On Top of the World

He'd owned a spinning top, painted in rainbow colours. But when it spun the colours turned to white. He'd asked Grandfather why and remembered the panicked look in the old man's eyes that meant he didn't know the answer.

"Because you can't see the colours when they move that fast." Grandfather had bluffed eventually.

That wasn't quite right, Murdock found out later at school. He gave a long and doubtless thrilling lecture over supper about how white light was made up of all the different colours of the spectrum. After he finished his talk Grandfather told him to stop kicking the table legs and Grandma said he was going to help her wash up now.

And he didn't mind because when he saw the swirling colours where the light caught the soap bubbles he remembered his spinning top and smiled.

Smiled because understanding the world was such a great thing.

end

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© Elizabeth Charles 2006