Free The Night Rainbow by Claire King

walking slow circles in the shade, holding out their wings and clucking quietly. They look like they are dancing.
    I grab a handful of sage stalks and stick them down the back of my knickers.
    I’m a chicken! I say. Watch me!
    Margot giggles as I stick out my elbows and do the chicken dance. She thinks it’s the best joke ever. She laughs and laughs. The more Margot laughs, the sillier I make my dance. I jiggle my bottom and my feathers shake.
    Actually, says Margot, the chickens don’t look very happy.
    It’s true, their dance is not a funny one like mine, it is a little bit sad.
    Shall we go and see if there are any eggs? says Margot.
    I think about it. We are not supposed to go in to the chickens without Maman, but maybe she has forgotten about them lately.
    Yes, I say, come on.
    The chickens wake up a bit when we go through into the coop. They gather around my feet; they think I have brought them some food. There are no eggs there. Also they haven’t got a drink of water.
    The chickens need us to look after them now, I say.
    Yes. They can share our breakfast, says Margot.
    It is hard work getting figs off the tree with the mop; I only manage to get three before I am tired and cross and give up. We sit sharing them under the tree’s honey sweetness, leaves like hands making fingery shadows on our bare legs. Our figs are green and the skins are quite thick, so we eat out the seedy pink flesh from the inside and save the skins for the chickens.
    When we have fed the chickens and given them some water, making them very happy, we run out across the high pasture. Our feet make a flattened trail through the tall grass, up and over to Windy Hill.
    I’m sure, says Margot, not at all out of breath, that the lightning will have burned away the big fir tree.
    I don’t think so, I say.
    But as we get closer I am still disappointed to see the tree standing there. It would have been exciting to think that Claude had saved our lives and that the tree had been sizzled away by the lightning.
    Maybe it is just a little bit burned, says Margot. We’ll have to inspect it.
    We walk around the trunk, peering at the bark. It is not even slightly burned, I say.
    That is true, says Margot. This tree had a lucky escape. Look at this, though!
    Margot is pointing to the bark of the tree. I didn’t notice it very much in the storm, but the bark is unusual – it is peeling off in handprint-sized scabs. Each flake looks like a tortoise shell: shiny, with lots of rings inside each other and under the cracks scuttle hundreds of little red and black gendarmes .
    It’s the police, says Margot. They have come to do an investigation too!
    It takes a lot of them, I say. But I suppose they are only small. I watch them hurrying about. It’s funny how the police got called after insects, I say.
    And also, why do the people-kind not wear the right-colour uniforms?
    I don’t know, I say. Red is much nicer than blue.
    Yes, says Margot. You would think the grownups would notice things like that.
    Grownups don’t notice as much as we do, I say.
    I expect there’s a bank robbery, says Margot.
    At the insect bank, I say, but I’m not laughing. The gendarmes are interesting, but I’ve had enough of this tree. I want to watch the wing turbines.
    The wing turbines are turning slowly. The wings don’t go round together, they aren’t in tune at all. It looks as though they are all being blown by different winds. I count across to my favourite. My favourite is number five, because that is my number, the same as my age. Margot has number four just next to mine. I pick one of the wings and watch it turn. When it points straight up I breathe in, then once it has done a full turn I breathe out again. I wait until it is pointing up to breathe in again and I carry on like this. It feels very sleepy, standing up, looking at the wing turbine, thinking about breathing, listening to the sound of it coming in and out of my nose.
    Then I wonder, what would happen if I