The Lightning Catcher (16 page)

“Fog field trips have been a traditional part of lightning cub training ever since,” Miss DeWinkle continued. “As lightning catchers, you will spend more than three entire years of your life studying different varieties, collecting samples, and dealing with fog emergencies as they arise around the globe. So it is crucial that you learn how to work in it without suffering from a severe case of fog disorientation.”

“I think I might be suffering from that already,” Dougal whispered, forcing Angus to hide a smirk behind his McFangus guide.

“Or even vapor sickness,” Miss DeWinkle continued, giving them both a hard stare. “Dangerous, devious, and extremely tricky, fog is impossible to navigate without rigorous training. The purpose to these field trips, therefore, is threefold. First, to introduce you to as many different types of fog as possible, while the fog season lasts. Second, to ensure that each of you learns how to use your weather watch correctly. And finally, to teach you how to tackle even the thickest confusing fog, with the aid of your
McFangus Fog Guide
and without collapsing into a quivering heap. There will be perils concealed deep within the dense mists,” Miss DeWinkle warned dramatically. Dougal stopped smiling abruptly, the color draining from his face. “There will be bumps, grazes, shocks, and surprises. I guarantee you will never forget the excitements of your first fog season. And that is what makes the field trips one of the most popular events in your training calendar.”

“What kind of shocks, miss?” Nigel Ridgley asked, looking rather worried.

“It wouldn't be much of a surprise if I told you, now would it, Ridgley?” Miss DeWinkle chortled, her chins wobbling. “I can tell you, however, that there will be four field trips in all, spread over the next two months. Precise dates will only be given a few days before each trip begins. Older trainees at different stages of their fog training will be taking part in their own field trips, some of which may take place at the same time as yours.

“Now, if everyone will open their textbooks and answer the questions on page twenty-nine,” she said as a groan swept around the room, “we must return to our lessons. And before I forget, I have just received a most promising weather report from our very own forecasting department.” She waved a sheet of paper at them. “From the early hours of tomorrow morning, the whole island will be plunged into a thick fake fog, which often shows itself shortly before the real season begins. It will, however, give us the perfect opportunity to get in some vital practice for your field trips. We will be leaving Perilous no later than six o'clock tomorrow morning in order to catch the fog in its most unspoiled and pristine state.”

“Six o'clock!” Dougal said, looking stunned. “But the kitchens don't even open until seven.”

“I will expect you all to be awake, alert, and equipped with your copy of the McFangus guide,” Miss DeWinkle continued. “Wet weather clothes and rubber boots should be worn by everyone, please. And I suggest you all get an early night.”

 

The next morning, they assembled bleary-eyed and yawning in the courtyard outside, and it looked like the forecasting department had predicted the weather with depressing accuracy. Angus could hardly see his own hand in front of his face. The thick fog swirled unpleasantly around his head, freezing his ears and making him wish he was back in his warm, comfortable bed. Dougal was too tired to even speak, and the rest of the group was fighting to keep their eyes open and clearly losing the battle.

None of them had taken Miss DeWinkle's advice about getting an early night. They had spent the entire evening in the kitchens discussing what shocks and surprises might be waiting for them on their field trips and hadn't gone to bed until just before midnight.

At six o'clock precisely, Miss DeWinkle bounded into the courtyard, looking annoyingly awake and cheerful.

“Good morning, everyone!” She beamed from beneath a revolting hat of bile-green wool. She was carrying a pile of flashlights and immediately began handing them out to everyone. “Can't be too careful this time of the morning,” she said, flicking her own light on and off to make sure it worked. “If any of you get lost, I suggest three flashes with your light as a distress signal.”

“If I get lost out there, I'm not wasting my time with signals,” Dougal said, shivering. “I'm yelling my head off for help.”

Miss DeWinkle led the way out of the courtyard and into the thickest depths of the fog.

“Now, before we go any farther, this is an excellent opportunity to recap on the basics of how fog is formed.”

“Recap?” Angus whispered. “You mean we've covered this stuff before?” He racked his brains trying to remember what Miss DeWinkle had told them, but it felt like the early morning fog had seeped in through his ears, leaving him befuddled.

