The Tornado Chasers

by Ross Montgomery

  Orlaith put her head in her hands and quietly counted to ten.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Let’s just stick to the facts: if we get caught, then we’re going straight to County.’ She looked at us gravely. ‘And I doubt anyone here wants that to happen.’

  We took a moment to think about it. I might not have heard much about the Warden, but I certainly didn’t want to find out any more.

  ‘So,’ said Orlaith, turning back to the bed sheet, ‘we’ll need to be fast. We need something to get us in and out the village as quickly as possible.’

  Callum shrugged. ‘Bikes?’

  Orlaith rolled her eyes. ‘We can’t just cycle past my dad, Callum.’

  ‘We could if we made them less easy to see,’ I piped up. ‘You know, like …’ I fumbled for the right word. ‘… Stealth bikes.’

  Everyone muttered in agreement.

  ‘God, that sounds cool,’ said Callum.

  ‘Yeah!’ said Ceri excitedly. ‘We could paint them black, so they couldn’t be seen in the dark! The helmet, the handlebars, the wheels … everything.’

  Orlaith thought about it for a moment.

  ‘You know, that could work,’ she said. ‘I could adapt all your bikes to make them lighter, and faster as well. Put silencers on the wheels, maybe …’

  ‘Er,’ said Callum. ‘Aren’t we all forgetting something?’

  We looked at him. Callum shifted uncomfortably on his seat.

  ‘Well … er …’ He rubbed at his neck awkwardly. ‘There are certain members of the gang who might not be able to, you know … use a bicycle.’ He paused. ‘Because of their legs.’

  We all turned to look at Ceri. She looked back at us blankly.

  ‘Hmm? What?’ she said.

  ‘Er … Ceri,’ I said carefully. ‘Can you use a bike? With your braces?’

  Ceri rolled her eyes. ‘What do you think? Of course I can’t!’

  She turned back to the others.

  ‘But aren’t we missing something here? I mean – what’s the whole point of us doing this? To get a photo. And I’m the best person to do that, aren’t I? I’m a photographer! But unless there’s someone else riding my bike for me, I’m not going to be able to get a shot – and I’m not going to get off the bike and stand next to a flipping tornado, am I …?’

  ‘Ahem.’

  We turned round. Pete had put his hand up, like we were still in school. He looked at us timidly. There was a long pause.

  ‘You can talk, Pete,’ Orlaith muttered.

  Pete put his hand down. ‘My nan’s got a special bike. It’s got a sidecar – like an old motorbike from black-and-white films.’

  ‘Pete lives with his nan,’ Orlaith explained.

  Pete nodded shyly. ‘It’s old, but it still works. My nan would never even notice it’s gone. Ceri could sit in it and take photos while I pedal her.’

  Orlaith nodded. ‘Well then, that’s settled. Ceri can share Pete’s bike.’ She turned to face us. ‘Bring them all to the next meeting – back here, same time tomorrow. We can’t afford to lose any time – I mean, who knows how long we have left before the tornado lands …’

  As if on cue, another groan of wind picked up outside, rattling the metal roof. We looked at each other nervously.

  ‘It’s coming fast, isn’t it?’ I said nervously.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ceri with a sigh. ‘I hope Flossie’s alright.’

  I frowned. We all turned to look at her.

  ‘What do you mean, you hope Flossie’s alright?’ said Orlaith.

  Ceri looked at her blankly. ‘I mean, I hope she doesn’t get blown away or anything. Outside. On the steps.’

  She jerked a thumb at the door. We stared back at her in horror. Ceri blinked.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘I had to bring her with me, didn’t I? She’s my Home-Time Partner! Don’t worry, she doesn’t need a fun bun or anything. I gave her a bag of crisps.’

  We all leapt up.

  ‘You just left her standing outside?’ Callum cried.

  Ceri looked confused. ‘You … you said it was a top-secret meeting.’

  ‘Are you thick?’ said Callum. ‘It’s Weekend Curfew! If anyone sees her standing out there … that’s it! We’re finished!’

  Orlaith had already started ripping down the bed sheet.

