6_All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

All Summer in a Day recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard themBy Ray Bradbury stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a \"Ready ?\" yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy \"Ready.\" the world with. She knew they thought they \"Now ?\" remembered a warmness, like a blushing in \"Soon.\" the face, in the body, in the arms and legs \"Do the scientists really know? Will it and trembling hands. But then they alwayshappen today, will it ?\" awoke to the tatting drum, the endless \"Look, look; see for yourself !\" shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon The children pressed to each other like so the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests,many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, and their dreams were gone.peering out for a look at the hidden sun. It rained. All day yesterday they had read in class It had been raining for seven years; about the sun. About how like a lemon itthousands upon thousands of days was, and how hot. And they had writtencompounded and filled from one end to the small stories or essays or poems about it:Iother with rain, with the drum and gush of think the sun is a flower,That blooms for justwater, with the sweet crystal fall of showers one hour. That was Margot’s poem, readand the concussion of storms so heavy they in a quiet voice in the still classroom whilewere tidal waves come over the islands. A the rain was falling outside.thousand forests had been crushed underthe rain and grown up a thousand times to \"Aw, you didn’t write that!\" protested onebe crushed again. And this was the way life of the boys.was forever on the planet Venus, and thiswas the schoolroom of the children of the \"I did,\" said Margot. \"I did.\"rocket men and women who had come to a \"William!\" said the teacher.raining world to set up civilization and live But that was yesterday. Now the rain wasout their lives. slackening, and the children were crushed in \"It’s stopping, it’s stopping !\" the great thick windows. \"Yes, yes !\" Where’s teacher ?\" Margot stood apart from them, from these \"She’ll be back.\"children who could ever remember a time \"She’d better hurry, we’ll miss it !\"when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They turned on themselves, like aThey were all nine years old, and if there feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margothad been a day, seven years ago, when the stood alone. She was a very frail girl whosun came out for an hour and showed its looked as if she had been lost in the rain forface to the stunned world, they could not years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth

and the yellow from her hair. She was an old \"You’re lying, you don’t remember !\" criedphotograph dusted from an album, whitened the children.away, and if she spoke at all her voice wouldbe a ghost. Now she stood, separate, But she remembered and stood quietlystaring at the rain and the loud wet world apart from all of them and watched thebeyond the huge glass. patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school \"What’re you looking at ?\" said William. shower rooms, had clutched her hands to Margot said nothing. her ears and over her head, screaming the \"Speak when you’re spoken to.\" water mustn’t touch her head. So after that, He gave her a shove. But she did not dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was differentmove; rather she let herself be moved only and they knew her difference and keptby him and nothing else. They edged away away. There was talk that her father andfrom her, they would not look at her. She felt mother were taking her back to Earth nextthem go away. And this was because she year; it seemed vital to her that they do so,would play no games with them in the though it would mean the loss of thousandsechoing tunnels of the underground city. If of dollars to her family. And so, the childrenthey tagged her and ran, she stood blinking hated her for all these reasons of big andafter them and did not follow. When the little consequence. They hated her paleclass sang songs about happiness and life snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness,and games her lips barely moved. Only and her possible future.when they sang about the sun and thesummer did her lips move as she watched \"Get away !\" The boy gave her anotherthe drenched windows. And then, of course, push. \"What’re you waiting for?\"the biggest crime of all was that she hadcome here only five years ago from Earth, Then, for the first time, she turned andand she remembered the sun and the way looked at him. And what she was waiting forthe sun was and the sky was when she was was in her eyes.four in Ohio. And they, they had been onVenus all their lives, and they had been only \"Well, don’t wait around here !\" cried thetwo years old when last the sun came out boy savagely. \"You won’t see nothing!\"and had long since forgotten the color andheat of it and the way it really was. Her lips moved. But Margot remembered. \"Nothing !\" he cried. \"It was all a joke, \"It’s like a penny,\" she said once, eyes wasn’t it?\" He turned to the other children.closed. \"Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?\" \"No it’s not!\" the children cried. They all blinked at him and then, \"It’s like a fire,\" she said, \"in the stove.\" understanding, laughed and shook their heads. \"Nothing, nothing !\" \"Oh, but,\" Margot whispered, her eyes helpless. \"But this is the day, the scientists

