The Lightning Catcher (12 page)

“DeWinkle wants everyone to fill in one of these forms and give it back to her as soon as possible.” Nicholas handed both of them a sheet of paper, and then, with a friendly “See you later,” hurried off to another table.

Angus read his form warily. It was extremely short and asked only for his name, age, and the identity of his master lightning catcher. There were just two other boxes to fill in. The first asked for any identifying marks he had on his body, such as scars, moles, or freckles; the second box appeared to be for any last messages for his family and friends, in the event that something went horribly wrong during the field trip.

“I'm not signing that!” Dougal croaked, holding his own form at arm's length, as if it might be hazardous. “How can fog be
this
risky?”

“Everything in this place is risky,” Angus pointed out, scribbling his fake signature at the bottom of his form, before he could think too hard about it.

The second surprise of the morning came when they reached the Octagon fifteen minutes later, to find it buzzing with the chatter of familiar voices. They were met at the top of the stairs by the rest of the first-year cubs, all of whom appeared to be gathered around a lightning catcher. He was dressed in a long brown leather jerkin, littered with rips, tears, and broken buckles, and his bald head shone like a flesh-colored billiard ball under the glowing light fissures of the marbled hall. Angus recognized him immediately.

“Hey, that's Felix Gudgeon,” he said, nudging Dougal in the ribs as they joined the back of the group. Indigo gave them both a shy smile.

“You mean the same Felix Gudgeon who practically dragged you out of the Windmill in your pajamas?”

Angus nodded. “I wonder what he's doing here?”

“Who cares?” Dougal shrugged. “Whatever it is, it's got to be better than spending a whole day with somebody else's snot.”

Angus wasn't so sure. His last meeting with Gudgeon had culminated in a lump the size of an egg on his forehead and several hours of unconsciousness.

“For those of you who don't know me,” Gudgeon began a few moments later, bringing a swift and absolute silence to the Octagon, “my name is Felix Gudgeon.”

For a split second, his steely eyes came to rest on Angus, but he gave no sign whatsoever that the two of them had ever met before.

“You won't normally see me around Perilous. I don't do teaching and I don't waste my time messing about with strips of seaweed and weather cannons. I work directly for Principal Dark-Angel herself, and this morning, she's instructed me to take charge of you lot. It's about time you stopped messing about with fog guides and tins of boot wax and saw what Perilous is really all about. That's why I'm taking you into the Lightnarium.”

A shocked murmur swept around the marbled hall. Angus felt his skin tingle with anticipation.

“The capture of lightning bolts at Perilous was stopped long before any of you was even born, and for reasons you've got no business knowing about. However, some experiments are still performed under strictly controlled conditions inside the Lightnarium. Normally, you wouldn't be allowed in there until your sixth year as trainees, but I say you need to know from the start what the weather's capable of in the wrong hands. So I've arranged for the lightning experts to give us a small demonstration.

“Anyone who is too afraid to enter the Lightnarium should say so now.” Gudgeon glared at each of them in turn, searching for any signs of weakness. “You'll be sent home immediately, and your place at Perilous will be given to somebody who deserves it.”

A deathly silence followed this statement. Only Violet Quinn let a faint whimper escape her lips. Angus swallowed hard, hoping that nobody else could hear his heart, which was beating like a large drum against his rib cage. Behind Gudgeon's left shoulder, he could just make out the faded outline of the shimmering golden fire dragon, placed long ago on the door that led to the Lightnarium. He'd hardly given it a single thought since first arriving at Perilous. And he looked away from it now, before Gudgeon caught him staring.

“Right, then.” Gudgeon finally broke the tense silence. “I want all of you dressed in lightning deflector suits and safety goggles, or you're not going anywhere.” He pointed to a large box behind him that was filled with shiny garments.

It was like being swallowed by an enormous, slippery tent, Angus decided as he pulled a lightning deflector suit over his head and felt it fall to the ground around his feet. He barely had time to roll up the cuffs before they were following Gudgeon through the door and into a narrow stone passageway beyond, which had been blasted through the solid rock of Perilous with some extremely powerful explosives. At the far end of the passageway, just visible under the glow of a solitary candle, stood a pair of battered-looking safety doors made of thick, pitted steel.

