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Oscar's First Big Storm

A Gentle Night Friends Story About Fear and Courage

Thunderstorms can be exciting, fascinating, and frightening, especially when a child is experiencing a powerful storm for the first time.

Oscar's First Big Storm explores fear without treating fear as something a child needs to overcome immediately. The story introduces a gentler idea: we can feel afraid, find a place where we feel safe, stay close to others, and allow the frightening experience to pass.

The story also explores how differently individuals can respond to the same event. Some are frightened. Some are curious. Some remain calm. Sometimes we can even feel more than one of those things at the same time.

The SEL themes include recognizing fear, emotional regulation, co-regulation, curiosity, courage, and accepting different emotional responses.

Oscar's First Big Storm is part of the Gentle Night Friends series of quiet stories designed to encourage social-emotional learning through characters and experiences rather than direct instruction.

Why a Printable PDF?

Gentle Night Friends stories are available as free printable PDFs because bedtime is a good time to put screens away.

Phones, tablets, and other illuminated screens used near bedtime can make it harder for children to settle into healthy sleep routines. A printed story allows a child and caregiver to read together without adding another screen to the bedtime environment.

If your child enjoys Gentle Night Friends stories, printed paperback editions will be available soon.

 Get the complete story as a free printable PDF, or scroll down now and read it. 

Woodmere Estate and Rescue Farm

The Cast of Characters

Oscar’s First Big Storm
A Gentle Night Friends Story
From the notebook of Professor Pondo

Woodmere Estate and Rescue Farm was expecting a storm.

I knew this because the sky had been getting darker all afternoon.

The air felt different, and Walter looked worried.

The silver maple leaves had turned their pale undersides toward the darkening sky and fluttered in the growing breeze.

The horses had wandered back toward the barn.

The goats had gathered near their shelter.

But June, the old brown cow in the pasture, had apparently decided that none of this was important enough to interrupt her meditative chewing.

I was in the conservatory with Walter, Baxter, Jimmy Joe, and Oscar.

Woodmere has two conservatories.

A conservatory is a large room with many windows, built to let in sunlight and provide a warm place for plants.

The family uses the conservatory on the other side of the house for gatherings and entertaining.

This one is filled with citrus trees and other plants. It is also where the animals and I spend quite a lot of our time.

My name is Professor Pondo.

Animals do not speak to me in human words. I watch them closely, and then I imagine the words that might belong to what I see.

That afternoon, Oscar gave me quite a lot to imagine.

So I opened my notebook.

And this is what I imagined.

Oscar was sitting on the windowsill when the first thunder came.

It was far away.

A low rumble rolled across the fields and through the old house.

Oscar's ears turned toward the sound.

His head came up.

Walter lifted his head too.

Baxter was sitting on the top platform of the cat tree.

Jimmy Joe was asleep belly up on the sofa with all four paws pointing in different directions.

Another rumble came.

A little louder this time.

Oscar jumped down from the windowsill.

He looked toward the windows.

Then toward the door.

Then underneath the large table.

Oscar went underneath the table.

Baxter watched him go.

The rain began.

At first there were only a few drops against the conservatory windows.

Tippity.

Tappity.

Tap, tap, tap.

Then there were many.

The rain swept across the grounds of Woodmere and drummed against the glass roof.

Oscar moved farther beneath the table.

Two green eyes looked out from the shadows.

Thunder rolled again.

Oscar lowered himself to the floor.

Walter stood up.

He walked across the conservatory and stopped beside the table.

He looked underneath.

Then he lay down under it.

"I'm here," Walter said.

"I know," Oscar said.

Walter lay beneath the table, a worried look in his beautiful brown eyes, and began to pant.

        Then the sky flashed.

CRACK!

Oscar jumped.

Walter flinched.

Jimmy Joe woke up.

Jimmy Joe shot off the sofa, raced across the room, slid on the rug, disappeared behind a chair, and emerged almost immediately on the other side.

He stood very still.

His eyes were wide.

He looked around to see if things were all right.

Everything appeared to be in order.

Jimmy Joe jumped onto the sofa again.

He turned around three times.

Then he sat down and began washing a paw.

Oscar stared at him.

"Doesn't that bother you?"

Jimmy Joe looked up.

"Bother me?"

"The thunder."

Jimmy Joe looked toward the windows.

"Oh. That."

Then he went back to washing his paw.

Baxter jumped down from the cat tree.

He walked slowly toward the table.

Oscar watched him approach.

Baxter stopped just outside.

He sat near but not right next to Walter.

Oscar stayed where he was.

