by Anne Cameron
“I’ll do no such thing!”
Angus and Dougal edged their way around the side of the crowd for a better look as the two lightning cubs continued to argue.
“I can see it! Oh,” Dougal added, sounding disappointed, “it’s just another ‘Coming Soon!’ poster.”
“Hang on a minute; there’s something different about this one.” Angus grabbed Dougal by the sleeve before he could disappear, and they sneaked in behind Theodore Twill. Underneath the usual “Coming Soon!” pronouncement were several fresh lines of information that Twill had tried to cover up clumsily with some sticky tape and paper. Angus ripped it off quietly, so Twill, who was still arguing with Croxley, wouldn’t hear what he was doing. “It says, ‘Lightning Catcher of the Year award: the winners’ tour,’” he said in hushed tones.
“You’re joking!” Dougal’s glasses steamed up instantly with excitement. “They’re coming to Perilous to demonstrate their winning entries?”
The Lightning Catcher of the Year award was an extremely popular annual event that every Exploratorium on the planet could enter. Rogwood had won it more than once. Adrik Swarfe had been awarded the top prize for his work with extra-strong lightning before he’d betrayed the lightning catchers and fled to join the monsoon mongrels. Even Angus’s own mum and dad had won the large lightning-shaped trophy, and a lifetime’s supply of luxury, all-weather, lightning-proof leather jerkins, for writing the McFangus Fog Guide. Dougal had shown him a picture last term.
“Does it say when they’re coming here?” Dougal asked.
Angus shook his head. “But it looks like their first stop is the London office; then they’re traveling on to Paris, Washington, D.C., Wellington, in New Zealand, and somewhere in Finland I can’t even pronounce before they come anywhere near Perilous,” he said, tracing the printed line of destinations with his finger. “So it could be ages yet.”
Angus carefully replaced Twill’s slip of paper so the older lightning cub wouldn’t track him down and demand payment for sneaking a look at the poster. They entered the kitchens a few moments later, grabbed some toast, and headed for their usual table under one of the fake palm trees.
“Who were last year’s winners, anyway?” Angus asked as they sat down. Indigo was already waiting for them. A steaming bowl of porridge lay forgotten in front of her; her head was buried in the pages of a magazine.
“I can’t remember exactly,” Dougal said. “But there was definitely someone called Herbert Hoffenmier, or it could have been Herman Buckleswamp. Hey, why are you reading the Weathervane again?” Dougal frowned across the table at Indigo.
“It came out first thing this morning,” Indigo said, showing them the cover of the latest issue. “So I ran straight up to the research department to grab one. There’s a six-page special about the winners’ tour. Here.”
She turned the magazine around and slid it across the table so they could both see it. Staring up at them was the headline “Winners’ Tour Comes to Perilous!” with a photo of a small, slightly nervous-looking lightning catcher with mousy-colored hair. Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick, Angus noticed.
“That’s Edna Smithwyck,” Dougal said excitedly. “I remember now; she came third in last year’s competition.”
“It says here she trained for seven years at the Canadian Exploratorium before continuing her work in Iceland. I wonder if she knows Jeremius,” Angus said, wishing his uncle were here to tell them more.
He read the next paragraph quickly. According to the Weathervane, Catcher Smithwyck was an expert in cold-weather climates. She had taken part in a daring escapade through the very same Canadian ice maze that Dougal’s dad had spun them a story about at Feaver Street. And she had carried out many solo research projects into frost quakes.
“Why would anybody want to do more research into frost quakes?” Dougal said, reaching the end of the same paragraph and instantly turning pale.
“Does it say what she won third prize for?” Angus asked thickly, through a mouthful of toast.
Dougal scanned the rest of the page. “No, but I think it involved something inflatable. This is going to be brilliant!”
Indigo left them a few minutes later to return a book to the library, giving Angus and Dougal just enough time to read the rest of the article before they were due up in the forecasting department.
