Grandpa’s Magic Shed Book 2

In The Umbrella Above the Clouds, the second adventure in the Grandpa’s Magic Shed series, ten-year-old Ben’s search for his missing grandpa takes him far beyond the garden shed and into an extraordinary world where weather is manufactured, bottled, filed, argued over and occasionally allowed to escape.
The adventure begins when an old, battered red umbrella inside Grandpa’s shed suddenly opens by itself. Instead of simply keeping rain away, it begins producing a downpour indoors. Before Ben, Pip and Digby can bring the increasingly unruly umbrella under control, it grows larger, lifts them from the floor and carries all three straight through the roof of the shed. Swept upwards through a violent storm, Ben briefly hears Grandpa’s voice inside one of a number of strange suspended raindrops, giving him the first tantalising indication that Grandpa may still be alive and somehow connected to the magical worlds hidden beyond the shed.
Breaking through the storm clouds, Ben and his friends discover the Kingdom of Weather, a breath taking realm of floating cloud islands, rainbow bridges, golden sunlight pipes, windmills, rain factories and workshops where every kind of weather is created and controlled. There they meet Nima Nimbus, a young apprentice weather-maker, and Grumble, the small, bad-tempered storm cloud that follows her everywhere.
Ben soon learns that the Kingdom of Weather is in serious trouble. Its most important source of power, the Sun Lantern, has been stolen. Without it, the kingdom’s machinery is beginning to fail. Rain valves are stuck open, cloud-making equipment is overflowing and uncontrolled weather is leaking into the ordinary world below. Ben’s own town is already disappearing beneath relentless rain.
Their arrival also attracts the attention of Inspector Cirrus and the Weather Wardens, whose devotion to regulations, permits and paperwork proves almost as dangerous as the weather itself. Ben discovers that travelling by magical umbrella requires an alarming collection of licences, while Digby is confronted with forms asking him to confirm that he is, in fact, a mole. The absurd bureaucracy brings humour to an increasingly serious situation as Ben realises that simply returning home is no longer an option. If the Sun Lantern is not recovered, the flooding below will continue.
Nima agrees to help them search for it, although it gradually becomes clear that she knows more about the crisis than she first admits. Their journey takes them through some of the strangest parts of the Kingdom of Weather. They visit the Rain Department, where showers and downpours are bottled and labelled for very specific occasions; the Thunder Factory, where enormous machinery produces thunder powerful enough to shake Digby’s spectacles; and Rainbow Junction, where the colours of rainbows are mixed and workers can spend an unreasonable amount of time arguing about exactly where indigo belongs.
Along the way, Digby accidentally acquires a living thunderclap in his backpack, Pip approaches every dangerous situation with cheerful enthusiasm, and Grumble proves that even a small storm cloud can have very definite opinions.
Their search eventually leads them to the enormous Forecast Archive. Among countless predictions, weather records and official documents, Ben discovers evidence that the Sun Lantern was transferred to the Hurricane Vault using an order supposedly authorised by Grandpa, known in the Kingdom of Weather as the Gardener Between Worlds. Ben immediately recognises that Grandpa’s signature has been forged. More importantly, Grandpa has found the document before them and written his own warning across it:
NOT ME.HE NEEDS THE LANTERN TO OPEN THE SKY DOOR.

Ben now knows that the mysterious man carrying the silver key is behind the theft.
Before they can leave the Archive, a forecasting machine produces another disturbing prediction: by sunset, one of the four travellers will be blown away. Digby is particularly concerned to discover that Grumble does not count.
The group presses on through the Windmill Fields, a sprawling region of floating islands, huge wind machines and powerful, unpredictable currents. Together they repair part of the failing system and create a route towards the Hurricane Vault, but the forecast proves impossible to escape. As sunset approaches, an enormous gust tears Nima and Grumble away and carries them into the black storm clouds surrounding the Vault.
Ben refuses to abandon her. Using Grandpa’s battered umbrella, emergency string and a considerable amount of courage, Ben, Pip and Digby launch themselves into the storm after their friend. They find Nima and Grumble and are eventually swept through the enormous doors of the Hurricane Vault together.Inside lies one of the strangest places Ben has yet encountered: a vast complex filled with thousands of glass cylinders containing imprisoned storms. Hurricanes, ancient tempests, lightning and unstable weather systems churn behind reinforced glass, many of them displaying personalities of their own. One particularly rude hurricane insults Pip’s enormous daisy hat and quickly discovers that Pip is quite capable of insulting it back.
