George Brown and the Protector (6 page)

“I thought so,”
said the protector with a grim smile. “That is a picture of a Grak,
which is one of the most feared and most powerful races of
creatures in this galaxy. I’m not surprised you saw one of them
nearby. They’ve been causing some trouble lately.”

“Trouble?” asked George curiously, with a
sinking feeling in his stomach.

“They’re always causing trouble,” said the
Protector. “I see it all the time on the 6:00 o’clock news. Come
here and I’ll show you.” He then walked over and flopped onto the
couch (the claws immediately started scratching him again) and said
to the empty air in front of him, “last night’s six o’clock news,
please—the segment on the Grak.”

Instantly an image appeared in the air in
front of the protector. It was a three dimensional view of a
three-headed newscaster, who was giving all of the current events
across the galaxy. The image looked so real that George had a hard
time believing it was a broadcast of a creature millions of light
years away. He couldn’t see where the image was coming from.

“…Boof Spinet, the intergalactic singing
star,”one of the three heads stated in a surprisingly high pitched
voice, “was found last night on the garbage planet of Moogbruth,
nearly suffocated under a pile of manuremog. Authorities are still
questioning Spinet as to how he came to be on the planet, although
some observers speculate he went there to get some inspiration for
a new song.

“—and in other news,” said one of the other
three heads of the newscaster, “the Grak envoy to the supreme
parliament got into a brawl on the floor of the parliament chamber
with the representative of the Noovian system. The argument was
apparently over trade issues, and allegations by the Noovians that
the Grak have seized control of three of their trade planets. This
is the third fight by a Grak on the floor of parliament this
year…”

During this report the three dimensional
picture in the air had changed to show a Grak fighting a pencil
thin purple creature with 4 noses (all of which were bloody).

“Disgusting,” said the protector with a
snort. “That’s enough news, thank you.” The image in the air faded
and disappeared.

“Graks are always fighting and causing
trouble,” said the protector. “They really shouldn’t even let them
into parliament, but I guess they figured that was better than
going to war with them. They’re quite a powerful race, you
know.”

Before George could reply, his cell phone
rang. The protector jumped off the couch as if he’d been shot by a
rocket. “Gorzubee!” he cried, looking around wildly. “I know the
sound of every gadget in here, and that’s not one of them! What was
that?”

George laughed as the phone rang again. “It’s
just my cell phone. My mom is calling. She calls all the time since
my Dad disappeared.”

The protector grinned sheepishly. “I knew
that,” he said flimsily. “It sounded like a cell phone.”

George punched the button on the phone to
talk to his mother.

“George?” she sounded worried. “You said
you’d be back in an hour, and you’re not here! Where are you?”

“Sorry Mom,” George replied. “I’m still at
the park. I met this, uh, bird, and I lost track of time.”

“A bird?” she cried. “Well look, young man,
you’d better be here in 15 minutes or you’ll be grounded for a
week! O.k?”

“O.k.” said George weakly. “Sorry. I’ll be
right there.”

Clicking off the phone, George turned to the
protector. “I’ve got to go now or I’ll be in big trouble. But
there’s still so much I wanted to ask!”

“Can you meet tomorrow morning?” asked the
protector.

“Probably,” replied George, “if I get home
real fast right now.” He turned to go. “Will I really get bigger
when I go through the door?”

“Yep,” replied the protector. “I set it to
downsize when you come through the passenger car window, and upsize
as soon as you take a few steps past the door. So watch your head
or you’ll end up jammed under the seat of the car.”

George opened the door and looked out at the
mountainous kernels of popcorn strewn across the floor of the car
beneath the passenger seat.

“Sorry about the popcorn mess,” said the
protector in embarrassment. “Martin really likes popcorn, but he’s
not too careful when he eats it.”

“Martin?” asked George.

“He’s my driver,” replied the protector. “I
don’t like driving in this new, modern traffic, so I got Michael to
do it for me. He’s outside on the park bench. You probably saw
him.”

