The Lightning Catcher by Anne Cameron

into the experimental division,” she continued. “Do not touch anything if you are planning to retain all of your fingers until lunchtime.”
    â€œHave you noticed how they say that kind of thing a lot around here?” Dougal whispered, stuffing his own hands hurriedly into his pockets.
    Angus was relieved to see that there was no sign of the storm vacuum on the other side of the large wooden door. There were definitely more gouges in the walls since the day before yesterday, however, as well as several new cracks running the full length of the floor. But the lightning catchers appeared to be gathered around a much smaller, less dangerous-looking machine this morning, working on it with rubber hammers and what appeared to be the same flatirons his uncle sometimes used to tame his wild hair for special occasions.
    Catcher Sparks led them quickly past the machine before Angus could get a proper look at it and shuffled them into a large workshop, closing the door behind them. Long coils of rusty wire and gleaming metal hung from the ceiling, along with a vast assortment of cogs, wheels, and double-ended bolts, which looked to Angus like they’d been wrestled from the neck of a colossal robot. A number of wooden workbenches had been arranged around the room, all of which were covered in oily rags and tools.
    â€œYour first task as cubs will be to remove the buildup of earwax from the insides of these hailstone helmets,” Catcher Sparks informed them, pointing to a large heap of copper helmets piled up in a corner, where three spoon-shaped instruments had also been arranged around a bucket. “I want to be absolutely certain that all three of you can tell one end of a hailstone helmet from the other before I let you loose on any of our more valuable pieces of equipment,” she added firmly, catching the look of revulsion on Dougal’s face.
    â€œI shall be back at the end of the morning to inspect your progress. You may begin.”
    And she strode briskly from the room, the smallest hint of a smile on her face.
    It was hot, sticky, disgusting work. And it was definitely not what Angus had imagined himself doing on his first day as a lightning cub. But as long as he kept his fingers at the far end of the gouging instrument, he found he could avoid making any actual contact with the earwax itself. It was impossible, however, to ignore the loud huffing and tutting noises that were coming from Dougal.
    â€œThis is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done in my life!” Dougal eventually said, gouging out a thick yellow lump of wax and flicking it into the copper bucket, where it landed with a horrible squelch. “I thought they’d be giving us lectures on the theory of invention and stuff like that. I’d like to know what this is supposed to be teaching us about being lightning catchers.”
    â€œThat you can get someone else to do your dirty work for you when you qualify?” said Angus. “Which won’t be happening to us for years yet. Can you imagine how much earwax we’ll have scraped up by then?”
    â€œI’d rather not, thanks,” Indigo said, making them both jump. She had been working quietly on her own pile of helmets and had hardly spoken a word to either of them all morning, although Angus got the distinct impression that she’d been listening intently to their conversation. She looked at them both now, for one embarrassed second, before turning hurriedly back to her work without saying another word. Dougal, however, continued to stare at her with a creased forehead, and Angus could tell that he was still trying to remember something about her.
    â€œI can’t believe we actually had to sit through three entrance exams to do this,” Dougal muttered a few minutes later.
    CLANG! Angus dropped his gouging instrument into the bucket and stared at Dougal. Nobody had mentioned anything to him about exams.
    â€œE-entrance