  ‘Hide the plans!’ she cried. ‘Owen, quick – run outside and grab Flossie before it’s too late! Good grief, she could be halfway across the village by now …!’

  I stood up. ‘Let’s not panic. Ceri made a mistake – Flossie’s going to be fine. No one’s going to be outside today with weather like this anyway.’

  I unbolted the door and swung it open.

  ‘She’ll probably just be standing in the garden, where no one can …’

  I turned round, and screamed. Flossie’s spit-covered face was hovering barely inches away from my nose. I startled backwards. The others looked up at the door, and gasped.

  The shelter was filled with a chilling blast of a valley wind. Slowly, and with great pleasure, Miss Pewlish stepped inside. She gripped Flossie in her hands like a priceless treasure, a hideous grin stretched across her face from ear to ear.

  ‘Well well well,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Look what I found.’

  10

  A Storm Approaches

  Miss Pewlish looked at each of us with a gloating eye. No one said anything. She placed Flossie on the floor.

  ‘Looking for this?’ she said. ‘I found her wandering outside, eating some flowers. Not that I normally give up my weekends to hide in bushes following the Dewbridge girls, but I thought on this particular weekend I’d make an exception.’ She grinned. ‘Just in case I found you lot doing, oh I don’t know … anything you shouldn’t.’

  Callum suddenly leapt forwards.

  ‘Why, there she is!’ he said with relief. ‘Flossie, you little scamp! We’ve been looking for her everywhere, haven’t we guys?’ He grabbed Flossie and started strolling out the door. ‘Thanks for your help, Victoria. We’ll go back to the house now and …’

  ‘SILENCE!’

  Miss Pewlish slammed her fists onto the table, her cheeks quivering. Callum flew back. She stared at him with glee.

  ‘Not this time, Brenner!’ she hissed. ‘Not this time! I’m finally getting rid of you for good. You and all your smart-alec friends!’ She turned to Ceri. ‘Five children playing unsupervised in a storm shelter during Weekend Curfew, with one Home-Time Partner left outside by herself … how many Storm Laws do you think that breaks, Miss Smarty Pants?’

  Ceri gulped. ‘Loads, probably.’

  Miss Pewlish grinned. ‘Correct! Enough to get every single one of you a personal meeting with the Warden, that’s how many!’

  We looked at each other. There was no doubt what was going to happen now. The truth would come out, one way or another. They would find out what we were planning to do. It was all over. Miss Pewlish cackled manically.

  ‘Thought you could get one past “mad old Victoria Pewlish”, did you?’ she seethed. ‘Because she’s just a big joke to everyone? Because no one understands her? Because her pioneering vision of a valley-wide child-safety system is “unstable”? Ha! Well then, who’s “unstable” now?’

  We glanced at each other. None of us had the faintest idea what Miss Pewlish was talking about. It sounded like she was going mad.

  ‘Well, you can’t argue your way out of this one!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re going down! You’d need a flipping miracle to …’

  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  The sound filled the shelter as if from nowhere, high and piercing and distant. Miss Pewlish looked around frantically.

  ‘What is that?’ she snapped. ‘What’s going on?’

  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  The sound rang on, humming through the air and beating off the metal walls. We winced. It seemed almost to wind through the air and burrow int
o our ears.

  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  Miss Pewlish suddenly looked up, as if stung. Her face slowly drained of colour.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said quietly. ‘Not now.’

  Orlaith suddenly bolted out the door, and without a word we followed her, across Callum’s garden and out into the street. All around us, trees arched and groaned in the breeze, their summer branches trembling and clawing at each other, as if they knew what was coming over the hills.

  Across the horizon, each and every stormtrap circling the valley top around Barrow had switched on. Their red bulbs flickered across the hills like bloodspots. The sound of a thousand wailing stormtraps slowly reached us, and grew into a single high-pitched cry that blanketed the village beneath the dark clouds. We looked at each other.

  ‘That siren,’ said Orlaith. ‘It means … it means …’

  There was a sudden screech of tyres, and we swung round. Officer Reade’s car had stopped diagonally across the pavement behind us, the doors open, the engine still running. He leapt out the car and raced towards us.