“I did?” said George blankly. Everything
before he came into the protector’s car now seemed so long ago.
Then he remembered the man he had seen sleeping on the park bench
opposite the car. “Oh, yeah, I remember now,” he said. “Does he
live in here too? He seemed awful big.” George felt comfortable
with the protector, but wasn’t sure he liked the thought of a
strange man hanging around next time he came to visit.

“He does,” replied the protector, “and he
takes up hardly any space at all. But I’ll explain tomorrow –
you’ve got to get going or your mother won’t let you meet
tomorrow!” Then the protector gave George a little push through the
door.

As George stumbled forward he watched in
amazement as a popcorn kernel the size of a boulder seemed to
shrink and fade away from him. At the same time, his head smacked
against the bottom of the seat. Twisting around George found
himself suddenly at his regular size, jammed between the seat and
the inside front of the car. Hearing a muffled sound, he looked
down at his foot. He could barely hear the protector’s tiny voice
yelling, “GET YOUR FOOT OFF THE DOOR!”

George quickly moved his foot, and saw the
protector, the size of a tiny toy soldier, standing just inside it.
He yelled up at George, “You nearly broke the door with your foot
when you expanded.”

“Sorry,” said George. The protector covered
his ears. “Not so loud,” he yelled up at George. “You have to
whisper when you talk to someone my size, or you’ll deafen
them.”

“Sorry,” whispered George again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning in front of
your house,” the protector yelled. “You’d better go home fast, or
you won’t make it!”

George stared stupidly at him for a moment,
still fascinated at how tiny he looked, and how the little door
looked like it belonged on a doll house.

“Get going!” yelled the protector up at him
again. Suddenly remembering his mother’s threats, George twisted
around, hopped out the window and ran for home as fast as he could
go.

CHAPTER 10: A Little Grey Dog

George’s mind
was so completely filled with his meeting with the protector that
for the rest of the day he was hardly aware of what he was doing.
His mother got after him three times that evening for not paying
enough attention to what was going on around him. The last of these
was when she asked him to feed the cat and help with dinner, and he
put a bowl of cat food on the table and filled Door Jam’s bowl with
string beans.

“George,” said his mother in exasperation
after pouring the string beans into the disposal, “just what were
you doing at the park today that’s made you so preoccupied?”

“Nothing,” said George quickly, trying to
sound as innocent as possible. “There was just this yellow bird
hopping around, and I was following him.”

George’s mother looked at him shrewdly. “You
mean like the yellow bird that was following you a few months
ago?”

George squirmed. “I guess so,” he said
quietly. His mother continued to stare at him. Sometimes it seemed
that she could look right into his head and read his mind. Finally
she said, “Well, I don’t trust little yellow birds. Your father was
also seeing strange things before he disappeared. So from now on if
you see a yellow bird, stay away from it!”

“O.k., Mom,” said George meekly. He could
tell she was suspicious. She could smell something unusual 100
yards off. Through the rest of the evening he tried to pay
attention to what he was doing, since he didn’t want to risk her
not letting him go out to meet the protector tomorrow.

But for the rest of the evening, George's
mind kept going over and over his meeting with the Protector and
what he had learned. He slept fitfully that night, drifting in and
out of dreams about shrinking Volkswagens, grumpy mirrors hanging
in mid air, and pink fuzz balls rolling across his foot and across
his face.

Finally morning came. George was so anxious
to meet the protector that he brushed his teeth with a tube of hand
lotion and poured milk on his toast at breakfast. (Fortunately his
mother was out of the room at the time, and he cleaned up the mess
before she came back). Finally, after he had gulped down his
breakfast, he headed for the front door.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”
his mother asked, appearing out of nowhere.

“Just out front,” replied George, trying to
sound as casual as possible. “Maybe I’ll just climb the tree or
poke around in the bushes for awhile.”

George’s mother gave him a hard look. “Well,
make sure you don’t leave the front yard. And take your cell phone
with you.”

“But Mom,” cried George, “I’m just going to
the front yard. Why do I need my cell phone?”

