The Storm Tower Thief

by Anne Cameron

  The boy grinned, and it was obvious, close up, that he and Indigo were related. Both had the same shades of warm chestnut in their hair and the same disturbing resemblance to their uncle, Scabious Dankhart. Last term Angus had decided not to tell Indigo about this unfortunate likeness, knowing that it would upset her deeply.

  “Just call me Germ,” the boy said cheerfully. “Everyone does.”

  “Germ?” Angus asked, sitting at the opposite side of the table.

  “Mum told you not to call yourself that,” Indigo mumbled, looking thoroughly out of sorts. “It sounds more like a disease than a name.”

  “Thanks, little sis. They’ll be lining up to make friends with me after that introduction.”

  Indigo scowled. “Just don’t tell everyone we’re related, okay?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” Germ grinned mischievously. “I’ve already pinned a huge sign up on the notice board announcing that you are my one and only sister.”

  “So, are you a trainee lightning catcher, too?” Angus asked quickly.

  “Definitely not. I’ve already heard enough about double-ended lightning bolts and contagious fog to last a lifetime.” Germ jerked his head in Indigo’s direction. “I’ve got absolutely no plans to follow in evil Uncle Scabby’s footsteps and fiddle about with the weather.”

  Dougal choked on a spoonful of rice pudding.

  Indigo shushed her brother furiously. “Don’t say his name out loud!” She glanced over her shoulder in all directions, making sure nobody was listening. “People will hear you!”

  “Stop panicking, little sis.” Germ grinned lazily. “I’m not planning on telling the whole Exploratorium; it wouldn’t do my social life much good, for a start. I mean, who’d want to make friends with the nephew of that twisted loony? The big family secret’s safe with me.” He tapped the side of his nose with his finger and winked.

  Indigo continued to glare at him, looking thoroughly unconvinced.

  “So what are you doing at Perilous if you’re not interested in the weather?” Angus asked.

  “I’ve just started work in the sanatorium with Doctor Fleagal. I’m training to be a doctor. So you name it, I’ll be popping it, prodding it, lancing it, and slathering it in tons of disinfectant over the next few years. Scabs, pus, and sores, that’s where it’s all happening.” Germ clapped his hands together, seeming keen to get started. “I’ll be looking for volunteers to practice my bandaging techniques on, naturally. So, if you two are interested, I’ll be providing entertainment and refreshments.”

  Dougal grinned. “Thanks, but I’d rather clean some sweaty rubber boots.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll give that one a miss, too,” Angus added hastily. It was extremely easy to like Germ, but he had no desire to spend his evenings wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy.

  “Well, if you change your minds, you’ll find me in the library.” Germ stood up, stretching. “I’ve got whole books full of warts and bunions to flick through before tomorrow morning. See you lot later.”

  Instead of heading for the library, however, Germ darted straight over to a table full of giggling fifth-year girls and set about introducing himself all over again.

  “Germ’s brilliant!” Dougal smiled, still watching him.

  “Not exactly shy, is he?” Angus added.

  “I just hope he doesn’t tell everyone about our big family secret,” Indigo whispered, staring at her brother with an anxious expression. “If Percival Vellum catches even a hint of our connection with Castle Dankhart . . .”

  “Why didn’t you tell us Germ was coming to Perilous?” Dougal asked, finally turning back to their table.

  Indigo fiddled with the straps on her bag, looking highly uncomfortable. “Because I had no idea he was planning to work here until a few days ago.”

  But Angus thought he understood the real reason. To Indigo, the subject of her family was a touchy one, for obvious reasons. She therefore kept most important personal information to herself. He changed the subject quickly, before Dougal could grill her any further.

  Germ became a regular visitor to their dinner table over the next week, leaving Angus, Dougal, and Indigo very little time to discuss icicle storms, Dankhart, and the mysterious Farew’s qube in private. They retreated to the Pigsty every evening, therefore, to study the qube’s strange symbols, attempting endless combinations of letters and numbers in an effort to open it.

  “How about Delphinia Dark-Angel?” Dougal suggested one night as Indigo quickly moved the letters around the qube to spell out the principal’s name.

