"I think the sun is a flower/that blooms for just two hours"

Okay, so I think everyone in the English-speaking countries of North America (or the U.S. and Canada, if you will) had to read the Ray Bradbury story "All Summer in a Day." Everyone I've ever brought it up to knows exactly what I'm talking about. If the title does nothing for you, here's a plot synopsis. The story takes place on Venus, which in Ray Bradbury land, has been colonized and is a planet of perpetual rain--except for one glorious day every seven years when it gets some sun action for two hours. The story takes place in a school, where a class of children is waiting for the rain to stop. One child in particular, a little girl, I believe, is waiting most anxiously, because, unlike the other children, she was born on Earth, so she can remember the sun--and these fools, who were only two the last time Venus got a rain-break, cannot. And she is a sad, melancholy child and an outsider, so of course the kids lock her in the supply closet, and she misses the sun, and IT. IS. HORRIBLE.

Anyway, I always feel like I am the only Ray Bradbury freak around, but everyone knows that story, and it always surprises me. A lot of people have to read Fahrenheit 451 for school, too, so that doesn't surprise me. It's the short stories that are never required reading. Except that one. I can never remember the title of it, either, and I think I've only even read it once, because I can never remember which of my Ray Bradbury collections it's in. So I must have read it twice, once in seventh grade, and once when I bought whatever short story collection it's in. Excuse me, I'm going to find that information out right now.

Shitbananas! I don't have it! How did this happen? I can only find this story in the collection A Medicine for Melancholy, which I most certainly do not own. And now I must. Because it is the truth now that I have only read this story once, in seventh grade honors lit with Mrs. Kecy. Crap.