The Lightning Catcher (14 page)

Angus put his hot milk on the desk in front of him. His head was swimming once again. He didn't feel in the least bit brave.

“I realize all of this must seem rather odd,” Rogwood continued, “when you are still spending your days repairing punctures in rubber boots. But it is nothing to be afraid of, Angus, if it is handled correctly. If you have no objections, I would like to talk to you further on this subject at another time. I would advise you in the meantime, however, to keep this information to yourself.” His owl-like eyes fixed upon Angus in warning. “It is not the sort of conversation that ought to be shared with your fellow lightning cubs over your breakfast, for instance. And now, I think we had better get that burn looked at properly by Doctor Fleagal.”

Rogwood stood up before Angus could ask any more questions—of which he suddenly seemed to have hundreds. Such as, who else at Perilous could see fire dragons? And why could he, Angus, suddenly see them now, when the last ten years of his life had been entirely dragon free? And what if he didn't want to be a storm prophet at all? Was there something he could do to turn it off and go back to being normal again?

Angus followed Rogwood across the room. He knew that despite the warning, he would tell Dougal about everything that had just happened, as soon as he got the chance.

 

Talking to Dougal in private proved to be difficult, however. At breakfast the following morning, they were joined at their usual table by Millicent Nichols, Jonathon Hake, and Nigel Ridgely, all of whom were extremely eager to talk to Angus about what had happened in the Lightnarium.

“Did it hurt when the ball lightning struck you?” Nigel asked, leaning across the table eagerly.

“Yeah, did you actually feel it going into your bones?” Jonathon Hake probed, staring hopefully at Angus's arm.

Angus mumbled a few words about not remembering much, his face shining with embarrassment. Then he stared down into his bacon and eggs until, one by one, his fellow trainees drifted back to their own tables.

He didn't get an opportunity to speak to Dougal as they made their way up to the experimental division either, since they were accompanied right to the door by an inquisitive Georgina Fox. And as soon as they slipped through the door itself, Catcher Sparks descended upon them both with two pairs of pink rubber gloves and an extremely stern look on her face.

“I'm surprised to see you here this morning, Doomsbury, after your adventures in the Lightnarium,” she said, glaring at him angrily. “Catcher Vellum took great delight in telling me about it yesterday evening, and I must say that I am extremely disappointed by your reckless behavior. You were specifically told by Gudgeon and Catcher Vellum himself not to do anything without their permission while in the Lightnarium, and yet you chose to ignore the warnings of both.”

“But, miss, I—”

“You would do well to remember the declaration you signed on your first day here, Doomsbury,” Catcher Sparks continued, her nostrils now white and somewhat flared. “And to pay close attention in the future to any safety instructions issued to you by a lightning catcher, particularly one who is used to dealing with lightning bolts on a daily basis.”

“Yes, Catcher, but I—”

“If you choose to ignore any of
my
warnings, there will be no second chances. You will be sent straight back to the mainland before you can say ‘cloud-busting rocket launcher,' do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, miss.” Angus nodded and stared down at his shoes, which was easier than trying to argue.

Catcher Sparks finally seemed to feel that she'd said enough on the subject, and she straightened the buckles on her jerkin, her nostrils slowly returning to their normal shape and size. “Now, I've got a special job for you two this morning,” she snapped. “Come with me, if you please.”

She led them straight past a new rain-measuring device with an enormous vibrating funnel that was being worked on by several tired-looking lightning catchers, and all the way across to the farthest corner of the experimental division. Here the body of the storm vacuum had been detached from its sucking arm and was crouched on the floor like an enormous spider.

“I want this vacuum bag emptied out entirely before the end of the day,” Catcher Sparks ordered, handing a pair of pink rubber gloves to each of them. “We are hoping to test the storm vacuum again tomorrow morning, and we cannot do so if the collection bag is full. One of you will have to crawl inside and pass the contents out to the other. And don't give me that look, Dewsnap,” she added tartly, catching the expression of utmost disgust that had flashed across Dougal's face. “Being a lightning catcher isn't all about watching flashy displays of lightning tarantulatis, and the sooner the two of you get that into your thick skulls, the better.”

