The Lightning Catcher (23 page)

“What was that?” gasped Indigo as the ominous sound of snapping twigs echoed all around them.

“Arghhh!” Dougal yelled.

A tall, shadowy figure suddenly burst through the fog. Angus took several hurried steps backward as the sinister shape edged closer and closer.

“It's a fog phantom!” shrieked Dougal. “Fog phantom!”

“Don't be so ridiculous, Dewsnap,” the phantom said, in a very familiar voice. Catcher Sparks emerged from the mist, equipped with an orange fog lamp. “I am simply here to hand you your next token and make sure you haven't gone wandering off into the bogs by accident. I suggest you stop gawping, Dewsnap, and get a move on.”

“That was scarier than running into a real phantom,” said Dougal, still shaking as they raced off again a moment later. “Who else do you reckon they've got lurking about in here?”

Angus shuddered, hoping they weren't about to crash into Valentine Vellum.

On through the dreadful course they plunged. A dense patch of confusing fog sent Angus's weather watch haywire—it would show him nothing but flocks of pink flamingos, no matter how hard he shook it—and it only started behaving itself again when they'd left the confusing fog behind. Dougal almost passed out in a panic when they skirted the edge of an invisible fog; for several minutes he was unable to locate his own elbows. But it was a thick no-way-out fog that caused them the most problems.

Round and round in circles they went, desperately searching for a way out. Angus could barely find his own feet. And with each passing minute, he felt his spirits sink. Searching for clues about his parents was utterly impossible. He could have walked straight past Scabious Dankhart himself without even realizing it. He had more chance of finding a needle in a fog stack.

But it was only as they scrambled up the steep slopes of a marshy hill that things started to go really wrong. Angus had almost reached the top when he was met by the size-ten boot of another lightning cub, who accidentally kicked him in the nose.

“Ow!” he howled as pain shot through his skull. For several seconds, he could see nothing but bright, silvery stars dancing before his eyes. Then the sound of snickering reached his ears.

“If I'd known it was you, Dungbeetle, I would have kicked harder.” Percival Vellum jeered down at them from the very top of the hill.

“You did that on purpose!” Angus yelled, blood gushing from his nostrils. He grabbed the hanky that Indigo offered him and pressed it to his nose.

“You'll have a hard time proving it, Dungbeetle. Especially when I tell DeWinkle how my boot accidentally slipped . . . such a tragic accident. Your team's never going to win this now,” he gloated. “You might just as well give up and go running back to DeWinkle.”

“Get lost, Vellum! We're not giving up because of you!”

“Suit yourself.” Percival shrugged. “With any luck, one of the fog phantoms might get you instead.”

“We've already met one of those,” said Dougal. “And it wasn't half as ugly as you!”

Percival scowled. “What have I told you about trying to be funny, Dewsnap? Just for that . . .” He grabbed the entire pile of tokens that had been placed in a box at the summit and stuffed them into his pocket. “You've got no chance of winning now, not when me and Pixie will be the only team to finish with all our tokens.”

Dougal gasped. Angus took a wild swipe at the smirking twin and missed.

“But you can't!” Indigo shrieked. “We'll go straight to Miss DeWinkle, we'll tell her everything!”

“Oh, boo hoo, Midnight, it'll be far too late by then! Me and Pixie are going to beat everyone else on this course, and there's nothing you can do to stop us. We've got an important family tradition to continue.”

“Yeah, the tradition of being a lying, cheating thug, you mean!” Dougal shouted.

Percival smirked. “See you at the finish line, losers!” And before they could stop him, he slid down the other side of the hill, where Pixie was apparently waiting for him, and vanished.

“Is your nose all right?” asked Indigo as they took the last few steps to the top of the marshy mound.

“It's fine!” Angus said angrily, still trying to stop the bleeding. “I'm not letting Vellum cheat his way round this fog course. We've got to get those tokens back! Come on!”

Angus led the charge down the hill. He tore after Percival, fueled by his own disappointment and his throbbing nose, determined to stop the twins from cheating their way to triumph. He forced his legs to move faster, ready to wrestle Percival to the ground, if he had to, and steal the tokens back.