predict, they say, they know, the sun…\" their hands to their ears. They stood apart. \"All a joke !\" said the boy, and seized her The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them.roughly. \"Hey, everyone, let’s put her in acloset before the teacher comes !\" The sun came out. It was the color of flaming bronze and it \"No,\" said Margot, falling back. was very large. And the sky around it was a They surged about her, caught her up and blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burnedbore her, protesting, and then pleading, and with sunlight as the children, released fromthen crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a their spell, rushed out, yelling into thecloset, where they slammed and locked the springtime.door. They stood looking at the door and \"Now, don’t go too far,\" called the teachersaw it tremble from her beating and throwing after them. \"You’ve only two hours, youherself against it. They heard her muffled know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out !\"cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out But they were running and turning theirand back down the tunnel, just as the faces up to the sky and feeling the sun onteacher arrived. their cheeks like a warm iron; they were \"Ready, children ?\" She glanced at her taking off their jackets and letting the sunwatch. burn their arms. \"Yes !\" said everyone. \"Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it \"Are we all here ?\" ?\" \"Yes !\" \"Much, much better !\" The rain slacked still more. They stopped running and stood in the They crowded to the huge door. great jungle that covered Venus, that grew The rain stopped. and never stopped growing, tumultuously, It was as if, in the midst of a film even as you watched it. It was a nest ofconcerning an avalanche, a tornado, a octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlikehurricane, a volcanic eruption, something weed, wavering, flowering in this briefhad, first, gone wrong with the sound spring. It was the color of rubber and ash,apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting this jungle, from the many years without sun.off all noise, all of the blasts and It was the color of stones and white cheesesrepercussions and thunders, and then, and ink, and it was the color of the moon.second, ripped the film from the projector The children lay out, laughing, on theand inserted in its place a beautiful tropical jungle mattress, and heard it sigh andslide which did not move or tremor. The squeak under them resilient and alive. Theyworld ground to a standstill. The silence was ran among the trees, they slipped and fell,so immense and unbelievable that you felt they pushed each other, they played hide-your ears had been stuffed or you had lost and-seek and tag, but most of all theyyour hearing altogether. The children put

squinted at the sun until the tears ran down a flash.their faces; they put their hands up to that They stood in the doorway of theyellowness and that amazing blueness andthey breathed of the fresh, fresh air and underground for a moment until it waslistened and listened to the silence which raining hard. Then they closed the door andsuspended them in a blessed sea of no heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling insound and no motion. They looked at tons and avalanches, everywhere andeverything and savored everything. Then, forever.wildly, like animals escaped from theircaves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. \"Will it be seven more years ?\"They ran for an hour and did not stop \"Yes. Seven.\"running. Then one of them gave a little cry. \"Margot !\" And then - \"What ?\" In the midst of their running one of the \"She’s still in the closet where we lockedgirls wailed. her.\" Everyone stopped. \"Margot.\" The girl, standing in the open, held out They stood as if someone had drivenher hand. them, like so many stakes, into the floor. \"Oh, look, look,\" she said, trembling. They looked at each other and then looked They came slowly to look at her opened away. They glanced out at the world thatpalm. was raining now and raining and raining In the center of it, cupped and huge, was steadily. They could not meet each other’sa single raindrop. She began to cry, looking glances. Their faces were solemn and pale.at it. They glanced quietly at the sun. They looked at their hands and feet, their \"Oh. Oh.\" faces down. A few cold drops fell on their noses and \"Margot.\"their cheeks and their mouths. The sun One of the girls said, \"Well… ?\"faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold No one moved.around them. They turned and started to \"Go on,\" whispered the girl.walk back toward the underground house, They walked slowly down the hall in thetheir hands at their sides, their smiles sound of cold rain. They turned through thevanishing away. doorway to the room in the sound of the A boom of thunder startled them and like storm and thunder, lightning on their faces,leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled blue and terrible. They walked over to theupon each other and ran. Lightning struck closet door slowly and stood by it.ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a Behind the closet door was only silence.half mile. The sky darkened into midnight in They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.