The Lightning Catcher (5 page)

“There is one last thing before you go.” The principal hesitated as they reached the door. “For the time being, at least, I would prefer it if nobody else knew of your presence here. You will go by the name of Angus Doomsbury,” she said. “If everyone finds out that we have an extra McFangus staying at Perilous, they'll all be inviting their families over, and we simply haven't got the facilities here to deal with it. This is an Exploratorium, not a vacation resort. I'm sure you understand.”

Angus wasn't sure he understood any of it very clearly. But Principal Dark-Angel had already turned back toward her desk and the waiting bucket of tadpoles. And he left her office with more to think about than the time Uncle Max had crashed a portable frigidarium into the Windmill, showering it in hundreds of lethal icicles.

  
4
  

PERILOUS

A
ngus was met outside the principal's office by Edmund Croxley. Tall, gangly, and exceedingly pale, he was now wearing gray pants and a matching sweater, upon which an impressive
FOG AFICIONADO
badge was pinned. He also seemed to know the Exploratorium like the back of his hand, and without a single word of introduction, he strode off in front of Angus with an air of supreme self-confidence.

“The first thing you ought to know about Perilous, Angus, is that it's an extremely dangerous place,” Edmund announced happily as they walked down a chilly, dark hallway. Angus hurriedly pulled his coat on over his sweater to keep himself warm. “Never venture into any room unless you're sure what's behind the door, and always check under your bed for storm globes before you go to sleep at night.”

“But . . . why would I need to check my bed for storm globes?” Angus asked, puzzled.

“Because not everyone at Perilous can be trusted to behave like an adult,” Edmund said with a superior tone. “I had one hidden under my hot-water bottle once, and it went up like a rocket just as I was dropping off to sleep. It had to be chased out of my room with a pair of emergency weather bellows, and my curtains have never been the same since.”

He led Angus up several flights of enormous stone stairs until they reached an octagonal hall. The hall was like the entrance to a grand museum, with polished marble floors and cool white pillars that stretched all the way up to a golden domed ceiling high above. It also appeared to be empty, apart from eight solid-looking doors set deep into the impressive walls.

“You are now standing at the very heart of Perilous,” Edmund announced importantly, his badge gleaming. “What goes on behind these doors has been a closely guarded secret for almost three hundred and fifty years now. This, Angus, is where the lightning catchers work. You name it, the lightning catchers have studied it, bottled it, picked it apart, and sent it packing.”

Angus had a sudden image of a very angry blizzard being squashed inside a large wooden crate and sent back to Greenland or Siberia or wherever it had come from.

“I've still got two more years before I qualify, of course,” Edmund said, staring down his nose at Angus. “But as soon as I get my bolts, I daresay the other lightning catchers will be strapping me into a hurricane suit and sending me out to do some crucial research into wind.”

Angus quickly stifled a grin. He was beginning to understand why someone had hidden a storm globe under Edmund's hot-water bottle. “What do you mean, when you get your bolts?” he asked as soon as he could control his face again.

“Every lightning catcher is awarded a number of lightning bolts when he or she completes training at Perilous, depending on how well they do in their final examinations,” Edmund explained. “One bolt enables you to work in the forecasting department or to try your hand at some research into the twisting patterns of tornadoes and that sort of thing. Two bolts gets you a position up on the roof, measuring sunshine hours, hurricane howls, and the flakiness of snow. And only those with three bolts or more are allowed to work with experiments, inventions, and with lightning itself. I am, of course, expecting the full three bolts.”

Angus tried to imagine what sort of exams a lightning catcher might have to sit through before earning the right to work with lightning. He had a feeling it involved something a lot more dangerous than answering a load of questions on a sheet of paper.

“Normally you wouldn't be allowed up here, of course,” Edmund continued, “but seeing as how you missed the tour this afternoon with everyone else . . .”

“Er . . . everyone else?” Angus asked, puzzled again.

“All new trainees, or lightning cubs, are given a tour of the Octagon when they first arrive at Perilous,” Edmund explained impatiently, “but as you turned up much later than all the others . . .”

Angus stared at Edmund and blinked.

“Are you all right?” Edmund asked, frowning down at him. “You look a bit pale all of a sudden.”

“Sorry, but did you just say that—that I'm going to train to be a lightning catcher?” Angus asked, hardly daring to believe that he'd heard this correctly.

“Naturally. Principal Dark-Angel herself asked me to give you a guided tour of the Octagon; she thought it might be wise to make sure you knew your way around. Look, you aren't about to be sick, are you?” Edmund asked, eyeing him warily. “Only we had a boy this afternoon who got an upset stomach all over the experimental division. It caused quite a mess, I can tell you. Bits of partially digested carrot splattered everywhere.”

Angus felt his own stomach do several excited somersaults, followed by some extremely queasy swoops, but decided to keep this information to himself.

“I feel fine, thanks,” he said.

“Well, if you're certain, then. . . .” Edmund kept a healthy distance from him all the same. “I think we'll start our tour in the experimental division. We should be safe enough in there at this time of the evening.”

