by Anne Cameron
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.”
“But what if the Vellums find out? No one will ever talk to me again. I’ll have to leave Perilous!”
“Of course you won’t,” Dougal said, patting her arm awkwardly. “And you’re always telling Angus not to be embarrassed about being a storm prophet.”
“So?” Indigo sniffed.
“So it’s the same thing with you and your family. Yes, you’re a Dankhart.”
Indigo blew her nose loudly into a pink handkerchief.
“But you’re a Midnight as well.” Dougal continued. “You’re nothing like your uncle, and that’s all anybody needs to know. It’s not your fault your skin’s got some funny bumps now.”
Indigo blinked at Dougal, looking startled by his sudden show of support. But the same guilty expression suddenly swept across her face.
“You-you already knew about the bleckles, didn’t you?” Angus said, taking a wild guess.
Indigo paused for a second, looking thoroughly wretched, and nodded. “My mum’s got the same bumps on her hand, only smaller. Germ’s just never noticed. She keeps them covered up with gloves, long sleeves, and tinted creams, but I saw them years ago. And then, when the exact same bumps started appearing on my hand and they wouldn’t go away, I just knew it had something to do with the Dankharts!”
“So that’s why you’ve been staring at Dankhart’s picture in the handbook,” Dougal said, suddenly putting two and two together.
Indigo nodded again, trying to swallow a small sob. “The first time I saw that picture of Uncle Scabious I knew.” She opened her bag, pulled out The Dankhart Handbook and flicked to the page devoted to her uncle. On his hand, so small they were barely visible, were the same distinctive bleckles.
“But I don’t understand,” Angus said. “Why have you been reading all those other books on the Dankharts in the library?”
“I just thought if I could find another picture or discover how to get rid of the bumps . . .”
Angus glanced sideways at Dougal. He had a feeling Indigo still wasn’t telling them the whole story. The time had come to confront her about Fawcett Family Tree Hunters.
“Look, Indigo, we—we know about the ad in the Weathervane,” Angus said, trying to choose his words carefully.
“A-ad?” Indigo gulped, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.
“You dropped it when you raced out of the kitchens ages ago,” Dougal said. “You circled an ad for Fawcett Family Tree Hunters.”
Angus took the folded page from his pocket, flattened out the edges, and turned it around so Indigo could read it. “Have you been thinking about getting your own Dankhart family tree?”
“No!” Indigo shook her head looking horrified. “I’d never do that!”
She dived into her bag, grabbed the mysterious envelope that had arrived that morning in the mail, and handed it to Angus. Angus opened it warily and pulled out what appeared to be a weathered-looking family tree. At the top the Midnight family crest showed a deep blue sky dusted with tiny silvery stars. But on the other side of Indigo’s family, where there should have been a long list of Dankharts—
Angus took a sharp intake of breath. “According to this, your mum comes from an extended line of chocolate makers from Belgium, and they’re all called Anselmus.” The Dankharts had been totally wiped from her family history as if they’d never existed.
“That’s because I ordered a fake family tree from Fawcett’s,” Indigo explained quietly, pointing to the ad in the Weathervane that she’d circled. At the bottom of the promotion was a minuscule paragraph that neither Angus nor Dougal had noticed.
“‘Have you ever wanted to distance yourself from your family, to hide embarrassing relations, or controversial connections?’” Angus said, reading the tiny words out loud with some difficulty. “‘Have you ever wanted to amaze your friends at dinner parties with your distinguished ancestors? Then send for a new f
amily tree now, complete with authentic detail and family crest.’”
“Wow! This is genius!” Dougal said, sounding seriously impressed. “You could turn your whole family into beekeepers, or famous poets, or medieval knights.”
Angus stared at Indigo. “And if anyone ever asks you about your family or starts getting suspicious about your connections . . .”
“I can show them my family tree,” Indigo said, still looking faintly embarrassed. “And there’s not a single Dankhart on it. After I found those dreadful bleckles on my hand, I had to do something!”
Shocked at the lengths Indigo had gone to in order to hide her horrible ancestors, Angus studied the fake tree again.
