The Lightning Catcher (18 page)

Half an hour later, Angus stood on the roof of Perilous, wrapped up in several warm woolly sweaters, as well as a hat, scarf, and coat to protect him from the icy wind that was blowing from the east. Almost half the roof now resembled a frosted lake that glinted and twinkled in the morning sunshine. Beyond it, the whole of Imbur Island lay before them like a vast iced cake, its tall, snow-capped mountains just visible in the distance.

Angus stared hard at the row of jagged peaks, hoping he might somehow catch a glimpse of Castle Dankhart, but he knew Dougal was right. The mountains rose up like a great impenetrable fortress, making it impossible to see anything.

A handful of older trainees, including Nicholas Grubb and his friends, were already racing each other up and down the ice.

“I'd make the most of it if I were you,” Nicholas advised Angus, skating over to say a quick hello. “Last time the roof froze over, Principal Dark-Angel sent everyone back inside again after only twenty minutes.”

“Why, what happened?” Angus asked.

“Somebody accidentally dumped a bucket of ice over Miss Rill, the monsoon expert.” He grinned. “She wasn't very impressed, for some reason.”

Several lightning catchers were already spinning round the roof on their skates with surprising skill. Angus gasped as Rogwood, with his beard tucked inside what looked like a long knitted sock, sped past them both, arm in arm with Miss DeWinkle.

“Morning, Doomsbury . . . Dewsnap!” Miss DeWinkle waved cheerfully as they hurtled around the ice with a swishing of blades and a flapping of scarves.

“Wow!” Dougal said in an awed voice. “You wouldn't think they had it in them at their age, would you?”

Angus, who had once witnessed his own white-haired uncle roller-skating around the entire windmill to test out a massive wind sock, wasn't surprised at all. He was surprised, however, to find himself lying flat on his back only seconds after putting a first tentative foot on the ice. It didn't seem to matter what he did with his feet after that; as soon as he got anywhere near the ice, they shot out from underneath him in opposite directions and brought him crashing down. The only way he could stay upright for more than five seconds was by clinging to the leg of a hurricane mast.

Dougal was surprisingly good on his own skates and treated Angus to a display of small leaps and jumps, as well as an accidental attempt at the splits that made his eyes water and caused Angus to laugh so hard he spent several helpless minutes lying on his back, unable to move.

At lunchtime, several trays of hot soup were sent up from the kitchens. They helped themselves to warm crusty rolls, sat in the shelter of the weather balloon, and watched Mr. Knurling, the bad-tempered librarian, do an unsteady circuit of the roof, his stiff blond hair frozen into icy peaks by the wind.

“What are you two looking at?” he snapped as he went lurching past. “Haven't you ever seen a skating librarian before?”

“Yeah, but I've never seen one using his own rear end as a brake,” Dougal mumbled as the librarian tripped a moment later and skidded past them both on the seat of his pants.

Mr. Knurling was followed onto the ice by Gudgeon and Principal Dark-Angel herself. It was one of the few times Angus had seen the principal up close since their first meeting in her office. She looked pale, drawn, and extremely annoyed when Mr. Knurling crashed straight into her, bringing them both down heavily on the ice.

“Doesn't look too happy, does she?” Angus grinned through his soup steam.

“That's not the only thing she's annoyed about, either,” said Dougal. “I forgot to tell you earlier. Catcher Mint and Gudgeon were up in the supplies department this morning, while I was getting our skates, and they were talking about Principal Dark-Angel and the snorkel beetles.”

Angus frowned. “But . . . the snorkel beetles happened weeks ago now.”

“Yeah, but apparently a whole swarm of them got down a chimney and into the principal's office while we were all shut up in the sanatorium, and they made a real mess of the place, turned it upside down, went through her personal filing cabinet and everything.”

“I didn't realize snorkel beetles could turn things upside down,” said Angus, picturing the small winged creatures.

“They must be stronger than they look.” Dougal shrugged. “Anyway, according to Catcher Mint, she's been in a horrible mood ever since.”

Angus, on the other hand, felt the cold, fresh air lifting his spirits a little, and the sight of Mr. Knurling doing an accidental somersault while trying to get off the ice only improved his mood.

