The Tornado Chasers (9 page)

A howl echoed down through into the village, carried from far beyond the hills.

‘Hear that?’ Orlaith whispered. ‘That’s the tornado. It must be right on the other side of the valley.’

We stood in the bushes, silent, nervous, our eyes darting down the windswept street before us. It was empty. The wind billowed through our lightweight cloaks. My shower cap rustled.

‘Remember,’ said Orlaith, ‘my dad’s going to be circling the green by now. So keep your eyes peeled for him. I’ll go in front and head for the road out of town – the rest of you follow. Owen, stick at the back and keep an eye out for any bears behind us.’

I nodded. My heart was pounding against my ribcage like a piston. I was surprised the others couldn’t hear it over the wind. It rippled through our capes, flapping them out behind us. Orlaith braced herself on her bike.

‘
Ready
?’ she said.

We pulled on our masks. Orlaith gave us one last glance. A smile winked at the corner of her eyes.

‘The Tornado Chasers!’
she hissed.

And with that she was off, whipping out the bushes at lightning speed and disappearing round the corner. Callum leapt up and down on his bike in excitement.

‘The Tornado Chasers!’ he said.

Without another word he kicked his bike away and shot after her. Ceri stood up in the sidecar and held out her cape to the wind.

‘The Tornado Chasers!’

Pete grinned and heaved himself down onto the pedals. They powered out of the bushes and flew down the street, Ceri giggling with excitement and slapping Pete on the bum to make him go faster.

I watched them disappear, and waited for a second. I quickly glanced over my shoulder. I could
swear
I heard something rustling in the bushes behind me. I swallowed, and pushed myself off.

‘The Tornado Cha …’ I managed.

I flew out the bushes like a rocket, swerving wildly into the empty street and almost toppling over. I gasped. Orlaith had completely transformed my bike – it was like riding on a cloud. The speed was unbelievable. With every stroke I surged forwards, cutting through the wind like a razorblade, the wheels responding to even the slightest movements of my body. I’d never felt anything like it. All of a sudden I found myself standing upright on the pedals, as high as I could manage, the cape fluttering ghost-silent round my shoulders.

‘A daredevil,’
I cried, almost a laugh. ‘I’m doing it. I’m doing it!’

Up ahead, the others flickered in and out the streetlights like moths, through the sleeping village streets, past the broken and boarded-up houses that lined the empty roads of Barrow. I glanced at the rows of identical houses, at the people hidden inside, and almost felt sorry for them. They had no idea how this felt – to be outside, riding bikes in the wind, with no one to know but us.
To chase a tornado.
I felt more terrified, and more free, than I had ever felt in my entire life.

We slipped across the green and down the road that led out into the valley. There were no streetlamps here, and we cycled in pitch black, threading the bikes against the wind that flooded into the valley. The hills
lay ahead, a black wall stretching across the landscape. The red lights of the distant stormtraps glimmered in a row on top of them. Above them the night sky was moonless and thick with dust. Somewhere out there was the tornado, heading towards the village.

The others came to a stop up ahead. I gripped on the brakes, and pulled up beside them.

A roadblock lay ahead. I recognised it immediately – my parents and I had driven through it when we first arrived at Barrow. It was a small guard’s hut, with a thick metal barrier that stretched from one end of the road to the other, painted bright red and surrounded by warning signs. It had taken two guards to lift the barrier from its stand and let us through. Now, of course, the guard’s hut was empty. The sign behind it creaked and swung in the wind.

Orlaith turned to face us, her eyes glimmering fiercely above her mask.

‘Where we stand now,’ she said, ‘is the last point before we violate the most serious Storm Law in Barrow. Leaving the village.’ She looked at us. ‘Are we all still in?’

We nodded quickly, as if we didn’t want to think too much about it. The wind howled down the valleyside towards us. The tornado was getting closer.

‘Right,’ said Orlaith. ‘Well, let’s just get it over with, then.’ She turned to the metal barrier. ‘I guess we’ll have to find a way of lifting this up first …’

Pete calmly stepped forwards, and with the slightest of grunts took the great metal barrier in his hands and lifted it off the stand. We all oohed in admiration. Pete turned back round with a sheepish grin, holding the
barrier in his arms like it was a nice pet rabbit.

