The Lightning Catcher (9 page)

“You're so hilarious, Vellum. I'm splitting my sides with laughter.” Dougal frowned as the twins pushed roughly past.

The fog continued to grow thicker and thicker, swirling around them until eventually Angus could hardly see his own hand in front of his face.

“So what happened about the lightning vaults, anyway?” he asked the dense patch of fog beside him, which he was fairly certain was still occupied by Dougal.

“Oh . . . yeah, well, my dad wasn't allowed to put any of the stuff Principal Dark-Angel told him in his book.”

“Can we go and look at them?” asked Angus eagerly.

“That's just the thing,” Dougal said. “They've been lost for so many years now that nobody knows where they are. My dad thinks they were never real in the first place, though. He says they're probably just another Perilous myth, like the
Forgotten Book of Grudge-Bearing Blizzards.
”

Dougal's voice was suddenly drowned out by another bloodcurdling growl that seemed to fill the entire tunnel. This one sounded much closer than the last. The fog parted for a second, and Angus caught a brief glimpse of an apelike creature stalking along behind them. It was vast, hairy, and unmistakably yeti shaped. Angus and Dougal both broke into a sprint as the end of the tunnel came into view up ahead of them.

In the next section of the tunnel, they were plunged into a frozen wasteland of deep snow, slippery ice, and forbidding rocks. Angus, who was still drenched from their experience in the rain forest and who had already been chilled to the bone by the dense fog, could now feel his toes freezing inside his boots as flurries of thick white snow swirled around them.

Nobody spoke much in the freezing tunnel. Angus kept his head down against the wild wind, half expecting to stumble across a hungry polar bear at any minute. Thankfully, the only wildlife he encountered was a small colony of blue penguins, who were all huddled together behind a large igloo. He was forced to dive sideways suddenly as a team of husky dogs came hurtling out of nowhere, pulling a large sleigh piled high with cold-looking lightning catchers dressed in yellow coats.

“Where did they come from?” he gasped, brushing himself off as the sleigh disappeared into the snow once again.

“That's one of the polar expedition teams,” Catcher Mint explained, helping several other trainees onto their feet. “They come in here to acclimatize for a week or two before setting off to study glacial rainbows and ice storms, among other things. Lightning cubs do not start dogsled training until their sixth year. You will, however, learn a great deal about snow. For example, snow is formed in the lowest part of the earth's atmosphere, called the troposphere, where up to two hundred ice crystals gather around a single speck of dirt, eventually creating a snowflake. But don't be fooled by snowball fights and snowmen,” he warned. “A snowstorm is one of the most hazardous conditions you will ever work in as fully qualified lightning catchers. There will be avalanches to deal with, invisible snow holes, giant twelve-sided snowflakes. . . .”

Angus glanced warily above his head, imagining a snowflake the size of a mattress falling from the skies.

“If you ever get caught out in a sudden blizzard, you will find an emergency pair of inflatable snowshoes rolled up and tucked under the cuff of your rubber boots,” Catcher Mint continued. “The shoes inflate automatically when placed on your feet. Shaped like the head of a tennis racket, they help distribute your weight over a wider surface area, preventing you from sinking into the deepest drifts.”

“He could have told us about those earlier,” Dougal grumbled.

As they finally reached the end of the frozen wasteland, both Angus and Dougal were extremely pleased to discover it was also the end of the treacherous weather tunnel itself.

“Anyone with faulty earmuffs or leaky coats should report to me now,” Catcher Mint said as a collective sigh of relief swept around the chamber. “Those of you needing rubber boot repair kits should go straight up to the supplies department. The rest of you can take the stairs on your right and down to the kitchens for some well-earned breakfast!”

Angus and Dougal headed straight for the staircase, before Catcher Mint could decide to send them back through the tunnel again.

The kitchens themselves were vast, with several fireplaces and two long serving tables set against the far wall, both of which were stacked high with great tureens of porridge, mountains of toast, and a giant pyramid of sausages and bacon. A gaggle of cooks was rolling dough and frying eggs next to the roaring open fires, and a number of impressive pillars shaped like palm trees stretched all the way up to the vaulted ceiling.

Angus and Dougal found an empty table and peeled off their weatherproof coats with numb fingers, feeling immensely hungry all of a sudden.

“If that's what they make us do on our first day here, we'll be wrestling polar bears with our bare hands by the end of the week,” Dougal predicted, stabbing a mound of juicy sausages with a fork. “I thought we'd be doing a lot more reading—you know, studying the science of weather and that sort of thing.”

“I'm just glad we didn't have to wrestle the fog yeti with our bare hands,” said Angus, piling his own plate with bacon and feeling that his first morning as a lightning cub had definitely lived up to his expectations.

