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Back The Lightning Catcher Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. Acknowledgements

‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

Dad shook his head. ‘You know we can’t do that.’

I decided to test him. ‘So what do you think about the pylon?’ I asked.

‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Haha, sounds good.’

Just as I suspected: he wasn’t listening at all.

‘Is Lily getting out of the house much?’ Dad asked.

Lily dived on to the sofa from nowhere. ‘Dad, are you serious? Don’t pick on me and my stuff all the time,’ she said. ‘Did you hear any of what he just said? He told you a bunch of crazy lies about weird old men saving him from electrical octopus tentacles to cover up some bad thing he’s done, and you didn’t even notice!’ She was definitely not meant to hear all that stuff. At least she thought I was lying. She pointed to me. ‘Alfie does stuff and gets away with it the whole time.’

‘I do not.’

‘OK, that’s enough,’ Dad said. ‘Lily, sit down with me. Talk to me.’

She’s still having her turn now. In fact, she’s talking to Dad but not concentrating on him properly, because she keeps looking at me strangely. I definitely should have been more careful.

19

Moonlight

30th July, 2.30 a.m.

Woke at 2 a.m. – couldn’t get back to sleep. Came back from the loo and saw a light under Lily’s door. An abnormal light, like part of the moon had got into her room. Her door wasn’t completely closed, so I slid inside and saw one of the most unforgettable sights of this whole adventure so far: Whizzy floating. Whizzy rippling in slow, graceful oblong shapes right above Lily’s bed as she slept.

It was beautiful. Whizzy was the colour of moonlight and as gentle as a rainbow.

Whizzy wasn’t as big as she can get, either. She was the same size as the length of Lily’s bed. This was a different, careful Whizzy. Doing Lily good, almost nursing her – that’s what it looked like. Maybe Whizzy’s trying to make up for almost hurting her after the concert. Or maybe Whizzy just knows when people need mending.

But still, it was scary. She can be very dangerous, Mr Clemm said. How could I know what was really happening?

I wondered how a photo might come out. Something to show Sam. Moving more slowly and carefully than ever in my life, I crept back to my bedroom for my phone, zoomed the camera in on Whizzy, clicked … and she vanished.

The photo didn’t catch her. There’s just Lily’s bedroom wall.

9.30 a.m.