The Lightning Catcher (8 page)

“Actually, I live with my uncle in Devon.”

“Really? You mean you're a mainlander?” Dougal looked deeply impressed.

Angus shrugged. “I . . . yeah, I suppose I am.”

“Wow! I've read all about the mainland, of course, but I've never actually been off the island before. Dad says he'll take me on a holiday when I'm old enough, but I've been pestering him about Stonehenge and the Tower of London for ages now.” Dougal grinned. “Nigel Ridgely says he comes from Yorkshire,” he added, pointing to a pale, freckle-faced boy to their left. “Georgina Fox was born in Birmingham. But Millicent Nichols and Violet Quinn come from Little Frog's Bottom.” He indicated a gaggle of girls who were standing together. “Do you know anyone else here yet?”

“Only Edmund Croxley and Principal Dark-Angel—”

“Well, I wouldn't go around bragging about it, Doomsbury.” A voice interrupted them from behind.

Angus spun round to see two of the tallest lightning cubs, who had been standing on the far side of the group, turning toward them; both had the same thuggish features, thick eyebrows, and hairy, gorilla-like arms, and up close, it was obvious that they were twins.

“Just because dribbling old Dark-Angel invited you up to her office for a little chat, that doesn't make you special,” the first twin spat, stopping only inches from Angus. “She probably thought you'd been sent to sweep her floor or something, so I wouldn't go getting all big-headed about it.”

“I wasn't,” Angus said, taking a step back. “How did you know I'd been up to her office anyway?”

“Our dad's one of the senior lightning catchers here, so we hear about everything important that happens,” the second twin sneered, dark eyes gleaming. “Everything that's worth knowing about, anyway, which is why no one's ever mentioned your name before, Dewsnap.”

Dougal bristled. “Yeah, well, at least no one's going around calling me pea brain behind my back.”

“Stop trying to be funny, Dewsnap, it doesn't suit you,” the first twin said. “And just to teach you a lesson, you can clean my boots when we get to the end of the weather tunnel. I'd rather not get my hands dirty.”

“In your dreams!” Dougal said, crossing his arms defiantly. “I'm not touching anything that's had your stinking feet inside it. Clean your own boots.”

“You'll do what I say, Dewsnap.” The first twin made a sudden lunge and shoved Dougal hard with one hand. Dougal stumbled backward and fell, his glasses skittering across the floor.

“Hey, pick those up, you idiot!” He scrambled back onto his feet again.

“I'm not touching anything that's been on your head.” The twin mimicked Dougal's voice cruelly. “Pick them up yourself, Four Eyes, so you can see my boots properly when you're cleaning them. I'm serious, Dewsnap, you'd better do it—or else.”

Both twins sniggered again, and Angus felt his temper boiling over. He scooped up the glasses before they got trodden on and handed them back to Dougal.

“Or else what?” he said, pulling himself up to his full height, wishing he was at least six inches taller. “You heard what Dougal said. He's going nowhere near your rotten boots.”

A sudden hush descended. The other lightning cubs backed away, sensing trouble. The twins glared down at Angus with mean piggy eyes.

“Stay out of this, Doomsbury, it's got nothing to do with you.”

“Maybe.” Angus shrugged. “But I might just have another little chat with Principal Dark-Angel about it anyway. Plus I bet she'd be really interested to hear what you said about her being old and dribbling. She told me to pop up to her office any time I fancy a cup of tea,” he bluffed, feeling reckless. “And I'm feeling really thirsty right now, as a matter of fact. . . .”

A flicker of doubt crossed the twin's ugly face. “Have it your own way then, Doomsbury. But I'd watch my back from now if I were you,” he said, threatening Angus with a hairy-knuckled finger. “Next time it'll be you sprawled across the floor, and your little friend Dewsnap might not be around to rescue you.”

“Like we're scared!” Dougal glowered as both twins turned and stomped off, looking uglier than ever.

“Who are those two idiots?” Angus asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Pixie and Percival Vellum.”

There was nothing remotely pixielike about either of them, Angus thought, staring over at the twins. Up until that moment he hadn't even realized that one of them was a girl.

