The Cloud Who Couldn’t Stop Raining

Up in the big, wide sky, where the birds flew and the wind sang, there lived a little cloud named Nimbus.

Nimbus was white and round and soft as a pillow. He loved floating above the meadows and the sleepy little town below. He loved watching the children play, and the dogs chase their tails, and the cats sit on warm windowsills.

But Nimbus had a problem.

He couldn't stop raining.

Every morning, he woke up and — drip, drip, drip — down came the rain. He tried holding his breath. He tried thinking of sunny things: yellow flowers, ripe strawberries, warm toast. But no matter what, the rain kept falling.

The other clouds drifted past, big and bright in the sunshine. They didn't rain unless they wanted to.

"Why can't I be like them?" Nimbus whispered to himself.

Down below, a little boy named Oliver put on his yellow raincoat and looked up at the grey sky.

"That cloud looks sad," he said to his mum.

He thought about it all morning. Then, after lunch, he climbed to the top of the garden hill — the one where the sky always felt closer — and he cupped his hands around his mouth and called up:

"Hello up there! Are you all right?"

Nimbus looked down. His rain slowed to a drizzle. Someone was talking to him?

"Not really," Nimbus admitted. His voice sounded like a rumble of soft thunder.

"What's wrong?" Oliver asked.

"I can't stop raining," said Nimbus. "And I don't even know why."

Oliver thought about this. He sat down in the damp grass — he didn't mind the wet — and looked up carefully.

"When I cry," Oliver said slowly, "it's usually because something is bothering me and nobody has asked about it yet."

Nimbus was quiet.

"Is something bothering you?" Oliver asked.

"…Yes," said Nimbus, in a very small rumble. "I'm lonely. Everyone drifts past me, but nobody ever stops. I float and float all day and I never have anyone to talk to."

Oliver nodded. "That would make me cry too," he said.

And then, because Oliver was a kind sort of boy, he stayed on the hill for the whole afternoon. He told Nimbus about his toy elephant, and the song his grandmother sang, and the way the stars looked from his bedroom window.

Nimbus listened. And as he listened, something happened.

The rain slowed.

And slowed.

And stopped.

Just as the sun was beginning to set, the clouds parted and the golden light came pouring through. It caught all the leftover raindrops in the air and turned them into something magnificent.

A rainbow.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue — stretching all the way across the sky, from one hill to the other.

"Oh!" said Oliver, jumping to his feet.

"Is it nice?" asked Nimbus shyly. He couldn't really see his own rainbow.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," said Oliver honestly.

Nimbus puffed up — just a little — with something he hadn't felt in a long time.

Pride.

As the stars came out one by one, Nimbus yawned a slow, cottony yawn and began to drift toward the west, where clouds go to sleep.

"Goodnight, Oliver," he said softly.

"Goodnight, Nimbus," said Oliver. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Same time tomorrow," said the cloud.

And that night, for the first time in a very long time, Nimbus did not rain at all.

He just floated gently, peacefully, beneath a sky full of stars.

And he slept.

The End.