The Storm Tower Thief

by Anne Cameron

  “What’s come over those two?” Dougal stared as they encountered the twins for the third time in one day without drawing a single snide remark. “They’ve never been this quiet before.”

  Angus couldn’t shake off the uncomfortable feeling that the Vellum twins were plotting something big. Percival had been building up to it for months now, dropping hints, making sarcastic comments, all with an unbearable air of smugness.

  Angus returned to his bedroom early one evening, still brooding on the subject, only to find it bursting at the seams with lightning cubs. Brightly colored party balloons bobbed about on the ceiling; chips, hot dogs, and cupcakes had been thrown onto plates and scattered around the room.

  “Spur-of-the-moment party!” Germ exclaimed, waving at him from the center of the happy throng. “The last of the frost shock victims has finally been released from the sanatorium. Thought it was a good excuse to celebrate!”

  Angus elbowed his way into the room until he found Dougal perched on his bed.

  “There was nothing I could do to stop him!” Dougal yelled.

  At that precise moment there was a loud cheer as Germ grabbed one of the balloons, drew an ugly face with a thick black beard and eyebrows—clearly supposed to be Valentine Vellum—and popped it.

  To his great surprise, Angus found the party mood was infectious. Nicholas Grubb and his friends challenged Germ to a cupcake-eating competition, which showered the floor in a carpet of crumbs. Theodore Twill found an ancient record player and put on some music by a popular Imbur Island band called the Typhoon Trappers, which attracted several third- and fourth-year girls from the far end of the corridor. Indigo slipped quietly through the door from the Pigsty twenty minutes later, just in time to join in a noisy game of balloon basketball. It was only after Juliana Jessop told them some spooky Perilous ghost stories, with bloodcurdling sound effects provided by Germ, that an angry Catcher Mint finally appeared and ordered them back to their own rooms.

  They returned to the Rotundra for their next cold-weather survival lesson a few nights later. For once, the early evening skies had cleared to a deep satin black, and a broad sweep of twinkling stars was clearly visible through the glass roof overhead. On the far side, the formidable-looking icebergs on the cold-weather training course stood glimmering in the moonlight. No one was attempting to cross it in the dark.

  Angus felt his stomach lurch when he saw Jeremius striding toward them through the snow. He still had no idea what to think about his uncle’s dubious Dankhart connections.

  “This evening we will be continuing our work with shelters,” Jeremius announced as they stood shivering in the snow. “If you lose your emergency weather shelter or it gets ripped to pieces by an angry storm, you still need to find refuge. So tonight, you will be attempting to construct your very first igloos.” An excited murmur swept around the cubs. Building igloos sounded like much more fun than boiling up survival stews.

  “When built correctly, igloos are warmer, safer, and stronger than any tent. They are often used by lightning catchers when they’re stationed in cold climates. And just to give you an idea of what yours should look like when you’ve finished . . .”

  He led them past the snow dome and the fake snowman that concealed the entrance to it, over a small hill and down the other side, stopping before a range of raised bumps and domes. It took Angus several seconds to realize he was staring straight at an igloo village. It was an impressive sight. Some igloos were large enough to sleep ten lightning cubs. Others had sculpted reindeer guarding their entrances, complete with fearsome icy antlers. A few even had bloodred stained-ice windows, although Angus wasn’t sure he liked those much.

  “Wow!” Indigo said, standing beside him. “I never knew igloos could have turrets and towers.” She pointed to one of the larger constructions in the distance, which looked like a mini medieval castle.

  “These igloos were built by some fifth-year cubs a few days ago,” Jeremius explained. “You will be starting off with a much more basic model.” He stepped to one side so they all could see a plain igloo with no fancy flagpoles or crenulations. “And tonight you will be testing out just how warm and safe it can keep you.”

  “What does he mean?” asked Dougal anxiously.

  “As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, another large party of lightning catchers has just arrived from Sweden,” Jeremius continued.

  It had been impossible not to notice. The lightning catchers had arrived with so much equipment that it had caused total gridlock for hours. And all trainees were now eating their meals at spare tables set up in the drafty entrance hall.