Angus munched on a slice of toast, scanning the words quickly. According to the Weathervane, Catcher Smithwyck enjoyed playing the trombone, growing carnivorous water lilies, and— Angus allowed his eyes to jump to the top of the next page, but the magazine had leaped straight to an article about emergency sock-darning procedures instead.
“I don’t believe it. Pages thirteen and fourteen are missing,” he said, flicking back through the magazine to check.
“But they can’t be. Have a look on the floor.”
There was no sign that the missing pages had fallen around their feet or under the table, and a few minutes later they were forced to abandon the search and head up to the weather archive.
News of the winners’ tour spread swiftly around Perilous, causing great pockets of excitement to bubble up in the kitchens and the lightning cubs’ living quarters. A wild rumor also began to circulate that Catcher Smithwyck would be performing dangerous experiments on a number of lightning cubs as part of her demonstration.
“Don’t tell anyone, but I made the whole thing up!” Germ confided in Angus one evening as they bumped into each other outside the boys’ bathrooms. “You should have seen Percival Vellum’s face when I told him she experiments only on the hairiest and ugliest lightning cubs in the audience.”
Germ was still studying hard for his upcoming exams and asked Angus, Dougal, and Indigo to test him on random topics, such as belching blisters, crumble fungus, and snow boot boils, whenever they passed him in the library. He also continued to interrogate Indigo about the rash on her hand, pouncing on her unexpectedly in the stone tunnels and passageways with long lists of questions.
“Have you eaten any rotten turnips in the last seven days, little sis?” Germ asked on one such occasion, taking a small notebook and a pencil from his pocket.
“What? No. Go away and leave me alone,” Indigo whispered.
“Have you been exposed to any toxic miasmas or oily fumes in the experimental division?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Indigo said, starting to sound annoyed. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at her brother. Angus caught a quick glance of the rash as she did so and was surprised to see how red and angry it now looked.
“Have you accidentally put your hand in a stinking bowl of—”
But Indigo had finally had enough and stomped off before Germ could finish.
“Now we’re finally getting somewhere!” He scribbled hurriedly on his notepad with a mischievous grin. “Symptoms include sudden outbreaks of extreme grumpiness.”
In the forecasting department they were now tackling some of the oldest and most fragile storm jars in the weather archive. The tiny jars had been placed on the topmost shelves and had to be lifted down with great care on the end of a long hook. Unfortunately, several jars smashed to the ground during this process, releasing the weather inside, and they spent a number of extremely wet and windy afternoons trying to sweep up the evidence. Luckily, Catcher Wrascal was only too happy to help.
“I’m already in enough trouble with Catcher Killigrew as it is,” she told them when this happened for the third time in one hour. “I accidentally flooded his office the other day with cold rice pudding from the vats. And if he hears about broken jars in the weather archive, he’ll be sending me straight back to the Scottish mountains for a month on snow-shoveling duty.”
In the evenings Dougal was now splitting his time between searching for information about the weather vortex in the research department and working on phase two of his Cradget’s puzzle competition entry.
“What does phase two involve, exactly?” Angus asked as they sat in the
comfy chairs before the fire in the Pigsty.
“It’s called a word splice, and it’s absolutely brilliant!” Dougal explained, looking thoroughly overexcited. “You’ve got to merge all these random words together in the right order so they become a whole string of different words, and then they form the next clue.”
Two weeks later the second-year lightning cubs finally returned to the storm hollow for another lesson on the deadly seven.
Gudgeon led them straight over to a single storm jar placed at the far end of the hollow. It had been covered with a tarpaulin, hiding its contents from view.
“Right, you lot, settle down,” Gudgeon barked as a nervous silence fell. “And let me remind everyone that any larking about in this lesson will not be tolerated.” He glared at the Vellum twins, who had just finished a long stint on rubber boot repairs as punishment for releasing the scarlet sleeping snow.
“Before we get started, everyone should grab a copy of The Dankhart Handbook, by Gretchen Grimoire.” Gudgeon pointed to a heap of books on the floor beside the storm jar.