  “Nope.” She sighed. “Nothing.”

  “What about Felix Gudgeon, then, or Jeremius McFangus?” Angus said hopefully.

  But Dougal shook his head. “We’ve already tried both of those, twice, along with Alabone and Evangeline McFangus. I’ve started a list of all the words that definitely don’t work.”

  He turned to the back of his workbook and showed Angus a page filled with column after column of their unsuccessful attempts.

  Angus sighed, feeling his frustration levels rise. “It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would my mum and dad send me a message that’s impossible to open? I mean, it must be something urgent or important. It could even be something about the icicle storms.”

  “Maybe.” Indigo frowned. “But why didn’t they just tell Jeremius if it was?”

  Angus looked away from her quickly. The same question had already occurred to him. Was there something that his parents didn’t want Jeremius to know? It wouldn’t be the first time they’d sent Angus some highly dangerous information. The previous term they’d mailed a map of the lightning vaults to him, instead of to Principal Dark-Angel. But Jeremius was his father’s brother. Surely he could be trusted with anything?

  It was at the end of their second week back at Perilous that their troubles truly began. It had been another very long day in the research department. Catcher Grimble had set them to work on a new pile of booby-trapped books, which contained some of the most vicious antitheft devices yet. And all three of them had ended up in the sanatorium, being treated for minor cuts and scrapes by a very excitable Germ.

  “Books just aren’t supposed to be violent,” Dougal grumbled, rubbing the sores on his hands as they finally made their way down a spiral staircase and along the curved corridor that led to the boys’ living quarters. “I mean, can you imagine if we got attacked by a swarm of fog mites every time we opened up our fog guides?”

  Angus shivered, trying hard not to picture it. When he reached his bedroom door, he grabbed the handle wearily, looking forward to toasting his feet in front of the fire before climbing into his soft bed. The door, however, refused to open.

  “What’s up?” Dougal asked.

  “Something’s wrong with my door.” Angus rattled the handle again, giving it a shove, but it remained stubbornly shut.

  “It’s probably just the cold weather,” Dougal said knowledgeably. “Try pushing it with your shoulder.”

  Angus leaned his full weight against it, pushing hard, his heels digging into the floor.

  “It’s no good. It just . . . doesn’t . . . want to—”

  CRACK!

  The door gave way with an odd jolt. Angus forced it open just wide enough to squeeze his body through sideways, then—

  WHOOSH!

  His feet shot out from underneath him. Slipping in every direction, he skidded across the floor, which for some strange reason appeared to be extremely icy. And before he could stop it from happening—

  SPLAT!

  He collided with something white and fell flat on his face, squashing his nose sideways.

  He rolled over onto his back, groaning, and gazed at the incredible sight before him. Everything from his bed to the fireplace was now covered in a hard layer of glittering ice and frost. The clothes that he’d left lying on the floor had been frozen into odd, lumpy hillocks; his books and bedcovers were hidden under fresh snowfall; and his whole room now resembl
ed a sparkling winter grotto. Even the door was covered in a thick slab of brittle ice, which explained why it had been so impossible to open.

  “What’s going on?” Dougal squeezed in through the door behind him. “Why won’t your door— WOW!” He stared around at the wintry scene with an awed expression.

  Angus grabbed hold of his window ledge and struggled back onto his feet. His nose was throbbing painfully; a thin trickle of blood was now rolling down his face. His trousers were ripped at both knees.

  “Did you leave your bedroom window open or something?” Dougal asked.

  “Of course I didn’t. It’s been frozen shut for days.”

  “Then why does it look like a snowman exploded all over your floor?” Dougal snapped an icicle off the end of Angus’s bed and held it up for inspection.

  Up until now Angus had always considered his room to be a sort of haven, safe from the explosions and dangers that occurred in every other part of the Exploratorium. When he’d left it that morning, it had been in its usual slightly untidy state. But now it was clear that somebody had deliberately snuck in and set off the one thing that could have caused this much damage.

  “Somebody’s been in here with a storm globe,” he said, suddenly feeling sure of it.

