George Brown and the Protector (8 page)

“Which was the 7th in China, since it is
across the international dateline,” said the protector. “It appears
they fell at the same time. But why they fell, and what they are
doing here is a great mystery.” The protector squinted his eyes in
concentration. “Two things are certain,” he said after a moment.
“First, it isn’t a mere coincidence that these two identical
objects landed on earth at the same time. Second, given what you
saw the other night and what I know about the Grak, I would say the
Grak are the ones who sent them down here for some devious purpose
of their own.”

Suddenly George felt something prickly on the
back of his neck. He jumped and turned around, but it was only
Emberly who had rolled over from the couch, then bounced up to his
neck.

“Hi, there,” he said, picking her up. “How
are you doing today?”

Emberly got so excited that she bounced from
one of George’s hands to the other, and then up on his head. George
laughed and reached up to pull her off, but she bounced away and
then up to the top of the fridge.

“I told you she liked you,” said the
protector. “I just wish she could get along as well when she’s a
girl,” he said with a sigh.

“What?” said George uncomprehendingly.

“Like I said before, she was sent to me so I
could find her a new home here on earth, since there are no more of
her kind,” said the protector. “She’s highly intelligent so I
hesitate to turn her into an animal and let her lose. So I tried
the other day to turn her into a human girl. I guess she didn’t
like it though. She just about turned the supermarket we went to
upside down!”

“You took her into a supermarket?” George
asked in amazement. He stared at the pink fuzz ball for a minute,
trying in vain to imagine it transformed into a girl who went crazy
in the aisles of food.

Suddenly George’s cell phone rang, causing
the protector to jump and look around wildly. Then he grinned
sheepishly. “Your cell phone,” he mumbled in embarrassment. “I knew
that.”

George clicked the button on the phone.

“George, where are you?” came his mother’s
worried voice.

The protector hurriedly whispered to George,
“Ant number 4 brought us back to where we started, just around the
corner from your street.”

“I’m just up the street,” said George.

“Well, it’s past time you were back,” said
his mother. Then she added as an afterthought, “did you find the
little dog’s home?”

“Yeah,” said George with a grin. “He’s home
now.” The protector grinned too. “I’ll be right home, Mom.”

“Well, you'd better be,” she answered. “We’ve
got to get ready for our trip, you know.”

“Our trip?” George repeated blankly.

“Yes, you remember, don’t you?” said his
mother. “We’re going to Sacramento tomorrow to take the pickled
peaches to your Aunt Agnes.”

“Oh, darn!” said George. “I forgot. Do I have
to go?”

“Yes,” said his mother firmly. “We’ve been
planning this trip for 3 weeks and she’s expecting all of us. Janet
tried to get out of going too, and I wouldn’t let her.”

“Darn,” said George again.

“It’s not that bad,” said his mother.
“Anyway, you’re going. And I expect you back home in 5
minutes!”

“O.k. Mom,” said George unhappily. He clicked
off the cell phone. “Looks like I’ll be gone all day tomorrow,” he
said grumpily.

“That’s too bad,” said the protector. “I was
thinking we need to go to China tomorrow.”

“Go to China!” exclaimed George.

“Yep,” replied the protector. “We need to
take a look at their fallen star. And most importantly, we need to
see if anyone there found an Uth stone like yours. The newspaper
didn’t mention anything about one.”

“That’s right!” cried George. “If everything
else about it is the same, there should have been an Uth stone
there too.”

“Well,” said the protector, “I just hope if
there was one it’s not in the wrong hands, since it is so powerful.
Anyway, you’d better get going. Just meet me in front of your house
in the morning the day after tomorrow and we’ll go to China
then.”

“Gosh, I sure wish I didn’t have to go to
Aunt Agnes’ place tomorrow,” said George.

“It’s all right,” said the protector with a
smile. “It’s only one day. And it will give me some time to do some
testing on your fallen star, to try to find a clue about what it’s
made of.”

