The Lightning Catcher: The Secrets of the Storm Vortex

by Anne Cameron

  “I suppose you three want to know what’s going on over Castle Dankhart,” Gudgeon said, helping Dougal back onto his feet again.

  Angus breathed a sigh of relief. “Nobody’s telling us anything!”

  “Has there been a real explosion?” Indigo asked quickly, edging closer to listen.

  Gudgeon shook his head. “The only thing we know for sure is that the cloud’s becoming more volatile, more dangerous by the day; it’s now sucking in all the weather from around it. And if you don’t do something about the mist that’s creeping up behind you, Dewsnap, it’ll have you in a stranglehold again before you can say deadly seven.”

  “Oh no!” Dougal swung around and waved his arms at the long finger of mist that had been sneaking up on him, dispersing it temporarily.

  “The weather vortex has already swallowed up several nasty electrical storms and some gale-force winds that were blowing around the mountaintops.” Gudgeon continued. “There’s also a fierce-looking storm front heading our way, so if it sucks that up as well, we could be looking at a hurricane vortex.”

  “But isn’t there anything we can do to stop it?” Angus asked.

  Gudgeon shook his head. “Not until we work out what’s driving it. There’s some evidence that this type of vortex might have occurred before.”

  “You mean, like the one that happened over Perilous in 1777?” Angus said without thinking.

  A muscle twitched in Gudgeon’s forehead. “I’ve already told you three, that’s lightning catcher business. What happened in 1777 doesn’t concern you.”

  “So something did happen in 1777?” Dougal said, seizing on the gruff lightning catcher’s words.

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Dewsnap. Stop putting words in my mouth. And stop squirming, Quinn, you’ll only make it ten times worse!” Gudgeon suddenly barked.

  Angus swung around to see Violet desperately trying to escape the clutches of the murderous mist that had grabbed her by the wrists and was now dragging her along the floor. Georgina Fox hurried across to help her. “Right, I reckon that’s enough mist for one day,” Gudgeon added abruptly, checking his weather watch. “You two had better go and find Doctor Fleagal and ask him to come down here. Dewsnap’s not going anywhere until he’s been checked over. That mist can cause some nasty side effects.”

  “But I feel fine!” Dougal protested, looking shocked.

  “I don’t care how you feel, boy, I’m getting the doctor down here, and that’s an end to it.”

  Dougal spent several uncomfortable hours in the sanatorium having his ears, nose, and throat examined by Germ. He returned to the Pigsty, wincing.

  “We’ve got to do something!” Angus said as soon as Dougal had lowered himself into an armchair. “That weather vortex is getting more violent with every explosion. Searching Valentine Vellum’s office for those documents is still our best chance of finding out the truth. We’ve got to figure out if there’s been a real catastrophe at Castle Dankhart!”

  “But how?” Indigo asked, wrapping her sweater sleeve around her hand at the mention of her uncle’s name. “We still haven’t got a clue where it is.”

  “There is one thing we haven’t tried,” Angus said, a new plan suddenly forming in his mind. “We could ask Winnie Wrascal. I mean, she’s always being sent to Vellum’s office to apologize.”

  Dougal stared at him openmouthed. “That’s a brilliant idea! I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner. I bet she knows it like the back of her hand by now.”

  The following morning, however, they hurried into the weather archive only to discover Catcher Wrascal sniffing loudly. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her usual cheery smile had been replaced by a trembling bottom lip.

  “Er, is everything all right, miss?” Angus asked warily.

  “No,” she sobbed, shaking her head. “Catcher Killigrew’s threatening to strip me of my lightning stripes and move me to the k-k-kitchens!”

  “I hope Catcher Killigrew’s only joking about the kitchens,” Dougal mumbled as Catcher Wrascal blew her nose loudly into a pink handkerchief. “Can you imagine what would happen to the food in this place if Winnie Wrascal got her hands on it?”

  “What happened, miss?” Indigo asked kindly, steering her over to a large glass jar that had been rolled onto its side so the catcher could sit down.

  “It’s Catcher Vellum,” Winnie Wrascal sobbed. “I delivered two forecasts to him this week for blizzards in Albania that he didn’t ask for.”

