Clouds cover the skies, rain pulls at your eyes, and something smells like... something... moral compass, probably. Left out in the sun and long-since gone off in the heat.

Not that there was any sun, of course. There hadn’t been for weeks. It had become a sort of civic legend, sunlight. Something your gran told you about in wistful tones while darning socks that would never be worn again. Darned socks being the most uncomfortable item of clothing ever dreamed of.

The village of Widdersbank-on-Puddle had always been damp, in the way a teabag is damp: comfortably soggy yet solid. Also, multiple shades of brown, and capable of staining anything that sat on one, although these aspects are, perhaps less relevant for the current example. But lately, the weather, which had always been considered to be something ‘moistly atmospheric’ to something much more akin to a ‘vengeful plumbing incident.’

And that was when the Weather Inspector arrived.

He emerged from a cloud. Literally. One moment, a nice dark cumulonimbus was sulking over the moors, and the next moment a rather thin man in a beige trench coat and wearing a hat shaped like a collapsed cupcake stepped out of it, clutching a clipboard and an impressively expansive umbrella.

“Right,” he said, sniffing the air like it owed him money. “Let’s take a look.”

He approached Mrs Cringe, who was ankle-deep in her front garden. Or rather, ankle-deep in where her front garden had been, before the hosters drowned and the gnomes were learning out of necessity to build coracles out of hydrangea flowers.

“You there,” he said, peering at her over half-moon spectacles. “Have you noticed any anomalies?”

Mrs Cringe blinked. “Well, Possibly. If I knew what ‘an anomaly’ was. it’s been raining frogs again. And last Tuesday the postman floated past the upstairs window. We haven’t had proper milk in weeks. Are they anomaly?”

The man scribbled something. “Yes… Excellent. Evidence of temporal hydro-distortion. Textbook stuff.”

He turned and shouted into the cloud, which was still loitering above the rosebush. “It’s happening again! We’ve got leakage!” He poked about in the hedge with his umbrella and muttered, “Persistent cumulostrangeness.”

At this point, a neighbour arrived, damp and flustered, trailed by a dog. Bizarrely, the dog was wearing a waxed cotton jacket and a sou’wester hat.

“Excuse me,” said the neighbour, in the hopeful tones of a man who has just realised he’s out of his depth. As usual. “Are you… with the Met Office?”

The man gave him a look reserved for people who tried to play Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 on spoons.

“No, I’m with the Bureau. The Real Bureau. Bureau of Climatic Anomalies, Esoteric Drizzle Division. Level Three Inspector, Temporary-Discretionary. I’m here because your weather’s been fiddled with.”

“Fiddled?” said Mrs Cringe, dismissing the neighbour with the turn of a very cold shoulder, “Like… messed about with? On purpose?”

The man waved a hand. “Yep! Could have been druids, warlocks, errant gods, or possibly someone trying to microwave a stone. Who knows? Doesn’t matter anyway. Point is…” and here he tapped the air with his pen in the way that suggested it was fully and alarmingly charged with metaphysical disapproval. “Whatever though, someone’s poked a hole in the local climate settings, and now it’s all leaking in. Or possibly out. Depends on your point of view.”

As if to underscore his point, a small cumulonimbus wandered by at shin height, making what might best be described as apologetic thunderclaps.

“I’ll need three goats, a mug of tea, a ladder, and a stern librarian,” said the Inspector, snapping his fingers. “Oh… and an umbrella.”

Mrs Cringe looked thoughtful. “That’s going to be disappointing then.”

The inspector was silent for almost a minute. “Right,” he said, managing to sound both angry and at the same time resigned to the situation. “As bloody usual…” he said, “I suppose I’ll have to do it then…”

“Well,” said Mrs Cringe, “somebody is getting paid for this and it isn’t me.”

Within hours, the Inspector had balanced the pressure, scolded the sky into polite silence, and reset the climate grid using a folded Ordnance Survey map, a prismatic compass and a stern talking-to. The clouds retreated like children who know that if they can just stay out of the way there will be jelly and ice-cream.

Sunlight, golden and suspicious, broke through. The villagers blinked.

“Well,” said the Inspector, flourishing his clipboard, “that should do it. Keep an eye out for reverse rainbows and anything, including surprisingly, ducks, speaking Latin. Call us if there are any major meteorological anomalies.”

And with a tug at his hat, he stepped back into the cloud and vanished, leaving only a faint scent of damp and mildew behind.

“Although… “ said Mrs Cringe, staring off into the middle distance