Bedtime stories about rainy days.

It rained all afternoon, and Ines sat at the big window in her grandmother's kitchen with her chin in her hands. At first, she just watched. Then she noticed something. The raindrops weren't just falling. They were making rivers.

A drop would land at the top of the window and sit there, round and still. Then another drop would land next to it, and they would join together and get heavier, and start to slide. As they slid, they picked up more drops, wiggling left and right, until they became a long, wobbly river running down the glass.

Ines got a piece of paper and her crayons. She drew the rivers as she saw them. A wiggly blue one down the middle, which she named the Long River. A short fat one in the corner, the Puddle River. Two that joined at the bottom, the Twin Rivers. She drew little boats on them and a bridge across the Long River.

Then the rain stopped. The sun came out, and in the sky beyond the garden, a rainbow appeared, faint at first and then bright. The raindrop rivers on the glass dried up, one by one, until the window was clear. But they were still on Ines's map.

At bedtime, it started raining again, softly, on the roof above her room. Ines lay in bed with her map on the pillow beside her and listened. She imagined new rivers starting on all the windows of the house, wiggling down in the dark. Tomorrow she would draw them. Tonight, she let the rain tap her to sleep.

The picnic basket was packed: sandwiches, strawberries, a flask of lemonade and four slices of chocolate cake. The blanket was folded on top. Everyone had their shoes on. And then, just as they opened the front door, the rain began. Not a little rain. A big, drumming, bouncing rain.

"Oh no," said Jomo. His little sister Amani's lip wobbled. They had been waiting for this picnic all week. Dad looked at the rain. Then he looked at the living room. Then he smiled. "Picnics don't have to be outside," he said.

So they moved the coffee table and spread the picnic blanket on the living-room floor. Mom put a bowl of daisies from the windowsill in the middle. Jomo brought his toy ants and lined them up at the edge of the blanket, "so it feels like a real picnic." Amani laughed.

They sat on the blanket and ate the sandwiches and the strawberries and the chocolate cake. Outside, the rain drummed on the windows, and it was nice to be warm and dry and listening to it. Dad told a story about a picnic he'd been on when he was a boy, when a goose ate his whole sandwich. Everybody laughed so much that Amani got hiccups.

When it got dark, nobody wanted to fold up the blanket. So they didn't, not yet. They lay on it in a row, looking at the ceiling, listening to the rain. Amani fell asleep first, with a strawberry in her hand. Jomo fell asleep second. "Best picnic ever," he murmured, and he didn't even know it was still raining.

We are a pair of boots. We are yellow, with a frog face on each toe, and we belong to Tomas. Today, we went on a rainy-day walk with Tomas and his grandma, and now we are resting by the back door, drying out.

The rain had been falling all morning when Grandma said, "Shall we go and find some puddles?" Tomas pulled us on so fast that he put us on the wrong feet. Grandma laughed and swapped us round. Then out we went, into the gray, wet, wonderful day.

The first puddle was by the gate. Splash! Then there was a long one on the path, where we made ripples all the way along. Then there was the biggest puddle in the whole park, under the oak tree. Tomas jumped in with both feet. SPLOOSH! Muddy water went everywhere, and Grandma said, "Well, that was a good one."

We walked home slowly, squelching, with Tomas holding Grandma's hand. The rain dripped off his hood, off the trees, off the end of Grandma's nose. When we got home, Grandma rinsed the mud off us with the garden hose, and stood us by the back door on a sheet of newspaper.

Now Tomas is in his pajamas, warm and dry, eating toast. We are dripping slowly on the newspaper. Drip. Drip. Outside, the rain is still falling softly, filling up the puddles again for next time. Tomas looks at us on his way to bed. "Goodnight, boots," he says. Goodnight, Tomas. We'll be dry by morning.