  “What? You’re kidding! But nobody we know would be stupid enough to— Hang on a minute. Percival Vellum!” Dougal said abruptly. “He’s definitely moronic enough to try it. You should go straight to Dark-Angel, or Catcher Sparks, and tell on him,” he added eagerly. “With any luck, we could get him and that gargoyle sister of his expelled before the end of the day!”

  But Angus had a better plan. He skidded across his room, yanked the door open properly this time, and darted through it.

  “Hey! Wait for me!” Dougal scrambled after him. “Where are we going?”

  Percival’s bedroom was at the other end of the corridor. Angus stormed straight up to the ugly twin’s door. Percival was lounging on his bed, engrossed in a comic called Lightning Louie: The Adventures of a Storm Hero.

  “Well, if it isn’t Agnes Munchfungus and India Mildew,” he said. “I heard Catcher Grimble talking about the new girls in his department, and I assumed it must be you two.”

  “You’re so hilarious, Vellum,” Angus said, folding his arms across his chest. “But at least no one’s going around calling us the Vermin twins.”

  Percival scrambled off his bed, dropping his comic. “I’m warning you, Munchfungus.” He threatened Angus with a muscled finger. “You’d better not spread that name around.”

  “Talking of spreading things around,” Angus interrupted, still fuming, “what did you drop a storm globe in my bedroom for?”

  Percival stared blankly at them both. “What on earth are you talking about? I haven’t been anywhere near your room.”

  “Oh, yes, you have,” Dougal chipped in, angrily brandishing the icicle he was still holding. “There’s snow and ice everywhere.”

  A slow smirk spread across Percival’s face. “Let me get this straight, Munchfungus. Are you telling me that your room’s been frozen solid?”

  “You know it has, Vellum. You’re the one who set off a storm globe. And if you ever set another foot inside my room—”

  “For the last time, you couldn’t pay me enough to go near your room. I might catch something contagious. Or worse still, someone might see me and think we were friends. I wish I had done it, though,” he added with a malicious grin. “It would have been worth it just to see the look on your stupid face. Now go away and stop bothering me, Munchfungus. I’ve got some important reading to do.” And he slammed his door shut, still snickering.

  “He’s lying. He definitely did it,” Dougal said, trailing after Angus as he stomped back to his bedroom. “He just doesn’t want to admit it and find himself in Dark-Angel’s office. If only he’d been thick enough to scratch his name into the ice.”

  It took several hours to clean up the mess. Angus eventually managed to wiggle his window open, and he and Dougal then scooped up the snow and flung it out into the evening air, where it swirled around like a fresh winter storm. The snow was oddly sticky, however, with a very strange texture. It clung to Angus’s clothes, face, and hands, no matter how many times he tried to brush it off. There was also no sign of any broken glass left behind by the storm globe. But his floor was littered with some extremely gritty ice that refused to melt. In the end he was forced to pluck it off the rug with a pair of sugar tongs that Dougal borrowed from the kitchens.

  Finally Dougal lit the fire, and a slow thaw set in, along with a steady drip, drip, drip as frozen curtains and blankets began to defrost. Angus moved his most precious possessions into the Pigsty and settled down for the night in one of the armchairs, with a spare pillow from Dougal’s bed and a blanket pulled up to his chin. He still felt extremely grumpy.

  Thankfully, no more storm globes appeared in his bedroom during the next seven days. His carpet still felt a bit squelchy underfoot, and it would take some time before his bed stopped smelling damp. But he was just starting to believe that nobody else had actually noticed the state of his dripping curtains, when—

  “McFangus! A word, if you please.”

  Angus felt his heart sink. He, Dougal, and Indigo had been making their way quietly across the Octagon after another grueling day with the booby-trapped books. He’d been looking forward to a hot dinner and a large bowl of plum cake, the smell of which had been wafting its way right through the research department all afternoon. But Catcher Sparks was now striding toward them with a ferocious look on her face. Angus gulped; it could mean only one thing.

