Book 4 Raining Cats,Dogs,and Other Animals

Raining Cats, Dogs, and Other Animals

Well, if you are a garden of wild oats, watermelon seeds, and apple pits struggling to grow in parched ground, rain is glorious. But if you are a town full of people in the middle of an outdoor festival, rain is not so glorious. " You are always ruining everything! " cried Ethan Jordan, a boy in my class who is also my number one enemy. His wet, New York Yankees T-shirt clung to his chest so tightly it looked like he had pinstriped skin. Then a mob of sopping wet fourth-graders yelled out, " Charly did it, Charly did it! Get her. "

" Hold on now, kids, " said Dad. " Charly didn't make it rain. Her Aunt Delilah had some of her pilot friends do a cloud-seeding experiment with special chemicals. They made it rain. Isn't that right, Dee?" Aunt Dee looked at me, my rain hat dripping, my spirits dampened. “ I tried to tell you before that I wasn't able to get my friends to come through. " " But if they didn't make it rain, then . . . , " I started, “ I really did it? I made it rain on everyone's parade?" I looked at Ethan and the other kids. Now they looked like they really wanted to throttle me. Before they got the chance, I grabbed Murray, my big old chocolate Labrador, and took off.

" See you at home, Dad! " I took a shortcut through the hole in the fence behind Mr. MacGruder's yard, just to make sure Ethan and the other kids didn't follow me. I made it home just as the rain let up. I couldn't keep the grin off my face. " That was quite a storm we just had, " said Great Aunt Tess as I banged through the door. Her friends from the Scrabble society were coming over that evening for a tournament. Gattie's apartment wasn't big enough for tournament night, so Dad let her use our house.

Folding tables and chairs filled the living room. Little glass bowls with little balls of hard candies in flavors like toffee and butter rum that don't taste good until you are at least 60 years old sat on side tables. “ It was raining cats and dogs, " she added.

That's my family for you, always saying these sayings that I don't always understand. Gattie explained that “ raining cats and dogs" meant a really hard rain. She said that back in the old days, cats and dogs would sleep on roof tops. When a really hard rain came, they'd all jump down from the roof, so it seemed like it was raining cats and dogs.