The Lightning Catcher (20 page)

Before he could even begin to reason with Dougal, however, a large shadow fell across them both.

“What's the matter with Dewsnap?” a familiar voice sneered behind them. “He's not afraid of the big scary fog course, is he?”

Angus looked over his shoulder to find the Vellum twins looming over them like a pair of particularly ugly gargoyles that had recently fallen off a church. Ever since their first confrontation outside the weather tunnel, he had been doing his best to avoid the twins, but there was no escaping them now. Pixie was hovering behind her brother, her coarse hair tied up in ridiculous-looking pigtails. It wasn't a pretty sight.

“Dewsnap, you're not actually thinking of pulling out, are you?” Percival goaded, his gorilla-like arms swinging by his sides.

“You wish!” Angus said hurriedly, before Dougal could say anything. “As a matter of fact, we were just discussing our course strategy, weren't we?”

Dougal looked momentarily confused. “Were we? Oh, yeah, I mean . . . that's right, we were.”

“I don't know about you two, but I'm really looking forward to it,” Angus continued. “It should be a piece of cake after the kind of training we've got planned.”

“The only thing you and Dewsnap will be practicing is how to fake double fainting fits before you cross the starting line.” Percival grinned at his own joke. “Dewsnap will be screaming like a girl before the first whiff of fog even hits him.”

“As if,” Angus said, in what he hoped was a confident voice. “Actually, we were hoping the course would look like this. If it had been any easier it wouldn't have been worth doing.”

His bluff worked. The corner of Pixie's mouth twitched, and the sneer on her brother's face slipped. Percival recovered quickly, making up for his lapse by being even more revolting than usual.

“You can brag all you want, Dungbeetle, but you three have got no chance of getting through this course first,” he said.

“But Gudgeon just told us it isn't a competition.” Indigo appeared beside them, frowning. “It doesn't matter who comes in first.”

“Don't be so idiotic, Midnight. Of course it matters. The Vellums have been beating everyone on that course for hundreds of years, and we're not about to stop now. You could call it a family tradition, and Pixie and me intend to carry on the winning streak.”

Indigo snorted, surprising everyone, including herself.

“What's so funny, Midnight?” Percival glowered.

Indigo blushed furiously, but she faced Percival with a defiant look. “Winning streaks don't count if you have to bully your way to victory. The only thing you two could win without cheating is a who's-the-biggest-numbskull? competition.”

“Just watch it, Midnight,” said Pixie, when she finally realized that she'd just been insulted. “You'd better talk nicely to me and my brother, or we could get all three of you thrown out of Perilous, just like that,” she added, with a thick snap of her pudgy fingers. “Our dad works here. He's really good friends with Principal Dark-Angel, and she'll do anything he tells her to.”

“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about your dad,” Angus said. “He looks after the Perilous sewers or something, doesn't he?”

Dougal let out a huge guffaw of laughter. Indigo was overcome with giggles. Pixie, however, poked Angus hard in the chest. “You'll be laughing on the other side of your face when we beat you.”

And with that, the twins retreated to the other side of the cloud gardens, muttering.

In the days that followed, the first groups of older trainees began to leave Perilous to complete their own field trips. They returned at the end of each day nursing a spectacular variety of bruises and cut lips. Clifford Fugg, a popular sixth year (who could squash a whole custard tart into his mouth while reciting the alphabet backward), was rushed up to the sanatorium with a broken wrist, instantly renewing wild tales of roaming fog yetis, and testing Dougal's courage to the breaking point.

“If Clifford Fugg's been injured, I'll never make it through that course alive!” he wailed at least once a day. “Why can't I be allergic to fog too?”

In the meantime, Angus decided that he'd search as much of the marsh as possible during their own field trip, under the cover of the fog, hoping to unearth even the tiniest hint or clue that his parents might have left behind. If he could somehow find the exact spot where they'd been kidnapped, if he could just sense their faded presence in the marshes, maybe then he'd know how to help.