  “They will be leaving tomorrow morning to help fight the icicle storms in Antigua, but in the meantime, they need some proper rest. And as there is already a shortage of beds up in the main Exploratorium, all you lightning cubs will be sleeping in the Rotundra tonight.”

  Shocked gasps and whispers broke out all around.

  “Camping out will allow you to experience real survival conditions. It will test what you’ve learned from your lessons so far.”

  “That’s assuming we make it through the night,” said Dougal.

  “Hope you’ve brought your teddy bear with you, Munchfungus,” Percival Vellum hissed from behind them. “We wouldn’t want you getting scared in the night.”

  Angus folded his arms across his chest, ignoring the sneering twin.

  “You will find full instructions on how to build a basic igloo on page two hundred and thirteen of your survival guides. Felix Gudgeon and Catcher Castleman will be staying with us to help.” Everyone turned to look at the two lightning catchers, who were stamping their cold feet in the snow. “Let me remind you, this is a serious survival exercise. It is not an excuse for pranks and snowball fights. Any lightning cubs caught messing about will find themselves in trouble. You have been warned!” He stared around at them all. “You will be working in teams of two. So find a partner, clear a patch of snow, and let’s get started. Indigo, if you could join Angus and Dougal for the building part of the process? Millicent Nichols will not be joining us tonight.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Angus asked as they hurried over to a pristine patch of unused snow.

  Indigo grinned. “Nothing, really. It’s just that Doctor Fleagal thinks she might be allergic to snow.”

  “You’re kidding!” Dougal said, his eyebrows raised in shock. “But isn’t she already allergic to fog?”

  Indigo nodded. “She breaks out in hives whenever we get near a rainstorm as well.”

  Dougal whistled. “She’s not going to be much use as a lightning catcher if the only type of weather she can handle is dry.” He flicked quickly through his survival guide as they walked. “Page two hundred and thirteen, two hundred and thirteen . . . Yeah, here it is. ‘How to Build an Igloo in Ten Easy Steps.’ It doesn’t look too difficult.”

  Angus glanced at the page, which showed a series of diagrams with a smiling, happy lightning cub knee-deep in snow.

  “According to this, the first thing we’ve got to do is mark out the base of our igloo. It looks like you’ve got to lie on the ground while Indigo draws a circle around you with a stick.”

  “How come I’ve got to lie on the ground?” Angus asked, stretching out reluctantly on the ice-cold surface while Indigo measured around him.

  “Because I’m best at reading out the instructions, and Indigo’s bound to be brilliant at actually building the thing.” Indigo blushed, looking rather pleased all the same. “Right, steps two, three, and four say we’ve got to make igloo bricks out of heaps of snow and build them up in layers around the baseline. Each layer has to be angled inward slightly, so the whole thing meets in an igloo-shaped dome at the top. Otherwise, you just end up with a tower going straight up.”

  It was much harder than it sounded. After fifteen minutes, Angus could no longer feel his fingers or toes, and his gloves were caked in freezing ice. The igloo had already collapsed twice, burying Dougal under great lumps of snow. It was
only on their third attempt, when Indigo took charge of the construction, that it finally started to take some sort of recognizable shape.

  “Is it supposed to have this many holes in it, though?” Angus asked, threading his whole arm through a particularly large gap between two snow bricks.

  Thirty minutes later, they were forced to take cover as the eight o’clock storm raced through the Rotundra, pelting anyone left unprotected with huge hailstones. Jeremius hurried the lightning cubs into one of the larger igloos, which had been decorated with icy snowflake murals.

  “Sorry I haven’t seen you three much in the last few days,” he said, sitting with Angus, Indigo, and Dougal on a long seat carved into the side of the igloo.

  “It’s more like weeks, you mean!” Angus said, calculating quickly.

  “Ah.” Jeremius smiled. “I’m afraid things have been a bit hectic lately with the emergency training course. And then a flock of lightning moths sneaked in through the changing rooms a few days ago and ripped all our tents to shreds.”