‘Thanks Pete,’ said Orlaith. ‘Right, let’s get out of here before my dad—’

She suddenly stopped, and swung round.

‘My dad!’ she gasped. ‘Wait – did anyone see him?’

Her voice was tight with panic. We looked at each other blankly. There had been no sign of him at the green.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Orlaith, confused. ‘We
should
have seen him …’

We glanced at each other nervously.

‘Maybe he went a different way round?’ suggested Ceri.

Orlaith frowned. ‘Like where? It’s a tiny village!’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe he took a back road on the way round, and we missed him?’

Orlaith shook her head. ‘Then … where would he be now?’

A pair of headlights suddenly appeared behind me.

I swung round. There, flying towards me and getting closer every second, was Officer Reade’s car. Before I could even think of moving, I startled. My whole body froze from top to bottom. I realised there and then that the car was going to hit me – all I could do was watch it happen. It was over in seconds. I saw Officer Reade’s
eyes widen and his foot slam down, and heard the screech of his brakes, and –

WHAM.

I was flung backwards through the air, and landed hard on the cold earth that lay beside the road. The breath was slammed out of me, and as I swung back my helmet came down against the tarmac with a sickening
crack
.

For a while – or what seemed like a while – all I could do was lie still and make out the different sounds around me. My heartbeat. The wind howling across the fields. A car door slamming.

‘Oh no!’

And then suddenly the adrenaline rushed through me and I gasped in a freezing clutch of air. My ribcage swelled and deflated against the ground, and my brain reeled.
I had just been hit by a car.
And something about my head felt wrong – very wrong.

I pushed myself up, and looked down. There were things on the ground around me where I had landed. Lots of things. I reached out and picked one up.

It was a shard of plastic.

‘My helmet,’ I muttered.

I touched the top of my head. There, instead of smooth plastic, I felt a set of jagged edges where the
helmet had shattered apart. My head underneath was completely unharmed. A hand suddenly grabbed me and flipped me onto my back. Officer Reade looked down at me, bent over in the sickly glow of the headlights. He looked terrified.

‘Oh, thank God,’ he gasped, his face flooding with relief. ‘Thank God! I thought you were …’

He suddenly stopped, and heaved me to my feet. The hardness came back to his face in an instant.

‘Are you
insane
?’ he cried. ‘What the
hell
are you doing out here? I could have killed you, you … you
idiot
!’

He flipped round to the others. They stood frozen to the spot. Pete was still holding the barrier in his arms, trembling from head to toe.

‘
What is this
?’ he shouted. ‘The tornado’s the other side of the hill, and you’re all standing in the street, in the middle of the night – dressed up like flipping
Batman
?’

His whole body had clenched with anger. The others stared at him, their terrified eyes the only part of their face visible above the masks.

‘
Get in the car!
’ he screamed. ‘And take those stupid costumes off! When I find out who you are, you’re all in
serious
trouble!’ He pointed a finger at Pete. ‘And as for
you – put that barrier back,
right now
!’

Pete squeaked in terror, and swung round.

CLANG
.

The next thing I knew, Officer Reade was slumped onto the tarmac beside me.

The four of us looked at his motionless body in horror. Pete stopped, and turned back round. He looked at us, then at Officer Reade, then at the barrier in his hands. He took a moment to work out what had happened, before crying out and dropping the metal pole on the ground like it was burning red hot. Orlaith suddenly ran forwards and knelt beside her father.

‘Dad! Dad! Are you OK?’

‘Uuurgh …’ Officer Reade gurgled.

She turned him onto his back. He had been knocked out cold. On top of his head was now a small, straight cut where the barrier had hit him, an angry lump forming rapidly around it.

‘Oh no,’ said Orlaith. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no …’

The radio in the car let out a sudden burst of feedback.

‘Officer Reade,’
came a loud, crackly voice.
‘Come in, Reade – we need an update of your location, please.’

Callum’s eyes widened.

‘What do we do?’ he said, desperately. ‘What do we do?’

None of us said anything. We didn’t even move. Our gaze was fixed on the Barrow Truancy Officer that we had just knocked unconscious. We tried to work out how we could explain what had happened. To work out how much trouble we were in now. To think if there was any way of fixing it, of turning back time, of undoing what had been done.

‘
Reade
,’ repeated the voice on the radio.
‘Come in, Reade.’

