George Brown and the Protector (10 page)

“Thief! Troublemaker! Brat!” cried the street
vender as he danced angrily around Emberly. “You’ll pay for this!
You’ll pay for all of my egg plants!”

“Here, what’s the trouble?” said a guard,
pushing his way forward.

“This child pushed over my cart of egg
plants!” cried the street vender.

“Those aren’t eggs!” screamed Emberly. “Eggs
are white and taste good, but those purple rocks are awful!”

The guard took a menacing step toward
Emberly, a dark look on his face. A sizable crowd seemed to have
appeared out of nowhere, surrounding Emberly, the street vender and
the guard. George stood paralyzed at the edge of the crowd, not
knowing what to do.

Suddenly the protector appeared, shoving his
way in front of Emberly to face the guard.

“I apologize for the rude actions of my
niece,” he said hastily. “I will pay for any damaged egg plants, I
assure you.”

Emberly stood fuming behind the protector,
but didn’t say anything. The guard hesitated. The street vender had
quieted down for the moment, on hearing that he would be paid for
his produce. In fact, he had broken into a big grin at the prospect
of selling more egg plants at once than he probably ever had in one
night.

“Emberly,” said the protector over his
shoulder, while not taking his eyes off the guard, “please tell the
nice gentleman you’re sorry, then go over to the car with
George.”

Emberly looked sullenly down at her feet for
a moment. She scuffed her toe at a nearby egg plant, cracking it
open. Finally she said in a muffled voice, “I’m sorry.” Then she
flashed everyone an unexpected smile and ran over next to
George.

By this time several more guards had joined
the first one. The protector quickly produced a wallet from an
inner pocket and started pulling out colored bills of Yuen, Chinese
currency. George wondered how the protector had known to bring
any.

The street vender smiled happily and held out
his hands, ecstatic to be earning more money off the protector than
he would have earned in a day on the streets with his cart.

After passing out enough bills to make the
street vender smile in glee, the protector slipped a bill to each
of the guards. Then he signaled George and Emberly to follow him
and headed quickly for the car.

When they got there, the protector wiped his
brow and gave a sigh of relief. “That was a close one,” he said
quietly. “Those guards can sometimes be a little bit difficult.
It’s a good thing I transformed some money.” He opened the door of
the car.

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind them. “Could
you come with me please?”

CHAPTER 15: Jiu Na

The three jumped
and turned quickly around. To their surprise they saw a Chinese
girl standing before them, who was close to the same age as George
and Emberly. She was wearing a well worn sweater, and shoes that
looked two decades old. She smiled shyly, and said, “I’m Jiu Na. I
wonder if you could come with me to my house. It’s not far away –
right over there.” She pointed to a small shack nearby that looked
like the roof was about to fall in. Other little, run-down shacks
like it stretched off into the distance by the side of a trickle of
water running down an open ditch.

The protector looked at George and Emberly
for a moment. Then he said, “We’re kind of in a hurry and probably
won’t have time to go to your house. What do you need?”

“I have something to show you,” she said
pleadingly. “Won’t you please come? It’s very important.”

“Well,” said the protector, “I don’t know.
Maybe we’ll come back some other time.” He started to get into the
car, signaling for George and Emberly to get in as well.

Jiu Na looked like she was on the verge of
tears. “But you’ve got to come!” she cried. “I have to show it to
you! He said I had to!”

The protector stopped, and looked sharply up
at Jiu Na. “Who told you that?” he asked.

“The funny little brown man,” Jiu Na said
miserably. “I didn’t want to tell you about him because I wasn’t
sure you’d believe me. He was so strange.”

The protector quickly closed the car door and
turned to face Jiu Na. “Did he have leathery skin and a gravely
voice?” he asked with rising excitement.

“Yes,” said Jiu Na in surprise. “Do you know
him?”

“It’s the Ziphon,” said the protector,
turning to George. “We’d better go.” Turning back to Jiu Na he
said, “Lead on.”

She smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I should
have realized you’d know who he was. Come with me.” She then led
them across a small field to the shack. They stumbled occasionally
over the ruts running across the dark field, since it was too dark
to see clearly. The spotlights on the field behind them did little
more than cast difficult shadows across the uneven ground.

The door of the shack was scratched and
scarred and creaked heavily as Jiu Na pushed it open. Inside by the
dim light of a single bulb hanging from the ceiling they could see
that the shack had only a dirt floor and a few sparse furnishings.
An older woman was standing by a makeshift sink. She turned and
smiled at them as they entered.

“This is my mother,” said Jiu Na.

“Hello,” said the older woman. “Would you
like some rice?” She was already reaching for some plates on a
rickety shelf.

“No, thank you,” said the protector quickly.
“But we do appreciate your kindness in letting us come into your
home.”

“My daughter said you would be coming,” said
Mrs. Na. “I’m sorry that my home is so simple. We had to move here
a year ago when my husband disappeared.”

George looked up sharply. “Disappeared?” he
asked curiously. “One year ago?”

“That’s right,” said Jiu Na. “One day he was
just gone, without any warning. He went to work and didn’t come
back. He had a good job too, and we lived in a nice house. But
after he disappeared, we couldn’t stay there anymore. Nobody has
heard from him or has any idea where he went, although sometimes I
dream that he comes to me in my sleep and writes in my hand.”

George’s mouth was dry, and he could suddenly
feel the pounding of his heart in his ears. He stared in shock at
Jiu Na, hardly believing what she had just said.

She looked curiously back at George. “What’s
wrong?” she asked quietly.

With an effort, he said slowly, “My father
disappeared too. One year ago. And no one knows where he went. And
sometimes I dream that he comes and writes on my hand.”

Jiu Na and her mother stared at George, their
eyes wide. “You poor boy,” Mrs. Na said after a moment. “It must be
very hard for you.”

George gave a half hearted smile, but didn’t
know what to say. He shifted from one foot to the other.

“If that’s so, then you must have talked to
the leathery brown man too,” said Jiu Na softly. “And you probably
have one of these.” And with this, she pulled a small, clear rock
from behind a pot on a scratched shelf and held it up.

George gasped. The rock reflected the dim
light in the shack and seemed to magnify it as if it were much
brighter than it really was. Although it was several feet away in
Jiu Na’s hand, George could almost feel it throbbing. Slowly he
pulled the pouch containing his own rock from his pocket. When he
reached inside it felt icy cold, but by the time he pulled it out
it had become almost too hot to touch.

The instant George’s rock came out of the
pouch a shaft of brilliant light shot between the two stones. The
tiny shack was bathed in light so bright that everyone was
temporarily blinded.

And then the light was gone.

The rock in George’s hand suddenly felt
neither hot nor cold and was perfectly clear. It seemed so ordinary
that if George hadn’t felt and seen what had just happened, he
would never have believed it.

“Wow!” said Emberly in amazement. “That was
cool. Do it again!”

“I don’t know how,” mumbled George. “I don’t
even know what just happened.”

“You mean, you don’t know how to control it?”
said Jiu Na in disappointment. “When the leathery brown man told me
you three would be coming, I was hoping one of you would have a
rock like this and would know what to do with it and how to use
it.”

“When did this little brown man come?” asked
the protector.

“A few days ago, right after the fallen star
came down in that field over there and I found the rock. He didn’t
say much – just something about a sacrifice I could make, and that
a man and a boy and girl would be coming, and they might help me
know what to do to protect the earth from fire and ice, and to save
my father.”

“Save your father!” exclaimed George. “He
never mentioned anything like that when he came to me. He just told
me to find the protector and that the earth was in danger from fire
and ice.”

“Who is the protector?” asked Jiu Na.

“That would be me,” said the protector with a
bow. “I hope I won’t startle you and your mother too much if I say
that I am from another planet and am here on assignment to protect
the earth.”

Mrs. Na stepped back in alarm, but Jiu Na
didn’t seem surprised at all. “Is the leathery little man from your
world too?” she asked.

