ALL SUMMER IN A DAY

It rained. On the planet Venus it had been raining for seven years. Thousands of days were filled with crystal showers and heavy storms. The children were standing near the large window of their school room. They were waiting.

'It's stopping, it's stopping!'

'Yes, yes!'

Margot stood apart from these children who couldn't remember a day without rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the world, they forgot it.

All day yesterday they were reading in class about the sun. And they had written small stories or poems about it:

I think the sun is a flower,

That blooms for just one hour.

That was Margot's poem. She read it in a quiet voice while the rain was falling outside.

'No, you didn't write that!' protested one of the boys.

'I did,' said Margot.

Now it was raining again. Margot looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth. She looked like an old photograph dusted from an album. Now she stood watching the rain and the wet world beyond the huge glass.

Suddenly a boy gave her a strong push. But she did not move. And this was because she would play no games with them. If they tagged her and ran, she stood looking at them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and games she didn't join them.

Only when they sang about the sun her lips made a slow move. Her biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth. She remembered the sun, its colour and its heat!

'It's like a penny,' she said once, eyes closed.

'No, it's not!' the children cried.

'It's like a fire,' she said, 'in the stove.'

'You're lying, you can't remember!' cried the children.

But she remembered. She was different and they kept away from her. They knew that her father and mother would take her back to Earth next year. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting' silence, her thinness, and her possible future.

'Get away!' cried the boy angrily. 'Well, don't wait here! You will see nothing! It was a joke, wasn't it?' He turned to the other children, 'Nothing's happening today. Is it?’

'Nothing, nothing!^’ the other children laughed and shook their heads.

‘Oh, but,' Margot whispered. 'This is the day, the scientists predict, the sun…’

'All a joke!' said the boy. 'Let's put her in a closet before the teacher comes!'

They caught her, took into a closet and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating against it. They heard her cries. Then, smiling, they turned and went out, just as the teacher arrived,

'Ready, children'?' She looked at her watch.

'Yes!' said everyone.

Then the rain stopped and the world got silent. It was so unbelievable that the children fell they had lost their hearing.

The door opened and the smell of the silent world came in. The next moment the sun came out. It was the colour of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky was flaming blue. The Children ran out, crying into the springtime.

'Don't go too far,' called the teacher- 'You've got only two hours, you know!'

But they were running and turning their faces up and feeling the sun on their faces. They were taking off their jackets and felting the sun burn their arms.

When they got tired, the children stopped running. They were standing in the great jungle. The trees never stopped growing. They were the colour of rubber from

the many years without sun. It was the colour of stones and white cheese, and it was the colour of the moon.

The children ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they looked at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to it and that amazing blue sky. They looked at everything and enjoyed everything. Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in circles. They had been running for an hour and did not stop running.

And then —

In the middle of their running one of the girls gave a cry.

Everyone stopped.

The girl held out her hand.

'Oh, look, look,' she said, trembling.

It was a raindrop. She began to cry, looking at it. They glanced quietly at the sun.

A few cold drops fell on their noses end their cheeks and their mouths. The sun hid behind the cloud. A wind blew cold around them. They turned and started to walk back toward their houses. Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile. The sky darkened.

They stood in the doorway for a moment until it was raining hard. Then they closed the door and heard the gigantic sound of the rain.

'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 have locked her.'

They looked at each, other and then looked away. Outside it was raining now. Their faces were white. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down.

They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of cold rain. They came to the closet door slowly and stood by it. Behind it was only silence.

They unlocked the door and let Margot out.

Текст взят из книги Брэдбери, Р., Короткие рассказы [=Short Stories]. - М.: АЙРИС-пресс, 2015.