George stared stupidly at his phone for a minute, which had shrunk with him and was now no bigger than the tip of a pencil. He was surprised it still worked at that size. Finally he answered it.
“George?” came his mother's worried voice over the telephone. “Are you o.k.?”
“Yeah, sure mom,” said George as quietly as he could. He knew that there was probably little reason to be quiet since the phone had made enough noise when it rang to wake the dead. But he hadn’t forgotten he was in someone else’s car and that the bird (who might be hungry) was probably still around.
“Where are you?” his mother asked. “Your voice sounds faint.”
“At the park,” replied George. He wasn't ready just yet to tell her he had shrunk to about 2 inches in height.
‘Well, that’s o.k. I guess,” said George's mom. “But I want you back home in one hour, o.k.?”
“O.k.,” said George weakly. He knew he probably wouldn’t be back by then (or perhaps for a long time after that) given his current size. So, he could expect another more frantic call from his mom in exactly one hour. But what else could he say?
“One hour!” his mother repeated forcefully. “Bye.”
“Bye, mom,” George said weakly. He hooked the phone on his belt and turned back to the door. Somehow he suspected that if he had any hope of getting home at his normal size—in one hour or not—he had to go through that door.
It looked like a very ordinary door, with a few scuffs and scrapes at the bottom, and a dull brass handle in the middle. If it wasn’t so small and weren't located in such an unusual place, George would have paid no attention to it.
He listened at the door for a moment but could hear no sound from the other side. Slowly he turned the handle and pushed on the door, and as it swung open he was amazed at what he saw.
It was a large room, with some pieces of furniture and a number of strange looking devices in it. Nearest the door was a good-sized booth, big enough to stand in, with clothing, fur and feathers lying on little shelves inside. Next to it was a large oval shaped mirror that seemed to be hanging in mid air. Farther into the room was a couch that looked normal except for several rake-like claws sticking out of it at odd angles. Next to it was a lamp table with two big, strong looking arms jutting out of it. Against the far wall was what looked like a refrigerator that seemed to be wearing a bizarre type of purple sweater, and by it was a sink that seemed to be made out of towels. There were a number of other odd desks, booths, boxes and strange contraptions scattered about the room, and at the far end was what looked like a doorway without a door, the border or outline of which was shimmering and glowing and constantly shifting with different colors.
In the middle of the room, seated in front of a desk on a little stool, was a bizarre looking creature. It had what seemed to be fuzzy, grayish skin, and a long, scrawny neck with a bald, head at the top. When George came through the door the creature smiled at him, showing a mouthful of green, triangle-shaped teeth. It had big, bulbous eyes and a crooked nose, and the skin on its face hung in loose grey folds and flabs.
“Good morning,” the creature said in a voice that sounded like water going over pebbles. It made a half-hearted effort to smooth out the wrinkled, red smock it was wearing, then said, “You are George Brown, and I am known as the protector.” Then it scratched its bald head with two long fingers, making a sound like a mouse running through weeds. “Or, at least, I was known as the protector a century ago. Or rather, two centuries ago. Or it could have been only yesterday. The time on this planet always gets me so confused. So does this funny language of yours that took me so long to learn.”
George opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He was still so shocked at having been shrunk, and the strangeness of the room and the bizarre looking creature that he couldn’t say a word.
“Oh, my!” said the protector, smacking his head with a hollow sound. "Where are my manners?” He rushed over to the refrigerator wearing the sweater, opened it up (causing the sweater to stretch so much it looked like it would rip), and rummaged around inside with a lot of banging and mumbling. Finally he emerged holding two glasses with some type of red liquid in them. Waddling over to George, he handed one up to him (even though George was now only 2 inches tall, the protector was even shorter and wobbled around the room on stubby legs that had six-toed feet).
“Drink up,” commanded the protector. “It’s called Vleck. It helps you get used to being shrunk when you've never been shrunk before.” The protector rubbed his chin. “Although sometimes it can make you shrink more if you drink too much. But I wouldn’t worry about that, since I think I gave you the right amount. I guess. Drink up! It tastes great!”
George took the glass but didn't drink any. He was small enough already. The Protector however downed his Vleck in three gulps.
“Delicious!” he said as he licked his purple lips. “Even if you're used to being shrunk.”
He waved his three-fingered hand toward the couch while going over to put his glass in the towel sink. “Have a seat. Or I guess I should say, feel free to sit down. You can’t actually have the seat because if you took it out that door it would unshrink and break my whole car to pieces because it's too big to fit in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen.”
“Unshrink?” said George, finding his voice at last. “You mean if something goes through that door, it will go back to normal size? Even me?”
“Yes, absolutely, if you walk far enough out toward the seat to get away from the shrink zone,” said the Protector. Then he paused. “Although sometimes things only seem to go back to about 70% of their original size, if I remember right. But you have nothing to worry about since you’re a growing boy, and you’d soon grow back the other 30%.”