“No,” replied the protector. “That was a
‘Ziphon,’ a being that lives sideways through time and knows much
of the future. He recently came to me and to George here, to give
us a warning that the earth is in danger, and we are now trying to
figure out what that danger is. So we came here to your
country—“

“You mean, you’re not from China?” exclaimed
Jiu Na.

“Actually,” said George, “I’m from
California, in the USA.”

“You mean America?!” Jiu Na cried, staring at
George in total amazement. “You speak Chinese very well,” she said
softly.

“I don’t actually speak Chinese at all,” said
George with an embarrassed laugh. Jiu Na and her mother stared at
him in confusion.

“This is probably a lot to be telling you all
at once,” interjected the protector, “but I have a few tools that I
use in my … uhm … profession, and I transformed George, Emberly and
I from our normal appearance, so that we would look like Chinese
people. We are also chewing some translator gum, which allows us to
speak Chinese. I know this all probably sounds a little crazy to
you—“

“Oh, not at all!” said Jiu Na. “Ever since my
father disappeared strange things have been happening. But
strangest of all was when that big star fell the other night with
such a huge crash! I was the first to get over to where it fell.
People were running up from everywhere. It was hot and steamy and
scary, and some people thought a war had started or the end of the
world had come. And then I found this rock. I was drawn to it
somehow. I haven’t told anyone I have it. But I know it must have
come with the fallen star. Somehow, it seemed like it was meant
just for me.”

“It’s a relief, that you haven’t told
anyone,” said the protector. “When George first came to me we did a
little research on his rock.” Briefly he told Jiu Na of what they
had learned about rocks from the planet Uth, and the strange powers
they had.

“That explains a lot,” said Jiu Na. “Right
before the star fell, my school said I needed a new uniform or I
couldn’t attend in the fall when school starts up again. I knew we
didn’t have the money to buy one, so it looked like I wouldn’t be
able to go to school anymore. If you don’t go to school here in
China, you’re trapped in a life of poverty forever.”

“Then two days after I found this rock, it
suddenly got very hot while I was walking to the market. Then it
slipped out of my hand into a ditch and when I dug through the
weeds to find it, I found the money I needed for my uniform—the
exact amount!”

“That sounds like what happened to me at the
store!” said George. “The rock helped me find a can of pickled
peaches.”

“A can of WHAT?” exclaimed both Jiu Na and
her mother.

The protector laughed. “It’s an American
thing, so don’t worry about it. Has the rock done anything else
strange?”

“Well, there was one other time it did,” said
Jiu Na reluctantly. “It was kind of scary, so I don’t like to talk
about it.”

A prickly feeling went up the back of
George’s neck. He had a feeling he knew what she was about to
say.

“A few nights ago,” continued Jiu Na slowly,
“I woke up to see the rock glowing. When I picked it up I felt like
I needed to go outside. I went out and looked up at the stars. They
seemed closer than normal that night.” Jiu Na shivered. There was
silence for a moment in the shack. “Suddenly something very strange
happened. It was like I could suddenly see way out in space. I saw
a ship with a window, and at the window I saw a creature.” Jiu Na
shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “He had a dog-like face, and it
seemed like I could feel evil coming from him. And behind him I saw
my father.” Jiu Na’s voice broke, and she stared at the floor.

Slowly George said, “I saw the same thing one
night. Only behind the creature was MY father!”

CHAPTER 16: The Ring

Jiu Na looked up
sharply. “What does it all mean?” she exclaimed. “Why are you and I
seeing the same things half way around the world?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said
the protector. “The dog-like creature you saw is from a cruel race
of creatures known as the ‘Grak.’ While I know they are up to some
type of mischief with these fallen stars, so far I haven’t been
able to find out what it is.”

Suddenly they heard a screech from the corner
of the little shack. Turning, they saw Emberly looking with disgust
at an egg plant sitting on the top of a little basket on the
floor.

“You have one of those awful egg rocks! You
should throw it away!” She picked up the egg plant and aimed it at
the shack’s single, tiny window.