The Lightning Catcher: The Secrets of the Storm Vortex (22 page)

To make matter worse, in the days that followed, Angus began to experience some tremendously unsettling sensations. They started with an odd bubbling feeling under his skin, like an itch that couldn't be scratched, and he wondered if he'd caught Indigo's rash. But soon they were impossible to ignore. He woke up each morning with an inferno burning inside his chest, as if the fire dragon were trying to incinerate his rib cage.

He was enormously relieved when Rogwood collected
him late one evening a few days later for his latest lesson in the Inner Sanctum. Angus quickly described the entire incident in the Octagon, leaving nothing out, as they entered the round room once again and sat in the comfy chairs.

Rogwood smiled kindly at him. “Yes, Catcher Sparks mentioned something about an altercation between you and the Vellum twins.”

“I'm never going to be like Moray McFangus!” Angus said, staring at the floor. “I'm going to be a rubbish storm prophet!”

“Angus, you have already saved your fellow lightning cubs on a number of occasions. Miss Midnight might not be here today if it hadn't been for your bravery in the Lightnarium. And it will still be a very long time before Percival Vellum forgets he owes his life to you after an incident with a certain fognado.”

“But I wanted the fire dragon to appear! I wanted it to chase Percival Vellum!” Angus admitted, still feeling wretched.

Rogwood chuckled deeply into his braided beard. “Do not be so quick to condemn yourself, Angus. I can assure
you that your abilities are far too weak to inflict any real damage on your fellow lightning cubs, despite the intensity of any sensations you might be feeling. And I have no doubt that you were provoked. However, I would advise you to steer clear of Valentine Vellum for the time being. He seems to be rather annoyed with you, Miss Midnight, and Mr. Dewsnap for a variety of reasons.” Angus gulped. “And if that does not calm your fears—” Rogwood stood up suddenly. “There is something I wish to show you, if you will come with me, please.”

The lightning catcher took him swiftly through the dark room, back into the rough stone Octagon, and through one of the eight doors that they had never ventured through before.

“It is true that the storm prophets have performed many brave and noble deeds,” Rogwood said, leading the way down a narrow stone tunnel. “Numerous books and projectograms have recorded their great achievements. But nobody can behave in a heroic manner the whole time. As you may already know, the trusty
Weathervane
records all events that occur at Perilous, including those of a less gallant nature,” he said. “According to the
Weathervane,
there
was an incident when a young storm prophet, Zachary Bodfish, who was showing off for his friends, managed to burn down an entire section of Perilous, which had only recently been completed. As you can imagine, he was very unpopular for some years afterward. I believe you can still see the scorch marks in the library behind Miss Vulpine's desk if you study the floorboards carefully.”

Angus stared at Rogwood, hardly daring to believe his ears. He made a mental note to visit the library as soon as he left the Inner Sanctum. Rogwood stopped at the end of the stone tunnel, unlocked a plain wooden door, and allowed Angus to enter first. The room was completely dark. He could see nothing beyond the small pool of light in the doorway where they hovered.

“On another occasion,” Rogwood continued, “two of the most hotheaded storm prophets, Zebedee Bodfish and Gideon Stumps, decided to settle their differences doing battle with a thunderstorm in the dead of night.”

Rogwood flicked on the light fissures.

“Wow!” Angus rocked back on his heels.

The silhouettes of two massive fire dragons had been burned into the wall, imprinted forever like giant scaly
fossils. They seemed to undulate around the walls with wings spread wide, talons locked in a furious struggle, flickering flames tangled. Both fire dragons were enormous, far larger than his own, each fiery scale the size of several handprints. He could almost sense the battle that had taken place, as if the storm had also left a lasting impression in the very air around them.

“As you can see, Angus, Bodfish and Stumps were each determined to prove that he had the greater talent and power,” Rogwood said. “According to the
Weathervane,
it was an epic battle that lasted all of five minutes before the storm grew too violent and both storm prophets had to be rescued, much to their embarrassment. They were punished for their foolish weather duel and sent straight to bed each night after dinner for a month. It was certainly not their finest hour, and yet each went on to perform quite astonishing acts of bravery when they were older and more in control of their skills. It took every storm prophet some years to use his great abilities wisely and with any measure of control. You, Angus, have been bombarded with new information, images, and ideas about yourself as a storm prophet, and you are feeling an awakening, a
stirring of odd sensations and unfamiliar emotions.”