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Before George could say that he didn’t think he could grow 30% of his normal size very quickly, he suddenly felt something furry rubbing his foot. Looking down he saw a pink fluff ball rolling back and forth across his shoe. With a yell he jumped back, spilling his Vleck and nearly knocking over the mirror hanging in mid-air (but of course it didn't fall since there was nothing supporting it to start with).
“No need to get excited,” said the Protector as he picked up the whimpering fluff ball. “It’s just Emberly. She's a Praetorian.” He patted her gently. Then he added sadly, “She's the last of her race.”
“What’s a Praetorian?” asked George, forgetting for the moment the strangeness of his surroundings. He reached out a tentative hand to touch Emberly. Her fur felt soft as silk. “And why is she the last of her race?”
“A Praetorian is someone from the planet Preatoria of course,” replied the Protector. “It’s in the Gularia sector.” Then he scratched his carrot shaped ear. “Or is it the Soolmar sector? I always get those two mixed up.”
“Anyway,” he continued, shoving Emberly unceremoniously into George’s hands, “she’s the last of her race because the others were all petrified. Turned to stone. A Nulami trade ship stopped on Preatoria one day and found nothing but a bunch of Preatorian sized rocks all over the place.”
George held Emberly awkwardly in his hands. She kept bouncing from hand to hand and humming happily.
“She likes you,” said the Protector approvingly. “Maybe you could marry her someday. I'm going to turn her into a human, you know.”
George nearly dropped Emberly in shock. “Marry her?!!” he cried.
The Protector laughed. “Oh, I forgot. Boys your age on this planet don’t like girls yet. Perfectly natural. It’s like that on my planet too for the first 45 stars of a person’s life. But of course, on Kena, people can’t actually get married anyway until the passing of 60 stars. A very long time.”
“60 stars?” said George blankly. So much had happened in the last half hour that his mind couldn’t keep up with it all.
“That’s 5,000 years in your time,” the Protector said casually. He flopped down on the couch and immediately two of the claws that were poking out of it at odd angles started scratching his back. “Ooooh! That feels good!” said the Protector, shifting around so the claws could reach him more easily. He rolled his eyes happily.
George’s mind was still reeling. There was silence for a moment (except for the scritch-scratching of the claws on the Protector's back) while George tried to figure out which of his 1000’s of questions he should ask first. Finally he said, “You’re from another world? A place called Kona?”
“That’s ‘Kena,’, not Kona,” the Protector replied. “It’s about 50 billion light years from here, out in the Lipet sector. Just past Nagow, the amusement park planet.” The Protector smiled and his eyes glowed. “I’m going to stop there on my way home when I finish my assignment here in another three years.”
“Your assignment?” George repeated without thinking.
“Yep,” replied the Protector. “It’s part of our education to go out into the universe for five stars, pick a planet, and take an assignment as its protector. I’ve been here for almost five stars now, so my time as protector on this planet is almost up. Then I'll go back to Kena and go to high school.”
“High school?!” exclaimed George in surprise.
“Yeah,” said the protector sheepishly. “By comparison with the age of people on my planet, I’m just a teenager. Even though I came here in the year 1500 and something or other, and I’ve been here for almost 500 years of your time. Do you want to see my contract?”
George stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“I had it signed right after I got here. We’re supposed to make sure the natives want us to protect their planet before we get started, you know.” He jumped up and went over to a tall structure that looked something like a bookshelf. It had a number of oddly shaped volumes and wrappings along its shelves. Carefully the protector pulled out a faded parchment that looked like it might crumble into dust any second. Carrying it back to George, he pointed proudly to a large ‘X’ at the bottom.
“That’s the signature of Chief Palomuk of the Paiute tribe. He was the Indian chief in charge of this area when I arrived in about the year 1500 or so as measured in your time, and he agreed to let me be the protector of this planet for 500 years.” The protector looked at the parchment wistfully. “Chief Palomuk was quite a guy. He couldn’t read or write, but not only did he stop his braves from killing me when I arrived, he offered for me to marry one of his daughters after he signed this. Of course I declined since she’s an alien to me, and I’m too young to marry anyway.”
The protector then looked across the room as if seeing people and events from long ago written on the walls. “It’s been quite an exciting time since then until now. I didn’t think I’d get much activity protecting this little out of the way planet, but boy was I wrong! Someday, I’ll have to tell you some of the times I’ve had protecting your planet. Or maybe I’ll just write a book about it.”
“However!” said the protector loudly before George could say anything, “I believe you came here because a certain little yellow bird stole that.” He pointed to George’s leather pouch, which was lying on a purple table that was wearing rubber boots on its legs.