Angus, who hovered at the back of the throng as a disorderly queue formed, took the last book on the pile. It was jet black, with a rough, knobbly texture like stone. It was also shaped exactly like Castle Dankhart, Angus realized, tracing the outline of a turret with his thumb. He turned to the first page. It issued a stark warning in thick black gothic-style letters: “Caution! The information contained in this book may cause shortness of breath, nervous headaches, dizziness, and night terrors. Read with extreme care!”
“Have you seen the section in the middle?” Dougal whispered beside him.
Angus flicked warily past the first chapter, which was titled “Rise of the Dankhart Family.” The following pages appeared to provide a detailed floor plan of the castle itself, which he definitely wanted to study in more detail. And then . . . Angus swallowed hard. The middle section of the book was entirely devoted to Dankhart and the monsoon mongrels. He instantly recognized the picture of Adrik Swarfe. With his inquisitive, clever gaze, his shoulder-length hair and goatee flecked with gray, he still looked more like a kindly teacher than a weather scoundrel. There was also someone called Victus Bile, who came from a long line of monsoon mongrels. His shaggy brown hair and narrow eyes gave him the look of a ferret. But it was the picture of Scabious Dankhart that disturbed Angus the most. It was an exact replica of the real Dankhart whom he’d come face-to-face with in the lightning vaults, with a large black glittering diamond protruding from his right eye socket, dark tangled hair, shriveled stumpy teeth, and deep pocks and scars on his face. It was the same Dankhart who had threatened to “deal with” Indigo in a very spine-chilling manner.
For Indigo, however, it was the first time she’d ever seen a recent portrait of her uncle. The malicious figure bore little resemblance to the only photo she had of him, which showed a young boy with short hair and an innocent-looking smile. Angus suddenly wished he’d prepared her for the repulsive transformation that had since taken place.
“Um, Indigo, are you all right?” Angus asked, turning toward her.
Indigo nodded, giving an involuntary shiver as she stared at the picture of her uncle. “I’m fine,” she said, covering the rash on her hand with her sweater sleeve.
But before Angus could ask any more . . . “This must be right up your alley, Munchfungus,” Percival Vellum said, barging roughly past Indigo and Dougal and looming over Angus.
“Nobody wants to talk to you, Vellum.” Angus turned away from the twin.
“But isn’t this what you’re supposed to be good at, saving lightning cubs from the deadly seven?”
“Our dad’s told us everything about you,” Pixie said, a gleam in her eyes. “You’re the first storm prophet at Perilous for hundreds of years.”
Thump!
Dougal dropped his book on the floor in shock. Indigo glared at the twins. Angus felt his chest tighten, as if something big and heavy were trying to squash his lungs.
“But . . . how did you—”
“I always knew there was something weird about you, Munchfungus.” Percival continued, looking at him shrewdly. “Dark-Angel’s always calling you up to her office. Rogwood sends you mysterious notes and messages.”
“Doctor Obsidian’s been testing your brain, too,” Pixie added.
Percival grinned. “Personally, I’m surprised he could find anything there to test.”
Pixie sniggered. It was clear that both twins were enjoying their moment of triumph immensely.
“How do you two know about those tests?” Angus demanded, still reeling with shock.
“Dark-Angel tells our dad everything,” Percival said. “And he saw you being tricked by a fake ice-diamond storm down in the testing tunnels.”
“He says you’re a rubbish storm prophet,” Pixie added.
“He says you fainted like a girl as soon as the ice-diamond spores got anywhere near you. You couldn’t save a fog mite from a fake fog, Munchfungus.”
“Don’t say that!” Indigo burst out suddenly. “Angus saved you from being killed by a fognado on the Imbur marshes!”
“Yeah, and I didn’t hear you complaining about it at the time, you ungrateful toad,” Dougal added.
Percival’s face darkened. “Shut up, Dewsnap, nobody asked you.”
“And nobody asked you to poke your big nose into my business either,” Angus said, growing more annoyed by the second.