The mist parted. The twins were barely twenty feet ahead of them.

“You're never going to catch me, Dungbeetle! Not with those puny legs!” Percival yelled over his shoulder. But he was breathing heavily, rapidly losing ground.

Angus ran harder. He reached out, grasping at the tails of Percival's coat.

“Hey! Geroff me!” Percival yanked his coat free.

Angus stumbled. He picked himself up again quickly. All he needed was just one last burst of speed . . .

The fog came out of nowhere, almost knocking him over sideways. It rolled in from his left and swallowed him up completely. In less than a second, Percival Vellum had disappeared.

“No!” Angus stopped dead, gasping for breath as the sound of snickering faded into the distance. He stared at his watch, which informed him that he'd just been engulfed by a tropical fog. Strangely warm, it had a faint smell of coconuts.

“I've lost Vellum!” he told Indigo and Dougal when they bumped into him seconds later. “We've got to get out of this tropical fog and find him again.”

“I don't remember reading anything about tropical fog in the McFangus guide.” Dougal flicked hurriedly through the dog-eared book. “It must be really rare. Yeah, all it says here is that due to its high droplet density, it's wetter than most, and . . .”

“What?” asked Angus impatiently, dabbing his bloody nose.

Dougal gulped. “If you believe the legend, it's also the type of fog most favored by—”

“PIRANHA MIST FISH!” Indigo yelled suddenly, as a large school of tiny, silvery fish came shimmering toward them.

“RUN!” Angus shouted, forgetting all about Percival Vellum, not caring which direction they sprinted as long as they escaped the terrifying fish. He charged blindly through the fog, trying not to lose sight of Indigo. Dougal darted behind them, tripping over every clump of grass.

“ARGGHHH!” Dougal dived to the left as the fish suddenly lunged, fins flicking, razor-sharp teeth ripping into his rubber boots. “Get these things off me!”

Angus doubled back, swiping the worst of the nibblers out of his way. He hauled Dougal onto his feet and dragged him off in a new direction, crashing straight into a petrified Georgina Fox.

“Ow!” she wailed.

“Sorry!”

“Who's there?” Dougal plowed into them both, causing a sudden pileup.

“Ooofff!”

“Oh, no! I've dropped my fog guide! It's got my mum's letter inside. . . .”

Several seconds of severe confusion followed before Angus finally got his bearings again and somehow managed to retrieve his fog guide—by which time the fish had reorganized themselves into a solid, glimmering dart. Angus grabbed Dougal and raced in the opposite direction, accidentally falling over Indigo, who had come back to search for them both.

“This way!” she shouted, dodging frantically from side to side, trying to shake off the fish.

But the fish ripped at anything they could get their teeth into, shredding the lightning cubs' weatherproof coats, hats, and scarves and swimming perilously close to Angus's ears. It was only after Indigo made them double back on themselves, outmaneuvering the nibbling creatures, that they finally escaped.

They stopped, gasping for breath, in a surprisingly fog-free clearing.

“I've definitely . . . got vapor sickness.” Dougal sank to his knees, clutching a stitch in his side. “Either that, or I've swallowed some mist fish.”

Angus sat on the boggy ground, gulping down great lungfuls of air. There was no chance of finding Percival Vellum now. No chance of discovering anything useful about his parents. The entire field trip had been a complete and utter disaster.

“Where are we, anyway?” he asked, wondering if there was any possibility that they were still following the green route.

Indigo studied the map between her trembling hands. “We've gone way off course, thanks to the fish.”

“We've wandered onto the wrong course, you mean!” Dougal turned pale. He pointed to a row of small blue flags. “Only sixth years are supposed to do the blue section.”

Indigo nodded. “Dougal's right, we've come too far to the east.”

“Yeah, and landed ourselves right in the path of a fognado, whatever that is,” said Angus, looking at his watch. It showed a confusing swirl of dense mists heading rapidly toward them.

