The bright, warm sunshine, coming through the window woke Dennis Hanner, Jr.  It was his sixth birthday.  He was excited. His dad had promised to buy him a new bike; a bigger one that had training wheels on the back.  When he learned to ride it pretty good, his dad said he would teach him how to ride it without the training wheels attached.

        He felt good.  Today is 'my' day, he thought to himself.  He looked at the clock by his bed, but couldn't figure out what those black arms on the face of it meant.  He wondered why his mom had put it in his room in the first place-he couldn't tell time, yet.   It must be morning o'clock, he imagined. Time to get mom and dad up.

        The rain had stopped...for now.  Actually, it had been pouring down most of the night.   According to the weatherman on the Six O'clock News, last night, June had been one of the wettest on record, for Jones County.  Dennis Hanner, Sr. was still sleeping, even though the rain had quit.  It was easy for him to fall asleep at night when it rained.  He felt a sense of peace.  He enjoyed the soothing sound.  He never understood why -- even after the most frightening ordeal of his young life.  He was six years old, then. It happened one summer day while riding his bike around the block...

        "Don't get caught in the rain, Dennis," he could remember his mother telling him.  Those words terrified him.   All sorts of unimaginable and frightening things ran through his mind.  What did she mean, "caught in the rain?"  Would the rain build a wall around me and keep me there forever?  Would I get lost in the rain?  Would the police see that I'm caught in the rain and take me to jail?  Would I get sick and die?

        On a particularly warm and muggy day, little Dennis decided to take his bike for a spin around the block.  Twenty minutes later, and halfway around the block, it started to rain, rain hard.  'Don't get caught in the rain, Dennis,' his mother's words raced through his mind over and over.  He panicked. It was coming down harder now.  He stopped his bike in the middle of the sidewalk.  His clothes were soaked.  Tears blended with the rain as they ran down his cheeks.  I'm a goner, he thought.  What do I do now?  Should I leave my bike here and run home?  What if someone steals it?   He looked over his right shoulder at the big front porch that belonged to widow Thompson.  He decided against using her porch for shelter; she hated kids.

        Out of desperation, he decided to leave his bike and run home.  Dennis took off running, full speed, down the street as fast as his six-year-old legs would carry him.  He turned right onto an alley leading toward home.  Water was running in swift currents down the alley's cant, into crags and crevices made over the years by traffic and days like this.  A sudden, deafening clap of thunder rang in his ears and almost stopped him in his tracks.  His heart was beating fiercely.  He tried to leap over a huge puddle, but his short legs couldn't quite make it.  His foot slammed into the muddy water, splashing it into his face and everywhere.  Without breaking his stride, he kept racing toward home. His house was only a few yards away. Then his soggy shoes hit the first step. "MOM! MOM!" He shrieked.

        Dennis Hanner Sr. recalled that day quite vividly -- even if it had been over twenty-five years ago. Some things just stick in your mind. Some things . . .

        "Dad, get up!" little Dennis yelled through his parent's bedroom door.

        "I know what he wants," Marci Hanner confided to her husband.

        "So do I," he mused, then called back to the birthday-boy, "O.K., son."

        That afternoon, Dennis Jr. was sitting on his shiny, new bike in front of his house.  He was showing it off to a couple of his friends who stopped by to admire his new 'piece of machinery.'

        Hey, lets go for a bike ride," Tony Moser said to Dennis and their other friend, Donnie Franklin.

        "I'll have to ask my mom, first," Dennis told his friend, heading for the front door.

        He found his mom in the kitchen.  She was finishing up some dishes in the sink.   His dad walked in the back door from the garage.

        "Mom, can I go ride my new bike with Tony and Donnie?"

        "Sure, but don't be gone too long, young man."

        "Thanks, mom!" he exclaimed as he ran toward the front door.

        "And Dennis!" his mom called after him.

        "What?" he yelled back.

        "Don't get caught in the rain!"

        Dennis froze . . .