Margot Knows the Sun

Did you ever read the short story “All Summer in a Day,” by Ray Bradbury?  It’s a story about young children in a classroom on Venus.  On Venus, it always rains but for one hour, once every seven years, the sun comes out.  The story takes place on one of those Venus sun days.  There is a girl named Margot in the class who used to live on Earth five years earlier so she knows what sun is like and tells the other children who were too young to have remembered it seven years before on Venus.  Margot describes it like a stove or a penny and the children lock her in a closet out of jealousy.  At that moment, the teacher calls everyone out to see the sun!  They play and laugh in the glorious sun and after one hour, the rain and clouds return again.  Back in the classroom, the elation of the sun wears off and they remember Margot.  In the closet.  Bradbury describes the children as, “unable to meet each other’s glances.”

I recalled that story a lot this winter in Seattle. 🙂  Hikes like the one this weekend are something we will come back to visit for (not to mention our FAMILY and FRIENDS).