“A fognado?” Dougal hissed. “Oh, no!” He searched desperately through the McFangus guide until he came to a page covered in red warning symbols. “‘A fognado,'” he read, “‘is among the most deadly forms of fog in existence. Formed in freak weather conditions, it sucks in all other fog around it, creating a giant, suffocating whirl. Any lightning catcher caught in it is at serious risk of broken limbs or even death, unless equipped with a storm snare. The only other way to tackle a fognado is to leave the area
immediately
.' Which is what we should be doing right now, before that thing rips us to pieces!” A giant whirl of fearsome fog appeared behind them as he said it. “Come on!”

Suddenly they were running again. Angus had only taken a few steps when it happened. A fire dragon leaped before his eyes, a blinding flash of talons and claws, its great fiery scales burning with intense heat. Angus staggered to a stop. At the exact same moment, Percival Vellum darted blindly onto the sixth-year course. Seemingly dazed and confused by his own flight from the mist fish, he was now standing directly in the path of the fognado. And the fire dragon hovered, like a shimmering mirage, above his head.

There was no time to think. No time to shout a warning. Angus turned and ran full pelt as the fognado, twisting and turning with frightening speed, hurled itself toward Percival.

“Doomsbury?” Percival looked around in confusion as Angus made a desperate lunge. “Get away from me, you—”

CRASH!

Angus shoved him out of the fognado's path and forced him to the ground as the fognado went roaring past, only inches above them. It wailed and moaned, ripping furiously at their hair and clothes, almost sucking them both off the ground and high up into its swirling mass. Angus clung to the tough, marshy grass with the very tips of his fingers as the fognado attacked everything in its path like a powerful, out-of-control vacuum cleaner. The ground trembled beneath him. The air felt strangely thin, as if the fognado had sucked that up too, leaving him with nothing to breathe.

Slowly, slowly, the noise began to fade. Angus waited, fingers still gripping the grass tightly, only looking up again when he was sure it was safe. The fognado was disappearing into the distance at last, but all around them the ground had been pummeled and battered by the ferocious storm.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Miss DeWinkle was charging toward them, looking appalled, her earmuffs trailing behind her. “First years on the sixth years' course . . . a fognado! You all could have been killed!”

Shouting broke out everywhere as more lightning catchers flooded the course, searching for any other stray trainees. Angus's ears were ringing. Beside him, he was dimly aware that a trembling Percival Vellum was being checked over for injuries by Miss DeWinkle.

“You'd better come with me.” Gudgeon was suddenly helping Angus back onto his own wobbly legs. “Before that thing comes back and flattens us all.”

And the gruff lightning catcher led him back to the watery mists at the edge of the marsh, where the open-topped coaches stood waiting.

  
13
  

INDIGO'S BIG IDEA

B
y the following morning, the entire Exploratorium had heard how Angus had accidentally stumbled onto the wrong course and saved Percival Vellum from a deadly fognado. He now found it impossible to walk anywhere without other lightning cubs, many of whom he'd never spoken to before in his life, stopping him to hear more about the fantastic tale. He left out all mention of fire dragons, of course, putting his quick thinking down to his weather watch.

“Cool!” Nicholas Grubb slapped Angus heartily on the back the next time he bumped into him. “If I'd almost been flattened by a fognado, though, I'd be laying it on thick, you know, asking DeWinkle for time off and stuff.”

Angus, however, found the whole experience very uncomfortable.

“But it's brilliant!” Dougal said one lunchtime, after Angus had just been forced to tell Edmund Croxley and a bunch of his friends what had happened. “You've just made Percival Vellum look like a total idiot—I mean, after all the boasting he's been doing about being fantastic on the fog course! Anyway, I'd make the most of it if I were you. By this time next week, everyone will have forgotten about it and you'll be back to gouging earwax out of hailstone helmets with the rest of us.”

Miss DeWinkle instructed him to stand up and give the whole class a proper account of the incident at their next fog lesson. Angus mumbled his way through it as quickly as possible, feeling hot and embarrassed.

Percival Vellum himself was maintaining a very low profile, for once, and had taken to skulking about the stone tunnels and passageways wearing a chunky scarf, to hide his face.