“Fog is formed when warm moist air travels over much colder ground below, which is why it usually occurs during the autumn and winter months, and often after frosts, ice, or snow,” she explained as they shivered before her. “If the warm air contains enough moisture, it will condense as it is cooled by the ground and form itself into one of the many fascinating types of fog that you have already been introduced to. There are those who insist that fog is simply a cloud created on the ground,” she said, with obvious disdain, “but, in my opinion, that does not describe the sheer complexity of this most magnificent weather.”

Angus glanced at his weather watch, which was smothered at that moment in pearly white swirls and was advising him to turn right around and head back inside again.

“Fake fog, such as the one you are now standing in, is thick and impenetrable one second, and vanishes completely the next, and is therefore not a proper fog at all. A true fog reduces visibility to half a mile or less. And on Imbur, it often leaves you with no more than a few feet to get your bearings. Running is therefore strictly forbidden in such conditions,” she continued. “I would also advise taking small, measured steps, to avoid painful collisions. And if you feel disorientation setting in, staring at the ground often helps.”

Two minutes later, they were split up into groups and forced to practice walking through the fog in the correct manner.

“I said no running, Hake!” Miss DeWinkle bellowed as Jonathon collided with Millicent Nichols head-on.

She then instructed them to identify the unique characteristics of the fake fog, using their McFangus guides. It was cold work, with moisture droplets freezing their gloves solid and making their teeth chatter. And they quickly discovered that outside the nice warm weather bubble, all fogs really looked exactly the same.

“This is totally impossible,” Dougal said after fifteen minutes of staring at the water droplets and trying to measure them for size and sogginess.

“Yeah, I know,” Angus said, concentrating hard. “What are we supposed to do with the stuff once we've measured it, anyway?”

They weren't the only ones having trouble. Most of the class looked wet through, and miserable, and to make matters even worse, the mouthwatering smell of fried bacon began to drift toward them from the Perilous kitchens.

After another head-numbing half hour, Miss DeWinkle handed around small glass jars to everyone and instructed them to collect fog samples, so they could continue their studies back inside after breakfast.

“How are you supposed to know if you've got any in your jar, though?” Dougal asked, peering through the glass and giving it a shake.

Angus shrugged. “Stick your nose inside it, and if it smells like old turnips, you'll know you've probably got something.”

“I'm not sticking my nose anywhere near . . . ouch! Geroff me!”

There was a tinkle of breaking glass as Dougal suddenly dropped his jar. Angus spun around to see his friend waving his arms frantically about his head and desperately trying to flick something off his ears.

“What is it, what's up?” he asked, concerned.

“Something just bit me!”

Angus frowned. “Bit you? But—OW!” he yelped as something flew in front of him and sank its extremely sharp teeth into the back of his hand. “What in the name of . . .”

Two more blurry shapes whizzed past him, heading straight for his ears. A second later, it seemed the whole class had been engulfed by a cloud of strange flying insects that buzzed menacingly above their heads and attacked at will. Pixie Vellum ran past them, screaming as a vicious horde jabbed at the back of her neck. Violet Quinn had a whole cloud of the nasty creatures stuck in her hair. Trainees scattered in every direction, trying to escape. Only Indigo, it seemed, was having any success at fending the creatures off, by whirling her scarf in a frenzied circle around her head.

“Don't panic!” Miss DeWinkle called. “It's probably just a swarm of fog mites. Harmless, playful creatures, just try to shoo them away nicely.”

“Fog mites?” Dougal said in disbelief. “Fog mites are about the size of a pinhead and they . . . don't . . . have . . .
teeth
!”

Angus ignored Miss DeWinkle's advice completely and tried to keep the strange winged creatures at bay with his McFangus guide. He swung it wildly in every direction, catching Georgina Fox on the side of the head.

“Sorry!” Angus apologized, dropping his guard for a second and receiving a very nasty bite on the end of his nose.

A few minutes later, Miss DeWinkle ordered a hasty retreat back to Perilous, and Angus was pleased to see that whatever was attacking them in the fog had taken a particular liking to Percival Vellum, who was now covered in angry red marks like an outbreak of measles.