Dougal exchanged dark looks with Angus.

“Any nuts, bolts, or other pieces of equipment you come across in the storm vacuum should be set to one side for cleaning. Any fluff, dirt, or other items of rubbish can be discarded, and try not to breathe in too much dust while you're working. I don't want Doctor Fleagal to be pestered with any more unnecessary injuries.” She shot a disapproving look at Angus. “Miss Midnight will not be joining you this morning, so it will be up to the two of you to complete the task by yourselves.”

“Is Indigo all right, miss?” asked Angus.

“She is a little shaken by yesterday's unfortunate incident. Doctor Fleagal is keeping her in the sanatorium for a little longer so she may rest.”

And without another word to either of them, Catcher Sparks strode away.

“Anyone would think you'd deliberately broken into the Lightnarium and set off at least a hundred thunderstorms on purpose, the way she's talking about it,” Dougal said, scowling after her. “You don't think Indigo is hurt, do you?”

Angus shook his head. He'd caught a brief glimpse of Indigo in the sanatorium the previous afternoon. She had been sitting on a bed, looking rather pale and shocked, clutching what looked like her own mug of steaming hot milk. But he'd seen no sign of any injuries. She'd given him a faint smile as he'd been swept toward Doctor Fleagal's office by Rogwood.

“So what did happen yesterday, anyway?” Dougal finally asked as soon as Catcher Sparks was safely out of earshot. “You should have seen Gudgeon's face when that lightning bolt hit you! I think he thought you were dead. Mind you, the rest of us thought you might be dead as well. I'm quite glad you're not, though,” Dougal added, grinning. “Going to fog lectures on my own would have been really boring.”

“Er, thanks . . . I think.” Angus smiled.

“I knocked on your door loads of times last night, but there was no answer.”

“That's because I was still in the sanatorium,” Angus explained.

He had in fact, spent an extremely lonely and troubling day in the sanatorium. Doctor Fleagal, who had turned out to be a short, stout, chatty sort of man, had insisted on telling Angus several stomach-churning stories about an infestation of something called crumble fungus, which had broken out at the Exploratorium many years ago, while he dressed the burn on Angus's arm.

He had then ordered Angus to lie quietly on a bed, where there had been nothing for him to do but stare at the ceiling and imagine himself as a fortune-teller at the fair, complete with a crystal ball and gold hoop earrings, telling total strangers that they were about to be drenched by a bad-tempered monsoon or chased around the island by a hurricane. And he had been unable to shake off the uncomfortable daydreams until the doctor had finally released him at ten o'clock that evening.

He quickly described the events in the sanatorium to Dougal, leaving out the part about the gold hoop earrings.

“Yeah, but I still don't get why you dived in front of Indigo in the first place,” Dougal said as soon as Angus had finished. “I mean, how did you even know the lightning was going to strike out at her like that?”

Angus glanced over his shoulder. Catcher Sparks was busy on the other side of the room, grappling with what looked like a huge weathervane. He took a deep breath and plunged into a hurried explanation about the appearance of the fire dragon. Dougal's eyebrows shot higher and higher up his forehead as he listened, and when Angus finally described the startling conversation he'd had in Rogwood's office afterward, Dougal could contain himself no longer.

“Rogwood says you're a
what
?” he gasped.

Several of the lightning catchers suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked around. Catcher Sparks glared over at them both.

“Shhhhhh! Keep your voice down, will you?” Angus hissed, pulling on the pink rubber gloves up to his elbows and kneeling down at the mouth of the storm vacuum, trying to look as if he was doing something useful. “I don't want everyone knowing about it.”

“Sorry,” Dougal said, kneeling down hurriedly beside him. “It's just, well . . . if Rogwood's right . . . I mean, a storm prophet!”

“Why, what's wrong with being a storm prophet?”

“Nothing, really, it's just . . . most people think they're a bit of a joke, actually,” said Dougal, grinning. “They turn up every year at the Little Frog's Bottom summer festival wearing huge gold earrings and head scarves, pretending they know loads of mystical stuff about doomed lightning bolts and cursed rain. But I've never heard any of them talking about fire dragons before. . . . Real storm prophets are supposed to be pretty rare, though, according to my dad.”

