Protector: The Ballad of Jimmy Fisher, Book One - Earthstrike

By Mark Gravil

The first in a series of five books for Young Adults.

Jimmy Fisher is not the cleverest kid in school. He’s not the fastest, or the coolest by any means, but he’s definitely not a loser either. For Jimmy and his friends Lily, Pete and Eddie, life couldn’t be more normal.
Then he gets knocked out in a snowball fight by a weird looking guy, and everything changes. He starts to have a recurring dream where giant spaceships appear over their little Yorkshire town, but just as the shadow falls he wakes up. Until one day he doesn’t. The invasion is here.
The invaders are the Jhuurdreng Corporation. They are not here to blow us all to pieces like in some megabucks action film, but to build Sol-IIIA, a giant factory out of the entire planet. The people that are useful to them are used to build, and man the facilities. They get a reasonable life: a roof, food, enough shoddy gadgets to keep them amused. Those who are less useful, are not so lucky. The world is on lockdown, unless Sagg Yev, the Jhuurdreng Commissioner says otherwise.
Two days after Earthstrike Jimmy and his family are visited by the weird guy that had knocked him out the previous winter. She’s not a guy at all, but one of a Group of Sisters, from a race called the Q’Sketh, who are part of a resistance to the Corporation across many worlds. PahhNeh tells Jimmy he has something in his DNA which singles him out as a Seeder, with the potential for abilities way beyond those of others. He may well be special even amongst Seeders, something very rare; a Protector.
Jimmy meets, Victoria, Chris and Pangari. The signs of the Seed are in them too. They and their families have been removed to the safety of space, and are living in a vast, living ship that is formed from three of PahhNeh’s sisters.
For Lily, Pete and Eddie safety is a long way off. They had started to exhibit Seed abilities just prior to the invasion, and on the night after the Jhuurdreng landed they attempted to sneak into the power facility that was built on the outskirts of their town.
They were unprepared, and easily captured. They are now being experimented on as the Jhuurdreng try to find the secret of the Seed. For the Corporation this is the Holy Grail, because the Seeders are core of the resistance.
Trying to keep them hidden, even before their capture, the Sisters had planted a masking technique in the teenagers that has managed to close the Seed down in them for now. The Jhuurdreng are left looking for a needle in a hay stack.
Lily Pete and Eddie’s loved ones are also on the Ship Sisters, so their rescue is in everyone’s thoughts, and as Seeders they are also invaluable to the resistance, but such a rescue is unlikely to be successful until Jimmy and the other Seeders are able to help the Sisters, and that means the Seeding must have started to reveal their abilities.
The process is long and complicated. Pangari, and Vic exhibit first, accessing an unusual energy source, but expressing it in different ways, both life giving and life threatening. For what seems like forever Chris and Jimmy show no signs at all of any change, and their frustrations spill over into arguments and fights. The time passing is especially tough for Jimmy, who can’t stop thinking about his three best friends being tortured in Sagg Yev’s labs.
Eventually though all their abilities develop, and the rescue begins, but with all they’ve already been through, the dangers that still await Jimmy Fisher and his friends make this seem like they are only at the start, and when it comes to defeating the Jhuurdreng that’s pretty much the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Gravil
• Release date: Mar 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310095108

Book preview

PROTECTOR

The Ballad of Jimmy Fisher

Part One

Earthstrike

Mark Gravil

© 2014 Mark Gravil

Published at Smashwords

Germination.

1.

Birthday Boy

When it happened it was just like the dream. Exactly like the dream. I was near my parents house and it was really sunny. You could smell the tar melting in the road, and the sky was the sort of blue you only get in your imagination, or the movies. When all of a sudden…

But whoa...hold on. That's way down the line. A lot happened before that, a lot that you should know. A lot of it even I can’t believe, and I was there. I saw it all with my own eyes.

My name is Jimmy Fisher, and it all started on the night of my fifteenth birthday.

I was walking out of the school gate with Pete and Lily. We’d watched it snow through classroom windows all day. Most of the flakes had been as big as those cabbage white butterflies, and it didn’t feel like it got above freezing, so they just piled up, and piled up. By three-thirty it was nearly up to our knees.

There was one big snowball fight that was going on in the school field, and there must have been about one hundred and fifty kids hurling snowballs about. God knows how anyone knew who was on what side. On top of that there were lots of other skirmishes going on in the streets outside, one of which involved us three and a group of kids we half knew from year nine. There was no traffic, and the roads were the same as the pavements, as far as us kids were concerned. People were getting hit smack in the mouth. I went face down and three of them piled on, covering me with snow. Lily and Pete stormed in and pelted them until they legged it, and I could get up. Then we turned on each other, every man for himself, as we forked off the main road towards home.

I was breathless, but I’d loved every minute of it. Even being buried. It made me wonder if I loved the snow so much because I’d been born in it, and had had so much fun, on so many birthdays that I had some sort of affinity with it. Then again, everybody else seemed to have a pretty good time too. What I really liked though was the muffled silence, and the way everything, even the dustbins looked so bright and clean. The fact it could only stay this quiet and pure for such a short time made it even more like magic.