  Indigo hid her face inside her hood. Dougal gulped loudly, turning pale. His hand shot protectively into his pocket, and Angus knew that he’d brought Cid, the lightning moth, with him.

  “But if the moths destroyed the tents, where have you been sleeping?” Angus asked, hoping Jeremius wouldn’t notice the guilt burning across his face.

  “I’ve been camping out with the rest of the lightning catchers from the Canadian Exploratorium in some igloos on the far side of the Rotundra. Until all the moths have been caught, it’s the safest place to catch forty winks.”

  As the storm continued to rage outside, Jeremius told them a long story about a famous igloo builder called Mungo Mortisehead, who had once created an impressive three-story snow dwelling—only to discover the following morning that he’d built it on top of a hibernating polar bear.

  “You don’t think they’ve got anything hibernating in here, do you?” Dougal asked as they finally left the shelter. The hailstorm had passed and was now pelting the deserted training course at the far end of the Rotundra.

  The storm had damaged some of the unfinished igloos. Angus led the way back to their own, hoping the walls didn’t have more holes than when they’d left it.

  “According to the survival guide, the next step is to fill in the holes between the bricks with snow,” Dougal said, reading as they walked. “Then we’ve got to smooth off the inside, so water doesn’t drip on our heads in the night, and . . .” He stopped suddenly and gasped. “Oh no! What’s happened to it?”

  Their igloo had been totally destroyed. There was nothing left but a lumpy heap of snow on the ground.

  “It must have been the hailstones!” Indigo rushed over to inspect the devastation.

  Angus, however, had just spotted some extra-large footprints, which definitely hadn’t been there before the hailstorm. Someone had demolished their igloo on purpose.

  “Hey, Munchfungus!”

  Angus swung around.

  Splat!

  A snowball hit him square in the face, stinging painfully. He shook snow out of his hair. Pixie and Percival were doubled up in stitches, pointing and laughing.

  “Shame about your igloo, Munchfungus!” Percival called. “It must have collapsed when Dewsnap looked at it.”

  “It was you two!” Angus raced over to the twins, plowing through the snow, with Dougal and Indigo hard on his heels. “You destroyed our igloo!”

  “You’ll have a hard time proving that, Munchfungus. It’s your word against ours. And your mummy and daddy aren’t here to take your side.”

  “Stop talking about my mum and dad!”

  “Yeah,” Dougal added, standing beside Angus. “Stop pretending you know secret stuff about them!”

  “Who says we’re pretending?” Percival checked over his shoulder. Jeremius was busy helping Georgina Fox with her snow bricks. There was no one else around. “We know exactly why nobody’s seen them at Perilous for months now.”

  “And it’s got nothing to do with them being on some stupid secret assignment for Dark-Angel,” Pixie said, gloating.

  “How . . . How do you know about—”

  “About the fact that both your parents are losers and living in one of Dankhart’s dungeons?” Percival sneered. “I’ve already told you once, me and Pixie hear about everything that goes on around here. Our dad’s one of the most senior lightning catchers. Dark-Angel tells him loads of important stuff!”

  “You’ve got nothing to crow about, Vellum,” Dougal said angrily. “Your dad’s about as popular as stinkweed!”

  “Shut up, Dewsnap. We’ll see who’s popular when the rumors start spreading.”

  “R-rumors?” Angus swallowed hard, feeling sick to his stomach. This was the moment the twins had been waiting for. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, there’s no point telling everyone about your parents and their sad little dungeon. People might actually feel sorry for them,” Percival said. “But just imagine if a rumor started going around that they’d been banished from Perilous for causing a deadly accident on a fog field trip? Or that Dark-Angel had stripped them of their lightning strikes for tampering with invisible fog?”

  Dougal gasped in horror. “Drop dead, Vellum! You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Bad rumors stick like mud. You’d be finished at this Exploratorium, Munchfungus, you and your whole ridiculous family. You’d never be able to show your face on this island again.”

  Angus clenched his fists, but Indigo quickly stepped in front of him, holding him back. “At least no one in Angus’s family has ever been friends with Scabious Dankhart’s chief monsoon mongrel,” she said, her face red with determination.

