The Lightning Catcher: The Secrets of the Storm Vortex (2 page)

  
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THE STARLING MUSEUM OF STORM SCIENCE

M
any miles away, on the busy streets of London, the weather was behaving in a perfectly normal manner. A heavy shower of rain had just begun to fall on fleeing tourists, shoppers, and nonmechanical pigeons. Angus McFangus, however, had already escaped the downpour. He was standing instead in a gift shop at the Starling Museum of Storm Science, staring at a row of very odd teacups. Each of the cups came with a tightly sealed lid and was decorated with lightning bolts, storm clouds, or snowflakes.

Angus picked up the first cup warily and read a label dangling from the handle: “From the famous storm-in-a -teacup
range, this is Dewdrop. Drink tea while you watch delicate drops of dew form on the rim of your cup and listen to the sound of gentle rain without the need for rubber boots.”

The cup next to it, Summer Squall, promised a “sudden sparkling downpour with a genuine rainbow, buzzing bees, and a lingering scent of meadow flowers.” And then there was Snowflake: “Set your teeth chattering with this frosty cup of freezing winter.”

Angus grinned. He'd only ever seen a genuine storm in a teacup once before, at the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Stormson on the secret Isle of Imbur, where he was training to become a lightning catcher. On that occasion the encounter had led to a hair-raising incident with some silver lightning moths and had almost landed him in serious trouble. But maybe this time . . .

Angus glanced over his shoulder. The gift shop was empty apart from one bored-looking shop assistant slouching behind the register. He reached out and picked up the last cup on the shelf. “Lightning bolt boneshaker. Drink tea in fear for your life with realistic lightning flash and thunder rumble sugar stirrer.” The cup rattled
ominously. Angus dug his fingers under the lid, opening it warily and—

FLASH!

A thin streak of orange lightning shot past his left ear, singeing his hair.

FLASH!

Another lightning bolt whizzed across his left shoulder, and struck a tall display of paper snowflake lanterns behind him, instantly starting a small fire. Angus thrust the cup back onto the shelf. He yanked off his sweatshirt in a panic and quickly used it to smother the smoldering sparks before the whole display went up in smoke. He grabbed a thick book on hurricanes, and wafted away any lingering smell of smoke. A tinny rumble of thunder echoed around the gift shop.

The shop assistant was now watching him with a scowl. “All breakages, floods, and fires must be paid for!” he warned.

Angus hurried away from the lanterns, pretending to study a harmless-looking wall chart until the assistant turned away from him at last.

He pulled on his slightly singed sweatshirt, zipped it up
the front, and breathed a sigh of relief. As a trainee lightning catcher at Perilous he encountered dangerous weather on a daily basis, although he still didn't have a clue how to deal with most of it! Perilous, in fact, was one of the most exhilarating, dangerous, and unpredictable places on the planet. Angus now found it impossible to imagine his life without storm vacuums, deadly lightning bolts, and cold-weather survival lessons where he'd learned how to build an igloo, boil up an emergency survival stew, and indulge in a spot of accidental iceberg hopping.

When he and his two best friends, Dougal Dewsnap and Indigo Midnight, eventually became fully qualified lightning catchers, they would help protect humankind from the worst ravages of the weather across the globe, just as the secret organization of lightning catchers had done for hundreds of years now.

He walked around a large table full of cuddly clouds, wondering when he'd see Dougal and Indigo again. At the end of the previous term Principal Dark-Angel, the head of the lightning catchers, had sent all lightning cubs home for two weeks so the Exploratorium could be thoroughly decontaminated after some violent ice-diamond
storms. Two weeks, however, had somehow stretched into the entire month of June, which had then extended all the way through the summer holidays without a single word as to when it would be safe to return. Angus had missed Perilous and his friends terribly.

He glanced around the gift shop, trying to decide if he should buy them each a present. He could see a stack of fascinating books about storm science that Dougal would kill to get his hands on. Indigo would be thrilled if he bought her a Pop-Up Iceberg Obstacle Course; she was far braver than any other lightning cub he'd ever met and never flinched in the face of danger.

“Angus?”

Angus spun on his heels. His uncle Jeremius stood in the doorway behind him.

“If you've finished messing about with teacups, we've got an appointment with Trevelyan Tempest, and I don't think he'd be too impressed if you flooded the gift shop.” Jeremius nodded toward the teacup, which had finally stopped rumbling. It had now created a large wet puddle on the shelf where it sat.

“Oh, right, yeah.” Angus hurried away from it. “Who's
Trevelyan Tempest anyway? And why are we meeting him?”

“Trevelyan is someone I've known for many years,” Jeremius said.

“So he's a friend of yours?”

Jeremius grinned. “I wouldn't exactly call him that.”

