The Street Where It Rained — a short story for English reading and speaking

Willowbrook was a small town in the county of Somerset.

Like anywhere else in the area, it shared the same climate and weather as most of the other villages and towns.

Except for Willowbrook, it had rained every day for the last eight years.

But not all of Willowbrook. Essentially, it was just one street.

Ivy Lane.

Before the rain started falling, Ivy Lane was just a small street with a row of shops on one side and a large pub and a very quiet bank on the other.

It was almost nondescript in its appearance. It looked like any other street in any town in England.

Then the rain started to fall, and the entire street changed.

Not just the street, but the people too.

One resident of the area, Agnes Fletcher, was delighted with the rain.

“I hope it never stops,” she said. “I love it.”

People who knew Mrs Fletcher remembered her as being a cantankerous, short-tempered woman who seemed to enjoy making other people’s lives miserable.

But now she smiled at everyone and treated every person she met as a long-lost friend.

Ivy Lane had also changed.

Despite its name, there was barely any greenery on the street at all. No trees or plants, as there simply wasn’t the room. The street was too narrow.

But then, after the rain started falling, the whole street transformed.

Now it was like a lush rainforest.

Cars could no longer use the street at all. This gave the local residents much welcome relief as there would sometimes be a long line of cars, buses and the occasional truck all vying for space in the narrow street.

Now the street was filled full of trees and plants.

And the trees had grown at an alarming rate. One tree stood in the very middle of Ivy Lane. It had sprung up out of the tarmac, shredding the road apart and then just continued growing.

It towered over the pub and the antique shop opposite, putting them both in constant shade.

The pub was owned by Bill Cragg. He, like Mrs Fletcher, was now a jovial figure in the street.

People came from miles around to visit the town — the very street — where it rained every day.

They came to the pub and Bill Cragg would line drinks up for people and regale them with stories of how the street had been transformed once the rain started falling.

“Look at the floor here,” he pointed out to one group of visitors, all soaked to the skin from the rain outside.

The old floor of the pub had slabs of old tiling. It had been there for hundreds of years.

But now it was all dishevelled. All displaced by roots and plants that sprung up from the ground.

One wall of the pub was filled with green vines that spread over the entire space like eels and snakes. Flowers popped out here and there, oozing out the most delicious aroma inside the pub.

A tourist asked Bill what would happen to the pub in a few years. Maybe the rain would cause subsidence. Or trees and plants would just take over the whole building.

Bill laughed. “No idea, old chum,” he replied. “But right now, I like it. I like this rain. About time we had something like this to wash away all the misery.”

Of course, the street where it always rained attracted others too.

People wanted to make videos to show online. News journalists and TV anchors appeared and made comments about it.

The local authorities had to redirect traffic to an alternative route around the town. But they were totally baffled at the concept of perpetual rainfall in just one street.

Scientists came. They examined everything, took samples, and left. Not one of them could come to any real conclusion about why it was happening.

Churches and religious groups also arrived. Some predicted that it was a message from God. One minister said it was the second flooding.

The locals laughed these people out of Ivy Lane.

“The one thing we can be sure of,” said Mrs Fletcher. “Is that no one knows anything at all.”

Then, just as soon as the rain started. It stopped.

Every day, the rain came down in a torrent. It filled the street with water.

Then, around lunchtime, on a Tuesday, the rain just stopped. Just like that.

It was the sound that got people’s attention. Or the lack of it.

The constant hissing sound of water gushing down. Now, just silence.

The locals came out to look up. No rain clouds above. Nothing in the air except an eerie kind of creeping silence.

“What happened?” asked Bill.

For the rest of the day, the last rivulets and drops of water dripped from the trees that had grown in the middle of Ivy Lane and fell to the ground. The water slid down and eventually disappeared from view altogether.

People wandered around Ivy Lane, between the trees, looking up to see what had happened to the rain. It was completely bizarre.

The news journalists and the scientists reappeared. All wanting to give their opinion on this strange phenomenon.

News headlines ran: The Street Where It No Longer Rains.

There were meetings in the local town hall. People argued about whether to cut the trees down in Ivy Lane.

“We should restore the street to its former glory,” protested one resident.

Others argued that Ivy Lane could not be in a more glorious state than it was now.

“We need all these plants and trees,” cried one local. “The whole town should be covered in greenery.”

Then, in the middle of the night, there came a sound.

A deep, resonant, cracking sound.

Agnes Fletcher awoke with a start and got out of bed. She peered down into Ivy Lane to see where the sound was coming from.

A great chasm appeared in the middle of the street. A tremendous gap between the trees that divided all of Ivy Lane into two distinct sides.

And deep down in the hole below, a light.