Wild Wonder story
Sunny and Pearl's Secret Colors
When the rain stopped falling, a lonely sunbeam named Sunny discovered she wasn't as plain as she thought — with a little help from a raindrop named Pearl.
A plain little sunbeam
The rain had just stopped, and the forest smelled of wet moss and fresh earth. High above the clouds, a sunbeam named Sunny stretched her arms, ready to shine down on the dripping leaves below. 'I'm just plain white light,' she sighed to herself, watching the fluffy grey clouds drift apart. 'Nothing special at all.'
Two plain friends meet
Sunny slipped between the clouds and landed on the tip of a fern leaf, where a round raindrop named Pearl was still trembling from her long fall. 'Oh, hello,' said Pearl, wobbling gently. 'I feel so plain and clear myself — just a little drop of nothing.' Sunny smiled. 'Maybe two plain things can find something interesting together,' she said, and Pearl giggled, sending tiny ripples across her round belly.
Colors bend and fan apart
'Come see what's inside me,' Pearl said, and Sunny slipped gently through her curved, glassy skin. The moment she bent inward, something magical happened — Sunny wasn't just white anymore. She fanned apart into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, each color bending by just a tiny bit more than the last, with red curling the least and violet curling the most. 'I had all these colors hiding inside me the whole time!' Sunny gasped in wonder.
Bounce, bend, and spread
The colors raced to the back of Pearl's round wall and bounced, like children skipping off a smooth, curved slide. Then, as they bent once more on their way back out into the open air, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet spread even wider apart, no longer squeezed together at all. 'Hold still,' Pearl whispered happily, 'I think we're about to show everyone something wonderful.'
Every color revealed
Out in the open sky, Sunny and Pearl's colors joined with thousands of other raindrops still hanging from leaves and branches, until a great, curved bridge of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet arched over the whole forest. Rabbits paused mid-hop, owls blinked awake, and squirrels chattered in delight as they pointed their paws at the sky. 'You were never plain at all,' Pearl said softly to Sunny. 'You just needed a raindrop to help you show your true colors.' And from that day on, every time the sun peeked out after a rain shower, Sunny remembered — and shined a little brighter, knowing exactly what colors were hiding inside her all along.