Outstanding Story (Sub-junior) - The Rainbow Horse

“The Rainbow Horse” is one of the outstanding stories (sub-junior) of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2019 written by Harry Sharon, RA International School, Nigeria.

The Rainbow Horse

Once upon a time, there was a miller named John who had a son called Joe. The boy and his father liked rainbows. One day, they bought a horse that they liked. They took it home and tied it to a pole and went to sleep. Then something appeared in front of the horse, it was a rainbow fairy and she was pretty.

So the horse started to talk, “Who are you and why are you coming at this time of the night?” asked the horse.

“I have come to grant a wish that would make your owners happy even though they did not wish for it”, replied the rainbow fairy.

“Why?” queried the horse.

“Because I am a nice good rainbow fairy”, answered the rainbow fairy.

And as the horse was thinking, she immediately turned it into a rainbow horse to look like the rainbow fairy’s real and true companion with its rainbow look on its body.

“What did you do to me!” yelled the rainbow horse.

But, she never replied, she just flew away and did not come back. But actually, when she was leaving, she said that she would return, but only when the horse loses its colours and that will be when it does a bad deed.

The next morning, the miller and his son went to feed the horse and they saw the rainbow on the horse’s body. They were so excited about what had happened to their horse. It was amazing; they really liked it and thought it was permanent and that the colour won’t go away even if the horse does a bad deed.

In the afternoon, the miller went to the market not knowing that his son and the horse were going to steal, to test if the horse’s colour would go. And it did! The fairy then suddenly appeared and said to them, “I told you that you will lose your rainbow colour if you do something wrong, I hope you have all learnt your lesson”.

The moral here is that, if you get an unexpected gift, try hard not to lose it, especially when you are told what to do to keep it!