THE IMPROBABLE WEATHER

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE IMPROBABLE WEATHER

(By NORMAN HUNTER.)

(All Eights Reserved.)

The Weather Clerk was busy writing I •some instructions to the ZS'orth Wind about a rather special hurricane, when Gimmisum, the Elf, came in very rudely without knocking at the door. "I've got a party on to-morrow," he said, •'and I want a tine sunny day." "I'm sorry, but you can't have it," said the Weather Clerk, putting down his pen. "To-morrow's booked for rain, nice heavy rain all day to make things grow." "Oh, bother making things grow," growled the Elf. "I want a line sunny day for my party. Have your old rain some other time, you mean old thing." "Don't be rude," said the Weather Clerk, who was very patient, really, because he could easily have blown the impudent Elf up the chimney, with the corner of a gale, or burnt him to a cinder with half a thunderbolt, only he didn't want to be too hard on him. "The next sunny day isn't till Thursday week, so you'll have to put your party off. I'm sorry, but 1 can't alter the weather just for you. Now please go because I'm busy, and shut the door after you." "Pig!'' shouted the Elf, and he went out in a' temper and didn't shut the door. "The nasty horrid everything that's mean and unpleasant sort of an old man," he grumbled "I'll pay him out for this, see if I don't." He was in such a rage he would have gnashed his teeth and torn his hair if he'd had any, hut he hadn't. The kind of Elf that he was haven't By and by the Weather Man was called away for a couple of days to settle a dispute between a cyclone and a hurricane, who were blowing whole forests down to see who could blow hardest. "Ha, now's my chance," said the Elf to himself, and as soon as the Weather Clerk had gone, he made himself very thin and wriggly, as Elves can, and squirmed in through the keyhole. The first thing he found when he started to rummage about in the Weather Clerk's house was a whole stack of envelopes, each marked with a ditrcrent date. There was one for each clay of the year, and each envelope contained packets of the most amazing powder, coloured according to whether it was for a sunny day or a thunderstorm, and so on. "Coo, I know what I'll do with these," cried the wicked Elf. "I'll mix them all up, so's that mean old Weather Mar. will have to spend simply weeks sorting out the weather." And that was what he did. He madu a big heap of all the sunny short days, golden yellow like seashore sand. He poured on top of that the June, July and August days, some scarlet with the heat they would make, some green and cool for the refreshing showers, and here and there a black thunderstorm, with glinting specks of lightning. He added the white powders from the snowy winter days, and the dirty grey powder from the wet and dreary days. And when he had emptied the powdered weather from every day's envelope he mixed it all together in the most muddled up and stirred about sort of way you can think of, until you couldn't see where the sunny days were or which were the wet days or anything. "That'll teach him." cried the Elf in horrid delight, and he slid sneakily out the way he had come in, only in the opposite direction, .of course. "Bless my weather names," cried the Weather Clerk, when he came hack and found the awful heap of mixed weather. "Screaming hailstones and ornamental lightning, who's done this?" Outside the window the Elf chuckled softly. He was so glad to see the Weather Man upset 'because his weather had been upset. But he didn't chuckle quite softly enough, and the Weather Clerk heard him. "Ho, ho, so it was you was it," thought the Weather Man. But he took no notice. He just got a tablespoon, and started putting the powder back into the envelopes just as it was all mixed up and everything. Then there started days and days of the most unlikely weather ever heard of —weeks and weeks of simply nonsensical days. Some days it would rain and snow both at once with the sun shining. At other times there would be a thunderstorm, a gale and a hurricane all going on at once. Some days it rained in stripe's, like sort of railings, so that people got wet and others stayed dry. It was ridiculous. "Whatever is the Clerk of the Weather doing?" said the King, looking out of four dilferent windows and seeing four different kinds of weather going on at once. "Tell him to stop it at once, it's bringing niy rheumatics on something terrible." "Mine, too," said the Queen, who had eaten too many tarts for tea and thought rheumatics meant toothache. So the Weather Clerk was told to get the weather unmixed. And do you know how lie did it? He sent two of his assistant earthquakes to catch the Elf and set him to sort out every grain of weather powder with a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers. And as it took him seventeen weeks to get it sorted out without stopping even for meals, I think we'd better leave him doing it.