Officer Reade’s eyes suddenly blinked open. ‘Orlaith? Is that you, Orlaith?’

We looked at each other. Of course, we
knew
there was no way of undoing it. It was too late for that now. There was only one thing left we
could
do.

‘
Reade
?’

The five of us turned and leapt onto our bikes, and without a word we flew through the open barrier and up the hillside, away from the village and the terrible mess we had made, charging towards the tornado as fast as we could.

By the time we finally came to a stop, Barrow was far behind us. We had no idea how long we’d been cycling for. The forest around us was alive with wind. Tree trunks groaned and their branches flailed, fighting against the gale that blew mercilessly down the hill. The tornado was close now. Very close.

Not that we could get to it.

Ahead of us lay a tree cutting off the only road out of Barrow. It cut off both lanes, blocking a stream on one side and a sodden ditch on the other. The trunk was at least three times our height. There was no way any of us could get around it.

Callum was the first to stop cycling. He took his feet
off the pedals and rested his shaky legs on the tarmac, before immediately toppling over and sprawling across the ground like a slug. I quickly followed his example, twitching uncontrollably on the tarmac. Pete slumped his bike sideways and sent Ceri tumbling across the road. Orlaith fell to the floor and wrapped her cape around her head in misery.

‘Oh Pete,’ she groaned. ‘What were you
thinking
?’

Pete lay on his back, heaving for breath. ‘I … I didn’t mean to …’

He was cut off by terrible roar of wind above us. We looked at each other. It was as if the tornado was laughing at us, at what we had tried to do, at all our failed plans. I pulled my helmet slowly off my head. It was shattered, broken beyond repair.

‘This is so bad,’ I whimpered.

‘It’s worse than
bad
!’ said Ceri, sitting up. ‘We just knocked out a
Truancy Officer
!’

Callum sat up to face her.

‘We?’ he snarled. ‘
WE!
I don’t seem to remember trying to murder anyone with a ten-foot metal pole!’ He pointed at Pete. ‘It was all him! That … that
psycho
!’

Pete flinched, and then sat still. No one said anything. After a while he got to his feet, and walked
silently down the road. Orlaith leapt up.

‘Pete, wait!’ she cried. ‘Where are you going? Come back!’

Callum snorted. ‘Let him go! Who knows – maybe he’ll do us all a favour and disappear into the woods forever …’

Orlaith glowered at him. ‘Leave him alone! It was an accident!’

Callum slapped his cheeks in mock surprise. ‘Oh, of course! It was an accident!
Murderous Pete
didn’t mean to brain your dad at all! What a terrible misunderstanding!’

Orlaith seethed with fury.
‘Don’t call him that, Callum!’

Callum stamped his feet angrily.
‘I’ll call him whatever I …’

He was stopped by a sudden loud
splash
behind us, quickly followed by another. We swung round. Pete was striding up the road towards us, water pouring from his sodden cape. We silently watched as he lifted both his bike and mine onto his shoulders, before strolling back to the riverbank with them as easily as if he was carrying a pair of feathery pillows. He threw them into the water. In the stream I could just make out the handlebars of our other two bicycles.

‘Er … Pete?’ said Orlaith. ‘Pete, what are you doing?’

Pete didn’t respond. He marched up the hill towards us, his eyes hardened with the look of a man who knows what he has to do. In a matter of seconds he had lifted me straight off the ground and wedged me under his arm, before striding up to Callum and doing the same. I tried to struggle free, but it was no use – Pete had the strength of a horse. He marched us straight over to the ditch that ran alongside the road and flung us down into the weeds and the muck and the slime.

I emerged, gasping for breath. The water at the bottom was shallow but freezing cold, and the mud lay thick underfoot. In front of me Callum was almost delirious with fear, thrashing about and covered from head to toe in brown sludge.

‘Oh God, I knew it!’ he cried. ‘It’s finally happening! He’s going to murder us! Orlaith, stop him!’

There was a muffled yell from the roadside above, and a second later Orlaith and Ceri landed with an almighty
splash
in the ditch beside us. Orlaith looked up at the roadside, her eyes wide with confusion.

‘Pete – what are you doing?’ she cried. ‘Stop!
Don’t!
’

Without warning Pete came crashing down beside
us, hitting the sludge like a ship being launched and covering us with a wall of stinking bilge water. We coughed and spluttered, flinging pond scum out of our eyes with both hands. Pete was crouched down low in the water, so that only his childlike eyes lay blinking and terrified above the sludge.

