All Summer in a Day crayon or a coin large enough to buy the

By Ray Bradbury world with. She knew they thought they

remembered a warmness, like a blushing in
"Ready ?"
the face, in the body, in the arms and legs
"Ready."
and trembling hands. But then they always
"Now ?" awoke to the tatting drum, the endless
"Soon." shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon
"Do the scientists really know? Will it the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests,
happen today, will it ?" and their dreams were gone.
"Look, look; see for yourself !" All day yesterday they had read in class
The children pressed to each other like so about the sun. About how like a lemon it was,
many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, and how hot. And they had written small
peering out for a look at the hidden sun. It stories or essays or poems about it:I think the
rained. sun is a flower,That blooms for just one hour.
It had been raining for seven years; That was Margot’s poem, read in a quiet
thousands upon thousands of days voice in the still classroom while the rain was
compounded and filled from one end to the falling outside.
other with rain, with the drum and gush of "Aw, you didn’t write that!" protested one of
water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers the boys.
and the concussion of storms so heavy they "I did," said Margot. "I did."
were tidal waves coming over the islands. A "William!" said the teacher.
thousand forests had been crushed under But that was yesterday. Now the rain was
the rain and grown up a thousand times to be slackening, and the children were crushed in
crushed again. And this was the way life was the great thick windows.
forever on the planet Venus, and this was the
Where's the teacher ?"
schoolroom of the children of the rocket men
"She’ll be back."
and women who had come to a raining world
"She’d better hurry, we’ll miss it !" They
to set up civilization and live out their lives.
turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel,
"It’s stopping, it’s stopping !"
all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone. She
"Yes, yes !"
was a very frail girl who looked as if she had
Margot stood apart from them, from these been lost in the rain for years and the rain
children who could ever remember a time had washed out the blue from her eyes and
when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. the red from her mouth
They were all nine years old, and if there had and the yellow from her hair. She was an old
been a day, seven years ago, when the sun photograph dusted from an album, whitened
came out for an hour and showed its face to away, and if she spoke at all her voice would
the stunned world, they could not recall.
be a ghost. Now she stood, separate,
Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in staring at the rain and the loud wet world
remembrance, and she knew they were beyond the huge glass.
dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow "What’re you looking at ?" said William.
Margot said nothing. There was talk that her father and mother
"Speak when you’re spoken to." He gave were taking her back to Earth next year; it
her a shove. But she did not move; rather seemed vital to her that they do so, though it
she let herself be moved only by him and would mean the loss of thousands of dollars
nothing else. They edged away from her, to her family. And so, the children hated her
they would not look at her. She felt them go for all these reasons of big and little
away. And this was because she would play consequence. They hated her pale snow
no games with them in the echoing tunnels of face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and
the underground city. If they tagged her and her possible future.
ran, she stood blinking after them and did not "Get away !" The boy gave her another
follow. When the class sang songs about push. "What’re you waiting for?"
happiness and life and games her lips barely Then, for the first time, she turned and
moved. Only when they sang about the sun looked at him. And what she was waiting for
and the summer did her lips move as she was in her eyes.
watched the drenched windows. And then, of "Well, don’t wait around here !" cried the
course, the biggest crime of all was that she boy savagely. "You won’t see anything!"
had come here only five years ago from Her lips moved.
Earth, and she remembered the sun and the "Nothing !" he cried. "It was all a joke,
way the sun was and the sky was when she wasn’t it?" He turned to the other children.
was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on "Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?" They
Venus all their lives, and they had been only all blinked at him and then, understanding,
two years old when the last sun came out laughed and shook their heads.
and had long since forgotten the color and
"Nothing, nothing !"
heat of it and the way it really was. But
"Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes
Margot remembered.
helpless. "But this is the day, the scientists
"It’s like a penny," she said once, eyes
predict, they say, they know, the sun…"
closed.
"All a joke !" said the boy, and seized her
"No it’s not!" the children cried. roughly. "Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a
"It’s like a fire," she said, "in the stove." closet before the teacher comes !" "No,"
"You’re lying, you don’t remember !" cried
said Margot, falling back.
the children.
They surged about her, caught her up and
But she remembered and stood quietly apart
bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and
from all of them and watched the patterning
then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a
windows. And once, a month ago, she had
closet, where they slammed and locked the
refused to shower in the school shower
door. They stood looking at the door and saw
rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears
it tremble from her beating and throwing
and over her head, screaming that the water
herself against it. They heard her muffled
mustn’t touch her head. So after that, dimly,
cries. Then, smiling, they turned and went out
dimly, she sensed it, she was different and
and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher
they knew her difference and kept away.
arrived.
"Ready, children ?" She glanced at her "Much, much better !"
watch. They stopped running and stood in the great
"Yes !" said everyone. jungle that covered Venus, that grew and
"Are we all here ?" never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as
"Yes !" you watched it. It was a nest of octopi,
The rain slacked still more. clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed,