  ‘Get inside!’ he barked. ‘All of you, right now!’

  Orlaith blinked in disbelief. ‘Dad, what …’

  ‘The tornado’s coming!’

  The people of Barrow had been rehearsing for this day for ten years. They were running out of their houses around us and hammering boards over the windows, dragging their children screaming down the street. Bags of shopping were dropped and abandoned on the pavement, shattering jars of tomato sauce across the asphalt. The air was thick with the sound of sirens, and the wind, and people shouting, names called, car horns being held down in the distance.

  Miss Pewlish suddenly caught up with us, and jumped in front of Orlaith’s dad.

  ‘Not so fast!’ she cried victoriously. She pointed an accusing finger at us. ‘Officer Reade, your timing is perfect. I just found these six children breaking curfew in the most irresponsible and …’

  ‘Not now, Victoria,’ Officer, Reade said impatiently. ‘These children need to get home immediately – the tornado’s going to be the other side of that hill by tomorrow night!’

  Miss Pewlish’s face fell. ‘But … they’ve broken the Storm Laws! They need to be …’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ Officer Reade growled. ‘And if you try to stop them again, Victoria, I’ll arrest you myself!’

  Officer Reade spun on his heels and made to walk away. He stopped. Orlaith had reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

  ‘Dad,’ she said quietly. ‘Are we … are we going to be OK?’

  Officer Reade glanced down at her for a moment, then turned round.

  ‘Not now, Orlaith,’ he muttered.

  With that he marched back to his car and sped off down the street. Orlaith stood on the spot, watching him disappear down the road.

  Miss Pewlish was still stuck in the position Officer Reade had left her, her mouth opening and closing helplessly. She turned to us as if to say something, but was silenced by a sudden bellow of wind over the hills. Her eyes darted to the sky nervously. She hopped from one foot to the other, then without warning she suddenly bolted down the road, furiously shaking a fist over her shoulder.

  ‘This isn’t over!’ she cried. ‘I’ll get you children if it’s the last thing I do! The second the tornado’s gone – you’re finished!’

  We watched as she disappeared into the hedges, and then there was nothing but us and the wind. The street around us had emptied in seconds. All the curtains had been pulled shut, and all the doors were stormboarded. We looked at each other. Everyone looked shocked. Things had suddenly become very real, very quickly.

  ‘Are we … still going ahead with it?’ I said.

  Callum immediately thrust his hand out between us.

  ‘Course we are!’ he said. ‘I’m not frightened of a stupid storm. Everyone else is still in … right?’

  He was trying to look away, but he couldn’t hide the fact that the hand he held out was trembling. The rest of us quickly put our hands in, not wanting to be seen as the last. There was only one person who didn’t.

  We turned to her. She was stood facing away, in the direction her father’s car had gone.

  ‘Orlaith?’ I said. ‘Are you …’

  ‘Oh, of course I’m going,’ she snapped irritably, batting our hands away. ‘Do you mind? I’m trying to think here! The tornado’s going to be beside the valley tomorrow night. We have to get everything prepared – and fast.’

  She turned to Ceri. ‘You – get your camera equipment ready. Bring it to the shelter tomorrow. Pete – get your bike and drop it off outside my workshop. Callum’s too, while you’re at it.’

  Orlaith turned to me.

  ‘Owen – we need bear repellent. Do you have any?’

  I nodded feverishly. ‘Loads.’

  Orlaith smiled. ‘Good. We’ll need as much as we can carry, or we’ll be goners out there.’ She turned to Callum. ‘Go with Owen and get his bike for him.’

  Orlaith exhaled, her eyes dancing brightly.

  ‘We all meet back at the shelter tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘Six o’clock, when the lights go out. I’ll have your bikes ready by then.’

  Ceri shuffled nervously. ‘And if we … don’t make it?’

  ‘Then you don’t come,’ said Callum firmly. ‘No exceptions. If anyone wusses out, we go without them.’ He flashed us an accusatory look. ‘Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ we said together.

  The streetlights suddenly slammed on around us. We glanced up in shock. Without any of us realising it, the sky above us had filled with black clouds.

