In a narrow little street where the windows had blue shutters and the chimneys wore crooked hats, there was a shop called Button, Thread, and Other Important Things.

The shop smelled of wool, cinnamon, and the warm metal scent of sewing needles.

On a high wooden hook, between a striped scarf and a pair of boots shaped like ladybugs, hung a raincoat named Nori.

Nori was bright yellow, with round silver buttons and a hood that curled at the very tip like the top of a question mark.

Everyone who came into the shop admired Nori.

“What a cheerful raincoat!” they said.

“What a splendid color for puddle jumping!”

“Just the thing for a wet day!”

Nori smiled politely, as raincoats do when people are saying things they are expected to enjoy.

But inside, Nori had a terrible secret.

Nori disliked rain.

Not a tiny bit.

Not a little sprinkle.

Not even the sort of rain that fell gently from a silver cloud and made the roses look like they had polished their leaves.

Nori disliked rain because it tapped.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

It drummed on Nori’s hood.

It trickled down Nori’s sleeves.

It slipped under the hems of trousers and made children squeal, “Ooh, my socks are damp!”

Rain made the sky gray. It made people hurry. It made puddles hide stones beneath their shiny faces.

And worst of all, whenever it rained, everyone expected Nori to be happy.

“You must love rainy weather,” said the old umbrella beside Nori on the hook.

“I suppose,” said Nori.

“You were made for it,” said the umbrella. “You and I are cousins, after all.”

Nori gave a small, unhappy rustle.

Being made for something, Nori thought, was not at all the same as loving it.

One spring morning, a customer bought Nori.

The customer was a little girl named Safiya, who had freckles across her nose and a bicycle basket full of dandelions.

Safiya took Nori home to a house with a red door, a garden full of mint, and a sleepy gray cat named Ponto.

At first, Nori’s life was pleasant.

Safiya wore Nori on windy walks to the bakery. She wore Nori while looking for snails in the garden. She wore Nori when she pretended the hallway was a ship and all the rugs were islands.

But then came a rainy afternoon.

The first drop hit Nori’s hood.

Tap.

Nori shivered.

Then came another.

Tap, tap.

Soon rain was falling everywhere, rushing down the windows, bouncing off the garden wall, and filling the birdbath until it looked like a tiny dark pond.

Safiya clapped her hands.

“Perfect puddle weather!”

Nori wished very much to be hanging somewhere dry.

Safiya pulled Nori on, buttoned every button, and ran outside.

At first, Nori tried to be brave.

The rain ran over Nori’s yellow sleeves in shining streams. It gathered in round pearls on the shoulders. Safiya splashed into the first puddle with both boots.

SPLOSH!

Nori could not help it.

“Oh dear,” Nori whispered.

“What was that?” Safiya asked.

“I said, what a lot of water,” said Nori quickly.

Safiya splashed through three more puddles. Then she stopped beneath the old pear tree.

The rain fell harder.

Nori felt soggy, gloomy, and cross.

“I do not understand,” Nori muttered. “Why would anyone choose this?”

A voice from the pear tree said, “Because the rain is telling stories.”

Nori looked up.

On a branch sat a small green frog wearing a crown made of clover.

“Stories?” Nori asked.

“Of course,” said the frog. “Listen.”

Tap-tap-tap on the leaves.

Plink-plink-plink in the birdbath.

Patter-patter-patter on the garden path.

The frog closed his eyes. “That one is a story about a mouse who baked a cake too large for his oven. That one is about a whale who wanted to learn knitting. And that one,” he said, pointing to a drop sliding down Nori’s sleeve, “is about a raincoat who does not yet know where she belongs.”

Nori felt quite offended.

“I know exactly where I belong,” said Nori.

“Do you?” asked the frog.

But before Nori could answer, a gust of wind spun through the garden.

Whoosh!

The pear tree shook. Dandelion fluff flew. Safiya’s hood slipped off. And Nori, who had not been buttoned quite properly at the bottom, caught the wind like a little yellow sail.

Up Nori flew.

“Goodness!” cried Safiya.

“Goodbye!” called the frog.

Nori sailed over the fence, over the bakery, over the blue-shuttered street, and far beyond the town.

For a while, Nori tumbled through the spring sky, flapping and fluttering.

Then Nori landed in a meadow full of buttercups.

It was still raining.

Nori lay in the grass and waited for the sky to stop.

But it did not.

Instead, the rain slowly softened. The clouds thinned. Between them came a pale, warm beam of sunlight.

The meadow glittered.

Every buttercup held a tiny golden mirror.

Every blade of grass wore a bright drop.

And at the edge of the meadow, a snail crawled out from beneath a stone and lifted its feelers toward the light.

“Ah,” sighed the snail. “A sunshower.”

Nori did not reply.

The sunlight felt warm upon Nori’s yellow back. The raindrops sparkled like little glass buttons.

It was not so bad, Nori thought.

But then the sun came out fully, and spring hurried away.

Summer arrived wearing sandals made of hot dust.

Nori traveled from place to place, carried by breezes, laundry lines, wagon carts, and once by a very determined goat who mistook one of Nori’s sleeves for a flag.

