Forecast: Friendship Trouble

Ivy and Mara have always made weather forecasts together, even when the forecast is “cloudy with a chance of runaway socks.” Then Nia joins their weather-fair team with a whirring wind machine and enough ideas to fill three notebooks. Ivy begins making choices that could leave their project, and their friendship, in a very messy puddle before the fair opens.

Ivy and Mara taped blue paper clouds around their weather-fair table in the school gym. Ivy flipped open her weather notebook and wrote, "Cloudy, with a chance of runaway socks." Mara used her long fingers to straighten the rain gauge. "Careful work makes good weather," she said. "Check the sky, then check again!" Ivy announced, and Mara snorted at the sock forecast. Then the gym door banged open.

Mara hurried in beside Nia, who rolled a knee-high wind machine to the table. "I asked Nia to join us," Mara said. "Look what Nia built!" Nia grabbed the orange crank. "Prepare for gustitude!" she shouted. The silver fan whirred. A blast puffed Ivy's curls sideways, and the yellow windsock stood straight up like it had heard terrible news.

Nia and Mara bent over the clear fan panel, talking fast about funnels and air tunnels. Mara laughed once. Then twice. Ivy pressed her pencil so hard that it tore the page. Under her sock forecast, she wrote: Cloudy. Gusty. Possible thunder over one table. "Check the sky, then check again!" she said. Neither of them looked up.

At practice, Ivy slid the weather notebook under a stack of cardboard clouds. Nia reached for it, but Ivy pulled the stack closer. "The wind machine needs fewer forecasts and more spinning," Ivy said. Nia blinked. "My machine can spin and forecast! It has range." Mara was fitting a tiny screw into the side panel and only said, "Hold this steady, please."

While Mara fetched the rain gauge and Nia hunted for tape, Ivy opened the wind machine's side flap. She peeled three paper tabs from her notebook and pushed them into the fan housing. When Nia cranked, the machine coughed, rattled, and stopped. Its yellow windsock sagged. Ivy snapped the notebook shut as footsteps and bright fair voices gathered outside the gym.

Mara crouched by the silent machine. "Nia joined because I kept telling Nia your forecasts. Nia built this so everyone could see your storms move." The fair doors began opening. Ivy tugged one yellow clip, then faced them. "I jammed it. I wanted it to be just us." Nia's braid swung as she stared. Mara said, "My fingers can reach the jam. Ivy, check the sky, then check again!"

Ivy set the rain gauge where everyone could see it. "Low reading, tiny breeze. Higher reading, giant sock tornado," she called. Mara slipped her long fingers through the hidden gap and pinched out the tabs. Nia turned the orange crank, slow, then faster. The fan woke with a roar. Ivy called the readings, Mara guided the panel, and Nia sent one huge gust curling around their table.

Visitors crowded around as the yellow windsock danced and the fan sent paper clouds looping overhead. Ivy opened the weather notebook and moved it between Mara and Nia. Mara wrote carefully. Nia added a swoosh. Ivy said, "Cloudy, gusty, room for three." "Check the sky, then check again!" they called. Outside, three runaway socks flapped past the gym window.