It started out as a normal day for Ella. She was excited for yet another one of the town’s monthly pug ceremonies. But little did she know the mess she and her friend Shelby would get into, and that it would all start just by letting 2 pugs cross the rainbow at the same time.

“Any of you have the rope,” Caroline yelled running into the hall making Shelby jump with a yelp. Ella looked at Caroline for a few seconds then slowly gave her the rope she was holding. 

“I’m still kind of confused,” Ella said, “why do we even need rope? What is a rope going to do to help us with the ceremony?”

Caroline looked at her in disbelief as if she expected her to know this. “Just being prepared for any situation,” she said, stuffing the rope in a blue bag. “You never know what will go wrong,” she said casually, tucking the blue bag under her arm and walking outside slamming the door behind her. 

Shelby tapped Ella on the shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “We don’t want to be late to the ceremony.” They both then ran out of the door closing it behind them. It was a sunny day outside. The sky was blue, the valleys and hills green and full of life, and there were people all over the streets greeting Ella and Shelby as they ran past them. They ran past streets and valleys until they came across the rainbow.

“It’s beautiful,” Shelby whispered, “one of the best ones I’ve seen.” Ella nodded in agreement then walked over to the cloud laying on the ground to her left. She then motioned for Shelby to come over, and when she realized she wasn’t paying attention to her, she hopped off the cloud, grabbed her arm and dragged her to it. They both then hopped on the cloud and sat on it looking down at the town as it took them up.

“You got the stuff,” a guy asked them as they reached the top of the rainbow. Shelby nodded as she jumped off the cloud. She took a card out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Thanks,” he said walking away. 

“We have 20 minutes until the ceremony starts,” she said, glancing down at the watch on her wrist. “That means we got 20 minutes to get everything prepared.”

Ella watched as the rainbow sank back down to the ground, slowly getting smaller. “Got it, I’ll help Caroline get all the pugs in their places, you should probably go help with the gear.” Shelby walked away waving to Ella then turned around and turned a corner.

After everything was finished, they decided to start the ceremony. A guy named Tristan gave everyone a job, including Ella and Shelby who were assigned to set the pugs out and make sure that everything goes smoothly. The ceremony started out pretty well, as the first 20 or so pugs walked across the rainbow smoothly, but then things started to take a downturn.

“We need to speed this up. If we keep going at this rate, we’ll never finish the ceremony,” Shelby said, glancing down at her watch. “I think we need to start letting more pugs go on the rainbow.”

“I don’t know,” Ella whispered, picking up a pug and placing it in front of the rainbow. “A lot could go wrong. Plus, we were given specific directions about how to go about doing this. If anything goes wrong, we’re going to be responsible for it and everyone will hate us.”

Shelby led two pugs in front of the rainbow. “You’re being dramatic. Plus, if we don’t start letting more than one on the rainbow, we won’t be able to finish the ceremony and everyone will hate us anyway.”

Ella couldn’t argue about that. She picked up two other pugs, “I guess you have a point, but we don’t want to overdo it. So let’s just let two pugs cross the rainbow at a time.” Shelby didn’t have a chance to say anything as Ella placed the two pugs in front of the rainbow and watched them walk across it.

After 10 minutes of doing this, they heard loud heavy footsteps coming their way. It was Tristan running towards them. “We need some help out on the rainbow. Don’t set out any more pugs!” He grabbed a blue bag from one of its hooks and some leashes.

“What’s wrong,” Ella asked him.

“There’s a jam on the rainbow” he yelled, throwing the leashes around his shoulder.

“It’s raining jam again,” Shelby shrieked.

“No, I mean there’s so many pugs on the rainbow that they are starting to get stuck. Some even fell off the rainbow!” Just then four other people came running into the room all grabbing some leads and taking off onto the rainbow. Tristan ran after them leaving Ella and Shelby.

After a long time in silence, Ella finally said, “well at least we didn’t let Pickles on the rainbow. He’s the reason this month’s pug ceremony is so important.” Ella looked back at Shelby. She was looking down at the floor scraping her shoe across it. Ella knew what that meant. “Shelby, what did you do?”

“I let Pickles out on the rainbow,” she whispered, still looking down at the floor.

Ella knew that wasn’t good. She knew that nothing bad could happen to that pug or else the ceremony would be even messier than it was. She and Shelby ran out on the rainbow, trying to keep their balance as they walked across it to the spot where all the pugs were stuck. They walked through the mound of pugs, trying to look for Pickles. 

