a carnivore, eh?” Andrew did not look happy.
“Yeah, who needs him,” Annie stifled a sniff, “I’d rather ride with you anyday.”
Cedar
The challenge: Write a story or story fragment using all of the words:
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet
Carnivore
22 minutes
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