“Maybe next time you should just tell us what you’re planning,” he said, smiling at her. “We’ve been seriously worried about you.”
“Yeah, we thought you’d lost your marbles,” Dougal added, grinning. “Plus we could have got our own family trees done, too. I’ve always fancied being related to royalty. Prince Dougal of Feaver Street, what do you reckon? It’s got a real ring to it.”
Indigo continued to brood over the bleckles for the next few days and kept the sleeve of her sweeter pulled down over her hand, just in case. But she was now spending most of her free time with Angus and Dougal, helping them think through new ways of discovering what was going on under the weather vortex at Castle Dankhart and what had happened at Perilous during the experiments in 1777.
“There must be somewhere we haven’t looked yet,” Angus said one Friday afternoon in the experimental division.
Catcher Killigrew had sent Winnie Wrascal on an intensive weather forecasting refresher course, and they had temporarily been placed under the supervision of Catcher Sparks. Their master lightning catcher had set them to work in the very familiar part of the experimental division where they had spent their first day as lightning cubs, removing pockets of revolting earwax from some hailstone helmets. This time she had left them with a huge pile of leather jerkins that had to be washed and waxed, their rips and tears repaired with long needles and thread. Angus had already stabbed himself in the thumb twice, leaving a long trail of dripping blood all the way over to a sink at the back of the workroom.
“We can’t give up now,” he said, carefully darning a hole in the pocket of a large, scruffy jerkin.
“But Dougal’s already searched the library and the research department,” Indigo said. She was attempting to patch up a jerkin that belonged to Catcher Donall, according to the name tag sewn inside it. Pockets, buckles, and chunks of leather had been ripped off the garment by something with extremely large teeth.
“Maybe we should sneak back into the Dankhart archive for another look at that weather sample,” Angus suggested.
“We can’t.” Indigo shook her head. “Catcher Killigrew’s threatened to have Winnie Wrascal transferred to a tiny research post in Iceland if she gets into any more trouble, and if we get caught snooping around that archive . . .”
Angus sighed. “There must be somewhere else we can search for answers then. I— Ow!” He jumped to his feet suddenly. “That’s the third time I’ve stabbed my thumb with the same needle!”
“ARGHHHH!” Dougal dropped the leather jerkin he’d been washing a second later and scuttled away from it in a panic. “There’s something crawling around inside that pocket!”
It took some time to convince Dougal that all he’d discovered was a prickly pinecone. Angus approached his next leather jerkin with caution, however, turning the pockets out well away from his body just in case. A small collection of smashed snail shells, leaves, and sand tumbled out. It was obvious that the wearer had been helping to clean up the flotsam and jetsam after the third explosion from Castle Dankhart.
The idea hit him like a stray thunderbolt, almost flattening his windpipe.
“The flotsam and jetsam!” he said, still dangling the jerkin at arm’s length. “It got collected up in buckets.”
Dougal and Indigo exchanged puzzled glances.
“So?” Dougal asked.
“So the buckets got taken into the Inner Sanctum to be searched through for clues.”
“I still don’t get it,” Dougal said, looking mystified. “How’s a load of old rubbish going to help us?”
“Forget the buckets. I’m talking about important historical artifacts!” Angus said excitedly. “I mean, I’ve already seen Veronica Stickleback’s leather jerkin and Philip Starling’s glasses in there. So what if it’s the one place in the whole Exploratorium where we might also find out what really happened in 1777? We’ve got to search it!”
“Got to search what?” Dougal asked, starting to sound exasperated.
But Indigo’s face lit up with sudden understanding. “Oh! The Inner Sanctum!”
14
THE WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIA
“We could let Norman cause a disturbance and then sneak into the Inner Sanctum when no one’s looking,” Dougal said.
It was two days after their cleaning session in the experimental division. Since then Angus had spent so many hours discussing how to get into the Inner Sanctum with Dougal and Indigo that he’d talked himself hoarse. The most radical idea they’d come up with so far was to trigger the fire alarm, hide until the whole Exploratorium had been evacuated, and then creep through the door in the Octagon. Angus had been quite keen on the idea until Indigo had pointed out that not only would they need a set of keys, but Catcher Sparks would do a head count, realize they were missing, and organize a search party.
