Chapter 16
A Proper PoncoCatastrophy
White Doors
The PoncoVotometer looked like a pipe organ built inside a greenhouse.
Ronnie placed a metal band around Paul’s head. Wires connected it to seven coloured tanks and one large glass bowl.
“The machine measures which colour excites your brain most,” Ronnie explained. “That colour produces the most water and wins.”
“But I have already decided.”
“Machines prefer numbers.”
“People built the machine.”
Ronnie pretended not to hear.
Ponco Yellow held up a yellow card. A thin stream of yellow water entered the bowl. Blue produced a little more. Red sent a sudden splash over the rim.
When Larry raised the green card, the machine groaned.
Green water trickled into the bowl.
Then it poured.
Then it exploded from the pipe.
“I knew it!” Larry shouted. “Green wins!”
The water did not stop. It filled the bowl, flooded the floor and climbed over everyone’s shoes.
A panel flew off the machine. Cogs shot around the room. One landed neatly on Ponco Orange’s head.
“A crown!” he cried.
“A warning!” Paul replied.
Coloured pipes burst one after another. Red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo and violet water joined the green. The separate streams swirled into brown.
“That is not how colours behave in a rainbow,” Ponco Blue complained.
“It is how paint behaves in a flood,” said Ponco Violet.
The table floated. The Poncos climbed aboard, pushing one another towards the middle.
Paul pulled off the metal band. The flow increased.
“Every colour is trying to overpower the others,” he said. “We need them balanced.”
The white door split from top to bottom.
Beyond it hung a sphere of light crossed by seven jagged cracks. The Heartlight pulsed weakly.
The coloured doors began to fade.
“If the Heartlight goes out,” Ronnie said, “the Radiant Rainbow will vanish.”
“And Ponco World?”
“Every door, room and road between worlds will go with it.”
“How long do we have?”
A siren wailed. The ceiling displayed a large number:
30:00
“Thirty minutes,” Ponco Blue calculated.
“It says that on the ceiling,” Paul said.
The flood swept the table towards the open white door.
The Poncos cheered as though beginning a boating holiday.
“This is serious!” Paul shouted.
“Poncos become cheerful when terrified,” Ronnie explained. “It saves time.”
The table struck the doorway and spun into the chamber of the Heartlight.