“Once we get inside the Lightnarium, you're to stay close to me and DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!” barked Gudgeon as they gathered behind him. “If you mess up this morning, it might be the last thing you ever do, so pay attention!”

He swung the solid doors open wide and quickly disappeared inside. Angus shuffled in behind him, tripping over the hem of his lightning deflector suit, wondering what he was about to find—an enormous, cathedral-like hall perhaps, where hundreds of thunderstorms all battled against one another with great lashes of dazzling light? He wasn't disappointed. The Lightnarium was dimly lit, and for the first few seconds he could see nothing but the gleam of Gudgeon's bald head, but then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the semidarkness—

“Wow!” he gasped, staring around, trying to take it all in at once.

The Lightnarium was a vast cavern of a room with sheer, clifflike walls of lumpy stone. Just the height of it made his head spin. Ominous-looking storm clouds, all grumbling with menace, hovered just below the dome-shaped ceiling—from which there also hung some impressively long stalactites. A strong smell of sulfur lingered in the air and stuck unpleasantly to the back of his throat.

At the far end of the cavern stood a complicated array of enormous machinery that was clearly being used to generate the storm overhead. Thick metal coils, fifty feet tall, were humming and vibrating loudly.

“I'm not sure this is such a good idea,” Dougal said nervously, appearing at Angus's elbow, his eyes magnified to several times their normal size behind his safety goggles. “What if something goes wrong while we're in here? What if we all get struck by lightning?”

“In your case, Dewsnap, it might be a definite improvement,” growled Gudgeon. “We're expected down at the far end of the Lightnarium for our demonstration, so get a move on, you two. We haven't got all day.”

Close up, the thick metal lightning generators were even more enormous. They cast a sinister shadow over them all as they were ushered behind a protective shield. The trainees huddled together in a tight group, waiting for the demonstration to begin. Gudgeon was approached immediately by a tall, bulky man with five lightning bolts clearly displayed on his own deflector suit.

“You're fifteen minutes late!” the man snapped, not bothering to keep his voice down.

“Hey, that must be Valentine Vellum,” Angus said quietly. “Percival and Pixie's dad.”

The resemblance was remarkable. It was easy to see where the terrible twins got their thuggish looks. They had clearly inherited the low brow line and long hairy arms from their dad, and all three of them bore a striking similarity to a family of gorillas. Valentine Vellum's pin-sharp eyes, however, were as cold and threatening as the blizzard section of the weather tunnel.

“Keep your beard on, Valentine.” Gudgeon brushed him aside. “I had to get them all into lightning deflectors first.”

“I was also under the impression that you were bringing a group of sixth years to this morning's demonstration,” Vellum continued. “Not this sniveling bunch of whelplings.”

“Principal Dark-Angel gave her permission, and that should be good enough, even for you, Valentine.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?” Vellum glared at Gudgeon, his fists clenched into tight balls of white knuckles.

“You already know what it means,” Gudgeon replied sharply, “but if you want me to spell it out for you again in front of your great lumps of a son and daughter, I'll be happy to oblige!”

For a moment, Angus thought a fistfight was about to break out, but after a prickly pause, Valentine Vellum turned on his heel and marched toward the great machinery behind them.

“Make sure your lightning cubs keep well behind the safety shield,” he ordered without looking back. “I will not be held responsible for any unfortunate injuries or deaths that occur while you and your whelplings are intruding on us.”

Gudgeon merely shrugged and turned to talk to another, friendlier-looking lightning catcher beside him.

“What was that all about?” asked Angus.

“Dunno.” Dougal shrugged. “But it doesn't look like they'll be sending each other birthday cards, does it?”

A few moments later, the demonstration finally began, with an impressive display of spider-shaped lightning that jumped aggressively from cloud to cloud above their heads, spinning a dazzling web of light. At such close quarters, the thunder that followed was deafening. Angus pressed his hands tightly over his ears, wishing he'd brought his earmuffs with him.