  “I have just had a very interesting conversation with the cleaner who attends to your room.” She loomed over him with her arms folded, her nostrils flaring dangerously. “It seems that in the course of making your bed over the last week, she has been forced to wade through some sizable puddles of freezing water on your floor. Your curtains are also dripping wet. Has a fish tank exploded in your room, McFangus, or have you and Dewsnap been engaging in some exceedingly childish water fights?”

  Angus swallowed hard and stared at the lightning catcher’s pointed chin. “It wasn’t my fault, miss. I can explain.”

  “Water fights are expressly forbidden in every part of this Exploratorium, unless you are assisting with the quenching of lightning fires,” she interrupted him angrily. “As a punishment, you will report to me in the experimental division, on a weekend of my choosing, where you will help flush out the storm drains.”

  “But, miss!” Angus protested. Having his bedroom destroyed by a storm globe was one thing, but getting the blame for the damage and then being punished into the bargain was totally unfair.

  “I’m very disappointed, McFangus. If you cannot be trusted to keep your bedroom free of floods in the future, you will find yourself sleeping on a camp bed in the supplies department. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, miss.” It was pointless trying to argue. He stared down at his snow boots until she’d stalked away, mumbling under her breath.

  “Well, that could have been a lot worse,” Dougal said cheerily. “She would have gone really mental if she’d heard the words ‘storm globe.’”

  “I still say you’ve got to tell Catcher Sparks, or Gudgeon, about the real reason your room’s in such a mess,” Indigo said quietly. “It just isn’t normal.”

  They had been discussing the strange incident for days now, and Indigo was adamant that they should be taking it seriously. Dougal, however, remained convinced that Angus had been the victim of a pathetic practical joke engineered by the Vellums.

  “Look, it’s just a bit of snow.” Dougal sighed. “And in case you haven’t noticed, nothing about this place is ever normal.”

  Indigo smiled. “But it could be important. Maybe if we just let Jeremius have a quick look and see what he thinks . . .”

  “No way. I’m not showing Uncle Jeremius anything,” Angus said quickly, before another debate on the subject could star
t. He was still trying to decide if his uncle could be trusted. “Look, Uncle Jeremius has already come tearing halfway round the world because he thinks Dankhart’s messing about with the weather again. Can you imagine what he’d do if he heard about a mysterious snowstorm turning up in my room?”

  “He’d be sleeping outside your door every night with a guard of big snarling snow wolves, for a start,” Dougal said earnestly.

  “That might not be such a bad idea,” Indigo murmured. But she finally dropped the subject.

  The weather outside the Exploratorium continued to deteriorate. Little Frog’s Bottom now looked like a giant snowball. The windows at Perilous were so thickly encrusted with snow and ice that it was in a permanent state of semidarkness, and anyone who left an outside door open for even a fraction of a second was being yelled at by a furious Catcher Howler.

  Inside the Exploratorium, extra fires were lit to help keep the water pipes from freezing solid. Large mugs of hot milk were handed out morning, noon, and night, along with some highly volatile foot warmers, which caused several small sock fires to break out, long after the socks had been discarded. Dougal had taken to wearing the revolting peach and mauve scarf that Mrs. Stobbs had knitted, in a desperate bid to stay warm. Angus had started sleeping in his extra woolens to keep his head from going numb. And everywhere he looked, lightning catchers were desperately trying to stop the weather from causing any more problems.

  “The weather cannon’s frozen solid, so no one on the island is getting a proper forecast anymore,” Gudgeon told them one evening when they finally bumped into him outside the library. Angus had forgotten just how noticeable Gudgeon was, even among the other lightning catchers at Perilous, with his bald head and straggly gray beard and his single silver earring shaped like a snowflake. He’d greeted all three of them with a weary smile. Angus couldn’t help grinning back. It was good to see him again. He was wrapped up in a heavy fur-lined coat and matching hat that, from a distance, looked like a sleeping raccoon.

  “We’ve got icicles hanging off the machinery up in the Lightnarium,” Gudgeon continued as they listened with interest. “And I’d advise you lot to stay well clear of the weather tunnel, unless you want a horde of angry polar bears chasing after you.”