in a quiet voice in the still classroom while

the rain was falling outside.

"Aw, you didn’t write that!" protested one

of the boys.

"I did," said Margot. "I did."

"William!" said the teacher.

But that was yesterday. Now the rain was

slackening, and the children were crushed in

the great thick windows.

Where’s teacher ?"

"She’ll be back."

"She’d better hurry, we’ll miss it !"

4.

They turned on themselves, like a

feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot

stood alone. She was a very frail girl who

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

and the yellow from her hair. She was an old

photograph dusted from an album, whitened

away, and if she spoke at all her voice would

be a ghost. Now she stood, separate,

staring at the rain and the loud wet world

beyond the huge glass.

"What’re you looking at ?" said William.

Margot said nothing.

"Speak when you’re spoken to."

5.

He gave her a shove. But she did not

move; rather she let herself be moved only

by him and nothing else. They edged away

from her, they would not look at her. She felt

them go away. And this was because she

would play no games with them in the

echoing tunnels of the underground city. If

they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking

after them and did not follow. When the

class sang songs about happiness and life

and games her lips barely moved. Only

when they sang about the sun and the

summer did her lips move as she watched

the drenched windows. And then, of course,

the biggest crime of all was that she had

come here only five years ago from Earth,

and she remembered the sun and the way

the sun was and the sky was when she was

four in Ohio. And they, they had been on

Venus all their lives, and they had been only

two years old when last the sun came out

and had long since forgotten the color and

heat of it and the way it really was.

6.

But Margot remembered.

"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 don’t remember !" cried

the children.

But she remembered and stood quietly

apart from all of them and watched the

patterning windows. And once, a month ago,

she had refused to shower in the school

shower rooms, had clutched her hands to

her ears and over her head, screaming the

water mustn’t touch her head. So after that,

dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different

and they knew her difference and kept

away. There was talk that her father and

mother were taking her back to Earth next

year; it seemed vital to her that they do so,

though it would mean the loss of thousands

of dollars to her family. And so, the children

hated her for all these reasons of big and

little consequence. They hated her pale

snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness,

and her possible future.

7.

"Get away !" The boy gave her another

push. "What’re you waiting for?"

Then, for the first time, she turned and

looked at him. And what she was waiting for

was in her eyes.

"Well, don’t wait around here !" cried the

boy savagely. "You won’t see nothing!"

Her lips moved.

"Nothing !" he cried. "It was all a joke,

wasn’t it?" He turned to the other children.

"Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?"

They all blinked at him and then,

understanding, laughed and shook their

heads.

8.

"Nothing, nothing !"

"Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes

helpless. "But this is the day, the scientists

predict, they say, they know, the sun…"

"All a joke !" said the boy, and seized her

roughly. "Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a

closet before the teacher comes !"

"No," said Margot, falling back.

They surged about her, caught her up and

bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and

then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a

closet, where they slammed and locked the

door. They stood looking at the door and

saw it tremble from her beating and throwing

herself against it. They heard her muffled

cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out

and back down the tunnel, just as the

teacher arrived.

9.

"Ready, children ?" She glanced at her

watch.

"Yes !" said everyone.

"Are we all here ?"

"Yes !"

The rain slacked still more.

They crowded to the huge door.

The rain stopped.

It was as if, in the midst of a film

concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a

hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something

had, first, gone wrong with the sound

apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting

off all noise, all of the blasts and

repercussions and thunders, and then,

second, ripped the film from the projector

and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical

slide which did not move or tremor. The

world ground to a standstill. The silence was

so immense and unbelievable that you felt

your ears had been stuffed or you had lost

your hearing altogether. The children put

their hands to their ears. They stood apart.

The door slid back and the smell of the

silent, waiting world came in to them.

10.

The sun came out.

It was the color of flaming bronze and it

was very large. And the sky around it was a

blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned

with sunlight as the children, released from

their spell, rushed out, yelling into the

springtime.

"Now, don’t go too far," called the teacher

after them. "You’ve only two hours, you

know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out !"

But they were running and turning their

faces up to the sky and feeling the sun on

their cheeks like a warm iron; they were

taking off their jackets and letting the sun

burn their arms.

11.

"Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it

?"

"Much, much better !"

They stopped running and stood in the

great jungle that covered Venus, that grew

and never stopped growing, tumultuously,

even as you watched it. It was a nest of

octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike

weed, wavering, flowering in this brief

spring. It was the color of rubber and ash,

this jungle, from the many years without sun.

It was the color of stones and white cheeses

and ink, and it was the color of the moon.

The children lay out, laughing, on the

jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and

squeak under them resilient and alive. They

ran among the trees, they slipped and fell,

they pushed each other, they played hideand-

seek and tag, but most of all they

squinted at the sun until the tears ran down

their faces; they put their hands up to that

yellowness and that amazing blueness and

they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and

listened and listened to the silence which

suspended them in a blessed sea of no

sound and no motion. They looked at

everything and savored everything. Then,

wildly, like animals escaped from their

caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles.

They ran for an hour and did not stop

running.

12.

And then -

In the midst of their running one of the

girls wailed.

Everyone stopped.

The girl, standing in the open, held out

her hand.

"Oh, look, look," she said, trembling.

They came slowly to look at her opened

palm.

In the center of it, cupped and huge, was

a single raindrop. She began to cry, looking

at it. They glanced quietly at the sun.

"Oh. Oh."

A few cold drops fell on their noses and

their cheeks and their mouths. The sun

faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold

around them. They turned and started to

walk back toward the underground house,

their hands at their sides, their smiles

vanishing away.

13.

A boom of thunder startled them and like

leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled

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."

14. 

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.

"Go on," whispered the girl.

They walked slowly down the hall in the

sound of cold rain. They turned through the

doorway to the room in the sound of the

storm and thunder, lightning on their faces,

blue and terrible. They walked over to the

closet door slowly and stood by it.

Behind the closet door was only silence.

They unlocked the door, even more

slowly, and let Margot out.

Equizzer