Angus followed Edmund through the first of the eight doors, his head spinning. He was going to be a trainee lightning catcher! He was going to learn how to tame blizzards, talk to typhoons, and catch frogs in jars as they fell from the skies, and his heart began to thud against the walls of his chest with excitement at the thought of it. From the second that he'd heard all about Philip Starling, Edgar Perilous, and the rest of the early lightning catchers, he'd been imagining himself standing at the top of London's tallest lightning tower, wild and ferocious storms crashing about the skies all around him. And now he was actually going to follow in their brilliant, amazing, and highly dangerous footsteps.

He wondered for an instant why Principal Dark-Angel hadn't bothered mentioning this startling fact to him in her office. But the question vanished from his mind once he saw what lay on the other side of the door.

Unlike the Octagon, with its marbled floors and domed ceilings, the experimental division was in a very sorry state of repair, with deep gouges in the walls, large cracks that ran the full length of the floor, and water leaking from an exposed copper pipe beneath their feet. It wasn't hard to see why no one had bothered to fix any of these problems, for the experimental division was exactly like Uncle Max's workshop, only on a much bigger scale.

Angus was hit immediately by the familiar smell of scorched oil and steam, and he grinned. Everywhere he looked there were strange machines and fascinating inventions; some were old and rusted, while others were quietly stewing with menace. Several of Uncle Max's finest inventions, including his hailstone hurler, had been polished and placed under bright spotlights like the prize exhibits at a museum, and he wondered why he had never noticed before just how many of his uncle's inventions were weather related. He also realized, with another rush of excitement, that Uncle Max must be a fully qualified lightning catcher himself—with at least three lightning bolts to his name.

“I would advise you not to touch anything while we're in the experimental division, Angus,” Edmund warned over his shoulder as they made their way into the long room. “It might also be a good idea to keep any breathing you have to do to an absolute minimum, just to be on the safe side. You never know what might be lurking in the air, toxic miasmas, poisonous fogs, infectious odors. . . . The whole Exploratorium had to be evacuated only last week after a foul stink extractor allowed dangerous levels of sweaty-sock concentrate to escape back into the air.”

Angus took a deep gulp of air before they went any deeper into the room, hoping that he hadn't just swallowed an infectious odor himself.

At the far end of the experimental division, a group of men and women were busy working on what looked like an enormous vacuum cleaner. It had a long suction pipe at the front and a gigantic collection bag, which resembled the body of a massive spider, behind it.

“What is that thing?” Angus asked nervously as they drew closer to it.

“Ah, now, that is one of our most sophisticated storm vacuums,” Edmund declared as though he himself had invented it. “I have it on very good authority that it can suck up several small blizzards and a medium-sized gale before the bag has to be emptied. But the storm vacuum is just one of the many ingenious inventions created by our excellent team in the experimental division, as you will learn in the course of your studies.”

Angus felt a small thrill of nerves shiver through him at the mention of studies and grinned quietly to himself.

“My own personal favorite is the cloud-busting rocket launcher,” Edmund continued, pointing to a large machine to their left, which had a giant harpoon attached to the front of it.

“What does it do?” Angus asked eagerly.

“Well, I don't wish to get too technical on your first day here, Angus, but the rocket launcher dissolves clouds. It simply melts them away with a bit of help from some silver iodide crystals and the basic laws of attraction. Only last year, in fact, it was used to disperse a very nasty storm that was threatening to spoil a sample-gathering operation by our rough weather research team. If all else fails, however, a storm snare must be used.”

“A storm snare?” Angus asked.

Edmund Croxley pointed to a cabinet filled with antique-looking instruments, each shaped like a trumpet. “Storm snares can temporarily trap cloudbursts, thunderstorms, and almost any other type of weather you can think of. They're extremely rare and highly unstable, however. Hardly anyone knows how to use them, due to the great risk of death involved. Principal Lightning Catcher Dark-Angel is the only person at Perilous who owns one.”

Angus was tempted to ask more about the deadly snares, but just then, there was a very threatening
thump
from the far end of the room, and Edmund came to an abrupt halt, causing Angus to walk straight into him.

“Ah.” Edmund turned pale as a second even louder
THUMP
followed the first and the storm vacuum burst noisily to life, causing several people to run for cover behind a pile of crates. “It seems the experimental team might be having a spot of bother with their suction valves. Perhaps, under the circumstances, we should just, um—”

Angus didn't wait for Edmund to finish his sentence. Years of living with his uncle at the Windmill had already taught him exactly what the thick clouds of black smoke now spewing out of the storm vacuum meant. He turned swiftly and tried to run toward the safety of the Octagon, but for some strange reason his legs appeared to be going backward.

“It's the storm vacuum!” Edmund yelled above the loud sucking noise that was beginning to fill the room. “Try to hold on to something, and whatever you do, don't let go!” He hooked his own fingers around the harpoon of the rocket launcher and closed his eyes tightly.

Angus quickly grabbed hold of a machine that appeared to be some sort of clobbering device for cracking hailstones—just as his feet were pulled out from beneath him and his body was dragged backward by the enormous sucking power of the vacuum. He hung on, his knuckles turning white with the effort.