  
6
  

DANKHART

A
ngus discovered the following morning that he'd been assigned to a lightning catcher in the experimental division by the name of Sparks. Two other trainees would work with them: Dougal Dewsnap and Indigo Midnight, the girl who had saved him from a falling coconut. And it was Indigo who stepped forward briskly and knocked on the door to the experimental division to announce their arrival, before Angus and Dougal had even made it across the marbled floor of the Octagon.

“She's a bit enthusiastic, isn't she?” Dougal said, surprised. “Mind you, that could turn out to be a good thing in this place.”

“What do you mean?” Angus asked, hurriedly scraping a stray blob of marmalade off his new tie.

“Well, with any luck, Indigo might volunteer for anything dangerous, and then we might graduate with all our limbs intact. It's odd, though. I've got a feeling I know her from somewhere.” Dougal frowned, staring at Indigo as she hovered by the door. “I recognized her name as soon as I heard it yesterday, I just can't remember why. . . .”

At that moment, a harassed-looking lightning catcher answered the door with what appeared to be a tall copper funnel strapped to the top of his head.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Er.” Angus faltered, trying hard not to stare at the funnel. “We're supposed to come and find Catcher Sparks. We're the new lightning cubs.”

“Names?”

“Dougal Dewsnap, Indigo Midnight, and Angus Doomsbury,” said Angus, still feeling self-conscious about his false name and flushing as he said it.

The lightning catcher's eyes, however, had fallen on Dougal, and they narrowed instantly with suspicion.

“Oh, it's you again, is it?” he said in a haughty tone. “I've got something for you.”

He ducked behind the door and reappeared two seconds later with a brown paper bag.

“Just in case you feel like throwing up all over one of our machines again,” he said, thrusting it toward Dougal. And Angus realized that it must have been Dougal who'd had an upset stomach on his tour of the experimental division. “Wait here while I fetch Catcher Sparks,” the lightning catcher added, slamming the door in their faces.

“They really know how to make you feel welcome around here, don't they?” Dougal held the bag at arm's length with a disgusted look on his face.

The lightning catcher who came out to meet them a few minutes later was only marginally more friendly. Her long black hair was fastened tightly into a bun. She was dressed in a sturdy woolen shirt and matching leggings and a curious, close-fitting leather jacket—which looked tough enough to withstand a cannon blast. The jacket, which fell to her knees and had ten buckle fastenings up the front, had no sleeves or collar and was covered in stitched-up rips and tears, which looked like badly healed scars. There were six impressive lightning bolts pinned to her belt, Angus noticed as she stopped to consult a clipboard.

“What's that leather thing she's wearing?” he whispered, leaning closer to Dougal so he wouldn't be heard. Until now, almost everyone he'd seen had been wearing a shiny yellow weatherproof coat.

“It's called a leather jerkin. It's for protection,” said Dougal solemnly. “And in this place, you definitely need it, with machines and storms going bonkers all over the place. I wish they'd given us one as well, just in case we—”

He stopped talking abruptly as the woman finally approached them with a stern look on her face.

“I am Catcher Sparks, and I will be your master lightning catcher for the duration of your training here at Perilous,” she announced. “By choosing to become trainee lightning catchers, or lightning cubs, each of you has begun a difficult and dangerous journey, one that will test you to your limits. One that will show what you are truly made of.”

She stared down her nose at Dougal, as if she was indeed trying to work out exactly what he was made of.

“Lightning cubs have been trained at Perilous since the first lightning catchers landed on this island. You are therefore following in the footsteps of some noble men and women. It is an honor and a privilege to work within these historic walls, and I will not tolerate any insolence, deliberate stupidity, or rule breaking under any circumstances, even those of a life-threatening nature. You, boy!” She suddenly jabbed a bony finger at Angus, and he noticed that his signed declaration was pinned to her clipboard. “Angus Von Dungbeetle, what was the most important thing you learned in the weather tunnel yesterday?”

“I . . . um . . . that you should never stand too close to a coconut palm.” Angus said the first thing that came into his head, and then wished that he'd thought about it a bit harder first.

Catcher Sparks, however, made no comment.

“Indigo Midnight,” she said, consulting her clipboard. “I understand that you are keen to work in the Lightnarium, if you eventually get three lightning bolts or more in your final examinations?”

“Yes, miss,” said Indigo, in a barely audible whisper. “I want to work with lightning like the great Philip Starling himself.” She bit her lip as if worried that she might have said too much.

“Hmm. We shall see, Miss Midnight, we shall see.”

Finally, Catcher Sparks turned her gaze to Dougal. “And you . . . are Dougal Dewsnap.”

It was not a question. She glanced at the paper bag still clutched in his hand and gave him a withering stare.