“How extraordinary!” Miss DeWinkle said, once they had reached the safety of the courtyard, where the fog had thinned to a watery mist. “In all my years as a fog instructor, I have never seen anything like it. I have never known fog mites to attack in such numbers before, and in daylight as well. I suggest those of you with bites follow me up to Doctor Fleagal in the sanatorium for some soothing lotion.”

There was a disgruntled murmur as the entire class shuffled through the doors and back into the Exploratorium, before the swarm could return for second helpings.

Once inside, it seemed they were hardly any better off. Fog mites had forced their way in through every open door and window and were buzzing about the corridors in large, vicious swarms, attacking anyone in their path. Catcher Mint was jamming a hailstone helmet onto his head. At least a dozen lightning catchers, led by Gudgeon, went racing past them, with fishing nets.

“Get those fog mites away from the kitchens!” Gudgeon yelled. “If the blighters get into the food preparation area, we'll be scraping bits of sausage off the ceilings for weeks.”

And as they rounded a corner to the kitchens, they were greeted by the sight of the entire cooking staff charging the length of the room, armed with heavy frying pans and long forks.

“Oh, Amelia! Thank goodness,” Miss DeWinkle said as Catcher Sparks came marching toward them wearing a gauze mask and carrying a frying pan, upon which several mites had already met their ends. “Is Doctor Fleagal up in the sanatorium? My class has just been hit by a nasty swarm of fog mites.”

“Fog mites my eye,” Catcher Sparks said firmly, and she took a small glass jar from the pocket of her jerkin.

The jar contained a beetle with a distinctive pink zigzag across its back and a snorkel-shaped nose. It was buzzing angrily against the side of the glass.

“But that's an Imbur Island snorkel beetle. What's it doing here?” Miss DeWinkle said, sounding surprised. “It normally lives out in the Imbur marshes.”

Angus and Dougal inched closer to the lightning catchers to try and get a better look at the jar, and to eavesdrop on what promised to be a very interesting conversation.

“Heaven knows how they got here, but we've got a whole swarm of the blasted things trapped in the weather tunnel upstairs,” said Catcher Sparks, sounding unusually flustered. “Rogwood's sealing off the entire roof so they don't get into the weather cannon and accidentally set it—”

BOOOOOOM!

The explosion vibrated through the whole building, dislodging lots of dust and several birds' nests from the rafters above their heads. It was clear to everyone that the snorkel beetles had indeed found their way to the weather cannon.

“Oh, honestly,” said Catcher Sparks, gazing up at the ceiling. “It's absolute pandemonium! If they get into any of the equipment in the Lightnarium, I dread to think what might happen. Really, this is worse than the newts and frogs.”

“So you think the beetles have come from the same source as before?” asked Miss DeWinkle, lowering her voice.

Catcher Sparks drew her several steps farther away from the class before answering. Angus grabbed Dougal by the sleeve and followed, ducking behind a pillar where they could continue to eavesdrop without being caught.

“Of course they've come from the same source,” Catcher Sparks said. “Do you know anyone else on the island who's capable of creating this much chaos?”

“But I don't understand it. What has Scabious Dankhart got to gain by bombarding us with these wretched creatures?”

“For goodness sake, Olivia, keep your voice down,” Catcher Sparks hissed through her gauze mask. “We don't want the whole Exploratorium in a panic. But if you must know, Principal Dark-Angel believes it has something to do with his kidnapping of Alabone and Evangeline. . . .”

Angus felt his stomach swoop down into his rubber boots. He shot a sideways glance at Dougal.

“It was only after Dankhart kidnapped the McFanguses that the frogs and newts began falling over Perilous. There is no question that the two events are linked.”

“But has nothing been heard from them yet?”

Catcher Sparks shook her head. “Not a word. It is almost certain that they are locked up in one of Dankhart's dungeons, I'm afraid. Principal Dark-Angel is doing everything she can. She has some hope that they may find some means of escape by themselves, but . . .” Catcher Sparks shook her head again and stared down at her feet. “Who knows if we shall ever see them again?”