The Protector

Protector

By Daphne Q

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 byDaphne Q

All Rights Reserved

No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the express, written consent of the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictitious and are not based on any real persons living or dead.

Chapter 1

I was waiting for Bethany when Mr. Brown hustled down the steps and set off at a good clip toward the athletic fields. He was carrying a first aid kit over his shoulder. Everybody knew he was a former Navy medic, but you don’t often see the assistant principal moving that quickly, so I knew something was up.

Immediately, my thoughts turned to Max and I shivered. My brother had track practice this afternoon; I know his schedule as well as my own.

I followed Mr. Brown. As I rounded the corner, Bethany showed up. Maddy, there was an accident at the track, she said breathlessly.

I’ve got to check on Max, I said.

She sighed and frowned. You and Baby Bruvver, she said with an edge of sarcasm.

He had practice this afternoon, I said.

Ugh! That’s just so gay! What a worrier you are!

I didn’t bother trying to argue. I saw nothing strange in being concerned for Max’s safety.

But I was seriously annoyed at the endless Baby Bruvver references, ever since that silly YouTube stunt.

The whole business with the video started with Max trying to be helpful.

Well … it really started with Dante trying to help his girlfriend.

Max and Dante are my brothers. I had nothing to do with it, but—not for the first time—I got caught in the crossfire.

Dante is a sophomore at Cal … and last summer he was going out with Calista Callahan, a psych student who was working on a project relating to child prodigies … something about what happens when they grow up. At least, I think that’s what it was about.

So Dante, trying to help, suggested they include Max.

Max and I both adore Dante. He had been only 8 when his parents brought home two grieving and terrified orphans. He had taken us under his wing without reservation and made us feel that our arrival was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

It was several years before Max slept in his own room. Almost every night he crept in with me or with Dante … and was always welcomed.

So if Dante wanted to shoot a video of Max playing the piano, well, that was OK with him. He’d been playing since he was a toddler, and even wrote his own music. I took that for granted, but Dante had recognized it as special, and so had Calista.

The video she’d produced for her seminar had included Max playing now as well as video taken years ago by Father. She also had footage on another Cal student who had done some fabulous artwork at age 4, and then not drawn again until she was in her 20s. The finished video was interesting, but no big deal.

And then someone had gotten hold of it and reconfigured it so that the segments on Max now and Max as a little kid seemed like two different boys playing, labeled The Pianist and Baby Bruvver. It had gone viral, god knows why. Fortunately, by the time school opened, Max wasn’t hearing so many jokes on the subject.

Actually, the stupid remarks bothered me more than they bothered him. He just shrugged them off with his usual lack of interest in other people’s opinions.

Hey, Bethany said, Baby Bruvver is famous … what’s your problem?

We reached the track a few steps behind Mr. Brown. An ambulance was rolling up to the long jump pit area.

My breath caught in my throat. Max did the long jump as well as the sprints. I scurried over just as the paramedics reached a kid on the ground.

His track teammates were pressing towels against his leg, and I could see the towels turning red.

I recognized the kid … Joe Something … I think Max may have mentioned him. But where was Max?

Joe was grimacing in pain. The paramedics put him onto a stretcher, one of them trying to stanch the flow of blood. They didn’t waste any time. In a moment, they had sped off.

What happened? I asked no one in particular.

Mr. Brown was examining the head of a rake. There was no handle, just the metal part with the teeth. And those teeth looked razor-sharp.

Looks like somebody left this rake…or at least part of it…in the sand pit, he said.

I glanced at the pit. There was an indentation where Joe had landed on one of his jumps. Drops of blood were scattered all over the white granules.

Why would anyone leave a part of a rake in the sand pit? I asked, again to no one in particular.

It was probably an accident, Mr. Brown said. I’m going to talk to the grounds crew.

He left, but the track team milled around, clearly shaken. The coach was nowhere to be seen.

I surveyed all the faces. Where’s Max?

He didn’t show up for practice, one boy said.

Max hadn’t been there at all? Now I was really worried.

Bethany had moved off and was talking to one of the seniors—I‘d noticed before that she had an eye for star athletes.

I had to get home. I sent Bethany a quick text and walked rapidly off the field.

If it had been anyone but Max, I’d have texted him to see what was going on. But Max doesn’t like to text. He could barely remember to charge his cell, much less carry it around with him.

I waited impatiently at the next corner for the light to change. Then I jumped at the sound of the voice behind me; I hadn’t heard anyone walking up.

Don’t worry, Maddy, it said. On the starship Enterprise, no one is ever alone.

Startled, I spun around.

All I saw was a skinny guy in a white suit that was too big for him sitting in a tree.

But he knew my name. That was creepy.

And what on earth was he talking about?

It’s not that I haven’t seen homeless or mentally ill people before. I mean, I live in a nice clean suburb, but I wasn’t brought up in an isolated cave.

But I’d never seen anything like this guy. He wasn’t asking me for money or ranting about his religious visions. He seemed more or less normal, although who sits in a tree and talks to strangers anyway?

How do you know my …?

The light is green, he said.

I stared at him, my mouth open. Strangely, I wasn’t frightened. I really wanted to know who he was and what the hell he was talking about. But first I had to make sure Max was all right; the urge to get home was totally stronger than my curiosity.

After I crossed the street, I looked back. The figure in white was gone, vanished as quietly as he had appeared.

