The Tornado Chasers (4 page)

[TORNADO smashes the sign, accompanied by another terrifying crash of cymbals.]

[From the darkness at the back of the stage, a single BEAR steps forwards into the light.]

BEAR: Roooooooooar.

[BEAR suddenly grabs FOLLY VILLAGER 1 and lifts him straight off the ground, holding him above his head as if he was as light as a pillow. Everyone screams.]

[BEAR drops FOLLY VILLAGER 1 and scurries offstage. FOLLY VILLAGERS follow him from a distance, pointing and whispering.]

[A child walks onstage, dressed as a MAN. The whole
room falls silent. The MAN wears a black suit, and has a shaved head, and wears black glasses that hide his eyes completely. He stands in the centre of the stage and does not move. The lights dim and dim, until all you can see is the MAN and nothing else, except the nametag that is clipped to his chest. It reads: THE WARDEN.]

The bell rang. Without another word everyone tore off their costumes and started racing out the doors. Ceri tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Thanks for the interview, Owen,’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘See you tomorrow!’

She marched off across the hall. Orlaith glanced up from behind the table.

‘Er … aren’t you forgetting something, Ceri?’

Ceri turned round. ‘Hmm? What?’

Orlaith sighed, and pointed to the corner. There, on a stool, sat a small girl eating a pencil case. She looked like a miniature version of Ceri, with white-blonde hair poking out beneath a woolly hat. Ceri rolled her eyes.

‘
Flossie!
’ said Ceri. ‘There you are! Come on – it’s home time.’

Ceri grabbed the little girl’s hand and dragged her out
the exit. I turned round to say goodbye to Orlaith, but once again she had already disappeared. In her place stood Callum, glaring down at me. I startled helplessly.

‘Ready?’ he muttered gruffly.

I nodded, shivering the twitch out of my arms. Callum looked me up and down, and smirked.

‘Better get you home quick,’ he said. ‘Don’t want you to faint again, do we?’

He chuckled, and strode out the door. I watched him go, my blood boiling, but I swallowed my anger carefully. No matter what Callum said, I couldn’t let anything go wrong on the walk home today. If he attacked me and I was late for curfew for the second day in a row, and my parents thought it was because I was trying to climb trees again … well, who
knows
how much trouble I’d be in then?

I scampered after him. Surely nothing bad would happen this time. Not two days in a row. Not if I didn’t give him a reason. No one’s that much of a bully – right?

Callum and I sat at the back of the classroom in silence. Every now and then one of the other children would turn around and look at me. They might have been looking at the mysterious shoebox I held in my lap, but judging by the look on their faces they were looking at the red stinging nettle welts that now covered me from head to toe.

‘Can’t believe you actually did a presentation,’ Callum muttered.

I didn’t reply. After yesterday’s disastrous walk home, I had no desire to talk to Callum any more. I was going to ignore him, just like everyone else. We only had a few weeks left of being Home-Time Partners – I wasn’t
going to waste any of it trying to reason with him. You can’t reason with a brick wall. Especially one that keeps pushing you into stinging nettles.

The bell rang. Miss Pewlish locked the door behind her and faced the class.

‘Presentation Day!’ she cried shrilly. ‘Let’s get started, shall we?’ She riffled around on her desk. ‘Let’s see, who’s first on the list – Brenner, Callum …’

‘Haven’t done it!’ Callum chimed.

‘… which brings us straight onto Dewbridge, Ceri,’ said Miss Pewlish, barely missing a beat as she put a cross next to Callum’s name. ‘So Ceri, if you’d like to, er … take it away.’

Ceri slammed the PRESS hat onto her head and marched up to the front of the class with an enormous stack of paper. She dumped it on the floor and pointed at it dramatically.

‘Read it and weep!’ she cried. ‘Another exclusive report by the
Dewbridge Gazette
! Revealing the appalling working conditions behind the scenes of Barrow Prep’s so-called “celebration” of the life of Thomas Barrow, who I can now
sensationally reveal
…’

Miss Pewlish sighed.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘A damning exposé. Just like last week. And the week before.’ She rubbed her temples.
‘Tell you what, Ceri – how about I give you a “B+”, and you can just sit back down?’

Ceri thought about it. ‘Er … alright.’

We applauded politely as Ceri sat back down. Miss Pewlish wiped her brow with relief.

One by one, each child went up to the front. Everyone had something to present on, whether it be a favourite book or a piece of artwork they had done. Orlaith did hers on a burglar alarm system she had built herself, which sprayed intruders with month-old mayonnaise from head to toe when they stepped on a specially rigged doormat. Even Murderous Pete got up and did a presentation on a teapot he had brought from home, although he didn’t say much except that it was a teapot and then stood there in silence for the remaining two minutes. He still got a round of applause, although I suspected this was because everyone was frightened of what he’d do to them if they didn’t clap.

