The Lightning Catcher by Anne Cameron

Author:Anne Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

10

A MIDNIGHT TALE

They spent the rest of a very irritable day shut up in the sanatorium, watching the progress of the fog through tightly closed windows and being told to keep out of the way by an irate Doctor Fleagal—who was treating endless snorkel beetle bites.

Any private conversation was impossible. Angus sat in a corner of the overcrowded sanatorium, focusing hard on a very ugly painting of a portly looking doctor with a rusty stethoscope and a handlebar mustache. He could feel Dougal glance anxiously in his direction every few minutes, but he was careful not to look back—careful not to think or feel anything that could possibly distract him from the horrible truth that had suddenly been laid before him.

His parents were being held captive in one of Dankhart’s dungeons, maybe sitting on a cold stone floor with nothing but the rats to keep them company. They’d been there for weeks now, while he, Angus, had been learning all sorts of useless stuff about invisible fog and storm vacuums and cleaning other people’s rubber boots. Principal Dark-Angel had known all along. And yet she’d looked him straight in the eye when he’d first arrived and told him some fairy story about his parents helping Dankhart with an assignment. But now he knew the truth. . . .

He was also painfully aware of just how little he himself had even thought about his parents in the past few weeks. Why hadn’t he been pestering Principal Dark-Angel for news? Why had he been filling his head with fire dragons and field trips, wasting his time with hailstone helmets and weather tunnels, when his mum and dad had been imprisoned by a lunatic who filled fog with snorkel beetles? He hugged his knees tightly into his chest, hoping that Principal Dark-Angel, Gudgeon, or even Rogwood had planned a dramatic rescue and that both his parents would walk through the doors of Perilous before the week was out.

News reached them midafternoon that the fog was finally beginning to lift. But it wasn’t until dinnertime that evening, when some sort of order had finally been restored and they were allowed to leave the sanatorium, that he and Dougal were able to talk.

“You ought to go straight to Principal Dark-Angel and demand to know what’s going on,” Dougal suggested as soon as they reached the noisy babble of the kitchens and found a deserted table in the corner. “I mean, they’re your parents. You’ve got a right to know if some maniac’s got them locked up in his dungeons.”

Angus had already considered storming up to the principal’s office and demanding that she tell him everything. But he knew exactly what would happen if he did.

“There’s no point. She’s already lied to me once. What’s to stop her from doing it again?” He toyed with a soggy Yorkshire pudding on his plate.

Considering the damage caused by the beetles, it was a miracle they had any dinner at all. And even though they’d had nothing to eat

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