Getting through the fog course without injury, however, was going to be virtually impossible, and he was extremely glad when Dougal and Indigo offered to help.

“Indigo can take charge of navigation and make sure we get through the course in one piece,” Dougal decided as all three of them sat quietly together, discussing the plan. “I'll study the McFangus guide, so we'll know how to tackle any fog we run into,” he added, looking faintly sick at the notion of fog. “And then all you have to do is search for clues.”

“Thanks.” Angus nodded, feeling immensely grateful to them both. He knew the chances of finding anything in the swirling mists were remote, that Rogwood and the rest of the lightning catchers must have searched the marshes right after his mum and dad were kidnapped. But after weeks of feeling utterly helpless, he also knew he had to try.

 

It was four days after their unexpected visit to the cloud gardens that Indigo made an interesting discovery, one that she was convinced could help them get through the fog course. And it involved a trip to the library.

The library at Perilous was large and sprawling, with a glass-domed ceiling at the top and a majestic spiral staircase leading up to an impressive balcony.

“Just remind me what we're doing in here again?” Angus whispered as they crept between the dusty shelves.

Thanks to Indigo, they had managed to sneak past Mr. Knurling—who was skulking about among the reference books—and make their way quietly up the spiral staircase to the balcony without being caught. Dougal had been kept behind in the experimental division by Catcher Sparks to reorganize a cabinet full of antique storm snares, which he'd somehow managed to knock over.

“Miss DeWinkle was talking to Catcher Sparks in the girls' corridor this morning,” Indigo said, “about some old field trip training manuals that might have been left in the library by Ernest Elbow.”

“Er . . . what's been left in here by who, sorry?” asked Angus.

“Ernest Elbow. He was a famous lightning catcher. He worked in the Inner Sanctum of Secrets about seventy years ago. He also took part in loads of field trips, until he got a bit of an injury,” Indigo explained as they tiptoed between the bookshelves, making as little noise as possible.

“What kind of an injury, exactly?” Angus asked, frowning.

“A shattered kneecap or a severed earlobe or something like that.” Indigo shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“It might.” Angus felt a rush of nerves. “Just don't tell Dougal about this Ernest what's-his-name, okay? Or he'll be threatening to tear up his form again.”

Indigo grinned at him over her shoulder. “Anyway, Miss DeWinkle said he wrote a whole series of training manuals after that. She also reckons they're still buried in the library somewhere. And if we could just find out for sure if anyone's ever encountered any piranha mist fish before, I'd feel much happier. . . .”

Angus had to admire Indigo's spirit. But he was fairly sure that the only way to deal with such dangers was with the aid of a large baseball bat—or a tub of extra-powerful piranha poison. He was just about to suggest that they try to get their hands on as much of the stuff as possible, when something small and circular shot through the glass ceiling above them with a crash, leaving a perfectly round hole in the large dome.

Indigo gasped, tripping over a pile of dusty books that had been left carelessly on the floor. Angus recognized the falling object instantly.

“I don't believe it!” He rushed to the edge of the balcony and peered over the railing as a dozen more holes appeared in the ceiling above. “Those are storm globes.”

“Storm globes?” Indigo stood beside him, clutching the rail. “But I don't understand. What are they doing in the library?”

“They're getting ready to rain.” Angus frowned as, far below them, scattered far and wide across the library floor, the miniature storms were released from their shattered orbs.

Fortunately, most of the storms were no bigger than the dumplings they had eaten the night before at dinner, and they produced nothing more than puddles of halfhearted rain before they fizzled out completely. One storm, however, was much uglier than all the rest, and appeared to be gathering itself into a great, dark mass.

“Er . . . I think we'd better get out of here,” Angus said. “Getting caught in one of those storms is no picnic, trust me.”

“Oh, but—what if it's dangerous?” Indigo grabbed his arm. “What if there's been an accident in the experimental division or something?”

But Angus had already spotted a suspicious-looking dark cloud hovering directly above the glass dome of the library. “I bet you anything this has something to do with your uncle Scabious. He must be bored with the showers of newts and frogs—”

“What—so now he's sending storm globes instead?” Indigo said. “But why?”