  “But you’re always giving him the wrong forecasts,” Angus pointed out as nicely as possible. Catcher Wrascal, however, hadn’t finished yet.

  “Catcher Killigrew sent me to apologize again,” she said, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “But while I was waiting in his office, I-I accidentally smashed a storm globe that was sitting on his desk. I only picked it up for a quick look!” she wailed. “But it slipped through my fingers, and a horrible lightning s-s-storm appeared.”

  Angus stared at Dougal and Indigo horror-struck.

  “I tried to waft it out through the door before it got too violent,” Catcher Wrascal explained. “And that’s when a bolt of lightning struck Catcher Vellum’s desk! The whole thing went up in flames!”

  “Flames?” Dougal said, alarmed. “You mean, you’ve incinerated Valentine Vellum’s office?”

  Catcher Wrascal nodded, looking utterly wretched. “It was an accident! I only went in to apologize.”

  “Did Catcher Vellum manage to rescue anything from the fire?” Angus asked hopefully.

  Winnie Wrascal shook her head. “Everything was burned to a crisp! Catcher Killigrew says it’ll take months to repair the damage. He says it’s the worst fire at Perilous since a dozen storm vacuums backfired in 1908.”

  For several minutes they tried to console the distraught lightning catcher until she was finally forced to leave the weather archive in search of a fresh supply of tissues.

  “What do we do now?” Angus said as soon as she was out of earshot. “I mean, if Vellum’s office has been destroyed, if any documents from 1777 were in there at the time . . .”

  “Then we’re never going to find out what really happened,” Dougal said, looking resigned.

  Over the next few days an unpleasant smell of smoke drifted through the stone tunnels and passageways of Perilous, and more details emerged about the fire in Valentine Vellum’s office.

  “Edmund Croxley overheard Catcher Sparks telling Miss DeWinkle that the fire melted Vellum’s entire collection of lightning-shaped belt buckles,” Dougal reported in the library late one afternoon. The weather had taken a sudden turn for the wintry, and fresh flakes of snow were beginning to fall on the glass roof above. “Croxley said Vellum’s been stomping about the Exploratorium, yelling at everyone and threatening to have Winnie Wrascal sent to the London office for a disciplinary hearing.”

  “Poor Winnie,” Indigo said, biting her lip.

  “Poor Winnie nothing!” Dougal said. “She’s like a secret deadly weapon. We should send her straight into Castle Dankhart. She’d have the monsoon mongrels fleeing for cover in seconds.”

  Angus couldn’t help smiling.

  “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Dougal said, leaning in closer. “I think there’s been more trouble in the Perilous crypt.”

  “What?” Angus said, startled. “How do you know?”

  “Creepy Crevice got summoned to Dark-Angel’s office yesterday evening, and they had a blazing row, according to Theodore Twill,” Dougal told them both.

  “How does Twill know about the crypt?” Indigo asked.

  “He doesn’t,” Dougal said quickly. “He got sent up to Dark-Angel’s office for starting another water fight, and he overheard Dark-Angel and Crevice shouting at each other. Twill says Dark-Angel was yelling something about a man in a long dark coat and about Catcher Coriolis’s being kicked in the shins and tackled to the ground.”

  Angus stared at Dougal. It could mean only one thing. T
he Perilous crypt had been broken into once again.

  “Then Crevice stormed out of Dark-Angel’s office with Valentine Vellum following close behind. Twill says Crevice isn’t allowed to go anywhere in the Exploratorium now without someone watching him.”

  “Principal Dark-Angel’s made Vellum his guard?” Indigo asked, surprised.

  Angus frowned. “But if those two really are in it together, if Vellum is hiding under that coat, I mean, Dark-Angel might just as well hand Crevice her own keys to the crypt and tell him to help himself to dragon scales whenever he feels like it.”

  “I still don’t understand why Vellum’s so interested in stealing a bunion cure in the first place.” Indigo frowned.

  “That’s easy. Valentine Vellum is a bunion.” Dougal grinned.

  Angus reluctantly returned to his homework after they’d discussed the latest crypt break-in thoroughly. By the time he finally closed his books half an hour later it was already growing dark outside. He was just about to pack away his pencils when Indigo’s hand shot out to stop him.

