George Brown and the Protector (16 page)

“But since everyone knows it, why don’t they
do something?” asked George. “How could they let it happen when the
Grak are so obviously in the wrong?”

“Because no one wants to go to war against
the Grak,” answered the protector. “And that’s what they have to do
to really stop them. It’s easier to appease them and give in to
them where small worlds like yours and Emberlys are lost, rather
than to openly confront them and fight them. Its easier to pretend
they have no long range plan of domination. No one will take
responsibility to bring the Grak in line. The same thing has
happened on your planet. When Japan invaded China in the 1930s, no
other government tried very hard to stop them. A lot of other
governments complained, but no one stopped them—because they knew
they’d have to go to war to do it.”

George was silent for a moment, pondering on
what the protector had just said. How could any civilized society
allow such things to happen? Did no one care for their fellow
creatures? But on the other hand, was the protector even telling
him the truth? Could he be trusted?

Were he and Jiu Na wrong in suspecting the
Protector? What he has just explained sounded true enough. Indeed,
a part of George yearned and ached to believe it and to trust the
protector again. But the Ziphon had given him a warning. Who else
would they least suspect, other than the protector? And if this was
so, what was the true meaning of what the Protector had just told
him? George’s head was beginning to ache with all the unanswered
questions.

George suddenly felt something vibrate in his
pocket. He was about to cry out when he remembered he had changed
his cell phone to vibrate rather than to ring.

He pulled it out of his pocket, and could see
by the number displayed that his mother was calling.

“George?” came her voice over the phone.
“Where are you?”

“I’m right down the street,” said George.
“Not far from home.”

“Well, maybe you’d better come home,” said
his mother. “Janet keeps insisting that you were gone for hours
yesterday without permission, although I don’t remember any such
thing. Do you?”

In spite of the stress he was feeling from
the Grak, the protector, and everything else going on, George
nearly laughed out loud. “How could I have been gone for so long
and you not remember it?” he asked in reply.

“That’s what I keep telling Janet,” said his
mother with a sigh. “Well, come home soon, please. Maybe you can
talk some sense into her.”

‘Not likely,’ thought George to himself. To
his mother he said, “O.k., I’ll be there soon.” He put the phone
back in his pocket.

“Those happy memory pills work pretty well,
don’t they?” said the protector with a sly grin.

“Yeah,” said George with a smile.

“I gave one to Emberly this morning,” said
the protector. “She was starting to fret about meeting the Grak
again. Now she’s happy as a lark.”

Emberly was rolling and bouncing happily
about the room, seemingly without a care in the world. George gave
the protector a sharp look. If he had slipped Emberly a pill
unaware, could he have given one to George? Or maybe he had been
given a different kind of pill that altered his thinking, or made
it so he couldn’t remember something the protector didn’t want him
to remember! George shivered. He had to make sure he didn’t eat or
drink anything the protector offered him from now on.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked the
protector again. “You seem tense today. You’re not your old
self.”

George pretended to laugh it off. “It’s just
my throat,” he said. Then, trying to change the subject, he asked,
“what about the Uth stone? How does it fit into this whole plan of
the Grak?”

The protector frowned. “I’m not sure,” he
said slowly. “That’s the one thing I haven’t figured out yet. My
suspicion is that the fallen stars had to be positioned just right
in order to work properly, so the planet would not break completely
apart when it stops rotation. So I would guess that the Uth stones
were used somehow to guide the fallen stars to the proper landing
spot. After that, they were probably of no further use.”

George scratched his head, wondering. Was
there something about the Uth stones the protector was not telling
him? Were they really only to guide the fallen stars to a safe
landing, or did they have some other purpose? George could hardly
stand the suspicion anymore. He needed some air.

“I’d better go,” he said, turning toward the
door. He needed to call Jiu Na, to let her know what was happening.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. First thing in the morning.”

