At just five years old, Sophie was already known for her boundless energy and ever-present smile. She carried a wide-brimmed straw hat everywhere she went, the kind with colorful ribbons that danced in the wind. But it wasn’t the hat itself that made Sophie special—it was what she kept inside it.

The first time Sophie’s hat caught attention was on a gloomy Monday at the park. Mr. Lewis, who ran the ice cream stand, was having a rough morning. His freezer had broken, and all the popsicles melted. As he stood there sighing, Sophie walked up to him, her hat tilted slightly on her head.

“Hi, Mr. Lewis!” Sophie chirped, her brown curls bouncing as she spoke. “Why do you look like a sad cloud?”

Mr. Lewis forced a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing, Sophie. Just one of those days.”

Sophie took off her hat and held it out to him. “Here, take a rainbow!”

Mr. Lewis blinked, staring at the small pile of colorful candies at the bottom of her hat. “Rainbows?”

She nodded earnestly. “They’re hiding in the candy. But when you eat one, the rainbow will come out and make things better.”

Mr. Lewis chuckled. “But it’s just candy, Sophie.”

“No, it’s not just candy,” she said, as if explaining something very obvious. “The rainbow is inside, silly. You’ll see.”

Amused, Mr. Lewis picked out a red candy and popped it into his mouth. “Well, Sophie, I don’t think my freezer’s magically going to fix itself,” he said. But as he looked at her beaming face, he couldn’t help but smile for real this time. “Still, I feel a little better. Thanks, kiddo.”

“You’re welcome!” Sophie sang as she skipped off to the playground.

Word of Sophie’s “rainbows” spread quickly. If someone was having a bad day, Sophie would offer them a candy from her hat, insisting it contained a hidden rainbow. At first, people accepted it to humor her. But something funny started happening—after talking to Sophie and eating one of her candies, people began to see their problems differently.

When Mrs. Patel dropped her groceries and spilled a carton of eggs on the sidewalk, Sophie was there in a flash. “Don’t cry, Mrs. Patel. Take a rainbow.”

Mrs. Patel sighed but let Sophie place a green candy in her hand. As she chewed it, she found herself laughing softly. “Well, I suppose I needed to clean this old bag anyway,” she said, picking up her groceries with a new sense of calm.

When Sophie’s older brother, Ethan, came home upset because he’d lost a soccer game, Sophie climbed onto a chair to look him in the eye. “Here,” she said, holding out her hat. “You need two rainbows.”

“Two?” Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded. “One for the game and one for your grumpy face.”

Ethan laughed despite himself and took the candies. “You’re something else, Soph.”