“Look,” Shelby screamed, pointing her finger towards the left side of the rainbow where  Pickles was being trampled by other pugs. Ella and Shelby ran towards him as fast as they could but it was too late as he was slowly pushed off the rainbow. Ella tried catching him but missed by an inch. She didn’t know what else to do so she and Shelby just watched as Pickles became smaller and smaller until he was just a dot, then finally out of their sight. Ella felt as if someone just kicked her in the ribs. She looked over at Shelby and saw her eyes were wide, and her mouth was dangling open. They were still in shock about what just happened as they just stood there, frozen in place and not knowing what just happened, but they knew one thing. Whatever just happened was their fault, and it was up to them to fix it.

“I’m pretty sure pickles is probably dead from that fall,” Caroline told after they explained everything to her. She put a hand on Ella’s shoulder. “So you shouldn’t go wasting your time trying to find him. We can get this ceremony back on track without him.”

Ella shrugged her hand off. “PIckles is alive, I know it,” Shelby said just then. “There’s a ditch under the rainbow where he landed. Me and Ella will go there, see if he’s in it and if he isn’t we will come back and try to carry on with the ceremony.” 

Ella looked at Coral, hopefully taking one of the blue bags off the hook. “We already got a plan set up, just tell Tristan we’re sorry we messed up and are going to go fix it.” Before Coral could say anything to protest Ella and Shelby hopped on the cloud without even trying to listen.

Ella and Shelby walked around for 15 minutes or so, trying to retrace the exact place where Pickles fell off the rainbow until they came upon what looked like a steep big hole. Ella and Shelby looked at each other knowing that this was the ditch and prepared to go down. Ella looked inside the blue bag, moving things around until she came across a rope, two bottles of water, a flashlight, and a few other things.

“Put that flashlight away. We won’t need it. I’ve been down that ditch before, it’s not dark down there. Plus, I can just bring the whole bag with us,” Shelby scoffed as she grabbed the bottle of water Ella handed to her.

Ella took a sip of her water. “What do you mean by I?”

“It’s my fault this even happened in the first place, so it’s my job to get him back.” She tied the rope around a rock planted into the ground and tugged at it. “I’ll be back in five minutes or so.” Ella watched her as she went down the rope into the ditch. Then she realized Shelby forgot to grab the bag! She shoved the bottle of water she was drinking into the bag then threw the bag over her shoulder. She walked over to where the rope was, gave it a tug to make sure it was sturdy then started her way down it. She was half way down when the rope got loose and she fell. She hit the ground with a thud and started to feel dizzy. When she got up from the cold ground she saw Shelby standing right infront of her with Pickles in her arms and her eyes doing that thing where they got so wide, she thought they were going to pop out of her sockets.

Ella gave Shelby a thumbs up and smile then turned around to go climb the rope back up after seeing that she didn’t need her help, but then she noticed something. The other end of the rope was laying in her hand! She looked up, the rope wasn’t there, then she realized that the rope must have slid off the rock and that she and Shelby were stuck!

Ella grabbed the end of the rope that was supposed to be tied on the rock and desperately began to try to swing it back up, knowing that they would never make it back up if they were really stuck. Ella sighed and put her head down. They were stuck, and she knew it.

Shelby layed Pickles down on the floor and grabbed the rope from Ella looking at it carefully. “The rope must have broke,” she said, throwing it on the floor. “We’re never going to make it back to the ceremony with Pickles now. He still needs to see a vet, too. He’s not in good shape.”

Ella looked up at Shelby. “So even if we didn’t get stuck in here, Pickles still wouldn’t have been able to cross the rainbow. Shelby didn’t say anything, she just picked up Pickles and began to pet his head. Ella sat down against one of the rocks and placed the blue bag in her lap. She felt a chill go through her as she laid against it. “This is hopeless. We’ll never get out of this cave in time to get to the ceremony.”

“It’s a ditch, not a cave,” Shelby scoffed. Ella looked at her in disbelief, then saw Shelby’s face light up. “Wait, that’s it! I went down here some time ago, and I remember that there was a cave in here that I used to get in and out of! We could use that to get out of here. All we have to do is find it, and I might know where it is! Come on!”

She sped off just then, still holding Pickles and Ella followed her, making sure she was still holding the blue bag. They ran for 5 minutes until Shelby stopped. “This is it,” she said looking at the dark cave hidden in one of the walls. Shelby approached Ella and grabbed the bag out of her hands. She looked around the inside of it and took out a flashlight. She turned on the switch and walked in the cave, Ella still following behind her. After walking through the damp dark cave for a few minutes they started to see a bright light. 

They ran towards it and found themselves outside. Ella looked at Shelby, “come on, we got to make it back.” Shelby nodded at her then they both ran across the hills back to the rainbow. After taking the cloud back up, Shelby handed a girl in a white uniform Pickles and Ella put the blue bag back on its hook.

They were able to help fix the jam and get the pug ceremony back on track, and even though Pickles wasn’t in the best condition, the vet was able to heal him and he was able to end the ceremony off by being the last pug to cross the rainbow in the ceremony.