After a while, Baxter stepped beneath the table and settled beside Walter like a sphinx, his paws tucked neatly in front of him.

Another flash of lightning and a loud crack of thunder shook the windows.

Oscar's ears went back.

Baxter's ears turned toward the sound.

Then forward again.

"Now that was thunder," Baxter said admiringly.

"I know."

"It was remarkably loud."

"I know."

Baxter closed his eyes.

Oscar stared at him.

"That's all?"

Baxter opened one eye.

"Was there something else?"

Oscar thought about this.

There wasn't.

Baxter closed his eye again.

The rain grew heavier.

It drummed on the roof.

It roared against the windows.

It rushed through the gutters.

Oscar remained beneath the table.

But he was no longer pressed against the table leg.

He sat and listened.

Rain.

Wind.

Thunder.

Then Oscar noticed another sound.

Walter was panting loudly.

Oscar looked at him.

The conservatory wasn't warm.

Walter hadn't been running.

But Walter's mouth was open, and his breathing was quick.

His eyes were wide.

Oscar came a little closer.

"Walter?"

Walter looked at him.

"Why are you panting?"

Walter closed his mouth.

For a moment, he said nothing.

A low rumble came from beyond the pasture.

Walter's ears went back.

His tail drew closer to his body.

"I don't particularly like thunderstorms."

Oscar stared at him.

"You're afraid?"

Walter thought about that.

"Yes."

The windows flashed white.

BOOM!

Walter flinched.

His mouth opened again.

"Quite afraid, actually."

Oscar got up and sat beside Walter.

"You looked calm for a little while."

"I was trying to be."

"But you're afraid."

"Yes."

Oscar considered this.

"Can you be calm and afraid at the same time?"

Walter thought about that.

"I seem to be."

Another rumble passed over the house.

Walter took a slow breath and sighed.

Then he began panting again.

Oscar watched him.

Walter wasn't pretending the storm wasn't there.

He wasn't pretending he wasn't afraid.

He was simply lying where he had chosen to lie.

Beside his friends.

Baxter emerged from beneath the table.

He stretched.

First his front legs.

Then his back.

Then he jumped onto the windowsill.

Oscar joined him.

Through the rain-streaked glass, they could see June in the pasture.

She was still chewing.

Thunder rolled.

June chewed.

Rain ran down her back.

June chewed.

Oscar looked at Baxter.

"Doesn't she know there's a storm?"

Baxter looked at June.

"I imagine she has noticed."

"Then why is she still eating?"

Baxter considered this.

"Perhaps she is hungry."

Oscar looked back outside.

This seemed annoyingly reasonable.

Then two young goats came racing across the pasture.

One leaped sideways.

The other chased him.

The first goat jumped onto a low stump.

The second goat jumped onto the same stump.

There was not enough stump for two goats.

Both fell off.

They immediately tried again.

Oscar watched.

June chewed.

The goats leaped.

Baxter watched.

Jimmy Joe slept.

Walter panted.

Oscar began to notice something.

The storm was the same storm for all of them.

But June was being June.

The goats were being goats.

Jimmy Joe was being Jimmy Joe.

Baxter was being Baxter.

Walter was calmly afraid.

And Oscar had been frightened too.

Another flash lit the windows.

Oscar's ears went back.

Thunder followed.

He crouched.

Then he straightened again.

Baxter remained on the windowsill.

Jimmy Joe opened one eye and closed it again.

June kept chewing.

Walter was still lying beneath the table.

Oscar jumped down from the windowsill and walked over to him.

Walter's mouth was still open.

Oscar sat beside his front paws.

"You are still afraid."

"Yes."

"But you're still here."

Walter looked down at him.

"Where else would I go?"

Oscar looked around the conservatory.

He thought about that.

There really wasn't anywhere Walter needed to go.

So Oscar stayed too.

The storm grew darker.

The silver maples bent in the wind.

Rain roared against the glass.

The goats finally abandoned their stump and raced toward their shelter.

June remained in the pasture.

She chewed.

Walter raised his head at another rumble.

Oscar watched him.

Walter's ears were still back.

His mouth was still open.

But he had not moved from beneath the table.

Oscar settled beside him.

For a while, they simply listened.

Then suddenly there was a blinding flash and a thunderclap so loud that I would not have been surprised to see pieces of the sky lying in the pasture.

Everyone jumped.

Even Baxter.

Walter scrambled to his feet and looked around for a safer place.

There wasn't one.

He crouched beneath the table again.

Jimmy Joe stood perfectly still with enormous eyes and his tail poofed out until he appeared to have twice as much tail as before.

