我的彩虹去了哪里

江西赣州三中 赖丽霞

作者小时候用油漆在家门口的人行道上画了一道彩虹，随后她被迫和妈妈一起刷洗掉自己的作品。 但是作者在她接下来的人生中并没有放弃寻找自己的彩虹。

题材体裁 文章词数 建议用时生活 记叙文约715 10分钟

难词探意

1. stripe /straɪp/ n. 条纹

2. slam /stæm/ v. 砰地关上

When you are little, the whole world feels like a big playground. I was living in Conyers, Georgia that summer. I was a second grader, but my best friend Stephanie was only in the first grade. Both of our parents were at work and most of the time they let us go our own way.

It was a hot afternoon and we decided to have an adventure in Stephanie's basement. As I opened the basement door, before us lay the biggest room, full of amazing things like guns, dolls,and old clothes. I ran downstairs, and spotted a red steel can. It was paint. I looked beyond it and there lay even more paint in bright colors like purple, orange, blue and green.

“Stephanie, I just found us a project for the day. Get some paintbrushes. We are fixing to paint.”She screamed with excitement as I told her my secret plans and immediately we got to work. We gathered all the brushes we could find and moved all of our materials to my yard. There on the road in front of my house, we painted stripes of colors across the pavement. Stripe by stripe, our colors turned into a beautiful rainbow. We smiled as we looked at our art. It was fantastic! Stephanie jumped up in excitement and pulled me up. We laughed and danced around our piece of art for hours,celebrating our newborn fame and soon-to-come fortunes. The sun was starting to fade and our excitement decreased gradually because of our tiredness.

We sat on the sidewalk in silence. I saw a car in the distance and jumped up as I recognized the car. It was my mother. I couldn't wait to show her my masterpiece. That is when the paint hit the fan.The car pulled slowly into the driveway and from the look on my mother's face, I could tell that I was in deep trouble. I looked over at Stephanie and saw that she, too, recognized that look. “Well...uh... I got to go now, Kristyn, but...uh... call me later,” Stephanie yelled as she ran towards her house. My mother slammed the car door shut and walked towards me. Her eyes glaring, she shouted, “What in the world were you thinking? I understood when you made castles out of leaves, and climbed the neighbors' trees, but this! Come inside right now! ” I stood there glaring back at her for a minute,angry because she had insulted my art. This had been my greatest achievement in my whole eight years! Although I was mad, I quietly followed her into the house. She headed straight for the kitchen and I continued to follow her. I know I held my breath for at least two minutes without realizing it.She reached beneath the sink and handed me a scrub brush.

“Now go clean it up! ” I slowly walked towards the door, but before I did, I saw her reach for the phone. “Hold on a minute, Kristyn,” she said. I listened to her telling Stephanie's mother our day's work and could hear her yelling through the phone. When my mother and I walked out the door to clean up, there stood Stephanie and her mother. Her mother had an angry expression on her face.Stephanie also had a scrub brush. I held Stephanie's hand as we walked out into the road. All four of us, Stephanie and I and our mothers, began scrubbing the road. Tears ran down my cheeks as I saw my beautiful rainbow turn into black cement. There I was, destroying my only artwork. We stayed out there for hours that night, scrubbing away my rainbow. I'll tell you now, I never painted another road.Well, at least not near my house. Days turned into months and months into years. We moved away two years later and I haven't seen Stephanie since.

Though years have now passed, I still wonder where my rainbow has gone. I wonder if, maybe when I get older, I can find my rainbow and never have to brush it away. I guess we all need rainbows to brighten our lives from time to time and to keep our hopes and dreams colorful.

Reading Check

What are the functions of rainbows according to the author?