Finally, there was only one presentation left to go.

‘Underwood,’ said Miss Pewlish. ‘Underwood, Owen.’

I carried my shoebox to the front, stomach churning, and faced the class. They all sat, sparkly eyed, waiting for me to startle and smash a priceless antique vase or something. I steeled myself. I was sick of being a joke. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

‘My presentation is on my grandparents,’ I said.

There was an audible groan from the back of the classroom that everyone ignored.

‘I never met them,’ I said. ‘They died before I was born. Back when they were alive, though, everyone in the valleys knew who they were. They were famous.’

I put the box on the floor, and opened the lid.

‘My grandparents were called “The Tornado Chasers”,’ I said.

I pulled out a brown leather helmet from inside the box, and held it up. The whole class murmured with interest. The helmet had ear flaps, and a fur trim, and pilot goggles attached to the front that had been smashed many years ago. Across the side, still visible despite its age, was a picture of a spiralling tornado, the shadow of a bi-plane emblazoned across it. Underneath, stitched in rolling script, read the initials: ‘
T.C.
’

‘They were pilots,’ I explained. ‘
Daredevil
pilots. They used to fly stunts for shows, doing loop-the-loops and flying right over the audiences’ heads and stuff.’

Everyone cooed. Miss Pewlish shuffled nervously in her chair.

‘Well, that certainly sounds very
dangerous
, Owen …’

‘Oh, it was,’ I said, nodding. ‘Incredibly dangerous. There weren’t many people around back then who did what they did, and they were the best in the
business. My grandmother even did a thing called “wing walking”, where she’d walk across the wings of the plane while it was in the air.’

I pulled out a pile of black-and-white photos from the box, and started handing them round. The class gasped in amazement. The photos showed a plane in mid-flight, taken from the ground, my grandmother’s shadow on the wings cast against the sun.

‘Pretty exciting stuff,’ I said. ‘But that wasn’t the reason they were famous. That was because of something else they did. Something
much
more dangerous.’

I paused, and looked up. The entire class was staring back at me in anticipation.

‘You see,’ I said, ‘they were always trying to be even more daring, to really push themselves. So they started a club called “The Tornado Chasers”, with some other daredevil pilots. It was a secret club. You couldn’t tell anyone that you were a member. Because actually, what they were doing was
life-threatening.
’

Miss Pewlish shifted uncomfortably on her chair. ‘Er …’

‘Whenever a tornado landed in the valley,’ I said, meeting the eyes of my classmates, ‘and everyone else had shut themselves up safely at home – the Tornado Chasers would leap in their planes, and fly straight towards it!’

The whole class gasped in shock, including Miss Pewlish.

‘They knew it was dangerous,’ I said. ‘But that was kind of the whole point – to do something that no one else would ever
dream
of doing. There used to be lots of tornadoes back then. There weren’t even any stormtraps to protect the villages – they hadn’t been invented yet. People were really frightened. But not my grandparents. They even had a motto: “We are the Tornado Chasers, and we are not afraid” …’

‘Lovely, Owen,’ said Miss Pewlish, getting out of her seat. ‘Well, I think that’s quite enough for today …’

‘Until one day,’ I continued, pulling out a newspaper from the box, ‘it all ended in tragedy.’

I held up the newspaper, and the whole class gasped again. The cover was taken up by a giant photo of a shattered plane, hung upside down in a tree. It was surrounded by a circle of solemn policemen, their heads bowed. A helmet hung down from the cockpit by a torn strap.

‘One day a tornado touched down,’ I said, ‘and they flew out to meet it as usual. All five – my grandfather, my grandmother, and the three other Tornado Chasers – disappeared. No one knows what happened to them. Their bodies were never found. They figured the tornado just changed direction unexpectedly, and they couldn’t get away in time.’

Miss Pewlish sighed with relief, and sat back down.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘A fitting end to such reckless and unsafe activity! It should be a lesson to all of you. Thank you, Owen, that was a very …’

‘But before I finish,’ I said quickly, ‘I’d like to show you all this.’

I reached right down to the bottom of the box, and fished out a framed picture. I turned it round to the class.

‘It’s a photo of the tornado,’ I said. ‘Taken from the plane as they were flying beside it. That’s how close they used to get.’

The class looked in awe at the photo in my hands. The background was a blur, a hundred mile-an-hour vortex of rocks, trees, whole houses, everything the tornado could tear up from the ground, a solid wall of wind that filled the frame from edge to edge. But right in the centre of the photo, strapped onto the wing of the plane, was a woman. Her mouth was open. Her hair whipped around her face, and she held up her arms to the sky. I tapped my finger on the glass.