Angus didn't answer. The storm had almost doubled in size during this brief conversation, and he grabbed Indigo by the sleeve and tried to drag her down the spiral staircase instead.

Indigo resisted. “Shouldn't we find Mr. Knurling and warn him?”

Angus cast a quick glance around. Mr. Knurling was nowhere to be seen. “He must have made a run for it already. Come on!”

They hopped gingerly over the shattered globes when they finally reached the bottom of the staircase, and ran toward the library doors. As they slipped outside and into the hallway, however, they were met by another, even uglier storm. The seething cloud rumbled in front of them—almost as if it could sense their presence and was keen to start raining on them as soon as possible.

Angus flattened himself against the wall and attempted to squeeze his way past without the storm noticing, but before either of them could reach the long passageway beyond, there was an ominous grumble of thunder, and—

“Back to the library!” Angus yelled as the storm suddenly unleashed its full fury.

Indigo yanked the door open and they tumbled through it, vicious hailstones the size of golf balls bouncing off the backs of their necks. The storm burst into the library behind them. With one colossal thunderclap, it collided with the other dark cloud, forming a terrifying superstorm.

“Quick, try and hit the hailstones before they hit you!” Angus shouted, pulling a heavy dictionary off the shelf closest to him and swinging it around his head like a baseball bat, sending frozen missiles flying in every direction and breaking inkwells, glass cabinets, and windows in the process.

Book after book turned to pulp in his hands, but it was no use. The storm grew more violent still, with strong gusts of icy wind forcing them to retreat behind reading chairs and under homework tables—until there was only one place left for them to hide.

“We've got to get under Mr. Knurling's desk!” Indigo shouted, scrambling under the large mahogany desk on her hands and knees and dragging Angus with her. They waited, shivering, hoping that the storm would blow itself out. But it howled happily above their heads, raging so violently now that the legs of the librarian's desk began to tremble under the large weight of ice that had collected on top of it.

“We can't stay here! This thing's about to collapse,” Angus yelled above the fury. “We've got to make a run for it!”

“No, wait!” Indigo pulled him back by his sweater. “I—I think it might be stopping.”

Indigo was right. The storm was finally running out of steam; its deadly pellets of ice were now the size of peas. Less than a minute later, it was all over. The remains of the storm hung briefly above their heads, looking wrung out and exhausted, before it quickly melted away to nothing, and a strange hush fell over the dripping library.

Angus removed several lumps of ice from his right ear and crawled out from under the desk to survey the damage.

Books had been ripped from their shelves and flung across the floor. Large piles of melted hailstones had formed icy puddles, some of which looked deep enough for a colony of Imbur seals to take a plunge in.

“The library's ruined!” Indigo gasped, standing beside him. Her neck and arms were covered in angry-looking ice burns.

Angus gulped. “It's just lucky there was no one else in here.”

“Oh, but . . . look,” Indigo whispered, pointing to a thin trail of shattered glass that led to a crushed monocle on the floor. There were also signs that someone had been scrambling desperately for cover. “Mr. Knurling!” Indigo turned a funny shade of green. “He was still in the reference section when the storm struck. He never got out.”

“Where is he? He must be buried under a pile of books . . . or hailstones. Quick, we'd better split up and see if we can find him before he suffocates.”

It was a miserable job. Angus picked his way through the soggy mass of books. Every now and again he found a snow directory or a volume on famous old lightning catchers that could be hung up to dry. But the rest of it was beyond repair.

Nor was there any sign of the missing librarian. And Angus was just beginning to wonder if they might need some help finding him when something odd caught his eye. Lying in the middle of a particularly large pile of books was a shiny black object. He bent down and tapped it with his knuckles. It twitched.

“Over here!” he called to Indigo. “I think I've found him!”

The shiny object turned out to be a shoe, which still had a foot inside it, and a moment later they had uncovered the librarian. He was lying flat on his back, his eyes closed, stiff hair flattened by the storm.