“Oooo, I’m really scared now, storm boy. What are you going to do, send a load of scary snow chasing after us? Oh, save us from the teeny-tiny snowflakes, Munchfungus!” Percival jeered, causing several other lightning cubs to turn and stare. “Is that what Rogwood’s teaching you to do in the Inner Sanctum?”
Dougal called Percival some extremely insulting names under his breath. Angus clenched his fists, seething with instant anger. Yet again Percival Vellum seemed to know something highly personal about him, something so sensitive and supposedly secret he didn’t even understand it himself yet. Did the Vellum twins also know what his fire dragon looked like or that his ancestor Moray McFangus was buried beneath the Exploratorium?
“Pixie and me know more about your grubby little secrets than you do, Munchfungus,” Percival said, seizing his opportunity. “We reckon you ought to be locked in the crypt with the rest of those fire dragon freaks and—”
He stopped talking abruptly and stared across the top of Angus’s head. Gudgeon was now watching all five of them closely. “Never mind,” he sneered. “It’ll keep. See you later, storm boy.”
“Just ignore him,” Indigo whispered under her breath as the twins slouched away. “He’s trying to make you angry on purpose.”
“Well, it’s working!” Angus snapped, his face now burning with rage. “Why do those two have to know everything important about my life? They’ll be telling everyone how many times a day I pick my nose next!”
Dougal grinned.
“This isn’t funny!”
“Sorry,” Dougal said, trying to control his face.
“Why are those two so determined to make my life a misery?”
“Obvious, isn’t it?” Dougal said wisely. “You stand up to them; you’re not scared of them.”
“And Percival doesn’t like it,” Indigo added.
“Plus you’re ten times more intelligent and a hundred times less ugly than any member of the Vellum family,” Dougal pointed out truthfully.
Gudgeon started the lesson in earnest a few moments later, forcing Angus to continue seething in silence.
“This book will tell you everything you need to know about Dankhart and his monsoon mongrels and give you a step-by-step guide on how to deal with the deadly seven. So study it well. It might save your life one day,” the gruff lightning catcher said, holding up a copy of The Dankhart Handbook. “What it won’t teach you is how to recognize the stench of a sulfur storm when it’s coming straight at you or how to escape from a cloud of ice-diamond spores without quaking in your snow boots. That
’s what we’ll be tackling in the storm hollow.”
Gudgeon shuffled each of them closer to the storm jar, which rattled ominously. Millicent Nichols whimpered, hiding behind Georgina Fox as Gudgeon ripped off the tarpaulin, revealing the contents of the jar underneath. It looked as if a large angry rainstorm had been scooped up and bottled in a jar. Heavy drops of black rain clung to the sides of the glass without falling.
“This is rancid rain,” Gudgeon told them. “This particular storm was caught trying to rain on a group of lightning catchers who were on the roof at Perilous observing some unusual cloud formations. Principal Dark-Angel has given her special permission to release a small quantity of the storm. It’s not enough to inflict serious injury on anyone in this hollow, but traces of it have been found in the cloud over Castle Dankhart, so you need to know the worst of it!”
Angus swallowed hard; his heart was still beating much faster than normal after his argument with the Vellum twins. From the corner of his eye, he could see them whispering and shaking with silent giggles.
“But before you lot get anywhere near the contents of this jar, you need to understand some basic stuff about rain first. Everyone, turn to page thirty-four of your handbooks,” Gudgeon said.
Angus flicked clumsily to the correct page. At the top was the heading “The Water Cycle.”
“Dewsnap.”
Dougal jumped several inches in the air.
“Read the first section out loud.”
Dougal pushed his glasses up his nose. “‘R-rain is formed during the water cycle,’” he began, with a quiver in his voice. “‘The sun heats oceans, lakes, and rivers, causing water to evaporate and rise into the sky, where it forms clouds. As the water vapor cools, or condenses, it becomes water once again. If the cloud is big enough and contains enough water droplets, these will collide together, becoming heavier, and eventually gravity causes them to fall back as rain to the earth, where they collect in oceans, lakes, and rivers, and the water cycle begins once again.’”