Angus stared at Rogwood, wondering how the lightning catcher could possibly know of the troubling feelings he'd been experiencing.

“You must have some patience, Angus. Try not to expect too much of yourself at this very early stage in your development. And in the meantime, be grateful that you have not yet burned down any part of this Exploratorium.”

Angus followed Rogwood back down the stone tunnel a few moments later, still reeling from the shock of the giant fire dragons he'd just seen. When they returned to the stone Octagon, it took several seconds for his brain to register that it was no longer empty. Catcher Sparks and Felix Gudgeon were locked in serious conversation.

“. . . been months now, and we still haven't got a clue what the monsoon mongrels are really up to under that vortex,” Catcher Sparks said, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “Ah, Aramanthus! Has the weather station resumed taking weather samples?”

“The vortex is still proving to be too dangerous to approach,” Rogwood said, joining his fellow lightning catchers. Angus hovered, trying his best to look
completely uninterested in the conversation.

“I still say the whole thing's a ruse,” Gudgeon said. “Dankhart's using that vortex to hide something bigger.”

“Yes, but what, Felix? We've been going around in circles for months now.” Catcher Sparks sighed. “If only Valentine had found something before Winnie Wrascal destroyed his office.”

Gudgeon grunted. “Fire or no fire, it wouldn't have made any difference. Most of those records were already blacked out, crucial pages missing all over the place. Valentine found nothing useful. We're closer to inventing lightning-proof underpants than we are to finding out what experiments those lightning catchers were performing in 1777.” He whispered the last sentence warily, glancing over his shoulder at Angus. “All we know for sure is that it resulted in a huge weather vortex.”

“But I cannot believe that is all we know,” Catcher Sparks said, frowning. “Surely somewhere there must be records, diaries, letters . . .”

“Whether you believe it or not, Amelia, it might be better to restrict all conversations on the subject to more private areas of the Exploratorium,” Rogwood said
pointedly. And the conversation came to an abrupt end.

Angus slept soundly that night for the first time since the incident in the Octagon. Smoldering dragons wove their way slowly through his peaceful dreams, his worries soothed by the revelation that the other storm prophets, long ago, had also struggled to control their skills.

The next morning he headed straight up to the library to see if Rogwood had been telling him the truth about Zachary Bodfish's burning it down. Luckily Miss Vulpine was nowhere to be seen. He knelt down to inspect the floorboards carefully behind her desk and felt his heart leap when he discovered several faded-looking scorch marks lurking beneath a wastepaper basket. He raced up to the kitchen, feeling far happier than he had in weeks, and quickly filled Dougal and Indigo in on all the details of the conversation he'd overheard in the Inner Sanctum.

“So you're saying
none
of the lightning catchers actually knows what happened in 1777?” Dougal said, a bowl of porridge lying forgotten in front of him.

“But Gudgeon's been trying to stop us from finding stuff for weeks,” Indigo pointed out. “He must have some idea.”

“They know there was a weather vortex over Perilous. They definitely think it's got something to do with the one sitting over Castle Dankhart,” Angus explained. “But that's all.”

“So all this time Gudgeon, Rogwood, and everyone could have been searching for answers, just like us,” Indigo said. “That must be the real reason Gudgeon had those documents removed from the research department.”

Angus nodded. “That's what they were doing in Valentine Vellum's office when Winnie Wrascal burned it down. But all the documents had been blanked out. Vellum found nothing.”

Dougal sat back in his seat, looking flabbergasted. “In that case . . .”

He stopped talking suddenly as Edmund Croxley appeared with the morning's mail, which included a large envelope with Dougal's name handwritten on the front.

“The mailroom asked me to deliver these,” Croxley said, dropping several items onto the table, not waiting to see what the large envelope contained.