By the time I got to the house, I’d half-forgotten the weird guy in the white suit. I let myself in and immediately breathed a sigh of relief. I could hear the sound of the piano from the family room. Max was practicing the Beethoven, Bagatelle No. something or other. He said it was usually known as Fur Elise, and he’d been working on it for a couple of weeks.

I stuck my head in the doorway, waiting for him to notice me. I didn’t want him to panic, and now that I knew he was OK, I was less panicky myself. To my surprise, he looked up immediately and took his hands off the keyboard.

Did you hear what happened? Why weren’t you at track practice? I had so many questions they burst out of me.

Let’s go upstairs, Maddy, he said quietly.

I heard Mother in the kitchen and called hello on my way. I’ll be in my room, I said.

Mother sold real estate, so she had an erratic schedule. She sometimes had to show houses at night, but she liked to be around in late afternoon when we got home from school.

We settled on the floor of my room where we had spent so many hours. The navy blue carpet was starting to show wear, but it was still comfortable. Mother had bought me an armchair, in a blue and aqua stripe, but it sat unused in the corner

You weren’t at track practice, I said, struggling to keep from sounding accusatory. And there was an accident!

I quickly filled him in on what I’d seen.

Is Joe OK?

Seems to be, I said. Where were you?

Mr. Franklin wanted to talk to me, he said, sighing.

If Max had been in the principal’s office, it wasn’t for the usual reasons; he never got in trouble in school. This latest go-round had to do with a books for Africa project that Max wanted the student body to sponsor. The problem was that Mr. Franklin thought Max was too young to run such a project. Normally this kind of thing was done by seniors, not a freshman.

Max thought the objection was ridiculous, that his ability to complete a big project wasn’t related to his chronological age.

Hence the discussion … several discussions, in fact, none of which had resolved anything.

I told him I was due at track practice, but he said he had a solution.

And did he?

Mr. Franklin had suggested that Max find a co-sponsor—a senior for preference. That would let Max do his thing, but satisfy the principal’s desire for the involvement of an older student.

I was still in the hall when Mr. Franklin came out in a hurry, he said. From what you’ve told me, he was probably going to the track.

Not knowing anything was wrong, Max had come home.

That could have been you! I said.

He shrugged. Well, it wasn’t.

I ignored him. In fact, it should have been you! Don’t you usually practice the long jump before everyone else?.

Are you suggesting someone is out to get me? he asked.

Was that what I was saying? I backed off. I don’t know. It’s just weird. And it doesn’t make sense.

Well, it certainly doesn’t make sense that someone was trying to hurt me, he said.

And then I thought, Tom Makenono always had it in for Max. For some reason, he saw himself in competition with Max, and had been that way since at least the third grade.

Max, being Max, just ignored his insults, but it never stopped Tom from trying to belittle him, or at least get a reaction.

When I mentioned him to Max, he lifted his gaze from his shoes. I don’t think he’s ever been near the track, he said.

Oh, I don’t know what to think, I said, dropping my head to my upraised knees. And, I added, "That wasn’t the only odd thing …

I saw this strange guy in a tree, and he knew my name! He was wearing a white suit.

Max sat back, blinking. Then he said, That sounds like the guy in my dream. His name is Antoine.

I looked at him blankly. Who is Antoine?

I don’t really know, Max said with a sigh. I thought I dreamed him up. There was a thin guy in a white suit whose name was Antoine.

In a dream? What did he do?

Shaking his head, he said rather apologetically, I don’t know. All I remember is this guy. I think in the dream he was trying to communicate with me.

Weird just got weirder.

Wait a minute, I said. Why would you have a dream about a man that I saw? That doesn’t make any sense … And how did he know my name?

We stared at each other, and then he said hesitantly, Unless he’s from the AlterniVerse.

I goggled. I mean, of course I knew about the AlterniVerse, and that people from the other side could affect things over here, or so it was said. People talked about it, and there were plenty of stories.

Mostly they seemed like fairy tales to me. I had never given the matter much thought, or even figured out how much I believed in its existence.

It was the last thing I expected to come out of my brother’s lips.

The AlterniVerse? I repeated blankly.

Supposedly when they come over here, it’s to help us, he said.

Help us do what?

He shrugged.

Then he looked at me closely and said quietly, I’ve had other dreams.

Then he added, It wasn’t until now—when Antoine actually contacted you—that it made any sense.

How? I said with some heat.

I’m not sure what it means, he said. It just seems like something is coming together and we are both involved.

Max and I had been close all our lives. But this kind of talk about messages from the AlterniVerse was just too strange for me. Wherever Max was going with this thinking, I didn’t want to go.

We kicked it around a little more, but neither of us could shed any light on any of the day’s strange events.

And what did his message—if that’s what it was—mean?

When I said that aloud, Max smiled.

That part’s easy, he said. Don’t you recognize the quote?

If I’d recognized it, I wouldn’t have asked.

There’s only one place I’ve heard of the starship Enterprise, I said. And that’s Star Trek.

Max, with his love of science, had watched every rerun dozens of times. I’d seen a few where the story was more about people than science, but I didn’t share his devotion.

"It’s from an episode of Next Generation when the captain is comforting a boy who has been orphaned," he said.

When I didn’t respond, he added, Like us.

So Antoine was offering some assistance to orphans—us—for an unknown reason?

That made as much, or maybe I mean as little, sense as everything else.

The whole thing was just too surreal. This morning I