The Lightning Catcher by Anne Cameron

yet.”
    â€œBreakfast?” Dougal spluttered as they moved off again, at a much quicker pace. “They’ve sent us in here with a yeti that hasn’t had its breakfast yet?”
    â€œWhat is a fog yeti?” Angus asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.
    â€œIt looks a lot like Dewsnap.” Percival Vellum snickered. “Only without the stupid specs.”
    â€œYou’re so hilarious, Vellum. I’m splitting my sides with laughter.” Dougal frowned as the twins pushed roughly past.
    The fog continued to grow thicker and thicker, swirling around them until eventually Angus could hardly see his own hand in front of his face.
    â€œSo what happened about the lightning vaults, anyway?” he asked the dense patch of fog beside him, which he was fairly certain was still occupied by Dougal.
    â€œOh . . . yeah, well, my dad wasn’t allowed to put any of the stuff Principal Dark-Angel told him in his book.”
    â€œCan we go and look at them?” asked Angus eagerly.
    â€œThat’s just the thing,” Dougal said. “They’ve been lost for so many years now that nobody knows where they are. My dad thinks they were never real in the first place, though. He says they’re probably just another Perilous myth, like the Forgotten Book of Grudge-Bearing Blizzards. ”
    Dougal’s voice was suddenly drowned out by another bloodcurdling growl that seemed to fill the entire tunnel. This one sounded much closer than the last. The fog parted for a second, and Angus caught a brief glimpse of an apelike creature stalking along behind them. It was vast, hairy, and unmistakably yeti shaped. Angus and Dougal both broke into a sprint as the end of the tunnel came into view up ahead of them.
    In the next section of the tunnel, they were plunged into a frozen wasteland of deep snow, slippery ice, and forbidding rocks. Angus, who was still drenched from their experience in the rain forest and who had already been chilled to the bone by the dense fog, could now feel his toes freezing inside his boots as flurries of thick white snow swirled around them.
    Nobody spoke much in the freezing tunnel. Angus kept his head down against the wild wind, half expecting to stumble across a hungry polar bear at any minute. Thankfully, the only wildlife he encountered was a small colony of blue penguins, who were all huddled together behind a large igloo. He was forced to dive sideways suddenly as a team of husky dogs came hurtling out of nowhere, pulling a large sleigh piled high with cold-looking lightning catchers dressed in yellow coats.
    â€œWhere did they come from?” he gasped, brushing himself off as the sleigh disappeared into the snow once again.
    â€œThat’s one of the polar expedition teams,” Catcher Mint explained, helping several other trainees onto their feet. “They come in here to acclimatize for a week or two before setting off to study glacial rainbows and ice storms, among other things. Lightning cubs do not start dogsled training until their sixth year. You will, however, learn a great deal about snow. For example, snow is formed in the lowest part of the earth’s atmosphere, called the troposphere, where up to two hundred ice crystals gather around a single speck of dirt, eventually creating a snowflake. But don’t be fooled by snowball fights and snowmen,” he warned. “A snowstorm is one of the most hazardous conditions you will ever work in as fully qualified lightning catchers. There will be avalanches to deal with, invisible snow holes, giant twelve-sided snowflakes. . . .”
    Angus glanced warily above his head, imagining a snowflake the size of a mattress falling from the skies.
    â€œIf you ever get caught out in a sudden blizzard, you will find an emergency pair of inflatable snowshoes rolled up and tucked under the cuff of your rubber boots,” Catcher Mint continued. “The shoes inflate