Deeper within the Vault, the group discovers the missing Sun Lantern hanging inside the calm eye of a gigantic sleeping hurricane. But the Lantern is more than stolen property. It is bait.
A mysterious silver doorway begins to appear behind it, while a faceless man in a dark coat manifests himself in glass cylinders, gauges and polished metal surfaces throughout the chamber. He carries the silver key and attempts to convince Ben that Grandpa is waiting beyond the door.For a moment, Ben almost believes him.A figure resembling Grandpa appears behind the silver doorway, calling to him. Ben desperately wants to cross over, but Pip, Digby and Nima warn him that something is wrong. The real warning comes when Grandpa’s voice finally breaks through, telling Ben not to open the door.The man with the silver key has been manipulating events, hoping Ben will complete something Grandpa has been trying to prevent.As the Hurricane Vault begins to fail, the Sun Lantern is swallowed by the enormous storm surrounding it. Ben is forced to make a painful choice. He can pursue the doorway and possibly reach Grandpa, or turn away and save the Kingdom of Weather and his own flooded town.Ben chooses to help his friends.Using Grandpa’s umbrella, Pip’s rainbow lines, Digby’s ability to detect vibrations through machinery, Nima’s knowledge of weather systems and even the escaped thunderclap, the group enters the hurricane to recover the Lantern. Inside the perfectly calm eye, Ben encounters an enormous raindrop containing a clear image of Grandpa.
This time there is no doubt.
Grandpa is alive.
He cannot tell Ben where he is or why he cannot return home, but he gives him three crucial warnings: do not open all the doors, trust your friends, and do not trust the key. The mysterious man with the silver key is waiting for Ben to open the hidden doorways, although Grandpa disappears before he can explain why.With the hurricane collapsing around them, Ben and his friends recover the Sun Lantern and guide it back towards Sun Tower. Grumble and Digby’s escaped thunderclap absorb dangerous lightning, causing Grumble to grow enormously, while Pip uses rainbow lines to steady their course and Digby tracks the correct current. At the last possible moment, Nima returns the Lantern to the kingdom’s weather system.
Golden light explodes through the pipes.
The windmills restart. Rainbow bridges blaze back into colour. Storm cylinders close. Rain valves shut. Sunlight breaks through the clouds above Ben’s town.The Kingdom of Weather is saved.Afterwards, Nima finally admits the truth about her own part in the disaster. Grumble was created when she tried to repair a pressure fault by herself rather than asking for help. Afraid of losing her apprenticeship, she hid what had happened. The man with the silver key discovered her secret and persuaded her to reveal unguarded routes to Sun Tower, promising that he could make Grumble disappear. She never realised that he intended to steal the Sun Lantern.Inspector Cirrus does not excuse her mistake, but neither does he define her by it. Because Nima has admitted what she did and helped put things right, her apprenticeship is allowed to continue, although with considerably more supervision and a formidable number of lessons on asking for help. Grumble is officially registered as a Junior Personal Storm, much to his delight.Ben eventually returns to Grandpa’s shed with Pip and Digby. The storm over his town is fading, but the mystery surrounding Grandpa has become deeper.
Ben now knows something he did not know before.
Grandpa is alive.
Somewhere beyond the hidden doors connected to the shed, he is still trying to stop the man with the silver key. Ben does not yet know where Grandpa is trapped, what lies behind the Sky Door or why the mysterious stranger wants every doorway opened.
But Grandpa’s warning is clear.DO NOT OPEN ALL THE DOORS.
And in Grandpa’s Magic Shed, warnings have an unfortunate habit of being followed by exactly the sort of thing they are warning against.
The Umbrella Above the Clouds is an imaginative adventure about courage, friendship, responsibility and the importance of asking for help. Beneath its flying umbrellas, argumentative rainbows, bottled storms and emergency sandwiches lies a story about learning that making a mistake does not define who you are. What matters is whether you hide from it or find the courage, and the friends, to put things right.