Dougal ripped it open. “It's a letter from Cradget's. I don't believe it! I've won third prize in the Tri-Hard
Puzzle Competition!” He waved a colouful letter at them excitedly.

“Congratulations!” Angus said stodgily through a mouthful of porridge.

“They've sent the prize as well,” Dougal said, delving to the bottom of the envelope. He pulled out a chunky-looking black pen. “There's a spy camera hidden inside it,” he said. “You've got to click the top of the pen to take a photo. This is so cool!”

Angus grinned. “You can take secret photos of Clifford Fugg picking the spots on his chin and he'll never know.”

“Yeah, or I could get a quick snap of Germ in his yetiprint pajamas and threaten to show it to everyone unless he stops making us test him on scabs and stuff.”

Angus turned to get Indigo's opinion on the subject. But she was now grasping a large envelope of her own that had apparently also arrived in the mail.

“Don't tell me you've won something as well?” Dougal said, looking slightly crestfallen. “You never said anything about entering Cradget's competition.”

“That's because I didn't!” Indigo whispered, and quickly tucked the envelope into her bag.

Before Dougal could grill her any further, Germ appeared at their table with a huge plate of scrambled eggs on toast and sat down next to Indigo.

“All right, little sis? I've been looking for you everywhere.” He grinned.

“How are the exams going?” Angus asked. Germ had dark circles under his eyes. His fingernails had been bitten down to the quick.

“Two down, two more to go. I'm moving onto bites, burns, and bruises next,” he said cheerfully, pointing to a thick book that was bulging from his bag.

“If you're expecting one of us to test you on lightning burns, you can forget it.” Indigo edged her chair away from her brother. “We haven't even finished our breakfast yet.”

“That's not why I've been looking for you. I've finally discovered what's wrong with your hand,” Germ announced, looking extremely pleased with his own cleverness.

“Nothing's wrong with my hand,” Indigo snapped, hiding it automatically under her sleeve. “It's just a stupid rash.”

“Not according to my research, and you're, er, definitely not going to like what I've found.”

Angus glanced sideways at Dougal as Germ rummaged through his bag for his workbook.

“I looked up all the normal rashes and skin complaints, of course, but nothing seemed to fit,” Germ explained, flicking past several pages of handwritten notes. “And then I was doing some reading on freckles, birthmarks, and other kinds of pigmentation, and I found this.”

Germ spread his workbook across the table so they could all see the notes he'd scribbled on something called bleckles. “Bleckles are like a cross between a freckle and a blemish. Apparently they run in families. Each family has its own distinctive pattern, and yours”—Germ flicked to the next page, “—comes from the Dankharts.”

Dougal almost choked on a mouthful of toast. Indigo stared at her brother horror-struck, biting her lip, a strange, almost guilty expression taking control of her face.

“I copied this drawing from a book by some old dermatology doctor. Bleckles were his specialty. He made a note of all the patterns he'd heard about before he died.”

He pointed to a large pencil drawing of a hand bearing the identical marks to the ones Indigo had on her skin.

“As far as I can tell, you're the only one on our side of
the family who's got them,” Germ added, showing them his own bleckle-free hands.

“But isn't there anything I can do to get rid of them?” Indigo asked, her voice now trembling.

“'Fraid not, sis. Once they've appeared, you're pretty much stuck with them like big ears or webbed feet,” Germ said. “The best thing you can do is keep them covered up. And if anyone asks, I'd blame it on an allergic reaction to Valentine Vellum.” He grabbed the book, snapped it shut, and got to his feet again. “Anyway, I've got to memorize a whole chapter on how to treat horrible-hailstone bruises before tomorrow morning. See you three later.” And he took his scrambled eggs and joined his friends at a nearby table.

“What am I going to do?” Indigo gulped, keeping her voice low. She was staring at the bleckles on her hand with a disgusted look on her face. “It's like being branded a Dankhart. What if Germ tells someone by accident?”

“He won't,” Angus said, feeling confident he was right. “Germ might joke about stuff, but he doesn't want anyone else knowing about your uncle Scabby either.”