Jeremius McFangus was a lightning catcher from the Canadian Exploratorium for Extremely Chilly Weather. Angus had met him for the first time just a few short months ago. Before that, he'd had absolutely no idea that his dad even had an older brother. Jeremius was tall and broad with rugged features and a deep, jagged scar across his chin. He enjoyed spending his days trudging across glaciers in ferocious blizzards, camping out in subzero temperatures, and trekking to the North Pole to collect deep-snow samples. He also had the same gray eyes, small bear-shaped ears, and brown hair as Angus, making it obvious that they both came from the same family. Angus liked his new uncle immensely . . . except when he was being cryptic and refusing to explain things like why they were meeting someone called Trevelyan Tempest. Still Angus was certain he'd heard the name somewhere before.

He followed Jeremius into the museum foyer, where several groups of visitors were milling about, studying floor plans and brochures. The tiled floor and thick stone pillars had an impressive air of age and grandeur. The glass domed roof above was magnificent. Angus twisted his head around, staring straight up through it, trying not to bump into anyone as they made their way through a heavy set of double doors and down a corridor.

“Where are we going?” Angus asked, not really expecting an answer.

“According to the directions I've been given, we're heading over to the far side of the cloud gallery. The last time I visited the museum this section was full of ice sculptures if I remember rightly.”

“You've been here before?”

“Many times.” Jeremius smiled. “They've got one of the best collections of fossilized hailstones in the world.”

“But I don't understand,” Angus said, jogging down the corridor after his uncle. “What have hailstones got to do with anything?”

Jeremius didn't answer.

Angus sighed. It had been the same all summer. Ever
since Jeremius had taken him back to the Windmill at Budleigh Otterstone, Devon, he'd been refusing to answer questions about anything remotely interesting.

Angus had spent much of the previous eleven years living at the Windmill with his other uncle, Maximilian Fidget, while his parents, Alabone and Evangeline McFangus, worked away at Perilous. Angus had been told about the exciting secret life they'd led only a year ago. He still found it impossible to imagine his normal, ordinary parents winning Lightning Catcher of the Year awards or thundering through the celebrated fog tunnels of Finland. He was desperate to ask them every little detail about their adventures.

Unfortunately Scabious Dankhart, the most notorious villain on the Isle of Imbur, had kidnapped them and trapped them in a dungeon beneath his castle, so Angus hadn't seen or heard anything from them in over a year. The only evidence he had that his parents were still alive was a secret message sent to his uncle Jeremius and an amazing three-dimensional picture, called a projectogram, that had been taken in their dungeon. Angus had spent many hours staring at the projectogram over the
holidays, studying their pale, hollow-cheeked appearances, desperately hoping that someday soon they would be rescued.

He'd spent the rest of the holidays helping his uncle Max, who possessed an extraordinary talent for creating dangerous weather machines. His latest invention, an instant icicle slicer, had deliberately cut the legs off every pair of pants Angus owned, forcing him to wear his pajama bottoms for several days instead.

His twelfth birthday, on the fifth of August, had come and gone without much fuss. Uncle Max had baked him a special beet and corned beef birthday cake, which Angus had continued to burp up for several days afterward. Jeremius had bought him a brilliant ball game with springy elastic tentacles and tiny bats, which they'd played together on the lawn in the hot summer sunshine. For the first time ever there had been no card, present, or phone call from his mum and dad.

The rest of the holidays had been uneventful, give or take the odd explosion bursting out of Uncle Max's workshop, until this morning. Jeremius had woken him early with news of a surprise visit to London, immediately after
which they would finally be returning to Perilous on a late-evening ferry. Angus had packed hurriedly, stuffing as many socks, sweaters, and pants into a bag as he could carry. Then they'd caught the first train from Exeter and emerged from a packed station some hours later into a wide tree-lined square called Thunderbolt Plaza. From there it had been a brisk ten-minute walk to the huge Starling Museum of Storm Science with its impressive pale stone facade and domed glass roof.

It was only when Jeremius had left him in the gift shop, muttering something mysterious about “confirming arrangements,” that Angus had become suspicious about the real purpose behind their London trip.

He followed his uncle nervously as he pushed through another set of heavy doors at the end of the corridor . . . and froze.

They'd walked straight into a thick, swirling foglike substance. It was exactly like stumbling through the middle of a no-way-out-fog on the Imbur marshes.

“What's happening?” Angus asked, accidentally swallowing a mouthful of cold, damp air.

“According to the museum guide, this is supposed to be
what it feels like to walk through the clouds,” Jeremius explained, appearing close beside him.

Angus wasn't sure he liked it. The soggy surroundings made him feel mildly claustrophobic. He stared down at his feet, hoping there was something solid beneath them. Thankfully, he was standing on a wide walkway with tiny lights on either side to guide him further into the gallery.

The haze thinned after a few paces to reveal a large room beyond. Giant wobbling cloud exhibits surrounded them on all sides with names like cumulus, stratus, and cirrus. Each cloud was remarkably soft and fluffy-looking, almost as if it'd been caught fresh that morning and dragged inside. Angus reached out and stuck his finger through something called a castellatus cloud as they passed it; it was castle shaped, with turrets, and felt strangely sticky, like cotton candy. He wiped his hands on his jeans, hoping nobody would notice the finger-shaped hole he'd just poked through one of the fluffy turrets.