G'day! I'm Droplet. I'm still small, but soon-soon I'll be big! Just you wait and see!
I was born not long ago, in April. In the Urals, although… No, in the Caucasus. Or no… I don't know. Anyway, high up in the mountains. It was morning. The sun warmed my back and sides, and it felt so good to be free after being trapped in an icy block! I'd been waiting for this for so long, what felt like forever!
And then I rolled into a small narrow stream.
Hello-hello! — my little sister droplets spoke up right away.
They looked so much like me! Or I looked like them. What? Oh, we're all the same, why did I suddenly think otherwise? Anyway, we talked about the lives of my sisters. They too came out of the ice at that very moment when the Sun, cheerfully sparkling with bright, lively rays, melted us one by one. We were caught up by its friends — the North, South, East and West winds. A current is even named after the last one! That's how powerful they are!
But everything, contrary to expectations, went in a very strange direction. Of course, I could have been blown by the wind onto rocks and dried up like a desert, but I was lucky. The North and East winds quarrelled and kept making me hang over a cliff, then tossed me high into the air. Finally they threw me into the stream and howled in the heights like wolves. Don't ask me how I know who they are. I saw them. I hadn't frozen with my sisters back then, but lived in a mountain lake. And then they came.
They were huge grey animals with enormous fangs. They started drinking, greedily gulping down every drop of water. And then others came. They were even bigger, reaching right up to the sky, or maybe even higher, and covered in brown fur. Smooth white rounded branches stuck out of their mouths, and their noses were very long! With them they made strange sounds and drove away the wolves.
But now I'm floating along the stream, which I can rightfully call my first home. And then there were many streams, and this was no longer a stream, but a small river. Still not a river, but bigger than a stream, and that's something. Further on the river gradually widened, and now it's a river, a mountain river, and therefore full and fast-flowing. Everything around blurred into one big colourful spot. Everyone held their breath. We were heading straight for a waterfall!
And then we all hung suspended in the air. White pure light flickered and sparkled on our sides. And suddenly red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue and violet rays flashed in the air like tongues of coloured flame.
This is called a rainbow. It has amazed and continues to amaze people with its beauty. It's no wonder that the ancient Greeks had a goddess of the rainbow — Iris, and in the Old Testament a rainbow appeared before Noah at the end of the Great Flood! People even say: "To see a rainbow, you must first experience rain". Thus, from the very beginning of their existence, a rainbow has been something positive, kind and bright to people.
It has more than once surprised and continues to surprise with its mystery those who don't know how it appears. But I'm clever, I know!
My mum-droplet told me why this happens. She lived in a scientists' laboratory for some time and heard everything. Mum told me that a white ray of light, passing through a droplet, breaks down into many rays. The scientists called it… What did they call it? I forgot. Oh! That's right! Spectrum.
Interestingly, a ray of white light, passing through a droplet, refracts and breaks down into all the colours of the rainbow. One side of the droplet acts as a converging lens, the other as a diverging lens. That's how you get the spectrum. And there are lots of droplets, so you get a rainbow!
Here's what I think: if even one droplet can create such a miracle, what will happen if all the droplets take it on? And if one person can help the environment, how will the world change if everyone takes it on?! You yourselves know the answer perfectly well.
So let's protect nature as a whole and every single droplet capable of creating such a miracle! After all, it's capable of changing the world for the better and making us better. The main thing is not to close our hearts
