Free The Tornado Chasers by Ross Montgomery

turned to face us. We were all stood on the spot, staring at her.
    ‘Well?’ she muttered. ‘Sit down!’
    We obediently pulled up chairs around her while Pete distributed the fun buns. Orlaith began drawing on the bed sheet. She moved at lightning speed – in no time at all she had sketched a simple map of the entire village, including the school, the green, the stream, and the road that led out to the valleys, all of it ringed by a giant circle of stormtraps.
    ‘Now, let me get this right,’ she said. ‘Our plan is to wait until the tornado lands. When it does, we find out when it’s due to pass Barrow, then we escape the village, get a photo of us standing next to it and then go home. Correct?’
    Everyone nodded eagerly. A fizz of excitement passed through the air.
    ‘Imagine,’ I said dreamily. ‘The five of us, standing next to a
tornado
.’
    ‘We’d be legends,’ said Callum. ‘Heroes, even. They’d talk about us for generations.’
    ‘The story of the century,’ said Ceri.
    We sat in silence for a moment, bathing in the sheer thought. It felt good.
    ‘Well, that’s all well and good,’ said Orlaith, quickly bursting the bubble. ‘But let’s face facts. If we’re going to go ahead with a plan this risky, then we have to make sure we get it
perfect
. We’re going against every Storm Law there is. One wrong step, and all five of us are in serious trouble.’
    We glanced at each other. She was right, of course. I got the feeling Orlaith was rarely wrong.
    ‘So how do we do it?’ I asked.
    Orlaith sighed. ‘Well, first of all, we have to get out of the village without being caught. Which means getting past …
this
.’
    She reached into her bag and pulled out a little figurine. It was a carrot carved into the shape of a man. Orlaith had made him a little yellow outfit out of Post-it notes, and some carefully positioned curly hair from dried seaweed. It was impossible to mistake that mean expression.
    ‘My dad,’ said Orlaith, holding up the carrot. ‘He patrols the streets each night, even when the tornado’s landed. And if he catches us, we’re going to have to deal with …
this
.’
    She brought out another carved doll. We gasped. It was a pale white parsnip, with two black olives carefully arranged for glasses, and a black suit made of stitchedvelvet, and a thin slit for a mouth. It seemed to almost glow in the lamplight. Everyone around me shuddered.
    ‘The Warden,’
said Callum eerily.
    Ceri nodded at the vegetables. ‘Nice dolls, by the way.’
    Orlaith shrugged. ‘I made them at home.’
    I put my hand up. ‘Er … who is this “Warden”, exactly? People keep talking about him – why is everyone so afraid of him?’
    Callum gave me a withering glare. ‘Christ, Owen, he’s only the scariest guy in the valleys. How did you not hear about him in Skirting? Did you live in a hole or something?’
    Orlaith held the parsnip doll towards me, wiggling it mysteriously.
    ‘He runs the County Detention Centre,’ she said. ‘That’s where they take you if you break the Storm Laws. Most children never come back.’
    ‘Trust us – you don’t want to end up there,’ said Ceri darkly. ‘The Warden is
bad news.
’
    I blinked. ‘Why?’
    There was a long pause.
    ‘They say,’ said Pete in a whisper, ‘he used to be a bear tracker.’
    We all looked at Pete. He had brought his hands up to his mouth, like a giant hamster eating a nut.
    ‘Only the bears …’ His face suddenly bulged with horror, ‘…
ate his eyes.
’
    Orlaith sighed. ‘Oh, Pete, come on – that’s completely ridiculous.’
    ‘No, it’s true!’ said Callum, nodding furiously. ‘Seriously, I heard he hasn’t got any eyes, just big black holes with pus and worms coming out of them and stuff.’
    Orlaith groaned. ‘Nobody ate his eyes! That’s just a stupid story!’
    ‘Then how come he wears glasses all the time, smarty pants?’ said Callum. ‘Think about it! If he hasn’t got any eyes, then he