Angus felt his stomach lurch.

“Has your dad told you anything else about them?” he asked.

“Only that hundreds of years ago there were loads of genuine storm prophets around. Dad says they were a bit like weather forecasters, only they didn't need charts and wind socks to tell them what the weather was going to do, they just sort of knew it, by instinct or something. And I don't think there's anything you can actually do about it if you are one. Storm prophets are just born that way; it's a bit like being left-handed or having big feet. Are you sure Rogwood wasn't just pulling your leg, though?” Dougal asked, looking at Angus oddly over the top of his glasses. “I mean, my dad said they all died out ages ago, and as far as anyone knows, there haven't been any real storm prophets on the island for centuries now.”

Angus thought back to the meeting in the lightning catcher's office and the sad look that had settled on Rogwood's face. “He definitely wasn't pulling my leg. I don't see how I could be any kind of weather prophet, though,” he added. “I mean, I didn't even know about Perilous until a month ago, did I?”

“None of us has ever seen an invisible fog before either, but that doesn't stop Miss DeWinkle from going on about how dangerous it is to get caught out in one without your weather watch. I reckon there is one way of finding out for sure if you're a real storm prophet or not,” said Dougal, suddenly looking shifty. “It won't be easy, Catcher Sparks'll go mental if she catches us, but I think I can . . .”

Dougal's voice suddenly trailed away to nothing as a dark shadow fell across the storm vacuum. Angus looked up quickly to see Catcher Sparks towering over them both, her arms folded, her nostrils flaring once again with rage.

“IT HAS BEEN FIFTEEN MINUTES SINCE I TOLD YOU TO START EMPTYING THIS STORM VACUUM,” she bellowed, making them both jump. “WHAT ARE YOU TWO WAITING FOR—CHRISTMAS?”

It was easily the most revolting job they'd done so far. Worse, even, than removing earwax from the hailstone helmets or scraping somebody else's toenails from the depths of a smelly rubber boot. Angus crawled into the mouth of the vacuum bag first, a cloud of fine dirt and fluff forcing its way into his mouth and up his nose and swirling round his head like a swarm of dusty bees. The storm vacuum had sucked up half the contents of the experimental division, it seemed; there were ratchets and screwdrivers, rusty nails and rubber boots, a Band-Aid that had clearly been sucked straight off someone's finger—along with the scab it had been protecting. There was also an impressive collection of technical drawings (which had been ripped to shreds), as well as a handful of weather watches (smashed to smithereens) and a ham-and-pickle sandwich that was starting to get moldy.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Angus did his best to push a mangled chair, several table legs, and what appeared to be a voluminous pair of spotted underpants back through the mouth of the storm vacuum, but it was tricky work. As unpleasant as crawling around inside the vacuum bag was, however, Angus felt it was far more enjoyable than what was going on inside his own head. Images of fire dragons came leaping into his mind, blazing with ferocious heat, making him feel dizzy. He couldn't help hoping that Rogwood might have made a mistake. After all, how could he, Angus McFangus of Budleigh Otterstone, Devon, be a genuine storm prophet when, according to Dougal's dad, none had even existed for hundreds of years now? Besides, he had never been able to predict so much as a gust of wind, never mind rainstorms or tornadoes or lightning strikes. And he crawled around the confines of the storm vacuum, hoping that he'd never see another fire dragon again.

Even more unsettling was Dougal's strange behavior throughout the rest of the day. On several occasions, as Angus struggled to drag a heavy bag of sand or a large copper kettle through the mouth of the storm vacuum, he emerged into the room, puffing and panting, only to find that Dougal was nowhere to be seen. When he did eventually appear again, there was an odd clanking noise coming from under his bulging sweater, which Dougal refused to discuss. It wasn't until the end of a very long day that Angus finally found out what his friend had been up to.

They ate a hurried dinner in the kitchens, then made a quick exit down the spiral stairs to the Pigsty. Only when both doors were closed firmly behind them and the curtains had been drawn across the window did Dougal remove two glass spheres from under his sweater and show them to Angus.