  A stunned silence fell. Angus and Dougal both stared at Indigo in surprise. Pixie turned to her brother, looking confused. “How—How do they know about—”

  “Shut up, Pix!” Percival snapped at his sister. “They don’t know anything. They’re making it up.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not!” Dougal said. “And we’ve got the evidence to prove it.”

  Angus rummaged through the pockets inside his huge coat, searching for the photo he’d stolen from the Lightnarium supplies room. He held it up, just out of reach, and watched the blood drain from Pixie’s face. Percival’s ears turned purple.

  “I bet there’re loads of people at Perilous who would be dead interested in this photo,” he said, pocketing it again before the twins could make a grab for it. “Your dad was great friends with the creep who invented ice diamond storms, before he scarpered off to join Dankhart.”

  Percival clenched his fists. “You’re a grubby little liar, Munchfungus!”

  “Call me what you want.” Angus shrugged. “But if you tell anyone that my parents have been banished from Perilous, I’ll pin that photo up on the notice board in the kitchens, where everyone else can see it.”

  Percival was now puce with rage. He lunged suddenly toward Angus, growling like a grizzly bear.

  Smash!

  A large chunk of snow hurtled through the air and landed directly on top of Percival’s head. He staggered backward, flabbergasted. Angus spun around to see where the missile had come from. Indigo was already picking up another heap of snow and aiming it at Pixie.

  “You’re dead, Midnight!” Percival threatened. “Nobody chucks snow at the Vellums and—”

  Splat!

  A large, slushy snowball caught Pixie on the back of the neck as she turned and ran for cover, and then a fierce battle broke out.

  For several moments it was impossible to see anything but a blur of snowballs flying in every direction.

  “Sorry!” Dougal yelled, after bombarding Angus by mistake. “Everyone looks the same in their cold-weather gear!” And he raced after Pixie instead.

  Angus ran for cover as a stream of missiles came hurtling in his direction.

  Smash! His hood fell down. His ear was full of freezing slush, throwing him off-balance. “Oof!”

  Percival ba
rreled into him sideways, knocking him over. “You’re a stinking little toad, Munchfungus,” he growled, pinning Angus’s arms and legs to the ground. “I’m going to—”

  Splat!

  A large clod of well-aimed snow hit him full in the face before he could finish. Angus pushed him away and scrambled to his feet. Indigo had come to the rescue again.

  “Thanks!” he said, staring at her with an awed expression. “Where did you learn to throw snowballs like that?”

  “Germ.” Indigo shrugged, beaming. “And Percival Vellum’s got such a big head he makes an easy target.”

  Angus brushed himself off and was already arming himself for the next battle when Jeremius strode briskly into view, his face like thunder.

  “What is going on here?”

  Angus dropped the new snowball he’d been planning to throw at Pixie’s head and tried to look as innocent as possible. Percival scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily.

  “And what has happened to this igloo?”

  “Sir, the Vellums destroyed it on purpose, sir!” Dougal explained hastily. His glasses had been knocked askew. He’d been bombarded with so many snowballs he was now as white as an Imbur ghost. He pointed to the sad heap where their igloo had been standing.

  Looking extremely angry, Jeremius nudged the remains with his boot. “I believe I warned everyone at the beginning of this lesson that pranks and snowball fights would not be tolerated. And yet you two have deliberately disrupted a valuable lesson on igloo building.” He glared at the Vellum twins. “First thing tomorrow morning, I’m sending both of you up to Catcher Sparks to help flush out the storm drains.”

  “But, sir!” Percival Vellum protested.

  “I will also be having a serious word with Valentine about your disgraceful behavior. Now I suggest you finish your igloo before the next storm strikes.”

  Percival hesitated, still glowering with anger. Then he turned on his heel and stomped off, with Pixie stumbling after him.

  “And as for you three . . .”

  Angus held his breath, wondering if he, Dougal, and Indigo were also about to be sent up to Catcher Sparks. But Jeremius reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar object the size of a matchbox.