Rain on the Orchard Hill

On Apple Hill, the orchard trees stood in tidy rows, and one little tree at the end always ripened early.

Olivia lived in the house by the gate. She had a red backpack and a very good nose. Today she wanted one thing. She wanted to smell the rain before it came.

"Grandpa says the rain smells like a secret," she told the early tree. "I want to catch it first."

She stood in the grass and sniffed. She smelled apples. She smelled warm dirt. No rain.

So Olivia climbed the fence and sniffed again. Sniff, sniff, sniff. She smelled a cookie in her backpack. No rain.

"Maybe I need to be higher," she said.

She climbed the little tree. A beetle sat on a branch, carrying a crumb. He was in a hurry, and he did not stop for her.

"Excuse me," said Olivia. "Do you smell rain?"

"I smell my dinner," said the beetle, and he marched away.

Olivia sat very still. Her nose was tired. Then she saw something. The leaves on the early tree were turning over, one by one, pale side up.

Then a breeze came, and the early apple fell. Plop! It rolled down the hill, bump, bump, bump, and stopped by her sneakers.

Olivia picked it up. It smelled sweet and cool, like a cut apple. But under that was something else. Something wet and green, like the first splash in a puddle.

"That's it," she whispered. "That's the secret."

A drop landed on her nose. Then another. Pit, pat, pit.

Olivia held the apple close and breathed in the rain, the apple and the warm dirt, all together. The beetle was gone under a leaf. The branches shook, and the whole hill went soft and loud with rain.