 

Over the next few days, the weather took a turn for the worse, with dull sheets of relentless rain blowing in from the west. Fortunately for Angus and Dougal, however, Mr. Dewsnap had just sent a large parcel of books over to help keep them amused during the long, dark evenings.

“Dad knows I'm a bit of a bookworm,” Dougal explained, clearly embarrassed by the delivery. “Just do me a favor, okay? Don't tell anyone else? Percival Vellum already thinks I'm a total nerd.”

“I'd rather be a bookworm than a great hairy moron,” said Angus, showing his friend some support. And as the wind howled furiously outside, they spent some very enjoyable hours toasting marshmallows over the warm fire in the Pigsty.

Angus's favorite book was a weighty tome on famous Imburcillian inventors who had shocked the whole island with such radical ideas as the knitted umbrella and the self-cleaning toilet—which never really caught on due to a problem with projectile flushing. He couldn't help wondering how Uncle Max was getting on back at the Windmill with the blizzard catcher. He also wondered if his uncle had received the letter he'd sent, asking about his parents. There had been no reply from Budleigh Otterstone yet.

Dougal was rather taken with a fascinating book on secret codes and how to crack them, written by someone called Archibald Humble-Pea.

“Hey, listen to this,” he said excitedly one evening, as Angus was attempting to toast ten fat marshmallows over the fire on an extremely spindly stick. “According to old Humble-Pea, the last two pages of our fog guides are written in secret code. And if you take out all the words beginning with an M, and then read the rest of it backward, it tells you exactly what they've got hidden up in the Inner Sanctum of Perplexing Mysteries and Secrets. Quick, where's my fog guide?” Dougal searched hurriedly through a pile of books on the floor beside his armchair. “I bet you anything they've got the brains of some doddery old lightning catcher pickled up there in a jar. Wouldn't it be brilliant if we knew all about it—and nobody else did!” Dougal spent the rest of the afternoon with his head buried in the thick volume, frowning in concentration. The only thing he managed to decipher, however, was a very cryptic message about some books with “melting words.”

“How are we supposed to know what that means?” Dougal frowned, finally snapping Humble-Pea shut in defeat.

At the end of the week, feverish rumors began to circulate that a large horse and a carriage bearing the name Balthazar's Chocolatiers had been spotted making a secret delivery of chocolate to Perilous, including a dozen giant chocolate rabbits, six life-sized, cream-filled giraffes, and half a ton of solid chocolate eggs the size of rugby balls.

What appeared to be a fact, however, was that a burly group of fifth-year boys had just been told they would be tackling their first fog field trip on the Imbur marshes in a few days. And the chattering noise in the kitchens reached near-deafening levels.

“If only we could find out more about what's happened on previous field trips, we might know what to expect on ours,” Dougal said on Friday evening, as they trudged up to the Octagon to return their ice skates to the supplies department.

“I'm not sure I want to know,” said Angus, frowning.

“Well, maybe we could get some hints about what Miss DeWinkle's got hidden in the fog. I mean, what if she really has a whole troop of yetis waiting to jump out at us?”

“Or a school of piranha mist fish,” Angus added.

“Er . . . piranha what fish?” Dougal asked, looking alarmed.

“Juliana Jessop was telling everyone about it in the kitchens last night,” Angus explained. “Apparently some idiotic lightning catcher brought a sample back from Brazil, about a hundred years ago, and they escaped. I mean it could be a load of old garbage, but—”

Angus stopped abruptly as they reached the Octagon and crashed into Indigo, who had come around the corner at precisely the same moment, heading in the opposite direction.

“Oh, er . . . hello.”

“Hi,” Indigo said, smiling awkwardly at them both.

None of them could think of anything else to say. Dougal stared up at the marbled ceiling as if searching for inspiration, Indigo inspected the floor around her feet, and Angus studied the door of the experimental division closely, for no particular reason he could think of. He chanced a furtive glance at Indigo, who was chewing her lip, and who once again seemed to be on the verge of telling him something that caused her to frown deeply.

“Well, we'd better get these skates back to the supplies department,” said Angus, when he could no longer stand the uncomfortable silence. “See you in the experimental division on Monday.”

