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Back The Lightning Catcher Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
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  2. 2
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  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  20. 20
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  25. 25
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
  34. 34
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  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. Acknowledgements

After lunch – where the cutlery was almost too hot to use – the humming got worse. It was in the ceiling as well as the walls. It thrummed through everything that had any kind of electrical wiring, and it got inside your head.

Even Lenny looked fed up with it. His feet were tapping with irritation.

‘It can be awful as well as awesome when she’s around,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know which way this will go.’

41

Splinters

NEW JOURNAL

17th September

Today, the humming got SO BAD.

In Science, Olly just lost it. I mean, he went completely off his head – fingers in ears, head shaking, growling like a lion and kicking everything away from him brutally – chairs, people, books. Miss Hughes couldn’t get close enough to control him.

‘Right!’ she yelled. ‘Everyone outside IMMEDIATELY! This is now a games lesson and I’m going to get Mr Badami to take over.’ She hustled us out of the door with one hand and pressed the other one flat against her forehead, like she needed to hold her brains in.

It was warm outside. Before Mr Badami even got there I’d dodged a dirty tackle – in an impossible move – without getting hurt, and scored an amazing goal. The wind started making a whoo noise like it does through doors and window cracks inside – but we were outside. That’s when I knew for sure that Whizzy was really close now.

Suddenly, it was absolutely freezing. The puddles on the Astroturf turned to black ice and the other kids started smashing it to pieces. Ice sat glittering like broken glass everywhere. Boys’ faces were full of wow.

More staff came outside and mostly stood there blinking in total astonishment, but I saw Miss Jukes grinning. There must have been hundreds of sharp pieces everywhere, but nobody even tried to clear it away, because there was more ice spreading across the ground right in front of everyone’s eyes.

‘Yeah, it’s me – I’m doing ALL of this!’ Olly screeched at Mr Horvat. ‘I’m superhuman, me!’

The boys carried on trying to smash the ice, jumping and shrieking like mad demons, but every time they broke into the water beneath, the splashes they made froze in mid-air.

‘To me!’ Lenny yelled, and I looked down at the football by my feet – I’d forgotten it was there. I passed it to him and he tried for a goal, but it bounced off the post back to me, and I lobbed it straight through the back of the net, leaving a magnificent, barbarous hole! My excitement felt like a wave I could surf on. Every gasp of breath took me higher – I was almost flying.