Bit by bit our mini fight fizzled out and we trudged on through the snow imagining being arctic explorers, but constantly laughing at how crap we were at walking in it. It was still snowing, and it was still getting deeper and deeper. We were absolutely freezing, but mega happy. My Mum was doing a birthday tea. Nothing flash, just family and us lot, and we were just reaching the corner of Lily’s street and joking about Mum raffling the birthday cake, when… Thwack! This bloke ran straight into me. Not just ran into me, but knocked me six feet into the air. I remember flying through the air, but getting slower, and slower. Then, as I hit the snow, it felt like I was sinking into a feather pillow in slow motion. All of a sudden there was a massive pain somewhere in my head, everywhere in my head, and then blackness.

I woke up an hour later in our front room, lying on the settee, surrounded by my parents, my grandparents, Pete, Lily, Eddie, Pete’s mum and dad, my little brother Lee (five years old, giggling at the back), and strangest of all, with his ponce-nez glasses and his goatee beard, was our GP, Dr Stamp.

What happened? I tried to sit up, but the stabbing pain in my right temple knocked me back down again.

Take it easy love. Mum fluffed the cushion up behind my head. Pete and Lily brought you back. This man ran into you, and knocked you out.

What man? Who was it?

Pete shook his head, Never seen him before.

Never seen anyone like him before, you mean. Lily looked out between her Aviators and her Lakers’ cap, and everybody else looked at her. Seriously. It’s true, isn’t it Pete?.

Big time. He was really weird.

My Mum was already getting a little a little flustered How’d you mean ‘weird’? You didn’t mention weird before.

Well at first we thought it was Eddie. He was really tall and thin. Pete looked at Lily, who nodded.

It wasn’t me. I was still in Orchestra practice.

He didn’t say it was you, Eddie. We didn’t really think ‘Why’s Eddie in a motorcycle suit, bashing the Hell out of his best friends’.

My Dad’s ears pricked up Motorcycle suit?

That’s what it looked like. You know, leather… boots and gloves. Pete looked a bit self conscious all of a sudden, realising everyone was looking at him and Lily.

Yeah, bike leathers! Orange bike leathers! I glanced round the room. Who said that? Then, noticing everyone looking in my direction, it dawned on me. It was me. I’d said it.

Kinda orange…. Pete looked around the room.

Go on. Tell them. Lily always looked serious, even when she was laughing, but now you could tell she meant it. This was major.

I don’t think the leathers were orange. I think they were dark blue, or black. Pete paused, It was the glow that was orange.

My dad laughed. Pete’s dad didn’t. Alright Pete, that’s enough.

He’s not kidding Mr. Roberts. It was like that Ready Brek advert on YouTube. Lily quivered the fingers of her right hand as she moved it up and down her left arm, about two inches from the surface.

Then he looked round.

Right! This has gone far enough. I’m sure Trev’ and Pat don’t want Jimmy getting all worked up just now.

It’s all right, Ted. They’re only kidding. My Dad always tried to laugh things like this off.

We are not kidding! I’d never heard Lily say the same thing as Pete, and certainly not at exactly the same time. They looked at each other. Pete, obviously felt hard done to. S’what it looked like.

I could tell they really meant it. It was no joke. They didn’t go on though.

Shall we cut that cake, or what? my Mum never could bear uncomfortable silences. How are you feeling love? Can you sit up?

My head still hurt, and her and my Dad had to help me to sit up, but once I was upright it wasn’t too bad.

PSSSTT! Dad opened a beer and passed it to Mr. Roberts. Tinny, Ted?

Lovely. Don’t mind if I do.

Things soon got back to normal. All the adults standing around chatting with their beer and white wine. Rachel, Lily’s mum, and Eddie’s Mum, Celia, had now turned up, and my Grandad was offering them some sausage rolls. Us lot had all gathered around the sofa scoffing triangular sandwiches and slices of cake. All desperately wanting to talk about the glowing guy, but no-one wanting to be the one who brought it up again.

Are we gonna ignore it forever, then? That was typical Lily.

Maybe at least until we’re out of earshot of the wrinklies, eh? If Lily was the compulsive one amongst us, Eddie was the cautious one.

No one’s listening, Eddie. Lily nodded towards the laughing, gossiping adults.

They will be when we all start screaming about mysterious men in glowing body-suits.

I was aching to ask a million questions, but every time I looked over at my Mum and Dad they were looking back, smiling and waving, and mouthing Are you OK? across the room.

Look, it’s Saturday tomorrow, why don’t we all meet up then and talk about it. See if we can get to the bottom of glowing guy.

Lily, Pete and Eddie just looked at me.

Right, ten o’clock, near the swings at the bottom end of the park.

Ten o’clock? On a Saturday? Eddie was worse at getting out of bed than I was when he didn’t have to.

All right. Eleven. By the swings.

You do realise that it’s probably gonna be three feet deep by tomorrow morning. Nobody could get a sentence like that to drip with contempt quite like Lily.

