When summer comes, the linos go to a rather unusual school.
It's called Weather School. On summer mornings only, they gather around a tree stump in the meadow and learn how to change the weather.
The teacher is a kind old man who usually works his fields. When autumn comes, school closes for the harvest.
In the middle of a meadow, it hardly looks like a school at all. Still, the linos put on the uniforms they made themselves and gather at the stump.
The first year is the rain year. Not a year as in twelve months: "when you can make it rain, you've moved up to the next year," says the teacher. After that comes the cloudy year, where it's hard to get the touch just right. And after that the snow year, and last of all the sunny year.
"Rain, rain, fall!" One lino is practicing, holding a bundle of hay.
But not a single cloud forms in the sky.
The teacher watches, smiling.
No matter how many times she tries, the sky stays perfectly clear.
"Teacher, I can't do it!" says the lino. "Well now. Try it a little more slowly," says the teacher, scratching his head.
"Rain... rain... fa... ll!"
Same as before.
The student lino is getting sulky. The teacher goes on smiling.
Around noon, the linos start to fidget. They all want to go home and eat lunch.
Perhaps he has seen it coming: the teacher says, a little early, "Well then, teacher is getting hungry. Shall we call it a day?"
"Yes!" the linos answer, and all at once they run off across the meadow for home. One tumbling as she runs, one wandering off swinging her hay, one waving with her whole arm, one walking along singing. Each goes home in her own way.
The teacher sits on the stump and watches them go, smiling.
A little later, only around the school, a sun shower comes pattering down. The drops catch the light and sparkle as they burst on the summer grass.
The teacher's eyes follow the linos' backs. It rained, he tells them, in his heart. When he looks up, the clouds are gone, and a high, high blue sky spreads out.
Far beyond the blue, there was the faintest hint of autumn.
The end