That morning the sky above the garden at home was covered with grey, puffy clouds, big as pillows. A light rain came down that went pitter-patter on the leaves and the pots. Then, all of a sudden, the clouds opened like a curtain and out came a shining sun, warm on their cheeks like a hug. And in the sky, between one raindrop and the next, a big rainbow appeared, with all its colors lined up in a row.

Ziggy, Lily, Skye, and Dash were in the garden jumping into the puddles. Every time they landed they went splash, and they laughed and laughed. Around them walked Ziggy's four cats: Sofia, the cuddly little black kitten; Dora, the tabby cat who wasn't afraid of anything; and the two brothers, Poldo, big and chunky like a furry pillow, and Milo, tall and quick, who did super-high jumps to keep his paws dry.

"Look," said Skye in her quiet voice, pointing at the kitchen window. Inside, Grandma Rosa was opening one drawer, then another, with her forehead all crinkled up. "Grandma looks worried."

The children ran to her. "What are you looking for, Grandma?" asked Lily, who always wanted to understand everything.

"The recipe for my special cake," Grandma Rosa sighed. "That little paper is gone, and I can't remember which ingredients to put in. I used to make it to make you smile... and now I don't know how anymore."

Ziggy thought about it, scratching his head. He loved inventing things, and he really didn't like seeing Grandma with that face. "Don't worry, Grandma," he said. "We'll take care of it. We'll find a way for sure."

Right at that moment, from far away, came a sound the children knew well: "CHUFF CHUFF!" On the shiny tracks appeared Toby the Magic Train, all colorful, who stopped beside the hedge, puffing happily.

"CHUFF CHUFF, hello little ones, come and play today,
climb aboard my little train, we'll ride far away!
Where the sun is shining warm, but no wind's in sight,
someone sad is waiting there to fly back up, so light!"

The children waved goodbye to Grandma Rosa and climbed aboard. Toby whistled happily and set off, while the four cats watched them from the fence.

The trip was short. When they got off, the garden had become huge and magical: it was Grandma Rosa's Big Garden. There were corners they'd never seen, with funny names written on little wooden signs: the Corner of Smells, the Whispering Hedge, the Windy Hill, and even an Upside-Down Garden, where the carrots poked out of the ground looking up at the sky. The sun shone bright, but there was something strange: not even one little leaf was moving. There wasn't a breath of wind.

Walking among the little wooden signs, the children found out that in the Corner of Smells the air smelled of warm bread, and that the Whispering Hedge made a soft ssss, as if it wanted to tell a secret. But there too, without wind, the whispers had gone quiet.

"So hot," said Dash, fanning himself with his hand. "And so quiet."

It was Skye who found it first. Between two hedges, slumped on the ground, was a kite. It had a very long tail with all the colors of the rainbow, but it was crumpled and droopy, with no life. It looked very sad.

"Poor thing," whispered Skye, coming closer. There was no wind, but as soon as she was near it she smelled a sweet smell. "It smells like powdered sugar!"

The kite opened one eye. With a thread of a voice, just because a little breeze had passed by, it said: "I'm Tails. Usually I talk, I fly, and I tell stories... but only when there's wind. From up there you can smell every scent in the garden."

"Scent?" asked Lily, wrinkling her nose. "What's a scent?"

"A scent," answered Tails with his last puff of air, "is the good smell of things... things-things." And since he was a big chatterbox, he echoed the last little word, like he always did. Then the breeze ended, and Tails fell back to the ground, silent and still.

"It means the good smell," Skye explained to the others. "The scent of the cake, the scent of flowers that have just opened."

The children stood in silence. Without wind, Tails couldn't talk, couldn't fly, couldn't do anything. And without Tails, how would they find the ingredients for Grandma's cake? Everything seemed stuck, and for a moment no one knew what to say.

"We have to give him wind," said Lily, firm, with that strong spirit of hers. "But how? You can't command the wind."

That's when something happened to Ziggy: a little light switched on in his eyes. "Aha!" he shouted, jumping to his feet. "You can't command the wind... but maybe you can make it! If we move the air hard enough, we can make the wind ourselves!"