Angus sighed. He and Dougal were now standing in the corridor at the boys’ end of the living quarters. A late edition of the Weathervane had brought everyone out to discuss the exciting news that the last winners’ demonstration would be taking place at the weekend in Little Frog’s Bottom.
“I wonder why they’re holding it there,” Angus said. Encouraged by Dougal’s Tri-Hard competition success, he was once again attempting to solve the last scare-me-not puzzle, which still showed no signs of self-destruction. Dougal had let Norman out to stretch its wings, and the lightning moth was now zooming up and down the corridor with several of its flying friends like a sparkling silver wave.
“No idea.” Dougal ducked swiftly as Norman skimmed the top of his head before speeding up to the ceiling again. “But it’s bound to be brilliant. It’s happening in the central square. There’s a bit in the Weathervane about the last of the winners. Here.” He handed over the magazine so Angus could read it for himself.
Angus thrust the frustrating puzzle into the pocket of his pants and studied the glossy photos of Lettice and Leonard Galipot. They both looked extremely smug, Angus decided. But their list of achievements was long. They’d already won numerous awards for advanced weather observation. They’d written dozens of research papers over the years and met with Crowned Prince Rufus of the Imbur royal family to collect a prize for cloudspotting. In their spare time, they claimed to be mad fans of iceberg hopping, although, judging by the bulging midriffs they were trying to conceal beneath their lumpy leather jerkins, Angus wasn’t convinced they could hop over anything.
“We might just as well go and watch the demonstration,” Dougal said, reaching up to catch Norman as it tried to soar past them once again. “There’s been no news about the weather vortex for days, and we still haven’t got a clue how to get into the Inner Sanctum without being caught and killed by Catcher Sparks.”
Angus sighed. Unless they came up with a brilliant plan soon, the other secrets of the Inner Sanctum would stay that way forever.
They were still trying to come up with an idea when they met Gudgeon outside the library early the next evening.
“I’ve been looking for you three. We’ve had some news about the weather vortex,” he told them, scratching his bearded chin. “It looks like it’s finally thinning out.”
“What . . . seriously?” Angus said, shocked.
“Some new samples taken by the weather station show a decrease in storm particles, which probab
ly means that whatever’s been driving it all this time is running out of steam. And when it does, we’ll be able to see exactly what that villain’s been doing underneath his cloud.”
“But when?” Indigo asked anxiously.
“If all our calculations are correct, it should be no more than a couple of days now,” Gudgeon said, checking his weather watch.
“Will you tell us when you know what’s going on?” Angus asked hopefully.
Gudgeon nodded. “I promised Jeremius I’d keep you three in the know. Although I doubt even that would stop you from getting into trouble if you put your minds to it.”
Indigo flushed a guilty red. “You don’t think Gudgeon knows about our idea to break into the Inner Sanctum, do you?” she asked quietly as soon as he’d left.
“How could he?” Angus said. “I mean, we haven’t even got a plan yet.”
“We might not need one if the weather vortex is finally running out of steam,” Dougal said hopefully. “Maybe your uncle Scabby isn’t planning anything after all.”
But Angus wasn’t convinced. Dankhart was an expert schemer. He had once disguised himself as a fake librarian called Mr. Knurling, and spent a whole term shouting at lightning cubs and sniveling about the reference section just to find the infamous lightning vaults. If the Inner Sanctum had any answers about dangerous weather vortices, they had to find a way to search it.
A chance finally came three days later. Catcher Sparks, who was still supervising their duties in the absence of Catcher Wrascal, had sent them to scrape three inches of stinking mud off the soles of two hundred rubber boots. It was hot, sticky, disgusting work, and they were covered in dirt when they left the experimental division at the end of the afternoon.
“I’m so hungry I could eat a whole fog yeti,” Dougal said, his stomach rumbling loudly. A delicious smell of roast chicken had been drifting up from the kitchens for hours.