“Not exactly friendly, are they?”

“They've been like that with everyone,” Dougal said, inspecting his glasses carefully and giving them a gentle wipe on his sweater. “Just because their dad works in the Lightnarium, they think they own the place. Pity they haven't got a brain cell between them. A pair of chimps would make better trainee lightning catchers, if you ask me.”

Angus grinned. “Are your glasses okay?”

“They're not even twisted. Thanks,” Dougal added, turning pink with embarrassment.

A moment later, the round door opened behind them, and Catcher Mint began ushering them, one at a time, into the mouth of the weather tunnel.

 

Inside, the tunnel was vast, with a hard stone floor and a high arched ceiling that was covered, Angus noticed as he climbed nervously through the entrance, in a network of copper pipes and large wooden paddles. One of the paddles began to spin in a clockwise direction and a light breeze started to ruffle his earmuffs. In the distance, he could also see a long row of freshly laundered sheets, towels, and stripy thermal underwear flapping on a washing line.

“The first section of the tunnel is devoted to wind,” Catcher Mint explained as soon as he'd sealed the door tightly behind them, “and is normally used for tornado training, hurricane suit testing, and the odd kite-flying competition. Today you will experience strong gale-force winds, measuring up to nine on the Beaufort wind scale, which will test the strength of the stitching on all your clothing. So make sure your coats are buttoned up tightly unless you want to find yourselves airborne.”

The paddles above their heads began to gather momentum immediately, and before they'd made it even halfway across the tunnel, they were walking into a very stiff breeze. After another two minutes, the wind had somehow reached near gale force and it was almost impossible to stand upright. Angus battled his way into the fierce gusts, his head bent, his shoulders hunched. Several other lightning cubs were in much bigger trouble. Georgina Fox's coat had been blown inside out like a parachute, and she was now tumbling in the wrong direction. Dougal's earmuffs, already far too big for his head, were acting like a pair of fluffy wings and threatening to lift him off the ground completely.

Angus inched his way forward, one laborious step at a time. But finally, after what felt like several hours, he clambered through a round door at the other end of the tunnel and found himself standing in a small chamber, facing yet another door.

“Everybody make it?” the lightning catcher asked as the last of the windblown group finally appeared in the chamber. “Good, on to the next section, then. Follow me.”

“How many sections do you reckon there are?” Dougal asked, looking worried.

The next section of the weather tunnel reminded Angus of a large greenhouse, and a blast of stifling heat hit him as soon as he stepped through the door, along with the heady smell of fresh compost. The tunnel was stuffed from floor to ceiling with large tropical palm trees, ferns, and exotic-looking flowers that were dripping pollen all over the floor. It was like being transported to the middle of a rain forest. A second later, torrential rain began falling from the ceiling.

“Keep moving, everybody!” Catcher Mint shouted happily above the deluge. “It's just a drop or two of water, nothing to worry about.”

Within seconds, however, small warm rivers were running down the insides of Angus's rubber boots. The floor became a swirling torrent that tugged at his feet and tried to sweep him away. Nigel Ridgely and Violet Quinn, who had both taken off their hats as soon as they'd entered the hot tunnel, now looked like a pair of drowned rats.

The downpour stopped just as suddenly as it had started, and from somewhere overhead a baking hot sun began beating down on them instead. Angus undid the top buttons on his coat to stop himself from suffocating in the sudden heat, but the end of the tunnel was now, thankfully, in sight.

He was just about to climb through the round door that led to the next chamber when the girl with the horse-chestnut-colored hair shot in front of him and pushed him hastily to one side.

“Watch out!” she warned as a large, hairy coconut fell from an overhanging palm tree, narrowly missing them both. It smashed open on the ground, exactly where Angus had been standing just seconds before.

“Wow . . . thanks!” he gasped. “I owe you one for that. Er . . . sorry, but I don't even know your name—”

“It's Indigo. Indigo Midnight,” the girl said quietly from beneath her rain hat. She gave him a brief, embarrassed smile, but before Angus could say anything else, she'd climbed through the round door and disappeared into the next chamber.