“Suppose someone kidnaps you?” his mother
responded. “If your father would have had a cell phone with him, we
might know where he is right now.”

“Oh, all right,” said George grumpily,
hooking his cell phone onto his belt. Then he went out into the
front yard. The protector’s Volkswagen was nowhere to be seen. In
fact, the street was deserted except for a fluffy, grey dog coming
down the sidewalk, sniffing at everything it came across.

Disappointed, George scuffed his shoe on the
sidewalk and settled down to wait. He looked up and down the street
again. He still saw nothing, other than the dog, which was getting
closer. George looked at the sky. It promised to be a clear,
cloudless day.

Then a horrible thought struck George. He
hadn’t told the protector where he lived! No wonder the Volkswagen
was nowhere in sight!

In frustration, George sat down hard on the
sidewalk step. He could have kicked himself for being so stupid.
What was he going to do now? The protector apparently lived in his
car, and that car could be anywhere. How were they going to find
each other again?

George drummed his fingers grumpily on his
knee, thinking hard. But no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t
think of anything to do except to try and talk his Mom into letting
him go back to the park, to see if the protector’s car was
there.

George stood up and turned to go back into
the house. As he did so, he nearly tripped over the little grey dog
that he had seen earlier. It wagged its tail and looked up at him
happily.

“Sorry, I can’t play now,” said George to the
dog. “I’m in a hurry.” George hopped over the dog and started for
his house.

“What’s the rush?” said a voice behind
him.

In shock, George tripped over his own feet
and sprawled on the lawn. He looked back but there was no one
there, other than the little dog.

He stared at the dog for a moment. It stared
back, wagging its tail eagerly. Finally, George said, “are you the
protector?”

“In the fur,” replied the dog. “It’s ‘dog
Tuesday.’ Every Tuesday I like to go out as a dog. There’s always
so many interesting things to smell and cats to chase.”

“How do you do that?” asked George, coming
over to the dog. “Talk, I mean. I can hardly see your lips
move!”

“It’s not too hard,” replied the dog simply.
“The transformer may change my shape, but I can still talk like
normal. I didn’t talk to you yesterday when I was a bird because I
didn’t want to scare you.”

“Wow!” said George. “You look so real!” He
reached his hand out to pet the dog’s head—then quickly pulled it
back. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “I was thinking you were a
real dog, rather than the protector.”

“Oh, that’s o.k.” replied the protector.
“Right now I feel like a dog. The transformer does a very complete
job of things. When I’m like this I even enjoy dog food, which I
normally would never eat.”

“Wow,” said George again, reaching out to pet
the protector and scratch behind his ears and under his chin.

“Oooh, that feels good!” said the protector
as George scritch-scratched his neck. “Don’t stop!” The protector’s
hind leg started to thump up and down, as dogs often do when being
scratched.

There was suddenly a bang from the front door
behind them. “George!” came his mother’s voice. “What are you
doing?”

George turned to face her. “It’s just a dog,
Mom.”

“Tell her I’m lost,” whispered the
protector.

“I think he’s lost,” said George.

“Well, I don’t know if you should be petting
him,” George’s mother said doubtfully. “He looks kind of scroungy
and dirty to me.”

“Hmph!” said the protector grumpily. “I took
a shower this morning!” Then he added, “ask if you can take me down
the street to see who I belong to – that will give us a chance to
go to the fallen star.”

“O.k.” whispered George back to the
protector.

“Are you talking to the dog?” George’s mom
asked curiously.

George coughed in embarrassment. “Uh, yeah, I
am. I was just telling it I could take it down the street and ask
who it belonged to.”

George’s mother scowled, pursing her lips.
But George and the dog were looking at her so eagerly that she
finally threw up her hands and said, “O.k! All right, go ahead! But
be back in an hour!”

“Thanks, Mom,” George said happily as he and
the protector bolted off down the street.

“That was a great idea,” said George to the
protector as they ran.

“Well, we needed to get away from her so we
could go out to the fallen star where you found the Uth stone,”
said the protector, panting. “Martin has the car parked just around
the corner, so we can drive right out there.”