Sophie wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One minute she was pulling Callum’s chair towards her, the next she was flat on her back.
Gathering her wits, she pushed herself upright in time to see Callum and Jinx pulled into the guts of the growing tornado and disappearing from sight. To make matters worse, the tornado was moving away, heading across the open fields, gobbling fences as it went.
She knew she had to keep the storm in sight and be there when and if her friends were spat out.
She sprinted to Britney. The girl stood watching the tornado, wide-eyed and dumbstruck. Sophie shook her by the shoulders.
“Britney, I need you to run back up the track and get Mr Jarvis. Can you do that?”
Britney nodded and headed off, moving as quickly as she could.
Sophie turned to Trent, Cain, Lucy and the other kids.
“Are you going to help?” she snapped.
Cain shrugged. “Not my problem.”
Trent appeared to be in shock. “I thought that whole bad luck thing was over,” was all he could mutter.
Lucy sat on the ground, her elbows on her knees, head down. She didn’t even look up.
Sophie could see none of them was willing or able to assist her, and she had no time to waste. She fired a withering glare at Cain then ran after the tornado. Looking ahead, she tried to catch a glimpse of her friends within the whirlwind but could see nothing in the dark mass.
She picked up the pace, feeling a burst of adrenalin as she tracked the whirlwind. Following it was easy as the churning air had cleared a path through the fields. Sophie knew the boys had a chance of surviving the tornado as long as the wind didn’t pick up too much rubble. Their biggest danger was being injured by flying debris. She also knew that, in the past, Jinx’s bad luck caused calamity all around the boy, but he usually emerged relatively unscathed. It was Callum she was worried about; he didn’t share Jinx’s perverse bad luck/good luck fortune.
A chunk of rock the size of a gorilla whizzed past Callum’s cheek, close enough for the jagged stone to scratch his skin. His hands ached from gripping Jinx’s wrists and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. Callum leaned as close as he could to his friend and bellowed to be heard above the deafening wind.
“We’ve got to get out of here; if we get hit by any of this rubble, we’re dead.”
Jinx looked puzzled. “How can we do that?”
“My grappling hook,” replied Callum, loudly, nodding at the Thunderkit’s armrest.
“Dunno about you,” yelled Jinx as the vicious wind spun them around like a gigantic tumble dryer, “but I have no idea if we’re up, down, or sideways.”
“We fire blind. We’ve got nothing to lose.”
Callum started to release his grip on Jinx’s arms but the other boy stopped him.
“Let me fire it,” cried his friend.
Confusion showed on Callum’s face.
Jinx continued. “Just trust me.”
Callum nodded. He grabbed Jinx’s hand and pulled it towards the ignition lever under his right armrest.
Jinx paused for a second, closed his eyes and pulled the lever.
The grappling hook blasted from the armrest, pierced the swirling wind and disappeared.
For a moment nothing happened, then the grappling hook caught around something and the wheelchair abruptly stopped. The tornado didn’t, it carried on.
Without the gale to support their weight, Callum, Jinx and the Thunderkit dropped like stones. They hadn’t been blown to a great height, but they were certainly high enough to smash their bones if they fell on something hard. They didn’t, they fell into the middle of a haystack. Or at least Callum did. Jinx let go of Callum’s chair just before impact and he landed on the edge of the hay, breaking his fall. But then tumbled off the side into a large steaming cow pat face-first.
Sophie arrived in time to see Callum release himself from his wheelchair. He rolled off the stack, covered in hay. He landed with a thump beside Jinx. The unlucky boy was sitting up, wiping handfuls of cow dung from his eyes, nose and mouth. He spat and broke into a wide grin.
“I knew my stupid luck wouldn’t let us get badly hurt. I’ve never been so happy to taste poo in my life.”
Callum laughed with relief and let out a whoop. “Whoa! What a ride!”
They looked after the tornado and saw that, without Jinx’s presence, it was rapidly dissipating. Within minutes, all that was left was a light puff of wind and a long trail of debris.
Jinx sighed and pulled a plug of dung out of his ear. “I guess my bad luck’s back. Serves me right for being such a butthead.”
Sophie smiled and climbed onto the haystack to retrieve Callum’s wheelchair. “No argument from me,” she said.
“I didn’t really want to stop being your friends, but the others … well, they wanted me to choose. Guess I got it wrong.”
Sophie and Callum let him talk.
Jinx carried on. “It’s just … they made me feel popular. I’ve never felt like that before and I liked it. But none of them came to help me, did they?”
