Marty finds his Colors

Marty the Macaw was just like every other macaw. His feathers were blue, red and yellow and he lived in the rainforest. He had friends that weren’t macaws and they lived nearby. Marty was excited because the gathering of colors was coming up. The gathering was a celebration the birds had each year to appreciate each birds’ colorful feathers. This year was special though because some birds were coming that didn’t live in the rainforest. Marty couldn’t wait to meet them all and celebrate! He was looking at his reflection in his drinking water when he heard a commotion from the ground. He stuck his head out of his tree and saw something swinging on the trees and running fast along the branches.

“Yo Marty!” Tommy the Toucan said flying towards him and landing on a branch outside his house.

“What’s going on?” Marty asked.

“Don’t know yet. Did you see anything?”

“Just a brown blur.” Marty replied.

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Here comes Piper, maybe she saw something.”

Piper the Parrot flew towards them and crashed into Marty’s tree. “Ouch. Thought that was farther away.” She said getting up and shaking her feathers. “Sorry about your house Marty. But did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Tommy and Marty said in unison.

“Someone or something broke into the color tree and tried to take the color rock!” Piper shouted.

“Did they get it?” Tommy asked.

“I don’t know. Harmony is looking into it.”

“Here she comes now.” Marty said as a hummingbird came zipping by.

“Hello everyone. Did any of you see or hear anything this morning?” Harmony the Hummingbird said.

“No.” Tommy and Piper said.

“Yeah I saw a blur of brown.” Marty said.

Marty filled Harmony in on what he saw and she flew off to ask other birds if they seen anything. Marty saw that no one else seemed worried because they were still getting ready for the week long gathering and celebration. Marty heard stories about the color tree and color rock…

Long ago the Great Macaw got tired of being gray; he wanted to be full of color. So he took some berries and crushed them with a rock and then used the crushed berries to color his feathers. Soon he mixed the colors and made new colors; he put more than one color on his feathers and liked the way it looked. Every bird saw the Great Macaw’s beautiful feathers and asked to be colored too. The Great Macaw wanted to bring happiness to his kind and wanted to bring the colors to every bird. Soon the whole rainforest was bright and beautiful; every color imaginable was represented on a bird of some kind. However the Great Macaw didn’t want the color rock to fall into bad hand so he buried it with the crushed up berries he first used. Not long after that a tree grew from the berries and the tree was colorful too, inside a hole in its truck the color rock laid. Being seen but never touched for a layer of clear bark protected it.

Marty couldn’t think of what would happen if the color rock went missing. Did it mean the birds would go back to being gray? He didn’t want to find out. He was sure it was still in the tree so he went about his day and started getting things ready for the gathering.

The next day Marty woke up feeling different. He hoped he wasn’t getting sick. He flew down to his watering spot and looked in it at his reflection. He gasped at what he saw. He ran out towards the opening in his tree and looked around. All the birds were the same. Every bird lost their colors. Every bird was either white or gray.

“Harmony what’s happening?” Marty shouted as he saw the hummingbird flying by.

“It’s gone. The color rock is gone and so are our colors.” Harmony replied.

Marty knew what he had to do. He had to get the color rock back and restore it to the tree. Where would he start though? He decided to ask the birds around him if they saw anything more than he did. He knew the brown blur he saw had something to do with it. Marty heard shouting and looked down at the tree where the gathering would happen. A giant tree stump made a makeshift stage and there was a flamingo standing on it while other birds shouted at it. Marty flew down to see if he could help.

“You had something to do with didn’t you?” Piper asked the flamingo.

“You had to of. You are the only one with color left!” Tommy chimed in.

“What’s going on here?” Marty asked landing near the flamingo. The flamingo looked scared but didn’t say anything.

“Hi. I’m Marty. It’s nice to meet you.” He said calmly.

“I’m Fiona.” The flamingo said. “Why is everyone yelling at me?”

“They are wondering how come you still have your pink color when the rest of us lost ours.” Marty told Fiona the Flamingo.

“I don’t know. I flew in last night though and everyone had their colors then. Maybe it’s because I’m not from around here or maybe because my color is from the food I eat.”

“Yeah you are right. Sorry.” Piper said as Fiona walked away.

“We need to get to the bottom of this. I think it had to do with the brown blur I saw.” Marty said.

“Probably but what exactly did you see?” Tommy said.

“The blur was swinging and running along the branches.”

“Oh like a monkey!” Piper said.

“Yeah they are jealous of our colors.” Tommy said.

“Well looks like I need to go talk to them.” Marty said.

“Not by yourself.” Tommy and Piper said following him.

They flew towards the area the monkey’s live and looked around. They didn’t know exactly what they should be looking for though. Then Marty saw it, a bunch of trees full of colors.

“That must be it.” Marty said flying down towards the trees. Sure enough among the trees where monkeys that used to be brown but know they had red and blue fur. The monkeys saw the birds coming and were ready for a fight.

“Oy you! Go away your kind isn’t welcome here!” The leader of the monkeys said.

“We just wanna talk to you.” Piper spoke up.

“No! GO AWAY! You aren’t getting your rock back!” The monkey said running towards the trees. Marty went after him but Tommy and Piper got held back by the other monkeys.

“Wait! Wait. We just want our colors back!” Marty shouted.

“Oh yeah?” The lead stopped and turned around, “How do you think we feel?”

“What do you mean?” Marty asked landing on a nearby branch.

“You birds are always so colorful. Full and bright and beautiful. That’s all we want too!”

“Ok. I’m sure we can come up with a plan. My name is Marty. What’s yours?”

“Skylar. And how can you come up with a plan? Why would I trust you after what you birds did to us before? Long ago your kind discovered colors and painted your wings, we monkeys saw this and wanted a few colors added to our fur but you wouldn’t allow it! You said the colors would only be good on feathers!”

“Well you are right. Everyone deserves to have colors in their lives. So let’s compromise. You get the rock for one month and we get it another. We can share it.”

Skylar thought it over for a moment and then clutched the rock tighter. “How can I trust you?”

Marty looked at Skylar and said, “I can say the same about you. In fact I have a better idea.” Marty flew at Skylar and took the rock and flew back towards the trees where he came. He found Tommy and Piper surrounded by monkeys and landed near them. Tommy and Piper just stared at him, he didn’t realize it but as soon as he grabbed the rock his colorful feathers came back. He knew what he had to do. He didn’t know if it would work or not but it was the only way to bring the colors to everyone.

Marty took off again this time flying straight up until he found what he was looking for which was a giant rock. He flew down towards it and with everyone looking he took the color rock and broke it in half. Marty’s feathers stayed colorful. Everyone was shocked and just stared for the longest time until Skylar went over to Marty and Marty gave Skylar the other half.

“What did you do?” Skylar asked.

“I split the rock. That way you can have color and so can we.”

“How did you know splitting it wouldn’t break it completely?”

“I didn’t. But we can’t keep fighting over it like this. The rainforest is a special place full of special creatures and should be taken care of. We need to stand together and can’t let our colors separate us.”

So Skylar and the monkeys took their half of the rock and put it in a safe place bringing color to them. Marty, Piper and Tommy went back to their tree homes and put their half of the color rock back in the color tree and watched the colors flood back through. Everyone was happy and grateful to have their colors back. They threw an even bigger get together and invited the other creatures of the rainforest.