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Back The Lightning Catcher Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
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  45. Acknowledgements

(See, that’s clever. Keeping Sam in full science mode brings excellent results. That first biology lesson when we became mates, he told me there’s a certain spider that drinks with its bum. It sucks rocks to get liquid out. With its bum. See? How could you know stuff like that and not make money? How could you keep it all in? Sometimes I think Sam’s like a sponge. You squeeze him, and little facts dribble out. Time to get squeezing.)

Me: Weird how it was still changing the weather from inside that box
Sam: Maybe it was uncomfortable. Thrashing about. Spewing out some kind of interference. Electrical things do that
Me: We need a name for it. How about Electro-Dude?
Sam: Terrible
Me: Current Kid
Sam: Awful!
Me: Wired-o
Me: Flashy
Me: Electron Ron
Me: Lightning Rod … Sparky
Sam: Whizzy

I smiled. Excellent!

14

The Wasteland

Midnight

Mum went to bed ages ago. Can’t settle.

I’m getting up.

12.45 a.m.

Unreal.

Got up, but instead of going downstairs I looked out of the window, otherwise none of it would have happened.

The glass was wet – it must have just finished raining. Everything was shiny. I leaned my forehead against the window to feel its coolness – and saw a movement.

In the wasteland opposite our house, a glowing glimmer of light pulsed. We call it the wasteland, but really, it’s going to be another house. It’s a building plot, and the owners dug out the foundations, then left it to grow weeds and brambles. You couldn’t build anything on it now without starting again. Dad says they ran out of money. So what was that glimmer? It shouldn’t be there, so – could it be Whizzy?

Silently, on a huge breath, I got dressed, crept downstairs and let myself out of the house. I went out the back way: the kitchen door unlocks smoothly and opens with a silent handle, but it was still risky. Until not very long ago, Mum used to check Lily’s room at intervals all through the night, like she was a baby. She could wake at the slightest noise.

The air outside felt perfect: cool but not cold. Mum’s window reflected a three-quarter moon, but there were no stars showing. Our garden was mostly black shapes. Couldn’t see what lurked there and hadn’t brought a torch. Everything was so still. Too still. My heart beat so fast. Did I really dare?

Across the road, I swear the wasteland had got thicker and blacker and more wasted. The colossal weed-mountain felt far too close. I climbed it months ago when it was just an abandoned soil heap. Now it’s covered in tall, spiky weed-flowers, and they quivered like a wind I couldn’t feel was tickling them all over.