They crowded to the huge door. wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was

The rain stopped. the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from
the many years without sun. It was the color
It was as if, in the midst of a film
of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it
concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a
was the color of the moon. The children lay
hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something
out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and
had, first, gone wrong with the sound
heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient
apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting
and alive. They ran among the trees, they
off all noise, all of the blasts and
slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they
repercussions and thunders, and then,
played hide and-seek and tag, but most of all
second, ripped the film from the projector and
they
inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide
squinted at the sun until the tears ran down
which did not move or tremor. The world
their faces; they put their hands up to that
ground to a standstill. The silence was so
yellowness and that amazing blueness and
immense and unbelievable that you felt your
they breathed off the fresh, fresh air and
ears had been stuffed or you had lost your
listened and listened to the silence which
hearing altogether. The children put
suspended them in a blessed sea of no
their hands to their ears. They stood apart.
sound and no motion. They looked at
The door slid back and the smell of the
everything and savored everything. Then,
silent, waiting world came into them. The
wildly, like animals escaped from their
sun came out.
caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles.
It was the color of flaming bronze and it was
They ran for an hour and did not stop
very large. And the sky around it was a
running.
blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned
And then -
with sunlight as the children, released from
In the midst of their running one of the
their spell, rushed out, yelling into the
girls wailed.
springtime.
Everyone stopped.
"Now, don’t go too far," called the teacher
The girl, standing in the open, held out
after them. "You’ve only two hours, you know.
her hand.
You wouldn’t want to get caught out !" But
they were running and turning their faces up "Oh, look, look," she said, trembling. They

to the sky and feeling the sun on their cheeks came slowly to look at her opened palm.
like a warm iron; they were taking off their In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a
jackets and letting the sun burn their arms. single raindrop. She began to cry, looking at

"Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it ?" it. They glanced quietly at the sun. "Oh.
Oh." "Go on," whispered the girl.
A few cold drops fell on their noses and their They walked slowly down the hall in the
cheeks and their mouths. The sun faded sound of cold rain. They turned through the
behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold doorway to the room in the sound of the
around them. They turned and started to storm and thunder, lightning on their faces,
walk back toward the underground house, blue and terrible. They walked over to the
their hands at their sides, their smiles closet door slowly and stood by it. Behind
vanishing away. the closet door was only silence. They
A boom of thunder startled them and like unlocked the door, even more slowly, and
leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled let Margot out.
upon each other and ran. Lightning struck ten
miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half
mile. The sky darkened into midnight in
a flash.
They stood in the doorway of the
underground for a moment until it was raining
hard. Then they closed the door and heard
the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons
and avalanches, everywhere and forever.
"Will it be seven more years ?"
"Yes." " Seven."
Then one of them gave a little cry.
"Margot !"
"What ?"
"She’s still in the closet where we locked
her."
"Margot."
They stood as if someone had driven them,
like so many stakes, into the floor. They
looked at each other and then looked away.
They glanced out at the world that was
raining now and raining and raining steadily.
They could not meet each other’s glances.
Their faces were solemn and pale. They
looked at their hands and feet, their faces
down.
"Margot."
One of the girls said, "Well… ?"
No one moved.