And then we heard it – a car.

We swung round. There, driving up the road towards where we had just stood, was a black van. On the side, in white letters, read the words: COUNTY DETENTION CENTRE.

We sunk down into the filthy water beside Pete, as low as we could bear. The sound of the engine grew louder and louder until it came to a stop on the road beside us. Then came the sound of car doors opening, footsteps on asphalt.

‘Any sign of them?’

The first voice was deep, tired and irritable.

‘Nothing,’ said another voice, sharp and nasal. ‘I told you – they’re all hiding back in the village, no doubt about it.’

‘Humph. Pity,’ muttered the first one. ‘I’d have happily dragged every single one of them back by their ears myself! I mean, honestly – making us go outside in the middle of a bleeding storm …’

We held our breaths, blood thundering in our ears.

Please leave,
I silently begged.
Please, leave.

But the men above us were taking their time. One of them whistled appreciatively.

‘Well, they won’t have gone any further than
that
,’ said the second voice, giving the fallen tree trunk a hefty kick. ‘If you ask me, they never even left the village in the first place.’

‘Too right,’ muttered the first voice. ‘I’m telling you – she made the whole thing up.’

We glanced at each other.
She
?

‘What was it she said again?’ said the second voice. ‘“
Tornado Chasers
”, wasn’t it?’

The first voice groaned. ‘Right, get this – she comes running into County a few hours ago, covered in mayonnaise …’

‘
Mayonnaise
?’ said the second voice.

‘Mayonnaise,’ repeated the first voice bluntly. ‘Mayonnaise from head to toe. And not just
any
mayonnaise – manky, snot-coloured, curdling old mayonnaise.
Months
it’s going to take me to get the smell out of my office. Months.’

‘What the hell is she doing, leaving the valley and coming to County in the middle of the night?’ the second one cried in disbelief.

‘That’s what I said!’ the first one continued. ‘But she was beside herself – kept saying five kids from her class were trying to escape the village! Said she’d seen them leave Brenner’s storm shelter when she was hiding outside in the bushes. They even made special bikes, she said, and …’

‘Hang on,’ said the second one, cutting him off. ‘She was hiding in the
bushes
?’

‘Let’s just say it’s not the first time,’ muttered the first one.

Down in the ditch, we glanced at each other. There was no doubt who they were talking about.

‘I mean, honestly, she sounded completely demented,’ the first voice continued. ‘I was going to arrest her for time-wasting right there and then – again! – but then we had a call from Reade. Looks like some kids had knocked him out while he was on patrol. So there we go – looks like there
was
some truth in what the daft old bat was on about!’

The second voice huffed. ‘Five children escaping the village? Bunch of kids sneaking out for fun during curfew, more like it. Making up a load of far-fetched stories about how they were going to chase a storm, end up getting caught by Reade and panicking. They’ll all be hiding at home, crying their eyes out – mark
my words.’ He sniggered. ‘That is, unless the bears got them first – right?’

The two men suddenly burst into loud and raucous laughter, as if they were sharing a joke that we weren’t invited to understand.

‘Ha! You’re right,’ said the first one. ‘Let’s head back. Leaving the village to chase a tornado … I mean,
honestly
. No one’s
that
stupid.’

The second one snorted. ‘Well, they couldn’t do much chasing now. The tornado passed Barrow half an hour ago!’

The two men laughed again, and with a slam of car doors and the rev of an engine they disappeared into the distance, until the van was finally lost to the wind.

We waited a long time until any of us felt ready to move. We stood up, our faces stained brown, our capes heavy with mud. Only Pete stayed crouched in the water. Orlaith reached out to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away. She looked at him pleadingly.

‘Pete,’ she said. ‘Pete, I never thought that you were
actually
going to …’

‘Yes, Orlaith,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘You did.’

He stood up to face us. His eyes looked down on us, calm and hurt.

‘Do you know
why
everyone calls me Murderous Pete?’ he said.

We stood, shocked into silence. I had never heard Pete talk like that – it looked like none of the others had either.

‘They say I killed my parents,’ he said. ‘And that’s why they’re not around any more. Why I just live with my nan.’ His eyes suddenly changed – a flash of anger inside them. ‘That’s what you lot think too – right?’