“Right,” said the protector, looking after
him in concern. “Be as early as you can. I don’t want to get to
Portugal after nightfall, since it will be too hard to search for
the fallen star in the dark.”

George pushed open the door, turned to wave
to the protector, then stepped through and was gone. The protector
stared after him with a worried look on his face.

An hour later, George was in his room. Janet
had nearly attacked him when he arrived home, wildly repeating her
story that he had been gone for hours yesterday. George’s mother
just stood in the background shaking her head, saying she didn’t
remember any of it. George, remained silent, only saying that he
couldn’t see how he could have stayed out half the day and their
mother not remember it. Finally, Janet had thrown up her hands and
left the room in disgust.

Now, George was pacing back and forth in his
room, trying to remember everything the protector had told him. He
didn’t want to leave anything out when he called Jiu Na.

Finally, he put the ring in his ear and,
feeling rather silly, said, “I want to talk to Jiu Na.”

He waited in silence for a moment. Suddenly
Jiu Na’s voice sounded in his ear.

“George?! Is that you?” He could sense the
worry in her voice. He realized she must have been afraid the
protector was calling her instead of George, and didn’t know what
to say to him.

“Yeah, it’s me,” said George. “I just left
the protector a little while ago. He wants me to go with him to
Portugal tomorrow.”

“Portugal!” cried Jiu Na. “Why does he want
you to go? Do you think it’s a trap?”

As briefly as possible, George explained what
the protector had told him about the Grak and their scheme to stop
the earth’s rotation, and how they needed to go to Portugal to
verify that there was another fallen star there.

“But do you think he’s telling the truth?”
asked Jiu Na when George had finished. “What about what the Ziphon
warned us?”

“I know,” replied George glumly. “I was
suspicious of him all day today. I was so jumpy he kept asking me
what was wrong. I think he might suspect something.”

“That’s bad,” said Jiu Na. “I don’t think you
should go with him tomorrow. You’ll be half a world away from
anyone you know. He could be taking you right to the Grak.”

“But I ran into the Grak right here the other
day! I don’t need to go half way around the world to find them,”
said George. “And if I don’t go, how will we find out what he and
the Grak are really up to? And how will we find out how we can
help? The Ziphon did say we could help, although I don’t know
how.”

“I don’t either,” said Jiu Na in a worried
voice. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I just don’t see
how two kids half a world apart can make any difference. We need
help from someone. But now we can’t trust the protector and I don’t
know where else to turn.”

“Neither do I,” replied George. He paused.
“I’ve been thinking. Maybe we were wrong about the protector being
in league with the Grak. After all, we don’t know that for sure.
We’re just guessing, based on what the Ziphon said.”

“That’s just what I’ve been afraid of,”
replied Jiu Na. “I thought you might start to think the protector
is on our side if you kept meeting him and going along with him. If
you spend time with him, he won’t seem like an enemy. He’ll convert
you to his side. I’m not around him, so that won’t happen to
me.”

“But we could be wrong,” objected George
again.

“I suppose, but then how do you explain what
the Ziphon said?” asked Jiu Na pointedly. “Who else do both of us
know? The Ziphon gave you and I the same message, so it has to be
someone we both know. And there’s only the protector and Emberly,
and she’s already shown that she’s not in league with the Grak. So
it has to be him!”

“I guess you’re right,” said George sadly. “I
guess I just wish it wasn’t so. He’s so nice – not like the Grak at
all.”

“That’s what makes him all the more
dangerous,” replied Jiu Na. “That’s probably why they’re using him.
I don’t think you should go to Portugal, George. Make up some
excuse. Let him go alone.”

“I don’t know,” replied George slowly,
thinking hard. “We’ve got to find out more than we know now.”

There was silence for a moment, each lost in
their own thoughts. Finally, George said, “I think I’d better go
with him tomorrow. I’ll stay close to Emberly, since she seems to
know how to protect herself against the Grak.”

