It would be hard to find two clouds more different than Blue Jaymee and Friendly Featherbags.

 Friendly F. was warm, soft, and puffy like cotton balls. He liked to take his time and float along, stopping here to gaze and there to chat. He was breezy and long-winded, and tended to repeat himself. Friendly F. was always late to wherever he was going.

 On the other hand, Blue Jaymee was cool and thin. She was almost as clear and blue as the empty sky. She liked to rise up high above the other clouds where the sun shone brightly, and ride the sharp, cold jet stream winds. Blue J was always doing something or going somewhere fast. Whatever she decided to do, she put all her energy into it.

Blue J could hardly bear to spend time with Friendly F. She thought he was much too fluffy-minded. Friendly liked to talk around and around in circles, while Blue J liked to get right to the point. After less than five minutes with Friendly, her vapor would begin swirling with impatience. Friendly would go on and on, while Blue J would be thinking to herself, "What a waste of time! Does he love the sound of his own voice so much?" As soon as she could, she would say, "Sorry, I've got to go now", and hurry off. Friendly would think, "She should learn to relax. Just talking with her makes me nervous."

 After a while, whenever Blue J saw Friendly Featherbags she would either pretend she hadn't seen him, or turn and go off in another direction, or charge past him saying, "Hi, I’m busy, can't stop now." Friendly thought she was very cold and stand-offish.

 But all that changed when Harry and Ty blew into town with their two gangs of roughnecks. Harry Cane and Ty Foon were the two toughest characters in the sky, except for Tor Naydow but he never stuck around for very long. Usually Ty roamed around the Far East and Harry hung out in the Western Hemisphere, but they decided to meet in the Middle East and have a rumble to end all rumbles.

 At the time of the big blow-out, Friendly F was floating towards the west sunning himself by the sea, while Blue J was mountain climbing in the north-eastern regions. Friendly F looked out over the water and saw Harry C gathering steam , at just about the same time BJ spied TF rolling in across the plains. , and they both got going! Both FF and BJ were hurrying along, looking over their shoulders and not watching where they were going, and bumped into each other.

 "Turn around and run!", they both shouted to each other at the same time. "The sky is about to fall in!"

 They soon realized that they were trapped, hemmed in on both sides. "What shall we do?", wailed Friendly.

 "There's only one thing TO do", said BJ grimly. Taking Friendly by the collar with her teeth, she started rising up, high into the stratosphere. "We'll just have to pray that they don't get it into their steamy brains to look up."

 For once, Friendly was speechless – partly from fright, and partly from the newness of the whole experience. They climbed safely out of sight only minutes before Harry and Ty burst on the scene in a thundrous, blustery torrent. They rumbled and roared for forty days before they tired each other out and declared a tie. But the gangs hung around for quite a while after that, and it was almost a year before Blue J and Friendly dared to go down. Thin, wispy Blue J had never been up so high nearly that long before, and she shivered and almost lost all her steam in the chilly, dry air. Fortunately, Friendly's heat warmed the air up enough that Blue J kept some of her moisture.

 As they descended, the sunlight shone clear and bright through transparent Blue J, scattered off of Friendly F's droplets, and split up into rings of vivid colors --all the colors of the rainbow. As a matter of fact, this WAS – THE FIRST RAINBOW. And it took both Blue J and Friendly F to make it!

 Both Blue J and Friendly F were astounded at the rainbow. They had seen gorgeous sunsets, but never had they seen anything nearly so colorful before.

 I can't say that they never had a disagreement any more, or that Blue J never got tired of Friendly F, or that Friendly F never became upset with Blue J. However, the memory of the rainbow always drew them back together, and before too long they'd both be thinking about making another rainbow.

 Sometimes Friendly would tower up high into a big black thundercloud, and dump out all of his extra water in a torrential shower. When Blue J saw the tall tower of cloud, she would guess what Friendly F was up to and come running up to join in, clear and bright as a sheet of glass. Or sometimes Blue J would carry Friendly F up and flatten him out, kneading out his extra water in a drizzling rain: and when he was ready, Friendly F would gather up his remaining droplets to glisten and shine in the sun like colored Christmas lights.

 Their rainbows never last long, because Friendly F feels the sun tickles his droplets—and also, Blue J didn't like to stay still for so long. But for the short time they do stay together, the rainbows they make are gorgeous – don’t you think so?

 Which just goes to show that beautiful things happen when people who can hardly get along with each other learn to overcome their differences, work together, help each other, and to appreciate each other.