George gave Emberly a final pat, then went to
the door. He paused for a second, then turned and asked, “how are
we going to talk to people or understand them in China? And how are
we going to even get there?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” replied the protector.
“But I’ll describe it all the day after tomorrow. Now go, before
your Mom gets upset.”

“O.k.” said George reluctantly. There were
still so many things he wanted to ask that he hated to leave. But
he knew his mother well enough to know he had to get home fast.

“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow then,”
he called as he ducked through the door.

“O.k.” came the protector’s reply. Then in a
voice that seemed to fade into the distance like a rock being
dropped into a well, George heard the protector say, “Watch your
head!”

The instruction came too late. George’s head
banged into something hard and he suddenly found himself sitting
sideways, back to his full size, with his head stuck under the
passenger seat of the Volkswagen.

George heard the protector’s tiny voice
yelling, “don’t worry, you’ll get better at it. Now you’d better
get going. I’ll see you in two days.”

George struggled out from under the seat,
righted himself, and waved to the miniature protector standing in
the door far below. Then he hopped out of the car and raced for
home.

CHAPTER 13: A Poke in the Ear

The next day all
George could think about was fallen stars, the protector, China and
Uth rocks. He was so preoccupied at breakfast his mother had to
tell him three times to stop holding his dripping cereal spoon over
his pants. She got after him again when he came out to the car to
go to Aunt Agnes’ house with a cowboy boot on one foot and a tennis
shoe on the other. George stared blankly out the window for the
whole two hour drive to Aunt Agnes’ house, totally oblivious to the
passing trees and countryside. Instead, he was seeing images of
evil, slobbering Grak, refrigerator’s wearing sweaters, and ants
driving Volkswagens.

After they arrived at Aunt Agnes’ house,
George was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he actually ate a
mouthful of pickled peaches his Aunt offered him before he realized
what he was doing (naturally, he spit it out immediately).

All in all, the day seemed to creep by like a
cat being dragged by his claws across the carpet. After an eternity
of sitting on Aunt Agnes' lumpy couch while she talked on and on
and on, they finally drove home. When George finally went to bed
that night, he was exhausted from having tried hard all day to
force time to go faster. But at the same time, he was full of
excitement to meet the protector and go to China in the
morning.

The next morning George was out front as
early as his mother would let him. She was actually glad this time
to see him go, since he had been such a nuisance the day before at
Aunt Agnes’ house, and he had kept making new messes for her to
clean up all morning--such as when he poured salt in his milk, and
put catsup on his cereal.

From the front of his house George looked up
and down the street, but didn’t see anyone or any sign of the
protector’s car. He smiled. Just because there was no person in
sight didn’t mean the protector wasn’t there. The last time he had
surprised George as a dog, and in the park he had been a bird.
George looked in all directions for any type of small animal. He
didn’t intend to be caught off guard this time.

The sun was shining and it promised to be a
warm, beautiful day. There was a gentle breeze and several
butterflies were fluttering in the air. George couldn’t see any
dogs along the street, or any cats either (other than DoorJam, who
was snoozing on the front porch). Although he could hear some birds
singing nearby, George couldn’t actually see any birds either.

George settled himself down to wait. He had
just plopped down cross-legged on the grass when he heard a voice
in his ear.

“So, are you ready to go to China?” it
asked.

George stumbled to his feet and turned
swiftly around, but there was no one there.

“Whoa, there!” said the voice again. “Settle
down! You nearly crushed me!”

George looked around wildly. There was still
nothing in sight other than a butterfly fluttering gently through
the air near his head.

George did a double take. The butterfly! Of
course! George looked at it intently. It didn’t look anything like
the protector. George couldn’t tell if it even had a mouth to talk
with.

“Yep,” came the voice again. “Today I’m a
butterfly. It’s actually kind of pleasant for those days you just
want to float around on the breeze, light as a feather. But it can
be dangerous if a strong wind comes along – or if you get too close
to a human who thinks you're a potato chip, or who jumps around and
flails his arms like you just did!”