“Yeah, see you on Monday,” Dougal added with a wave as they skirted around Indigo and hurried away from her. “Not much of a talker, is she? I wonder what that was all about?”

“No idea, but if she doesn't spit it out soon, I think her head might explode.”

They were just about to knock on the door to the supplies department when Angus felt a soft tap on his shoulder. He turned around to find Indigo standing behind them, this time with a determined look on her face.

“There's something I want to talk to you both about. Something I've been trying to tell you for ages now. . . . But can we go somewhere a bit more private first?”

Dougal glanced around the deserted Octagon. “This is about as private as it ever gets in this place,” he said with a shrug.

Indigo seemed set on moving their conversation to another location, however, and they followed her back down the stone steps and battled their way into a small room, which was crammed full of rusty old umbrellas. She closed the door behind them and stared down at her trembling hands.

“There's something about—about my family that I want to tell you both,” she began, not looking at either of them directly. “Something you might find a bit . . . shocking.”

“Your family?” said Angus, puzzled. This wasn't what he'd been expecting at all. “Er, wouldn't you be more comfortable talking to one of your girlfriends about that sort of thing? I mean, family stuff's private, isn't it?”

“Yeah, private,” Dougal agreed, backing away from Indigo with a panicked look on his face.

“You don't have to look so worried.” Indigo smiled weakly. “It's not like I want to discuss my great-aunt Cordelia's crumble fungus problems or anything.”

“Your great-aunt's got crumble fungus problems?” Dougal gulped, looking both revolted and curious at the same time.

Thankfully however, Indigo didn't elaborate. She swept her hair out her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

“Look, this isn't something I normally go around telling everyone. But I just thought . . . after what's happened . . . that Angus really has a right to know.”

Angus exchanged puzzled glances with Dougal, who grabbed a moth-eaten umbrella and held it like a shield, to protect himself from anything embarrassing Indigo might say.

“I mean, my mum made me promise not to tell anyone—ever. She said nobody would understand, that it's got to stay a big family secret. . . .”

“Big family secret . . . ,” Dougal repeated, and a sudden change came over his face.

“It's not my mum's fault she comes from such a horrible family,” Indigo continued in a rush. “She hated living there. That's why she ran away from home when she was fifteen and married my dad—”

Angus still had absolutely no idea what Indigo was talking about. Dougal, however, suddenly seemed to understand her perfectly. His eyebrows shot up, disappearing under his bangs, and his mouth fell open as he stared at Indigo with wide-eyed shock.

“Of course! Married at fifteen . . . big family secret . . . that's it!” he gasped, steaming up his own glasses in excitement. “That's why I recognize your name. I knew I'd remember it eventually.”

Indigo bit her lip and fell silent, watching Dougal anxiously.

“My dad's got this huge wall chart in his study at home showing all the old families on Imbur,” said Dougal. “It goes way back to the fifteenth century or something. He uses it all the time for research into his books and stuff, and I remember now seeing the Midnight family on it. Your dad's called Timothy Midnight or something, isn't he?” he asked Indigo.

“It's Thomas, actually,” she said, still chewing her lip.

“Thomas, exactly. Anyway,” Dougal continued, barely able to get the words out of his mouth fast enough, “the important point is that Thomas Midnight went and married Etheldra Dankhart. Which makes—”

“Which makes Scabious Dankhart my uncle.” Indigo finished his sentence for him in a tremulous voice.

A ringing sort of silence followed this astonishing statement. Angus couldn't quite take his eyes off a crimson-cheeked Indigo. He stared at her, thunderstruck, a slow understanding beginning to creep over him. Scabious Dankhart was Indigo's uncle! That explained why Indigo had been so quiet, why she'd been so reluctant to speak to anybody and had stoutly refused to make friends. She'd been terrified that if anyone ever found out about her dubious family connections . . .

“My mum didn't ask to be born into the Dankhart family,” said Indigo hurriedly. “She ran away from home and married my dad, he's a blacksmith in Little Frog's Bottom. She's never been back to that horrible castle since. We're Midnights now. None of us has anything to do with my uncle Scabious. It's not my mum's fault that her brother turned out to be such a despicable villain.”