As they walked along, hand in hand, they saw a tiny little man not much bigger than a large raindrop. He had a smiling face with twinkling eyes, and his clothes were the colors of the rainbow. He sparkled all over like dew drops in the sunshine.
“Abby and Richie,” he said in a tiny high-pitched voice (and how he knew their names, I’ll never know). “You are the first children to discover the blue rocket in the hollow tree on your Grandmother’s farm. We have it there for our rain elves to travel back and forth from the earth to the clouds. You are on a cloud, and we have a rain factory here. Come with me, and I will take you through the factory.”
“But—but—but, we must hurry,” Abby said. “Grandma is waiting for us.”
“O.K.,” the rain elf said, and off they went down some steps into a factory where lots of little rain elves were busily mixing hydrogen and oxygen to make water and funneling it into a huge tank in the bottom of the cloud. The tank contained a huge sprinkling system.
Then the little rain elf turned to the children. “Come,” he said, “it’s time for me to go home to my family. I’ll take you to the path that will lead you to the blue rocket. The rocket has been filled with fuel and made ready for your trip home. When you get to the rocket, use your key to get inside. Richie, be sure to press the green button, and you will soon be at your grandmother’s farm.” With that rain elf disappeared, and the children were all alone.
As they hurried to the rocket, Abby asked Richie, “Do you have the little gold key?”
Richie looked at Abby. “No! Don’t you?”
“No,” said Abby. “I can’t find it. Oh, whatever will we do?”
They both began to cry. “Don’t cry, Richie. I’ll think of something,” Abby promised, smiling through her tears. “Richie, listen to me. My mother told me that it takes both the sun and rain to make a rainbow, and there’s the sun. . . . Richie, you stay right here. I’ll be right back.”
Abby went running to the rain factory as fast as her legs would take her. Once inside the factory, she pressed the button that regulated the sprinkling system, asking the rain elf on duty to please stop the rain after a little while.
Then she dashed outside, hurrying along the path to Richie. Sure enough, when she got there, a gorgeous rainbow appeared, and the middle of the bow arched right over the cloud where they were standing. Without thinking, Abby and Richie jumped on the rainbow.
Angels must have been guarding them, for they had an absolutely fantastic ride, sliding down the rainbow, and when they got to the end of the rainbow, guess where they were.
In Grandma’s back yard! And there was Grandma.
“Oh, my precious children,” she cried. “Where were you?”
“Grandma!” two voices cried at once. “We had a ride on a blue rocket, and we landed on a cloud, and we saw a rain factory, and the little rain elves. Oh, Grandma, they were so cute, and we slid down a rainbow because we couldn’t find the little gold key.
“Grandma, did you know the rainbow ended in your back yard?
“Grandma, did you see the beautiful rainbow?
“Grandma, did you see us?
“Grandma, don’t you believe us?”
Grandma looked at them. She wanted to believe them. She really did.
“Tomorrow,” Richie said, “we’ll show you.”
So the next day Grandma went with Richie and Abby to the woods, but they weren’t able to find the big tree that was hollow. And even if they could have found the tree, they could never have another ride on the blue rocket because, you see. . . .