“He could have thanked you for saving his life, at the very least,” said Indigo one day as she, Angus, and Dougal passed the glowering twin on their way to the experimental division.

“Yeah, but it's not very good for his image, is it?” said Dougal wisely. “Being saved from a fognado by someone half his size.”

There were two things that troubled Angus far more than the attention he was now receiving, however: his complete failure to find any clues about his mum and dad out on the Imbur marshes, and the reappearance of the fire dragon. The disturbing dreams he experienced each night about his kidnapped parents had also become horribly entwined with visions of the frightening creature, giving him the worst nightmares ever.

“But being a storm prophet is a good thing. I mean, that's how you saved me from the ball lightning,” said Indigo earnestly as they discussed it quietly at dinnertime a few days later.

Now that Indigo was spending almost all her time with him and Dougal, Angus had decided to tell her about his odd visions so he could talk freely on the subject with them both. Indigo had accepted without question the revelation that he might be a storm prophet, for which he was extremely grateful.

“I know Percival Vellum can be a bit annoying sometimes—” she added.

“A bit?” Dougal spluttered, accidentally spraying half the table with rice. “Oops, sorry! But Percival Vellum's the most obnoxious cub on the planet.”

“Even so.” Indigo flicked a soggy grain of rice off her sleeve. “If Angus hadn't pushed him away from that fognado . . .”

“Yeah, but why am I the only one seeing fire dragons?” Angus whispered. “There must be other people at Perilous who can trace their families right back to the original storm prophets too.”

“So?” Dougal looked puzzled.

“So why aren't they all jumping about and saving people from stuff as well?”

Just to add to his worries, Angus discovered a day or so later that a note had been slipped under his bedroom door. It was from Rogwood. Unfortunately this came at the end of a very long afternoon in the experimental division. Angus, Dougal, and Indigo had been cleaning out a pile of blocked storm bellows and had just spent several hours up to their elbows in stinking, slimy grease. He sat on his bed, pulled off his socks—which now smelled exactly like the blocked storm bellows—and quickly read the note.

 

Dear Angus,

I realize you must be busy with your trainee duties, now that the excitements of the fog field trip are over, but I require a brief meeting with you in my office, five o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

Please wait in the Octagon, where I will come to collect you. Do not enter the Lightnarium on your own.

Yours sincerely,

A. Rogwood

 

Angus folded the note with a frown and shoved it under the spare storm globe at the bottom of his sock drawer. He'd been expecting this. News of the fognado had spread through the stone tunnels and passageways of Perilous like an outbreak of crumble fungus. Gudgeon and Miss DeWinkle had also witnessed the incident. He was certain, therefore, that Rogwood would have heard every exciting detail. But would Rogwood have guessed at the appearance of yet another fire dragon? Was he now going to tell Angus more about the storm prophets?

Angus didn't have to wait long to find out. At ten past five the following day, he was escorted once again through the Lightnarium by the bearded lightning catcher. It was the first time he'd set foot inside the cavernous room since the incident with the ball lightning, and he was very relieved to find that this time there were no dark rumbles of thunder or violent flashes of lightning overhead. As they entered Rogwood's office, however, he discovered something much more unsettling. Principal Dark-Angel, Valentine Vellum, and Felix Gudgeon were all waiting for him with extremely serious expressions on their faces. He gulped nervously as Rogwood closed the door behind him.

“Ah, Angus, how nice to see you again.” Principal Dark-Angel smiled rather thinly. “Please take a seat and tell me how you are finding your stay at Perilous?”

“Er,” said Angus, feeling confused. “It's very interesting, thank you.”

“Good, good, I am pleased to hear it. I trust Catcher Sparks and Miss DeWinkle are keeping you busy?”

Angus didn't answer. Instead he chanced a swift glance over his shoulder at Valentine Vellum, and instantly wished he hadn't. The lightning catcher was scowling at him, a muscle twitching on his low, gorilla-like forehead.

