The day the sky disobeyed: warm-up · Grade 8

The passage and its 4 questions

Directions: Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions in full sentences.

• In the city of Solace, nobody had carried an umbrella for nineteen years. The Weather
• Office scheduled rain for two in the morning, when everyone was asleep, and delivered sunshine every afternoon with the reliability of a train timetable. Children drew skies in exactly one color. Noor Haddad, thirteen, had never heard thunder outside of a history lesson.
• On the morning of Sunfeast, the city's yearly celebration of its perfect weather, Noor was helping her grandfather, Idris, set up his lemonade stall in the main square. Above the stage hung a banner of golden wings. "Like Icarus," the mayor had announced proudly on the news, "Solace will soar toward the sun." Idris had nearly choked on his tea. "Somebody should finish reading that myth," he said.
• At noon, the mayor stepped up to the microphone. Behind him, a giant screen displayed the official forecast: CLEAR, 24 DEGREES, ZERO PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIN.
• "Friends," he began, "today we celebrate the end of surprises. Nature works for us now."
• Noor noticed it first: a smudge above the hills, gray as pencil lead, swelling like bread dough. Then the wind changed direction, and a hundred paper napkins lifted off the tables at once.
• The first drop hit the mayor's forehead in the middle of the word "guaranteed." The second landed on the screen, right on the zero. Within a minute the square was roaring with water. People shrieked, then ran, then, slowly and strangely, stopped running. A small boy held out both hands and stared at them as if they were full of coins.
• Idris reached under the stall and pulled out a dusty black umbrella that he had secretly kept for nineteen years. He offered it to Noor with a little bow. "Lovely weather for a sun festival," he said.
• Noor did not take it. She tipped her face up to the sky, and for the first time in her life, she heard the thunder for herself.
• 1. When did the Weather Office schedule rain, and why do you think it chose that time?
• 2. In the Greek myth, Icarus flies too close to the sun on wings of wax and feathers, and he falls. Why does Idris say, "Somebody should finish reading that myth"?
• 3. Explain the situational irony of what happens at Sunfeast.
• 4. Choose a word the author used on purpose. What effect does it have?