Sophie dragged the Thunderkit out of the haystack and traced the grappling hook to a fence post. She freed the hook, retracted it and then placed the chair beside her friends. “Perhaps they’re not as stupid as we are,” she said.
“Hey!” cried Callum. “Speak for yourself.” He picked up a handful of straw and threw it at Sophie. It hit her on the head. She threw a bigger handful back at him.
“Nah, they weren’t proper friends,” said Jinx. He hesitated before continuing. “I didn’t mean any of that stuff I said before. I’m sorry.”
Callum reached over and gave his friend a pat on the arm. “Forget it, Toby. We’re cool.”
“Don’t call me that; it’s a stupid name. Jinx is way better,” he said with a shudder.
“It does suit you,” Callum grinned. “Good to have you back.”
“Good to be back,” said Jinx, seconds before a rat leaped from the haystack and bit him on the knee.
“You’re not going to believe this,” gasped Sophie. The light from her computer screen illuminated her face, type reflected in her eyes.
She and Callum had gone to her workshop after school to look at the data downloaded from Lucy’s and Cain’s phones.
Reports of Jinx’s tornado had caused a minor furore. The teachers had received a watered-down version of events, and after checking that there were no injuries (aside from a nasty rat bite) had quickly swept the incident under the mat. They had long since worked out that the best way to deal with occurrences involving Jinx Patterson was to pretend they hadn’t happened.
Callum moved closer to his friend and looked eagerly at the screen. “What?”
Sophie pointed to a line of text. At first Callum thought he was reading a paragraph from a children’s book. The text rambled on about three characters – Tin Man, the Princess and Red Riding Hood. It made no sense.
“Aren’t Cain and Lucy a bit old for fairytales?”
“That’s what I thought, so I checked all the entries and the same three characters appear in heaps of emails on both phones.” Sophie pressed a key and several more unusual messages appeared. “In this one Tin Man gets caught in a forest fire, in another the Princess is drenched in a rainstorm.”
Callum was puzzled. “What’s it mean?”
Sophie brought up another story. In this tale, Tin Man was accused of setting the forest alight and was banned from the kingdom. Suddenly, it became clear. Callum tapped the titanium frame of his wheelchair. “I’m Tin Man. And the forest fire was in Mr Drummond’s classroom.”
Sophie nodded. “And I’m the Princess. I’m guessing the rainstorm was when Lucy drenched me in the girls’ bathroom or hit me with a water bomb.”
“Makes sense. So who’s Red Riding Hood then?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t found many references to her so far,” said Sophie with a frown. She punched up another screen. “In this one, the big bad wolf tricks her into thinking her granny is a witch. He turns Red against her.”
“Oh!” cried Callum. “What if Red Riding Hood isn’t a girl?”
“Of course. Jinx! And the wolf is probably Cain and he’s turning Jinx against us.”
Callum couldn’t help but smile. “Jinx isn’t going to be very happy with his codename, is he?”
Sophie gave a small laugh and shook her head.
Callum returned to business. “Who sent the emails?”
Sophie scrolled down the message. It was unsigned. She returned to the top of the page. “The sender’s address is blocked.”
“Can you unblock it?”
Sophie brought up a new screen on the computer and selected a programme called Address Mole. “I can try,” she said.
Callum did his homework while Sophie tried to crack the code. An hour later, Sophie slapped her workbench in frustration. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes.
“It’s too well encrypted. I can’t trace it,” she said.
“Okay. Did you find out anything else from the phones?”
Sophie shook her head. “Not really, no. Looks like we’re stuck.”
Callum thought for a moment. “Something weird happened when the tornado hit though. Did you see Lucy get sprayed with water?”
Sophie nodded. “Yeah, she flipped out for a minute. What do you think that was about?”
“I dunno,” said Callum. “It was almost as if the water did something to her. I think we need to see that reaction again.”
Sophie snorted. “How? We can’t just hold her head under a tap, can we?”
“We have to do something. It’d be too risky to try anything at school. I think we need to bring her here for a chat.”
Sophie looked nervous. “Are you suggesting we kidnap her?”
“Of course not,” said Callum, giving Sophie his most reassuring smile. “That’d be against the law. But if she collapses outside the school gates, it would be only right to take her somewhere comfortable to recover.” Callum looked around the oily, cold garage, with its concrete floor and exposed wooden beams. “And what could be cosier than this?”