Angus stepped gingerly over the smashed coconut, trying not to imagine what would have happened to his head if it had made contact with the hard, hairy nut. Indigo had just saved him from a serious concussion, or worse.

The lightning cubs climbed through the next round door and entered a desolate, boggy moor, complete with wet grass, thick mud, and dense, swirling fog that tasted like the bottom of a swamp. Progress was painfully slow as they tripped, stumbled, and squelched their way over the soggy ground. And Angus couldn't help wondering what treacherous conditions they would have to face next. Would they be thrown into the middle of a vicious thunderstorm? Would they be required to catch a lightning bolt in a tin cup, in order to test the strength of the rubber in their boots?

“I really hope not!” Dougal blanched when Angus plucked up the courage to voice his concerns a few moments later. “Nobody actually catches lightning bolts at Perilous anymore. It's forbidden.”

“But . . . what about the Lightnarium? Don't they experiment with lightning in there?”

“Yeah, but that's different, it's all controlled and deliberate in the Lightnarium.” Dougal stumbled in the fog. “It's not like catching lightning bolts from a real live thunderstorm like they used to back in the olden days.”

“Then why did they make us sign a declaration saying we wouldn't attempt to catch any on our own?” Angus asked, not sure if he felt slightly disappointed or highly relieved by this unexpected news.

“Who knows?” Dougal shrugged. “All I know for sure is that there was some sort of horrible accident years and years ago, down in the lightning vaults, and since then, nobody at Perilous has been allowed to catch them.”

“The lightning vaults?” Angus asked.

“Yeah, when the Exploratorium was first built, Philip Starling and Edgar Perilous wanted to discover everything they could about lightning and how to control the stuff, you know, stop it from destroying any more towns and cities. They weren't crazy enough to build any lightning towers here on Imbur, though, especially after what happened with the Great Fire, so they had the lightning vaults tunneled deep inside Perilous instead,” Dougal said, wiping his foggy spectacles with his sleeve. “They did loads of seriously dangerous experiments down there, blasting storms into a thousand pieces. They also had the biggest collection of fulgurites in the world.”

Thanks to Uncle Max, Angus already knew that fulgurites were formed when a bolt of lightning struck sand, melting the grains together and leaving a perfect cast of a lightning bolt behind.

“There was also supposed to be something really dangerous in the vaults,” Dougal added with a gulp. “Something huge and horrible that nobody could control.”

“Like what?” Angus asked, shivering.

“Haven't got a clue,” Dougal said. “But I do know there was a terrible accident one night, somebody died, and the vaults were sealed up forever. Actually, we're not supposed to know the vaults even exist. I only know about them because I overheard my dad talking to Principal Dark-Angel once, ages ago. Dad's the only historian on the island these days,” he explained, lowering his voice to a whisper. “He's written loads of books about the terrible turnip blight of 1899 and stuff like that. Anyway, he was asked to write a modern history of Perilous, and Principal Dark-Angel came to the house one night to give him some background information, and she just started talking about the vaults. I was sitting on the stairs, and I accidentally overheard her talking. I don't suppose I—”

“GRRRRRRR!”

“What was that?” Angus stopped dead in his tracks, feeling all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end.

“I dunno.” Dougal gulped beside him. “But whatever it was, it didn't sound very . . . vegetarian, did it?”

A moment later, Catcher Mint had gathered them all together into a tight group, a worried expression on his face.

“Sorry about the growling, everyone,” he said, hastily doing a head count. “I was under the impression that the fog yeti had been shipped back to its natural habitat, in the freezing marshes, but well . . . perhaps we'd better just get to the other end of the tunnel before I say any more.” He glanced over his shoulder warily. “It's probably best if you don't go wandering off by yourselves under the circumstances . . . just in case it hasn't had breakfast yet.”

“Breakfast?” Dougal spluttered as they moved off again, at a much quicker pace. “They've sent us in here with a yeti that hasn't had its breakfast yet?”

“What is a fog yeti?” Angus asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.

“It looks a lot like Dewsnap.” Percival Vellum snickered. “Only without the stupid specs.”