Children press their faces against the classroom windows, watching for signs the rain might stop.

The teacher leads the class through lessons about the sun ahead of its expected appearance.

Margot stands apart from her classmates and refuses to join in the children's group games.

William taunts Margot, declaring that the scientific forecast of sunshine is nothing but a joke.

The children, whipped into a frenzy, force Margot into a closet and lock the door behind her.

Margot beats on the locked closet door and cries out, begging her classmates to let her out.

The teacher returns to the classroom and leads the entire class outside.

The rain stops completely, replacing the roar of the storm with an extraordinary silence.

The sun breaks through the clouds and floods the landscape with warmth and golden light.

The children shed their coats and rush yelling into the jungle, released from the underground tunnels.

The children run through the trees, play hide-and-seek and tag, and squint up at the blazing sun.

A girl catches a raindrop in her palm and begins to cry as the sun fades and the sky darkens.

The children rush back into the underground building as the returning storm closes in around them.

The children realize with horror that Margot is still locked inside the closet.

One of the children unlocks the closet door and slowly swings it open as the others watch in silence.

A class of nine-year-olds on Venus waits anxiously for the sun, which appears only once every seven years. Margot, who remembers sunlight from her childhood on Earth, is singled out by her classmates and locked in a closet just before the rain stops. The children rush outside and spend a joyful hour playing in the sunlight before the storm returns and drives them back indoors. Only then do they remember what they have done, and they return to free Margot. The story ends on a quiet, devastating note as Margot steps out pale and silent, having missed the one thing she had been living for.

The core story of Margot, the sun, and the closet.

The children recite facts about the sun in eager voices, revealing they know it only from textbooks.

Margot's classmates are aware that her family is considering returning to Earth, an option unavailable to them.

Margot moves her lips only during songs about the sun, remaining silent through every other class activity.

William steps forward and directly challenges Margot, asking what exactly she thinks she is waiting for.

The other children join William's taunting, mocking Margot as a unified, jeering group.

The children grab Margot and drag her, protesting and then pleading, down through a tunnel and into a room.

The children slam the closet door shut and lock it while Margot is still crying and pounding from within.

The teacher returns, notices the rain slowing, and shepherds the students toward the exit.

The jungle in sunlight is revealed to be rampantly growing but oddly pale and grayish, like rubber and ash.

A child calls out that the real sun is far better than the sun-lamps used in the underground city.

The children turn their faces upward and let the sun burn their skin, absorbing every possible moment of warmth.

Lightning strikes far in the distance and steadily advances closer as the brief hour of sun runs out.

The children stand indoors unable to look at one another, pale and solemn with unspoken shame.

Overcome with guilt, the children slowly make their way back through the corridors toward the locked closet.

The rain resumes its relentless pounding as the children finally open the door and free Margot.

While the class waits for the sun, the children reveal how much of their knowledge is purely secondhand, reciting facts without any real memory of sunlight. Margot's difference from her classmates — her memories, her silence, her family's possible escape back to Earth — fuels a growing resentment that William channels into direct confrontation. The children act as a mob, dragging Margot through the underground corridors before sealing her in the closet. Outside, small individual moments break through the group's excitement, and the children taste both the sun's warmth and the grief of losing it. When they return and free Margot, the rain is already hammering down once more.

The moments of jealousy, cruelty, and wonder that fill the story's edges.

Margot's pale, washed-out appearance visibly distinguishes her from every other child in the classroom.

The children realize Margot holds a genuine memory of sunlight while they possess only secondhand knowledge.

The children's jealousy sharpens into resentment as they sense Margot's life on Earth was richer than their own.

William shoves Margot to begin a physical confrontation that quickly pulls the entire class into the attack.

Margot's protests turn to pleas and then to cries as she is pushed further from the classroom toward the closet.

The teacher's weak attempts to manage the children's cruelty toward Margot fail to prevent her imprisonment.

Margot falls silent inside the locked closet long before the other students return from outside.

The jungle's flowers open for the first time as the sun breaks out, revealing what Venus looks like in true daylight.

The children experience a deep and joyful communion with the natural world during their single hour in the sun.

The sun is described as the color of flaming bronze against a blazing blue sky, unlike anything the children imagined.

The children emerging from outside now appear solemn and pale, suddenly resembling Margot's usual wan demeanor.

The children, newly aware of what losing the sun means, connect their own grief to Margot's years of longing.

The children stand motionless before the closet door, ashamed and unable to meet one another's eyes.

The children open the closet to find Margot has stopped crying and beating on the door, now utterly still.

Margot steps out of the closet in silence, and the story ends with no apology given and the sun already gone.

From the opening, Margot's pale appearance and remembered grief set her apart as someone shaped by a different world than her classmates. The children's resentment of her privilege hardens into action when William makes the first physical move and the group follows, sealing Margot away from the very thing she has been longing for. Outside, the sun triggers a genuine awakening in the children, transforming them from a mob into individuals who feel the depth and richness of the natural world for the first time. When the rain returns and strips that joy away, the children suddenly understand what Margot has endured for years. They return to the closet changed, but the empathy they have gained cannot restore what they have taken.

The discoveries, awakenings, and emotional shifts that define the story's meaning.