‘
That’s
my grandmother,’ I said. ‘Wing walking beside the tornado. My grandfather took it himself from the cockpit.’ I smiled. ‘It’s my favourite photo.’

I held it for a moment, and looked up. The whole class was whispering excitedly and nudging each other. To my surprise, Callum was staring at the photo,
too. His mouth was hanging open, and his eyes were glimmering. It was almost uncomfortable to look at.

‘Er … thanks,’ I said.

The whole class burst into applause. Miss Pewlish glanced at them nervously.

‘Quieten down, everyone,’ she muttered. ‘Quieten down please.’

I smiled. It was a good feeling.

‘Hey, Owen!
Owen!
’

Ceri caught me as I was halfway out the door. I startled, and it immediately slammed back into my face.

‘
Amazing
presentation this morning!’ said Ceri, appearing not to notice.

‘Thanks,’ I said, rubbing my nose. The presentation had certainly been a success. Miss Pewlish had given me one of the highest marks in the class, largely to stop the class from cheering when I had finished.

‘Your grandmother was an absolute legend,’ said Ceri. ‘Standing on the wing of a plane! Unbelievable! And your granddad was pretty nifty with a camera too, if I say so myself. Any idea what type of camera or lenses
he was using? I do a bit of photography too, you know.’

‘Er … no, sorry,’ I said. ‘I guess I could find out, though. My parents still have all their old equipment at home.’

Ceri’s face lit up. ‘That’d be great! How about you bring it all round to mine after school tomorrow? I’d love to interview you about your grandparents for the next
Dewbridge Gazette.
You’d have to stay the night for curfew, but I’m sure my parents would be fine with it. They’re pretty relaxed. They’re letting me make salad tomorrow.’

I beamed. ‘Sure! Let’s—’

I stopped, and my face fell.

‘Actually, I can’t,’ I said despondently. ‘My parents have grounded me for a week because they think I can’t stop climbing trees.’

‘Oh,’ said Ceri.

She paused.

‘
Are
you climbing trees?’

‘No,’ I said miserably.

She thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well, let me know if they change their minds. See you tomorrow!’

She made her way across the playground, walking straight past the little girl who stood waiting for her at the bottom of the steps.

‘Er … Ceri?’ I called after her. ‘Isn’t that your sister?’

I pointed to the girl, who was eating yoghurt out of a pot by mashing it against her face with her mouth open. Ceri rolled her eyes.

‘
Flossie!
’ She sighed. ‘Not again! Honestly, she gets lost like, every single day.’

She grabbed Flossie’s hand and dragged her across the green, gurgling. I turned to walk after her, and stopped. Callum was staring up at me from the bottom of the steps. He shook his head.

‘You,’ he said, ‘were going to go round a girl’s house.’ He paused. ‘For
salad
.’

I walked straight past him. I wasn’t going to get tricked into talking to him again – not today. He quickly caught up with me, waiting for a reaction. I gave him nothing.

‘So,’ he said, after a moment of silence. ‘That thing about your grandparents was sort of OK. It wasn’t as bad as the other presentations, I mean.’

I didn’t reply.

‘Er …’ said Callum. ‘What were they called again?’

‘The Tornado Chasers,’ I said curtly.

Callum nodded. ‘Yeah. “Tornado Chasers”. That’s, yeah … really, really cool.’

We crossed the bridge and walked beside the stream in silence. I picked up the pace. I wasn’t going to let him make me late again.

‘That’s the sort of thing I’d do, you know,’ said Callum, apparently under the impression we were having a conversation. ‘If I could be bothered. Run out of the village and chase a storm, take some pictures of it. Like it’s no big deal.’

‘Really,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’ Callum grinned. ‘That’d show all the idiots around here.’ His face darkened. ‘I’ll tell you what, they wouldn’t think I was such a big joke any more … Going on about me like I’m a
baby
, just because I got kept back a year!’ He growled. ‘I’d like to see the looks on their faces when they saw a photo of me, standing right next to a …’

He stopped mid-sentence, and fell silent. I turned round. He was fixed to the spot, staring into the middle distance. The corners of his mouth slowly flickered up into a smile.

‘That’s it,’ he muttered. ‘That’s how I’ll show them! I’ll be a … what were they called again?’

‘Tornado Chaser,’ I said dryly.

‘Yeah!’ he said. ‘A Tornado Chaser! I’ll sneak out the village and run after a tornado! I’ll be famous! The hardest boy in Barrow – in all the valleys, even!’

A ray of sunlight cut through the trees and lit up his face. He was beaming.

‘Great,’ I said, turning away from him. ‘Well, good luck with that.’

Callum glared at me. ‘I mean it! I’ll really do it! And I’ll take pictures to prove it, too.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ I said politely over my shoulder.