“You will now follow me into the experimental division,” she continued. “Do not touch anything if you are planning to retain all of your fingers until lunchtime.”

“Have you noticed how they say that kind of thing a lot around here?” Dougal whispered, stuffing his own hands hurriedly into his pockets.

Angus was relieved to see that there was no sign of the storm vacuum on the other side of the large wooden door. There were definitely more gouges in the walls since the day before yesterday, however, as well as several new cracks running the full length of the floor. But the lightning catchers appeared to be gathered around a much smaller, less dangerous-looking machine this morning, working on it with rubber hammers and what appeared to be the same flatirons his uncle sometimes used to tame his wild hair for special occasions.

Catcher Sparks led them quickly past the machine before Angus could get a proper look at it and shuffled them into a large workshop, closing the door behind them. Long coils of rusty wire and gleaming metal hung from the ceiling, along with a vast assortment of cogs, wheels, and double-ended bolts, which looked to Angus like they'd been wrestled from the neck of a colossal robot. A number of wooden workbenches had been arranged around the room, all of which were covered in oily rags and tools.

“Your first task as cubs will be to remove the buildup of earwax from the insides of these hailstone helmets,” Catcher Sparks informed them, pointing to a large heap of copper helmets piled up in a corner, where three spoon-shaped instruments had also been arranged around a bucket. “I want to be absolutely certain that all three of you can tell one end of a hailstone helmet from the other before I let you loose on any of our more valuable pieces of equipment,” she added firmly, catching the look of revulsion on Dougal's face.

“I shall be back at the end of the morning to inspect your progress. You may begin.”

And she strode briskly from the room, the smallest hint of a smile on her face.

It was hot, sticky, disgusting work. And it was definitely not what Angus had imagined himself doing on his first day as a lightning cub. But as long as he kept his fingers at the far end of the gouging instrument, he found he could avoid making any actual contact with the earwax itself. It was impossible, however, to ignore the loud huffing and tutting noises that were coming from Dougal.

“This is the most disgusting thing I've ever done in my life!” Dougal eventually said, gouging out a thick yellow lump of wax and flicking it into the copper bucket, where it landed with a horrible squelch. “I thought they'd be giving us lectures on the theory of invention and stuff like that. I'd like to know what this is supposed to be teaching us about being lightning catchers.”

“That you can get someone else to do your dirty work for you when you qualify?” said Angus. “Which won't be happening to us for years yet. Can you imagine how much earwax we'll have scraped up by then?”

“I'd rather not, thanks,” Indigo said, making them both jump. She had been working quietly on her own pile of helmets and had hardly spoken a word to either of them all morning, although Angus got the distinct impression that she'd been listening intently to their conversation. She looked at them both now, for one embarrassed second, before turning hurriedly back to her work without saying another word. Dougal, however, continued to stare at her with a creased forehead, and Angus could tell that he was still trying to remember something about her.

“I can't believe we actually had to sit through three entrance exams to do this,” Dougal muttered a few minutes later.

CLANG!
Angus dropped his gouging instrument into the bucket and stared at Dougal. Nobody had mentioned anything to him about exams.

“E-entrance exams?” he asked.

“Yeah, did they make you answer all those stupid questions on yours about Brutus Beauregard, the famous Imburcillian weather forecaster and mud wrestler?”

“Er . . . ,” said Angus uncomfortably, wondering all of a sudden if the incident with the storm globe at the ferry dock had, in fact, been some sort of secret test—in which case he'd definitely failed it. Miserably.

“Not that the exams mean all that much anyway. Because both the Vellum twins got in, and they've barely got enough brains between them to fill an eggcup.” Dougal paused to wipe his gouging instrument on a sticky cloth. “I'd bet my last silver starling they only got into Perilous because their dad's one of the lightning catchers here.”

Angus looked away guiltily, pretending to inspect his hailstone helmet for any hidden pockets of wax. Principal Dark-Angel had only allowed him to become a lightning cub because of his parents, too.

“What's a silver starling?” he asked, hoping to steer the conversation on to other things instead.

“Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting, you've probably never seen one on the mainland.” Dougal rummaged around in his pocket, pulling out a collection of elastic bands and fluff-covered gumballs before he finally found what looked like a tiny silver pyramid with strange inscriptions engraved on every side.

“That's a starling,” he explained, handing it over to Angus. “Named after the great Philip Starling, of course. He and Edgar Perilous made up their own currency when they first came to Imbur. One starling will buy you a chocolate cream pie from Dingle's Bakery in Little Frog's Bottom; fifteen starlings will get you a ferry ticket over to one of the mainland ports.”

“So silver starlings are money,” said Angus, turning the pyramid over in his hands.