“Sorry about that,” said George. “I wasn’t
expecting you to be a butterfly. I’ll try to be more careful.”

“So,” said the protector again, “are you
ready to go to China?”

“You bet!” exclaimed George.

“Well, ant number 4 has the car parked right
around the corner,” said the protector, “so let’s get going.” The
butterfly headed off for the corner at a surprisingly fast pace,
with George trotting along to keep up with it.

When they reached the car, Ant number 4 was
seated in the driver’s seat staring straight ahead as usual. The
butterfly flew through the open passenger seat window and down to
the little door. As George opened the car door to get in, he heard
a tiny voice floating up to him. “No need to come down here and
shrink. Just take a seat in the back. Ant number 4 knows where to
go. I’m just going to make a quick change and will be right out.”
George then saw the butterfly flutter through the tiny door.

George sat down in the back seat, and ant
number 4 started the car and began driving. George still couldn’t
imagine how they could travel halfway around the world to China in
this little car, but he had already seen the protector do so many
amazing things that he no longer doubted they would do it
somehow.

Ant number 4 took the car into the country,
past the orchard and then to the field where the fallen star was
located. The car came to a stop. George heard the protector’s tiny
voice say, “We need to start from a secluded spot, and this place
is as good as any. I’ll be right up and set up the portable
transporter.”

George remained in the back seat, waiting.
Ant number 4 stayed exactly where he was, staring blankly ahead
into space. Suddenly there appeared on the passenger seat a stubby
little man with his shirt tail hanging out and an unshaven growth
of stubble on his face. As the man opened the door and got out of
the car, George was surprised to see that he was even shorter than
George himself.

“I assumed the shape of a man just in case
anyone happens to come by,” said the protector. He then reached
back into the car and pulled out some thin poles and some flouncy,
gauzy material that seemed to shimmer and shift colors in the
protector’s hands. He carried these a short distance from the car,
set most of them down on the grass, and then began working on the
poles. George left the car and came up to watch.

“This is the portable transporter,” said the
protector, grunting as he jabbed one of the poles into the ground.
“It takes about 10 minutes to set it up. It’s kind of like putting
up a tent.”

The protector worked swiftly with deft
movements, and George watched in fascination as the outlines of
what looked like a door appeared before his eyes. It was about 6
feet high and was in the shape of an arch, with enough room
underneath for the protector’s car to pass through. Stretched
across the poles that formed the frame of the door were the gauzy
strands of some strange material that seemed to be constantly
changing color. George remembered seeing a smaller version of this
type of door in the Protector’s home inside the Volkswagen.

In a few minutes the door was completed. The
protector then attached a small black box to the bottom of one side
of the door. It had buttons on it similar to a keypad, or the face
of a cell phone.

“Now, I just need to make a few settings on
the controller here, and then we’ll be ready to go.” He started
pushing some of the buttons.

“So, we’re going to drive through that door
and it will take us to China?” asked George.

“That’s right,” said the protector. “Only
we’d look pretty conspicuous in China the way we are right now. So
I’m setting the gauge here to not only transport us, but transform
us as well—even Emberly. She needs to get out in the world of
humans more often, so I thought she’d come with us today.”

“We’re going to be transformed?” George asked
uneasily. He wasn’t sure he was ready to be a butterfly. “How? I
mean, what’s wrong with the way we are right now?”

“Well,” the protector responded slowly, “in
China you’ll be about 6 inches taller than most boys your age, and
you look very American. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb. We want
to be inconspicuous and not draw attention to ourselves so we can
move about freely.”

George was about to respond when he was
suddenly hit from behind between the shoulder blades so hard that
he went flying. He looked up dizzily to see a blond haired girl
with freckles looking down at him, a big, gawky smile on her face.
With alarm, George saw that she looked like she was about to jump
on top of him, feet first.