Happy Sun Day!

Once every year the residents of the Pine Forest celebrate a very special holiday — Sun Day. This is a celebration of the life-giving energy of the Sun. Tradition states that the celebrating should be carried out by basking in the sunlight and eating a lot of ice-cream. The best part about the entire thing is that it’s always sunny on Sun Day and the air is warm but not too hot — just right. It had always been so and everybody knew this.

This particular Sun Day occurred on a Tuesday, and everyone was having fun in the sun. Everyone except Lorem, that is. He had spent the last few days locked in the darkness of his house with the shutters shut, tirelessly typing code into his computer. There was a knock at the door. Lorem grunted, got up, opened it — and was dazzled by the bright sunlight.

“Hello buddy!” said a voice.

“Wh-who is it?” asked Lorem, squinting.

“It’s me!” said the voice.

Lorem squinted and squinted and eventually saw his friend Otja.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, finally. ”Hi.”

“Happy Sun Day!” said Otja

Lorem paused for a moment.

"B-but...it’s Tuesday?” he asked, bewildered.

"No, no. Happy Sun…Day."

"Sun…Day?"

Lorem still didn’t get it. Had the entire week gone by? Already? How long had he been locked in front of the computer for?

Otja offered a little hint: “You know…the ho-li-day.”

Lorem pondered the word in his mind: “Ho-li-day, ho-li-day…”

He stood there blinking and then something finally clicked.

“Ohhh, Sun Day!” he exclaimed. “Is that today?”

“It is today,” Otja assured him.

“Well, in that case,” Lorem put on his sunglasses, “let’s go get some ice-cream!”

“Now you’re talking! You sure look like you could use a scoop or two,” observed Otja.

“I sure could. I’ll get seven scoops of poppy seed flavour! It’s my new favourite.”

And so, they strolled away from Lorem’s house and started walking down Groundhog street. It was indeed a beautiful day. Suddenly, Lorem stopped.

“Oh, no!” he shouted.

“What?” asked Otja, startled. “What is it?”

“I forgot my little umbrella!”

“Oh, you don’t need it,” Otja reassured him, “it’s Sun Day. You know it’s always sunny on Sun Day.”

Otja fished his phone out of his pocket, launched the weather app and showed it to Lorem — the screen was filled with little sun icons.

“Nothing but sunshine, see?” he said.

“I know, I know,” Lorem replied. “But better safe than sorry, hehe.”

He quickly ran back into his house — he was quite nimble for a bear — and emerged shortly thereafter, equipped with his compact umbrella. You see, Lorem NEVER left his house without it, even if it was sunny outside.

“Alright,” he said, “now we can go and get that ice-cream.”

And so they went.