  “Don’t! Wait!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your bag—it’s shaking!” Indigo warned.

  She edged her chair away warily as Angus’s bag began to hop across the study table with a loud, clunking noise.

  “Something must have crawled inside it,” Indigo said, “or—”

  “It’s my scare-me-not puzzle!” Angus leaped up, suddenly remembering that he’d left the puzzle in his bag.

  He grabbed the strap before the whole bag bounced off the edge of the table. He opened it carefully and rooted around under books, pens, and something sticky that felt like an apple core until his fingers closed around a familiar shape. He dragged the puzzle out of his bag before it could destroy his other possessions.

  Ping!

  Just as he’d feared, the puzzle was now shaking and vibrating.

  Ping!

  “It’s about to self-destruct!” Angus said. There was no time to make a run for it. He looked around desperately for somewhere to throw it instead.

  P-ting! P-ting! P-ting!

  Angus lobbed the puzzle high over the top of the nearest bookshelf, hoping there was no one sitting on the table behind it. He ducked, sticking his fingers in his ears and scrunching his eyes tightly shut.

  Bang!

  Bookshelves swayed dangerously above their heads, causing several volumes about blizzard spotting to fall onto the floor around them. But there was no time to survey the damage. Thunderous footsteps were already closing in on them fast.

  “Quickly!” Indigo dragged Angus and Dougal around the back of the nearest shelf. They crept silently along behind it, peering through small gaps in the books until they spotted the table where the puzzle had exploded. Miss Vulpine arrived on the scene two seconds later with a face that could wither poisonous stinkweed.

  “What on earth is going on here?” she bellowed as two stunned-looking lightning cubs crawled out from under the scorched table where they’d clearly taken shelter.

  “I don’t believe it,” Dougal whispered quietly. “You chucked the puzzle straight onto the Vellums! Excellent throw!”

  Pixie emerged first, looking shocked and dazed. “We were just doing our homework, miss,” she tried to explain.

  “It wasn’t our fault.” Percival scrambled to his feet beside her. “Something landed on our study table.”

  But the librarian had clearly decided they’d been caught red-handed. “Cradget’s self-destructing puzzles have been banned from this library since the great dictionary explosion of 1872! Who is your master lightning catcher? I will be recommending the most severe punishment!”

  “What appears to be the trouble, Miss Vulpine?” Valentine Vellum appeared from the left.

  Dougal nudged Angus in the ribs. “He must have been sitting close by. Maybe he’s using the library now that his office has been Winnie Wrascaled.”

  Indigo stared at Dougal, her eyes suddenly bright. “Then this could be our best chance to search through Valentine Vellum’s stuff!”

  Dougal frowned. “Have you completely lost your marbles? Why on earth would we want to do that?”

  “Because Vellum might have had some of those documents from 1777 with him when Winnie Wrascal set fire to his office. Some of them might have survived,” Indigo whispered.

  Before Angus or Dougal could point out the risks of riffling through Valentine Vellum’s possessions, Indigo turned and began weaving her way in and out of the bookshelves closest to the scene of the explosion. Most of the study tables were occupied by whispering lightning cubs, all of whom had heard the commotion and were now listening to the unfolding argument. There was one private study area, however, enclosed on three sides by towering shelves. A cup of half-drunk tea sat abandoned on the table along with a pair of tinted safety goggles, commonly worn in the Lightnarium.

  “This must be it!” Indigo said, checking that the coast was clear before sneaking in between the shelves.

  A heap of singed documents had been piled up on the table.

  “Vellum must have rescued something from his office after all!” Angus said, feeling his hopes rise. “Quickly, see if any of those files mention explosions or vortices hanging over Perilous.”

  He grabbed a dog-eared copy of the Weathervane. The date on the front was the seventeenth of March 1777. His heart began to thud inside his rib cage. The stiff pages crackled with age as he thumbed swiftly through the magazine.

  “I shall be speaking to Principal Dark-Angel about the totally unacceptable behavior of your children, Catcher Vellum!” Miss Vulpine’s irate voice suddenly rose above the bookshelves and echoed around the library. “They will clear this mess up before leaving my library, and if I ever catch them in here again with anything they’ve purchased from Cradget’s . . .”