  11

  My New Bedroom

  My house didn’t look like my house any more. The windows and the door were already covered by rollcages of metal wire, stapled across the front like a mask.

  There was no sign of Mum or Dad anywhere. The garage door hung open, and a single light bulb swung inside. My bike stood leant against the wall, rattling in the wind.

  ‘There’s my bike,’ I said, pointing it out to Callum. ‘I’ll start bringing the boxes of repellent down to the shelter – my parents could be home any second.’

  I walked over to the garage door and silently opened it.

  ‘Really?’ said Callum behind me. ‘Shouldn’t you … come with me?’

  I stopped, and turned round. Callum stared at me. In the swinging light, he suddenly looked very alone.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I have to get the boxes.’

  Callum nodded. ‘Yeah, well – do it quickly, alright?’

  He grabbed the bike, and raced out from the garage and into the street.

  The house inside was still, and silent, and dark. Nothing but the moaning of the sirens outside and the wind on the windows.

  ‘Mum?’ I called out. ‘Dad?’

  Silence. There wasn’t a moment to lose. I ran into the kitchen, throwing open the laundry cupboard. The boxes of repellent were stacked up in the back – enough for my parents to never notice a few missing …

  ‘Looking for something?’

  I startled, and swung round. Mum and Dad stood in the unlit kitchen behind me. I could just make out their faces, stony and calm and somehow unreadable in the dark. I shook the twitch out of my neck.

  ‘M-mum!’ I said. ‘Dad! Er … no, I wasn’t looking for anything at all …’

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Mum.

  Her voice was calm, but with a note of panic hidden inside it. She stepped towards me, her arms crossed. I swallowed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘I’ve been at Ceri’s. I just got ba—’

  ‘We’ve just come from the Dewbridges’,’ said Mum. ‘They said you were never there in the first place. They said she spent the day at her friend Pete’s.’

  My stomach dropped. I looked at my parents. I still couldn’t see what their faces were doing in the darkness. I suddenly began to feel very uneasy.

  ‘I can explai
n,’ I said, stepping forwards. ‘You see …’

  ‘Don’t lie to us, Owen!’ said Dad, his voice suddenly high-pitched. ‘We know where you were today!’

  My heart froze. ‘You … you do?’

  Dad held a trembling hand to his face. ‘You were … you were …’ He could hardly bring himself to say it. ‘You were climbing trees again, weren’t you? Admit it!’

  ‘After everything we’ve said!’ Mum cried.

  The two of them stared at me in the darkness of the kitchen. I looked between them, my heart beating. Outside, the wind whined.

  ‘You’re … you’re right,’ I said, shaking my head regretfully. ‘I admit it. I was climbing trees. I’m so sorry, Mum and Dad. I’ll never do it again, I swe—’

  Before I knew it, the two of them had leapt forwards and grabbed my arms and legs, lifting me up into the air. I stared at them in horror.

  ‘Wait … what are you doing?’ I gasped.

  ‘Quick!’ Dad wailed desperately. ‘Before he tries to climb any more trees!’

  Together they hauled me out of the kitchen and started dragging me up the stairs. I thrashed hopelessly in their grip.

  ‘Stop!’ I cried, kicking and heaving. ‘Where are you taking me? Stop!’

  They flew through my bedroom door and slung me onto the bed. I sat up in disbelief. The bed was surrounded by sandbags and chicken wire. The carpet on the floor had disappeared. So too had the posters, the toys – everything. The windows were boarded up. It was the same miserable bedroom where the next day I would spend my 11th birthday, writing under the bed.

  I swung round to face my parents. They stood in the doorway, their eyes wide and mad.

  ‘W-what have you done to my bedroom?’ I cried.

  ‘We’ve made it safe, Owen!’ said Dad, wringing his hands. ‘There’ll be nothing that can hurt you now!’

  ‘There’s no chance of you climbing any trees now – not in here!’ said Mum.

  My stomach dropped. I had never seen either of them look so frightened before. I suddenly understood what Callum was talking about – my parents had gone completely insane. I leapt towards the shutters and tugged at the handles. They rattled hopelessly in my hands.