Oscar had flattened himself to the floor.

Then he looked at Baxter.

Baxter was standing on the windowsill, staring outside.

His eyes were wide.

His ears pointed forward.

Oscar slowly raised his head.

"What was that?"

Baxter didn't answer.

He was too busy looking.

Oscar followed his gaze.

June had finally stopped chewing.

She stood with her head raised, staring across the pasture.

So were the goats from beneath their shelter.

So were the horses near the barn.

So were we.

Lightning had struck a very tall oak tree.

Bark had been stripped from one side of the trunk, from high among the branches to the ground. Broken limbs lay beneath it, and several branches were smoldering.

June stared at the tree for another moment.

Then she turned and trotted toward the barn.

Baxter watched her go.

"Apparently, she remembered there was something else she needed to do."

Oscar looked at Baxter.

Then at June.

Then at the tree.

A moment before, he had been frightened.

He was still frightened.

But now he was also fascinated.

He climbed onto the windowsill beside Baxter.

The two cats stared across the pasture at the smoking oak.

Jimmy Joe joined them.

His tail was slowly returning to its usual size.

"That was bigger than the other ones," he said.

"It was remarkably bigger," Baxter replied.

Oscar kept watching the tree.

For the first time that afternoon, he seemed almost disappointed when the next thunder came from much farther away.

The spaces between the lightning and thunder grew longer.

Walter remained beneath the table.

His panting gradually slowed.

Oscar left the windowsill and went back to him.

"Are you still afraid?"

"A little."

Oscar sat beside him.

"I'm not as afraid as I was."

Walter looked at him.

"What happened?"

Oscar glanced toward the damaged oak.

"I wanted to see what the storm was doing."

Walter considered this.

Then he looked outside too.

The rain was beginning to soften.

"I suppose watching something is different from waiting for it to happen to you."

Oscar settled beside Walter's front paws.

Neither of them said anything else.

The rain became quieter.

The wind eased.

The room grew brighter.

Jimmy Joe stretched his front paws as far as they would go.

Then his back paws.

Then, for reasons known only to Jimmy Joe, he raced around the conservatory.

Oscar watched him go.

Jimmy Joe stopped and pretended to see something frightening.

Oscar crouched and twitched his tail.

Jimmy Joe ran.

Oscar ran after him.

Walter lifted his head.

His tail thumped once against the floor.

Baxter watched from the windowsill.

When the storm had passed and the smoldering branches had nearly gone out, I went outside to look at the oak tree.

Walter, Baxter, Jimmy Joe, and Oscar came along.

We gave it a thorough inspection except for the smoldering parts.

Animals sensibly avoid fire, even a little fire.

June came out from the barn and joined us.

She sniffed a long strip of bark lying in the grass.

Then she examined one of the fallen limbs.

Then another.

She seemed determined to inspect the tree more thoroughly than any of us.

Oscar walked around the trunk.

He sniffed the torn bark.

He looked upward along the pale scar where the lightning had traveled.

Then he sat down and stared.

That morning, the oak had been an ordinary tree.

Now there were branches scattered across the grass, strips of bark on the ground, and the smell of wet wood and smoke in the air.

Oscar looked back toward the conservatory.

The table where he had hidden was visible through the glass.

Then he looked up at the oak again.

His first big storm had left something behind.

And now that the danger had passed, he wanted to see all of it.

By evening, Woodmere was quiet again.

Water dripped from the trees.

The horses had returned to the pasture.

The goats had returned to their usual business.

June had returned to hers.

Walter settled onto his bed.

Oscar walked over and rubbed his cheek against Walter's shoulder.

"I'm glad the storm went away," Oscar said. "But it was interesting to watch."

"I noticed quite a lot too," Walter said.

Jimmy Joe curled into a golden ball.

Baxter settled like a sphinx, his paws tucked neatly in front of him.

"You did very well this time, Walter," Baxter said.

Then he closed his eyes and dozed.

I sat nearby with my notebook.

I had watched Oscar hide from his first big storm.

Then I watched him come out.

His fear had not disappeared all at once.

Something else had simply appeared beside it.

Curiosity.

Walter had been afraid too.

He had panted and flinched and looked for somewhere safer when the lightning struck.

But he stayed with his friends.

Being brave does not require fear to disappear.

Sometimes fear stays for a while.

The storm did not have to be fought.

It only had to be endured until it passed.

And eventually, it did.

Good night then.

Professor Pondo

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Gentle Night Friends

Published by Marcus Goodman LLC