  They had only a few moments at best before Valentine Vellum came back and caught them rummaging through his stuff.

  “There’s nothing in this Weathervane.” Angus placed it carefully back where he’d found it.

  “This one’s had some of its pages ripped out, look!” Dougal showed them the jagged tears scattered throughout the magazine. Other long passages had been deliberately blacked out so nobody could read them. “All the Weathervanes are the same,” Dougal said as he finished flicking through the last one on the table. “Anything interesting has been removed or blacked out.”

  “I think I’ve found something!” Indigo said suddenly.

  Angus glanced back over his shoulder, his pulse beginning to race. He could now hear sounds of chairs scraping. They had seconds before Valentine Vellum returned.

  “What does it say? Quickly!”

  “It looks like an accident report . . . from 1777,” Indigo said, urgently turning through the pages. “It talks about some investigations into an incident that occurred after some ‘dangerous experiments caused a weather vortex to appear over Perilous.’”

  “What sort of experiments?” asked Dougal, sounding shocked.

  But there was not time to investigate any further. Footsteps were already heading in their direction.

  Indigo stuffed the report into her bag, and they sneaked back out through the shelves. Angus had heaved his bag onto his shoulder, getting ready to make a quick getaway, when something grabbed him by the collar and yanked him backward.

  “McFangus! I might have guessed.” Valentine Vellum towered over all three of them, his face puce with rage from his encounter with Miss Vulpine. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you and your friends into the Lightnarium as storm bait?”

  13

  INDIGO’S CONFESSION

  “Explain yourselves! Why were you snooping around my papers?” Valentine Vellum demanded, his face now turning a violent shade of purple.

  “We weren’t snooping, sir,” Indigo said quickly. “We were looking for books on storm pickling procedures. We didn’t realize we’d wandered into your office.”

  Catcher Vellum folded h
is arms across his chest. “Are you trying to convince me, Miss Midnight, that while the rest of the library has been listening to exploding puzzles and the remonstrations of Miss Vulpine, you three have been diligently doing your homework?”

  Indigo stood motionless, like a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights. Dougal’s ears turned pink with guilt. Angus stared at the lightning catcher, trying not to blink.

  “Turn out your bag, McFangus!” Vellum instructed suddenly. “We’ll soon see if you’ve been looking for books on pickling storms or stealing valuable papers that do not belong to you.”

  Angus unzipped his bag slowly, hoping there was nothing incriminating inside, like a receipt from Cradget’s proving he’d recently bought a scare-me-not puzzle. He turned it upside down. Pencils, homework books, and apple cores scattered across the library floor. Valentine Vellum bent down to inspect the pile, his lip twitching with obvious disappointment.

  “Empty your bag, Dewsnap.” He stood up and turned on Dougal angrily. “You, too, Miss Midnight, unless you’ve got something to hide.”

  Angus felt his stomach lurch as neatly ordered notes, pencils, and The Dankhart Handbook tumbled out of Indigo’s bag. There was no sign of the document she’d just taken. Indigo’s face remained impassive, giving nothing away. Angus held his breath as Valentine Vellum rummaged through the notes. He stood up a moment later, scowling.

  “Clear up this mess, and don’t let me catch you three snooping around this section of the library again. And as for the rest of you!” He swung around abruptly, startling a small group of curious third years who had gathered to watch the latest commotion. “Return to your own tables, and get on with your homework!” And he disappeared back into his temporary office.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Angus said, quietly scooping up the contents of his bag, “before Vellum changes his mind.”

  They left the library at a sprint and reached the Pigsty a few minutes later. Dougal dropped his bag on the floor, looking drained.

  “That was way too close for comfort! I thought we’d had it. It’s a good job Vellum didn’t make us turn out our pockets as well.” He pulled his last remaining scare-me-not puzzle from a pocket in his pants. “He would have blown a gasket if he’d seen this. Here.” He chucked it across the Pigsty to Angus. “You’d better have a go at cracking it before that one self-destructs, too. I can’t concentrate on anything until they announce the results of the Cradget’s competition.”