Once upon a time, because all fairy tales start once upon a time, there lived a small little girl named Anna.  Anna lived in a small village called Rindale with her family.  She was an energetic and happy little girl and very fond of the rainbows that would grace the sky after a rain shower.  She loved to look at the colors of the rainbow and try to see where it started and ended.  Anna would spend hours after a rain shower looking up at the rainbows, her parents would shrug her activities off as the whim of a small child, but they, too, loved the rainbow.
 One day there was a heavy rain shower, one with loud angry noises and bright flashing lights that scared the whole village.  The sky was dark and the rain poured down heavily for a week and then just as quickly as the storm began it ended.  Anna ran out of her house looking for the rainbow to tell her that everything would be all right.  Yet when she got outside there was no rainbow!  Anna walked back to her house, wondering what had happened to the rainbow.  Her parents could not tell her for they did not know; the whole village was at a loss to where the rainbow had gone.
 Later that night Anna decided that she needed to find the rainbow and to bring happiness back to her village, as everyone in the village seemed sad that no rainbow had appeared.  Outside of the village there lived an old man in a very tall tower, it was told he was a great magician with amazing powers.  Anna thought to herself that the old man would be able to help her, especially if he was a magician.  So she got up very early the next morning and filled her pockets with bread and pastries.  She also took with her a small knife as the woods were said to be filled with all sorts of wild creatures.
 Anna walked all morning until she got the old man’s tower.  The tower was made of grey stone and reached all the way up to the clouds.  Anna walked around the tower but could not find any door or window the only opening she could see was at the very of the tower.  Anna sat down at the base of the tower and ate most of her food.  She was determined to find a way in, she thought and thought and thought.  Finally she decided that she would have to climb the tower, but what to climb with?  She had no rope or magical spell to help her to the top of the tower.  Anna stood there until night appeared in the sky and then she started to walk back to her village, sniffling about her failure to climb the tower.
 As she entered the forest an old tree heard her crying.  “Why are you crying, child?” the tree asked her.
 Anna was startled that a tree could talk, but she had been trained with good manners so she replied, “I want to climb to the top of the tower to ask the magician in there if he can bring the rainbow back.”
 “Why can’t you?” asked the tree.
 “The stones are smooth and the tower is high, I have no way to get up to the top,” said Anna with a sniff.
 The tree felt sorry for Anna and so he told her, “Take a knife to one of my branches and make a small cut, you can collect the sap that runs out.  Rub it on your hands and feet and you will be able to climb up the tower.”
 Anna smiled up at the tree, “Oh thank you, Mr. Tree.  Thank you very much.”
 The tree smiled as Anna collected his sap, “Now go quickly, child, before it gets darker out.”
 Anna waved back at the tree as she ran to the tower.  When she got there she rubbed her hands and feet in the sticky sap.  Anna carefully started to climb the tower, the sap kept her stuck to the wall.  It was hard to move up the tower, but eventually Anna reached the window and climbed into what appeared to be a bedroom.  Anna lay down on the bed, tired from climbing the tower and soon fell asleep.  The old man walked into his bedroom only to see a small child sleeping on his bed.  He tried to pull her off, but her hands and feet were stuck on his blankets and he could not pull her off them.  Finally, with a snap of his fingers he changed the bed into a wooden tub filled with soapy water.
 Anna woke with a shock as she was being vigorously washed by an old man with a long white beard and bushy eyebrows.  “What are you doing in my tower, little girl?” asked the old man grumpily as he pulled her out of the tub.
 “I came looking for the old wizard that lives here,” Anna replied.
 “What makes you think I’m an old wizard?” said the old man as he went about drying her off.
 “Why you turned your bed into a wooden tub to wash me, that’s what wizards can do,” said Anna
 “What makes you think that?  I might have just dragged you into a tub,” retorted the old man.
 Anna thought to herself, and started to cry for that might have been what the old man had done.  “But you have to be the wizard, you just have to be,” she sobbed.
 “Why are you crying,” asked the old man who had been so far away from other people that he had not seen tears in a long time.
 “If you were the old wizard I was going to ask you to bring back the rainbow so that everyone can be happy again,” cried Anna.