In summer, Nori found no rain at all.

The days were bright and blazing. The roads shimmered. Bees hummed lazily among the flowers.

At first, Nori was delighted.

“No rain!” Nori cried.

Nori spread over a blackberry bush and made a little shade for a family of field mice. Nori became a picnic cloth for two children and their stuffed elephant. Nori was even used as a sail for a toy boat on a pond.

But after many hot days, the grass turned pale.

The pond shrank around the edges.

The blackberry bush drooped.

One evening, the field mice sat beneath Nori’s shade, looking at the empty sky.

“We miss the rain,” said the smallest mouse.

Nori blinked.

“You miss it?”

“Our roots need it,” said the blackberry bush softly.

“Our pond needs it,” croaked a thirsty frog.

“Our puddles need it,” said the mice.

Nori looked around at the dusty meadow.

For the first time, Nori wondered if rain could be important even when it was not pleasant.

Then summer folded itself away, and autumn came tumbling in.

Autumn wore a cloak of russet leaves and smelled of apples, smoke, and damp earth.

Nori was caught on the branch of an apple tree. The wind liked to play with Nori, puffing into the sleeves and making the hood wobble.

“Come fly with us!” cried the wind.

“I have flown enough,” said Nori.

But the wind was ticklish and persuasive.

Soon Nori was sailing above orchards, fields, and small villages with roofs the color of chestnuts.

Below, people gathered apples. Squirrels carried acorns. Geese made arrows across the sky.

Then a storm came, not like spring rain, but deep and booming.

The clouds rolled in purple and blue. Thunder grumbled behind the hills.

Nori was frightened.

The wind dropped Nori beside a tiny hedgehog family caught in the open.

The hedgehogs had no burrow nearby. Their prickly coats were soaked.

Without thinking, Nori stretched out.

One sleeve covered two hedgehogs.

The other sleeve covered three more.

Nori’s broad yellow back became a small roof.

The rain beat upon Nori.

Tap, tap, tap.

But beneath Nori, the hedgehogs were dry.

The littlest hedgehog yawned.

“Thank you, sunshine blanket,” she said.

Nori felt something warm, though it was not sunlight.

When the storm passed, the hedgehogs scurried away, leaving a shiny red apple tucked into Nori’s pocket.

Autumn turned colder. The leaves fell. The earth grew quiet.

Winter came softly, carrying a basket of snow.

Nori found themself hanging from a fence post near a snowy field.

Snow was not rain, exactly.

It floated down in soft white feathers. It rested on Nori’s hood and sleeves without tapping or drumming.

Nori rather liked snow.

It made the world hushed.

Foxes left neat tracks through the field. Smoke rose from cottage chimneys. The moon looked enormous and pale above the frozen pond.

But snow melted.

One afternoon, the air grew warmer, and the snow on Nori’s shoulders turned into cold water.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

“Oh no,” said Nori. “Not rain again.”

Yet it was not rain.

It was winter becoming spring.

A few days later, a familiar gust of wind whirled through the field.

Whoosh!

Nori spun over hedges, gardens, and rooftops.

Then Nori saw a red door.

A mint garden.

A sleepy gray cat in the window.

“Nori!” cried Safiya.

Safiya ran outside just as the first drops began to fall.

Nori landed gently in her arms.

“I looked everywhere,” Safiya said, hugging Nori close.

Nori was dusty, leaf-speckled, and had one apple in a pocket. But Safiya did not mind.

She brushed Nori off and put Nori on.

The rain began.

Nori felt the familiar tapping.

Tap, tap, tap.

For one worried moment, Nori wanted to hide.

Then the clouds opened just enough for the sun to peek through.

Golden light spilled across the garden.

The raindrops on Nori’s yellow sleeves shone brightly.

Above the pear tree, a rainbow appeared, curved like a great painted smile.

Under the pear tree sat the little green frog with his clover crown.

“I wondered when you would come back,” he said.

Safiya laughed and splashed into a puddle.

This time, Nori listened.

Tap-tap-tap on the leaves.

Plink-plink-plink in the birdbath.

Patter-patter-patter on the garden path.

And there it was.

Not a story about a raincoat who did not belong.

A story about thirsty roots, shining snails, warm hedgehogs, and a child laughing beneath a bright yellow hood.

Nori still did not love cold storms.

Nori still did not enjoy wet socks.

And Nori certainly did not care for muddy puddles with hidden stones.

But sunshowers, Nori decided, were wonderful.

Rain and sunlight together.

A little bit of silver.

A little bit of gold.

Weather that made the whole world glitter.

Nori lifted their curly question-mark hood toward the rainbow.

“I think,” said Nori, “this may be the weather I was made to love.”

The frog smiled.

“I thought you might say that.”

Safiya twirled beneath the pear tree, and Nori twirled with her, bright as a buttercup, warm as a small lantern, while the gentle rain told stories all around them.

And when the last drops had fallen, and the rainbow had faded into the soft evening sky, Safiya hung Nori by the red door.

Ponto the cat curled beneath the coat rack.

The garden smelled fresh and green.

And Nori, listening to one final drip from the roof, felt perfectly ready for sleep.