Author's Note: I began this after hearing about the tendency for DPS stories to feature storms ... I thought about how amazing a thunderstorm would look on the grounds of Welton and this is what happened.
Todd didn't know why they hadn't made a break for it while they still could, before the rain had been driven so hard by the wind that it was almost going sideways and the trees had started contorting wildly, their leaves a mass of shivering silver. The lake was black with pelting rain, the clouds above it dark as soot and lit only by the jagged bolts of lightning. In the brief silence of a split-second, he could almost smell the ozone, but it was not for long - thunder came, not the quiet, distant rumbles they often heard on early autumn nights, but the present, all-obliterating crack and roar. It was sometimes the sound of a slaver's whip, sometimes the fall of alpine avalanches - but it was never quiet.
Neil looked overjoyed at the night outside - no surprises there. It had been a brutally hot day. Every last boy in Welton had spent the afternoon, as Latin dragged on and no end seemed in sight, gazing mournfully out at the lake, idly fanning themselves with a book. It had been a blessed joy to get to English class and find Mr Keating, looking just as uncomfortably hot as they, smiling ruefully at them from the desk where he sat with the curtains shut and the windows open. "I'm going to make it an easy lesson today, boys," he told them. "I know none of you are paying attention, I only ask that if anyone feels the need to swoon from the heat, that you kindly do it near a relatively soft surface." That the students were on the brink of mass stupor was a fact that all of the teachers knew, but only Keating cared or noticed enough to acknowledge.
The lesson passed in a fairly leisurely way. Charlie, who had given up early on trying for concentration, had been coping by carrying a water gun around and occasionally squirting himself with it. Keating allowed this by turning a blind eye: after all, it was far from the worst way he could have handled the weather. It was only when Charlie took to squirting Cameron in the pretense that he was helping that Keating had decided to make him get up and read.
Finally, they'd been allowed to go. It was Friday, and though ordinarily Neil's first thought would have been of the meeting, at that time he was as deliriously focused on cooling off by any means possible as the others. When they had reached the dormitories, he and Charlie, in a moment of incredible synchronisation, had gone straight to their drawers in search of swimming trunks. Knox quickly cottoned on and went for his; soon, all the boys had twigged to the idea. For the next two hours they had swum and splashed, taking advantage of the one opportunity the day had offered them to wake up a little. After hours of dull, heat-infused classes, they were all ready to seize whatever was left of the day. The session had only ended when Knox, in a surprisingly fearless act, had climbed the tree near the bank and dived out of it, very nearly killing himself by falling on the bank. The copious quantities of water that had been splashed onto it by the others prevented him from sustaining any major injuries; nonetheless, he spent the rest of the afternoon with a bit of a limp.
After that, they'd noticed the sun sinking lower, and decided to leave before anyone really got hurt. It was also almost dinnertime, and if they missed that, it would be a very unpleasant evening. Sure, they all regularly swiped snacks from the cafeteria, but they didn't want the reprimand that came with missing a meal. The meeting was tonight as usual, and that kept them all a little more cheerful - and prevented too much petty bickering from breaking out.
While the Poets had been eating in the grand Welton dining hall, the clouds had built. While they had hurried to their rooms and put on coats and blazers, the wind had picked up and started whistling through the trees. And when the Poets finally stepped out the door, heading stealthily down towards the old Indian cave, it was not quite so warm a night anymore and there was an electric crackle in the air and it wasn't raining yet.
Only once they reached the cave had the clouds opened and poured out a flood with a crack of thunder to break the sky.