“Angus, I have asked you here this afternoon to discuss the strange visions you have been experiencing lately,” said Principal Dark-Angel, catching him off guard. “Rogwood has explained to me about the incident in the Lightnarium with the ball lightning, and considering your recent actions on the fog field trip, he believes you must have had another . . . episode out on the Imbur marshes.”

Angus swallowed hard. It had been bad enough talking about imaginary dragons in front of Rogwood, but with Catcher Vellum in the room? If Percival or Pixie ever found out about this, they'd have him laughed out of the Exploratorium.

“As you already know,” the principal continued, “it is Rogwood's opinion that you may possess the abilities of a storm prophet—”

“Forgive me for interrupting, Principal,” Valentine Vellum spat, as if unable to contain himself, “but I fail to see how an eleven-year-old boy could possess any such abilities. Everyone knows it takes a strong mind to visualize the fire dragon, and if you ask my opinion, this boy—”

“But I don't recall anyone did ask for your opinion, Valentine,” barked Gudgeon. “So why don't you keep your big trap shut until somebody asks you to speak?”

“Yes, thank you, Felix,” Principal Dark-Angel snapped, scowling at both of them. “But Valentine is quite correct. It is precisely those abilities that we are here today to test.”

“T-test?” asked Angus, not liking the way the conversation was going.

“Catcher Vellum has kindly agreed to carry out a number of experiments with you in the Lightnarium, Angus,” Principal Dark-Angel explained. “They are designed to test any abilities you may possess as a storm prophet, and to help us decide what is to be done about them.”

“But . . . why does anything have to be done about them?” asked Angus, shifting nervously in his seat. “What sorts of tests, anyway?”

“They will involve the use of a low voltage lightning bolt, but it's nothing to be alarmed about, I can assure you,” said Principal Dark-Angel quickly. “Catcher Vellum will be extremely careful, and we will have Doctor Fleagal standing by, of course.”

Angus glanced swiftly over his other shoulder; he hadn't even noticed the doctor standing there in the shadows. For the first time, he also saw a table in the far corner of the room, where a number of long-handled instruments (each with a sharp-looking probe attached to the end of it) had been laid out carefully and polished to a high shine. Next to the instruments sat a pile of clean bandages and a bottle of disinfectant. Angus gulped, feeling quite convinced that he'd be much safer smashing a large storm globe over his own head than he would be in the hands of Valentine Vellum.

“No!” he said, turning back to face the lightning catchers. “I don't think I want to do any tests, thank you.”

The mole on Principal Dark-Angel's cheek twitched. She looked at him for a long moment.

“Perhaps I have not explained myself clearly. Storm prophets are gifted with a rare ability, but if that ability is allowed to go unchecked, it may . . . develop in the wrong direction.”

“The wrong direction?” Angus asked, puzzled.

“Angus, I merely wish to help you,” she said. “There is much a storm prophet must understand, much you simply cannot learn for yourself.”

“I'm not letting anyone strike me with lightning . . . er, Principal,” said Angus, folding his arms across his chest. From the corner of his eye, he was sure he could see Gudgeon grinning.

“I'm afraid I did warn you this would be a waste of time, Principal. The boy is obviously afraid,” said Valentine Vellum, a sneer crossing his lips. “These tests call for absolute precision and cannot be performed on a subject who is squirming about in his seat.”

“And you've only decided Angus here needs testing at all since he saved your great dollop of a son from blundering straight into a raging fognado,” growled Gudgeon. “You should be grateful to the boy, Vellum, not plotting to injure him.”

“I've never heard anything so ridiculous,” Vellum spluttered.

“Ridiculous, is it? You've already tried to kill the boy once with that ball lightning of yours!”

“If you are suggesting that I can control the path of a lightning bolt and set it loose on trainees who I do not like—”

“I'm suggesting that you and that lightning of yours are a bad combination.”

“That is enough!” Principal Dark-Angel shouted above them both. “You will conduct your petty personal arguments in your own time and not waste any more of mine. Aramanthus, what do you have to say about all of this?”

Angus had almost forgotten that Rogwood was even in the room. He had remained silent throughout the conversation so far, but all eyes turned to him now as he stroked his long, toffee-colored beard thoughtfully.