“I knew you’d decide to go,” said Jiu Na
sadly. “I’m half way around the world, so there’s nothing I can do
to stop you. But be careful! And call me if there’s any trouble. I
don’t know what I could do, but maybe I could help somehow.”

After they had said good-bye, George stood
for a long time in his room, looking out the window at the street.
It was a sunny day, and the world looked peaceful. It seemed
impossible that something so sinister as the Grak and their
diabolical plan might soon destroy everything.

DoorJam came into the room and jumped up on
George’s bed. George sat down next to him and started scratching
under his chin. DoorJam purred appreciatively, twisting around into
a better position to be scratched. “I don’t know what to do,” said
George to the cat, continuing to scratch him softly. “I’m supposed
to do something, and I don’t know what to do.”

George took out the pouch containing the Uth
stone. Pulling it out, he held it up to the light. Everything
looked normal through it. While it was still cold and caused his
hand to tingle, it did nothing else. George placed it on his
dresser then concentrated his mind, willing the stone to show him
whether the protector was in league with the Grak. Nothing
happened. For several days now, the stone had done nothing at
all.

George put it back into the pouch, and
dropped it in his pocket again. “What am I to do?” he asked DoorJam
again. “How can a kid like me make a difference, or stop anyone as
powerful as the Grak?”

The cat looked up at him with its large green
eyes. George smiled sadly. He could imagine what Door Jam would
tell him if he could talk. He would just say, ‘You humans worry too
much. A good scratch under the chin and a little food is all that
you need. If you were a cat like me, you’d have no problems at
all!’

CHAPTER 22: Portugal

The next morning
George was out in front of his house early, waiting for the
protector. It had been a hard night. He had spent hours tossing and
turning fitfully in his bed before finally dropping off into an
uneasy sleep, filled with dreams of roots growing through the
earth, and of the protector turning into a dog-like creature like
the Grak.

That morning he had hardly eaten any
breakfast, and his mother had threatened to take him to the doctor.
When Janet had suggested the doctor check him for signs of brain
waves, they had gotten into an argument. For once his mother had
been glad to get him out of the house, and had told him to go out
and find something to do until lunchtime. Ever since taking her
happy memory pill, she had been less protective and less inclined
to call and check up on him all the time. Strangely enough, George
found himself almost missing her extreme over-protectiveness,
especially now that he could no longer trust the protector.

George looked up and down the street. No one
was in sight. In spite of his suspicions and worries about the
protector, George was curious about what he would appear as today.
He was determined not to be fooled like he had been for the last
several days.

George paced back and forth on the sidewalk
in front of his house. There was no sign of anything unusual, and
no flowers waving in the breeze today. Absently, George kicked a
rock that was lying on the sidewalk, sending it skittering off into
the grass.

“Hey!” a voice suddenly yelled, making George
jump. “What did you do that for? Would you like me to kick
you?”

George looked wildly all around. There was no
one in sight.

“Try kicking someone your own size, next
time,” came the voice again. It seemed to be coming from the rock
he had kicked onto the grass.

George bent down to look at the rock. Surely
the voice couldn’t have come from it. It looked so ordinary. “Good
morning, George,” the rock suddenly said in a clear voice.

George jumped back in alarm. “You’re a rock!”
he said without thinking.

“That’s correct,” said the rock. “Today, I am
a Correlian rock creature. They look just like earth rocks and are
very tough, so your little kick didn’t actually hurt me at all.
Whenever I feel like getting down to earth, I turn myself into a
Correlian rock creature. It’s the only time dirt tastes good, you
know.”

“You eat dirt?” asked George in
amazement.

“Correlian rock creatures do,” replied the
protector. “It tastes great, especially this rich, black dirt you
have on earth. It’s just like chocolate. You should try it
sometime.”

George frowned in distaste. Eating dirt
didn’t sound very appealing.

Then to George’s complete amazement, the rock
suddenly stood up and started to move. He could see that it had two
stubby little legs on which it could waddle along at a surprisingly
fast pace.