"And how do you move the air?" asked Dash, curious.

Ziggy looked around. His mind was racing fast. "With a fan! A nice big one!" He picked up a strong branch from the ground and lots of wide leaves, the ones big as open hands. He wove them onto the branch, tied them with the longest blades of grass, and in no time he had built a huge fan of leaves. "Try waving it!"

Lily and Dash grabbed the fan and started pushing it up and down. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. A tiny breeze rose up, just a puff. Tails's rainbow tail trembled a little, but it wasn't enough. The kite stayed stuck to the ground.

"It's not enough," panted Dash, already tired. Sweat was dripping down his forehead, and for a moment everyone thought they'd never do it.

But Ziggy didn't give up. "Then we'll use our bodies too!" he shouted. "Running makes wind! Try blowing on your hand while you run: you can feel the air pushing!" He took Tails's string and started running along the Windy Hill, pulling him behind. The others followed. They ran, they jumped, they spun around in a circle with the string pulled tight, like a big spinning top of laughing children.

The kite lifted a little off the ground... and fell back down. It lifted again... and fell again. Tails was too sad to stay in the air. His face drawn on the cloth was all turned down, like a teardrop.

Skye stopped. She had understood something the others didn't see. "Wait," she said gently. "Tails doesn't just need wind. He needs to be happy again. Look how sad he is."

So the four friends stopped running and started doing everything they could to make the kite laugh. Ziggy made the silliest faces he knew, crossing his eyes and puffing out his cheeks. Dash tripped on purpose and fell on his bottom shouting "whoops!" Lily put the tip of the rainbow tail on her head like a colorful wig. And Skye, with her kind voice, began telling Tails how beautiful his tail was, the most colorful one she had ever seen in her whole life.

Tails watched. His drawn-on mouth moved a little. Then, all of a sudden, a little laugh slipped out: "Hee hee... hee-hee-hee!"

And the magic happened. Right at the very moment Tails laughed, a real gust of wind arrived, strong and cheerful, that filled his whole cloth belly. The kite puffed up, pulled itself up, and shot into the sky doing a perfect figure eight, then another, and another, while the rainbow tail danced behind him like a snake of colors.

"I'm flyyying!" shouted Tails, happy. "Thank you, friends! A smile gave me back the wind!"

The children jumped and clapped their hands. Ziggy laughed so much that tears came to his eyes. It had worked: his idea invented with his mind, the movement made with his body, and above all the smile given to Tails had put everything right again.

Now Tails could really help them. Flying high above the Upside-Down Garden, he started telling everything he could smell from up there. "I smell a scent of mint, down there near the grey rock! And right below me... ripe strawberries, what a sweet smell! And a little further off there's a bush of blueberries, round and blue, just waiting for you!"

The children ran where Tails pointed and gathered what they found, filling a basket. They didn't have the lost recipe anymore, but it didn't matter. "Let's invent a new one," suggested Ziggy, "guided by Tails's scents!" They kneaded, they stirred with a wooden spoon, they added a pinch of this and a handful of that, laughing at their sticky fingers and their cheeks smudged with flour. Every time they didn't know what to add, they looked up at Tails, and he, swirling around, sniffed the air and called out a new scent to try.

When Toby came back to get them with his "CHUFF CHUFF," the children carried in their hands a wonderfully fragrant treat, all pink and purple and blue, the colors of the morning rainbow.

At home, Grandma Rosa tasted a little piece. She closed her eyes. And then, on her face, the biggest smile in the world came back. "But it's delicious!" she exclaimed. "In fact, it's even better than before. How did you do it?"

"A friend taught us," answered Skye, with her eyes shining. "A kite that had lost its smile... and found it again thanks to us."

Toby the Magic Train whistled softly before setting off again, and said:

"CHUFF CHUFF, go home now with your rosy cheeks aglow,
you've learned a little something wonderful to know:
a smile that you give is like magic, it's true,
it changes the whole day and brings the joy back to you!"

And as the sun went down slowly behind the hills, the four cats purred, Grandma cut another slice of cake, and all together they smiled. Because it was really true: sometimes, to change a whole day, all you need is a smile.