 Now the old man was indeed the great wizard that Anna was seeking and he felt sorry for the girl.  She was young but she had a big heart and was full of courage; climbing up the wall of his tower using tree sap.  Yet the wizard’s power had weakened as he grew older and he knew that he could not form a rainbow out of thin air, but he remembered something that might be able to bring the rainbow back to the girl.  “Cheer up, little girl.  If I am this great wizard that you think I am I might be able to help you, but I’m going to need your help.”
 “Oh anything great wizard,” Anna quickly replied, wiping her tears away.
 “There is a well outside of my tower that dried up a long time ago.  Deep inside that well there is a crystal that I need to make the rainbow.  If you can get the crystal then you can have your rainbow back,” said the old wizard sternly.
 “I will go get the crystal and bring it right back, I promise,” said Anna.
 “You can exit my tower at the bottom, there is a door there, leave it open so you can get back in if you succeed,” said the wizard.
 Anna flew down ten flights of stairs to the bottom of the tower and opened the door.  She saw that on the inside it was a regular door, but on the outside it looked exactly like the rest of the tower.  ‘Oh he must be a great wizard to be able to do that,’ thought Anna to herself.  Anna came to the well and stared down.  It was still dark out and she could not see the bottom of the well.  Anna wondered how she could get to the bottom of the well when she heard a strange scraping sound next to her.  She moved a little to the side and stared as a night badger came out of the ground.
 “Hello, Mr. Badger,” greeted Anna.
 “Hello, little girl.  Do you usually greet strange animals at night?” the badger asked curiously.
 “My parents always told me to be polite,” replied Anna.
 “Aren’t you scared of me?” asked the badger attempting to make himself scarier.
 “No, you don’t seem scary,” replied Anna truthfully.
 “I suppose your parents told you to always tell the truth,” sighed the badger.
 “Yes they did,” answered Anna.
 “What are you doing out here, little girl?  The night is full of dangerous creatures,” warned the badger.
 “I need to get the crystal at the bottom of this well so that the old wizard can make a rainbow and end the sadness in my village,” answered Anna.
 “How are you going to get to the bottom of the well?” asked the badger.
 “I don’t know, I don’t know how deep the well is, can you help me Mr. Badger?” pleaded Anna.
 “I probably could but I need to eat first, I’m hungry and I haven’t eaten all day,” replied the badger.
 Anna reached into her pocket and pulled out her last pastry and handed it to the badger, “Here, Mr. Badger, I will give you my last pastry if you help me.”
 “Pastry?!” exclaimed the badger.  “I love pastries!  I’ll be back in a jiff, little girl.”  With that said the badger quickly turned around and dug a deep hole kicking up dirt that tickled Anna’s face.  It was no more than a minute that the badger came up with the crystal in its arms.  “Here you go, child,” said the badger as he handed her the crystal.
 “Oh thank you very much!” said Anna joyously as she handed the badger her pastry.
 “Good luck, little girl,” said the badger as Anna waved goodbye and ran back to the tower.
 Anna flew up the ten flights of stairs even faster than she had gone down them.  When she got to the wizard’s bedroom she found him sleeping in a rocking chair by the fire.  “Mr. Wizard,” she said, waking up the old man.  “I have your crystal!”
 “Hmph, so it seems you do.  You’re a very dedicated little girl.  Now give me the crystal and I’ll see what I can do,” said the old wizard.
 “Okay, Mr. Wizard,” said Anna as she handed the crystal over.
 “Now here’s what we’re going to do, you’re going to go to sleep in my bed over there and when you wake up you’ll be back in your village.  When you do wake up walk outside of your house and look at the sky and you’ll see a lovely rainbow spreading from one end of the sky to the other,” instructed the wizard.
 Anna did as she was told and went to sleep in the wizard’s comfy bed.  When she woke up she saw that she was in her own bed in her house.  She walked outside her house and looked up at the sky and wouldn’t you know it, there was a rainbow spreading from one end of the sky to the other.  Anna watched as the rest of the town came out to stand next to her and look at the beautiful rainbow.  The rainbow came every morning when the sun rose and the villagers lived happily ever after, because every fairy tale ends happily ever after.