“Lightning tarantulatis,” Gudgeon informed them as soon as the rumbles of thunder died away. “A single bolt of lightning tarantulatis contains approximately one billion volts of electricity, which is enough energy to power a lightbulb for three months, or to prod Miss Vellum's brain into action for a good five years.”

Everyone giggled. Pixie Vellum, however, glowed the color of a freshly boiled beet.

“The lightning flash heats the air surrounding it to a temperature that is five times hotter than the surface of the sun,” Gudgeon continued, his voice echoing loudly round the cavernous room. “The air nearby then expands and vibrates, forming the rumbling noise that we hear as thunder.”

Angus adjusted his goggles, making sure the straps were covering his earlobes.

“Contrary to what you may think, lightning
can
strike in the same place twice. It is also one of the most dangerous and violent forces on this planet. No one can control it. No one can predict when or where it will strike next. If any of you ever find yourselves caught outside in a thunderstorm, I suggest you take cover immediately and wait until it's passed. None of you should ever go looking for lightning on purpose, do I make myself clear?”

“He doesn't have to go on about it,” said Dougal in an awed voice. “I'm never going outside again after this.”

“You don't think this could be the lightning vaults, do you?” Angus whispered, staring around at the magnificent cavern and remembering what Dougal had told him in the weather tunnel about stored lightning bolts and dangerous experimentation.

But Dougal shook his head. “If you believe what Principal Dark-Angel said to my dad, the lightning vaults were lost years ago. No one knows where they are.”

The demonstration continued with some tidal lightning, which snapped and crackled above their heads, rolling in great electric waves from one side of the Lightnarium to the other. Angus's favorite, however, was sky rocket lightning, which launched itself with a great burst from the ground, zooming straight up into the clouds, and was accompanied by a spectacular whooshing sound like a fireworks display. It was closely followed by some angry-looking forked lightning, which struck the ground directly in front of the shield with a blinding flash. Angus could feel millions of volts of electricity surging beneath his feet, and he took several swift steps back, along with everyone else, just to be on the safe side. Only Gudgeon remained standing exactly where he was, as if he was watching nothing more deadly than a football game.

With the final lightning strike, however, came something that nobody was expecting. A small blue ball rose up suddenly from the ground and hovered in front of them.

“Ball lightning!” said Gudgeon as everyone gasped. “An extremely rare phenomenon. It may look harmless, but it has the power to burn down entire buildings and char bones if it gets too close. And you're very lucky to see it.”

“Lucky?” Dougal spluttered, his eyes now rounder than dinner plates.

“Yes, Dewsnap, lucky. There are still those in the scientific world who don't believe that this stuff exists.”

The ball hovered a few feet above the ground, almost as if it was watching them through an invisible eye. Angus stared as little veins of white light arched and crackled across its surface.

“Tell your trainees to stand farther back, Gudgeon!” Valentine Vellum ordered from behind them. “We've been having a lot of trouble with ball lightning lately. The last one burned our entire collection of research notes on lightning accelerators before we could stop it.”

“Stay exactly where you are!” Gudgeon ordered, his face stern. “There are some who believe that ball lightning is attracted to movement. If any of you raises so much as an eyebrow, you'll have me to answer to. I suggest you attempt to catch it, Valentine, before it destroys something really important, like the notes on how you got those twins of yours into Perilous after they both scored less than zero on their entrance exams.”

An extremely tense hush descended upon the Lightnarium as the strange, crackling ball began revolving toward the lightning cubs. It touched the corner of the safety shield and fizzled, sending out small sparks of blinding light. Angus was aware of some frenzied activity going on behind him, and he saw the glint of a metal box from the corner of his eye as it was moved hurriedly into position by six or seven lightning catchers.

The ball suddenly began spinning toward them at an alarming rate. Violet screamed and ducked as it shot a mini bolt directly at her head. Gudgeon pulled her out of the way by the wrist and stood between her and the menacing ball.