Jennifer Jane meets the Clerk of the weather Part 2

Sitting up in front, guiding the cloud along, was Frosty, her very own snowman!

"Hello Jennifer Jane," he shouted. “The fairies at the Wish warehouse got your wish and passed it along to the Clerk of the Weather. He asked Father Christmas if I could have the afternoon off from making snow to take you over to see his office."

"That was nice of him", said Jennifer Jane, "I'm so glad to see you again." They chatted away quite happily, until at last the cloud came to rest, in front of a very pretty building painted all the colours of the rainbow.

Coming out of the front door to meet her, was a very thin man with an old fashioned pair of spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He had a large feather pen stuck behind his right ear and held out his hand to greet her.

"Do come in, Jennifer Jane," he said in a friendly voice, "I'm so pleased you wanted to come and see me, we don’t get too many visitors here".

Jennifer Jane liked him at once and he was soon explaining how he worked out what sort of weather each place should have. Then he showed her how he had to write it all down in a big book with his feather pen. He told her how the snowmen collected the different sorts of weather from the large storerooms in his offices and put it on the clouds to take it to all the correct places. It sounded ever so complicated, but it was very interesting at the same time.

Then she remembered why she’d come to see him and asked where shadows went when the sun hid behind the clouds. The Clerk of the Weather put his finger to his lips, to let her know that she was to be as quiet as possible, then tiptoed up a flight of stairs to a large room that was filled with nice comfy looking beds. In each one was a shadow having forty winks.

He explained that as shadows were such poor little thin things, they got tired very quickly. So, whenever the people they belonged to didn’t need them, they would come to this room for a quick rest before going back to work.

Jennifer Jane quite understood how they must feel and tiptoed quietly out of the room again, closing the door softly behind her.

"Please, Mr Clerk of the Weather,” said Jennifer Jane when they got downstairs again, “can I write some weather down in your book to be sent to my very own garden?"

"Well, it's rather irregular," he replied, "but as you're such a very special person, I'll see if I can't break the rules just this once".

So, very excitedly, Jennifer Jane climbed up on the high stool and carefully wrote in the large book.

When she had finished, a fairy came over, made a note of the items required and then had them loaded onto Frosty's cloud.

"There you are," said the Clerk of the Weather "and just as a special treat, you can drop them from the cloud yourself when you get home. Bye ‘bye now." He waved to her as she and her snowman set off for home.

The cloud got to Jennifer Jane's home just before teatime and she saw dad going out into the rain to call her in for tea. Jennifer Jane leaned over the edge of her cloud with a mischievous grin on her face, then one by one; she undid all her little parcels of weather.

First, she made a strong puff of wind blow all the clouds away. Then she emptied a parcel of snow marked, 'For Jennifer Jane's garden only'.

Next, she swept all the snow away with another strong puff of wind, which blew from the opposite direction to the previous one and finished off with a rainbow that just fitted over the garden.

Her dad didn't know what to do. He ran indoors, calling for Mary to come and look outside. Then together they stood at the back door, wondering whatever was going to happen next.

By now, Jennifer Jane had used up all the weather she'd been given and Frosty guided the cloud down onto the lawn, where it settled like a small white fog. Jennifer Jane got down from the cloud onto the grass and waved goodbye to her snowman, who quickly flew away on his cloud to go back to his snowmaking.

Mum and dad came out to meet her as she walked along the lawn to the house.

"Well, I don't know whatever the weather is going to do next!" said her father, "it really has been most extraordinary these last few minutes."

Jennifer Jane laughed. "I know, dad," she said, "it will be nice and sunny from now on, until I have to go back to school".

"Yes, of course it will, dear", said her mother, but it sounded as if she didn't really believe her.

But Jennifer Jane had written it all down herself in the Clerk of the Weather's book, so of course, it really was nice and sunny for the rest of the holidays.

However there was one thing that Frosty had said, that was still bothering her in the back of her mind. She couldn’t remember what it was until she was in bed that night and just dropping off to sleep.

‘Something about fairies and Warehouses,’ she thought to herself, ‘I must try and remember that and see if I can’t find out where they are one day!’