Silence. Pete looked down.

‘They left me with my nan,’ he muttered. ‘Both of them. When I was a baby. They couldn’t look after me, they said. I’ve never even
seen
them, except in photographs.’ He picked at a piece of thread sticking out from his pocket. ‘I’m not a murderer.’

No one said anything for a while. Pete stood, his gaze fixed down, his fingertips skimming the surface of the water. Orlaith shook her head.

‘Pete,’ she said. ‘I never knew.’

He shrugged. ‘You never asked.’

We glanced at each other. None of us felt very brave any more.

‘Sorry, Pete,’ I said.

Everyone muttered a guilty apology. Pete looked up at us. His lip was trembling.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said. ‘I heard the van coming and I thought, if they saw the bikes …’ His voice broke, just slightly. ‘And I’m really sorry about your dad, Orlaith, I never …’

Orlaith reached out and touched his shoulder.

‘It’s fine, Pete,’ said Orlaith. ‘It’s all fine.’

We climbed up the sides of the ditch and stood in the road, assessing the situation. The bikes lay in a tangled heap in the stream. Ceri’s camera jutted out the water, dangling by its strap from the tripod. It was a miracle the County officers hadn’t seen them.

‘How did they get here so
fast
?’ said Ceri. ‘I mean, I thought the Detention Centre was miles away – and this is the only road out of town, isn’t it? How could they …’

She trailed off. Nothing made much sense any longer. The storm was gone. Our whole plan had unravelled in front of us. Orlaith sighed, and pulled off her cape.

‘Well, I suppose that’s it then.’

We fell silent.

‘Oh God,’ I said, my stomach turning tombstone-cold. ‘My parents are going to kill me.’

‘We’re going to prison,’ Pete whispered.

‘I’ll never see a tornado,’ said Callum.

Orlaith squeezed the ditchwater from her cape. ‘And I’m never getting into the Valley Academy as long as I live.’

The wind ran through the trees again, scattering the roadside with dead branches. We started at them glumly.

‘On the plus side,’ said Ceri. ‘I suppose it can’t get any worse, can it?’

We turned to look at her. She was stood beside the fallen tree trunk, twiddling her cape in her fingers absent-mindedly.

‘I mean … why not just keep going? Finish what we started? Leave the valley, chase the tornado …’

Orlaith frowned. ‘Because between us we’ve already broken about a hundred Storm Laws.’

‘A hundred and seven,’ Ceri corrected. ‘So let’s face it – we’re going to get locked up whether we go back now or whether they catch us in a few days. By then, a couple of extra months in County won’t make any difference. But coming back to the village as heroes – as
Tornado Chasers
– well, that’s got to be worth
something,
right?’

We looked at each other. Maybe some blood had pooled in my brain after the car hit me, but Ceri was beginning to make sense. She put her hands on her hips.

‘Think about it – Would Owen’s grandparents have given up at the first hurdle?’ she asked. ‘No! They’d have kept going. And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t join the Tornado Chasers to be cautious and safe and sensible. I joined so I could see
this
.’

She held out her hands. The trees around us had bent double in the roaring wind, their leaves stripped and trembling. The moon and sun both hung above us in the morning light, casting impossible shadows across a forest streaked in whites and blues. It looked like the end of the world. Ceri shook her head.

‘I’ve never seen
anything
like this before,’ she said. ‘And you know why? Because we spend all our time stuck indoors,
that’s
why! Home, school, home, school … that’s it! And even then, all we ever get told is how we’re not being safe enough. I’m flipping sick of it. Aren’t you?’

No one said anything. Without another word, Ceri stuck out one of her braces and drew her leg across the tarmac, carving a line between her and us. She stood defiantly on the other side.

‘You lot go home if you want to,’ said Ceri. She drew her cape about her with a flourish.
‘I’m
going to chase a tornado.’

I made to speak, but before I could say anything
Callum had already shoved me aside and marched across the line.

‘Yeah, obviously!’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I was about to say, Ceri. We should definitely just keep going. Glad you agree with me.’

He stood beside Ceri. Orlaith shook her head and made to say something, but trailed off. Pete had stepped forwards. We watched in silence as he slowly crossed the line on the tarmac and stood beside the others. Callum grinned, and slapped him on the back.