Less chance of people hanging around earwigging then. That was more like it, Pete and Lily having a little dig at one another. Definitely back to normal.

Lily hadn’t been far off. The following morning we all gathered by the swings having struggled through the deepest snow any of us had ever seen.

Told you.

What, and the rest of us couldn’t have guessed? Pete pulled his beanie hat even further down over his ears.

Are you two gonna carry on like this all morning? If I had any function in this little gang at all it was to step in before a row broke out between Pete and Lily. This was quite an important job though, as it could happen at any moment, and often did.

So what else happened while I was lying flat on my back?

Hold on, before we get into this, can I ask why we all didn’t just text each other last night, like we do about everything else? You could see Eddie was thinking ‘this is nonsense, I’m freezing, why can’t we go home?’.

Because, retard… we… Hm... Lily was lost, Jimmy, why didn’t we just text?

Because it was me who got knocked senseless, and… And I didn’t want anyone else listening in.

What, your Dad’s intercepting your texts now? Pete smiled and shook his head.

I’m not talking about my dad, or your dad or Lily’s hamster.

You do know Percy died just before Christmas.

Look, I’m sorry… I’m sorry about the hamster. It’s just… OK. Here’s my thing. That bloke ran straight into me, right?

Lily and Pete nodded, and Eddie did a kind of semaphore for ‘Don’t ask me’.

Well, in my head I can see him clear as day. I can see the orange glow, and I can see him looking back as he turned to run off.

So what? That’s what happened, isn’t it. Pete hated mysteries. So long as everything was straight forward, he was happy.

Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Which is fine, apart from the fact I was already knocked out in the middle of the road. They all shifted a little. All of a sudden uneasy. And even if I wasn’t flat out I couldn’t see him out of the top of my head, could I?

You could almost see the cogs turning as everyone tried to think it through. Jimmy gets smashed into and knocked out. Then, while unconscious, Jimmy somehow sees glowing man run off, and then look back at what he’d run into.

OK, Pete, come on. His eyes? You remember that scanning thing he did with his eyes? Lily had obviously decided to go for it.

Yeah, like I’m gonna forget eyes like that. They were...

Hold on. Hold on. Jimmy. What colour were his eyes?

Purple. I had no idea where that came from, but I knew what colour they were. It wasn’t a guess.

Pete looked completely confused I though we were here to help you fill in what happened?

You are.

Then how do you know that?

I dunno, maybe I saw his face just as he ran into me. You tell me.

Wait a minute, can I try and get this straight. You were run into by a really tall skinny guy in an orange glowing suit, who knocked you flying, and then when you were out cold you saw him run off and scan you with his flashing purple eyes? Eddie, you could tell, had had about enough.

No Eddie, that’s not what they did. They weren’t flashing. They sort of… What did they do Lily?

For God’s sake Pete! You were there. You saw what I saw. There was a glow, like a sphere getting bigger. Purple and pink, moving like… What was that thing called in Physics?

What thing?

You know, you touch it and all the tendrils move towards your fingers.

A Van Der Graaf generator. Very impressive answer from Pete.

No, it’s not. It’s a plasma ball. Eddie was Mister Science, he couldn’t let that go

Whatever. It was like that. It was quick, it shot out until it got to you, and then a red line, straight up and down moved across the sphere from left to right. It only took a couple of seconds.

And then he legged it again. Just much faster than before. Like The Flash or something.

You two are such bad liars. Eddie was almost laughing at Lily and Pete.

You can believe what you like. Lily knocked the snow off one of the swings and climbed on.

Don’t worry, I will. Eddie looked at Lily, who just carried on swinging. Look, I’ve got piano practice in twenty minutes. Text me later when you’ve decided whether or not I can be in on the joke. Eddie walked away, obviously hacked off with the rest of us.

I ran after him, tumbling through the snow. Eddie, please? He kept on trying to stride through the drifts. I grabbed his arm. I mean it Eddie. Everything they said is true, I can see in my head. It’s kinda like remembering a film I saw ages ago, but it’s definitely there, I promise you. It’s happening so quickly though, that it’s like I know what they’re going to say before they get to the end of a sentence. That I… I really don’t know, but something’s going on, and I know that it’s not Pete and Lily taking the piss out of you.

Eddie looked straight into my eyes, and for ages didn’t say anything. Then, almost a whisper, through gritted teeth, From those two, I’m not sure what I expect, but from you…

Honestly Eddie, I don’t know what it is, but they’re not winding you up. There’s something going on here. I dunno what, I can’t explain it. What I do know is it feels real to me, and I’d feel better having you here helping us figure everything out rather than me trying to muddle through with the Chuckle Brothers over there.

Still Eddie looked straight at me, occasionally glancing at Lily and Pete. It was starting to feel as though it went on forever, when... Until I tell you different I still think you’re all deluded, but on the very off chance you’re not, I don’t want to fall out about it.

Cool. I was relieved. It was good to have Eddie, he was always the voice of reason.

I’ve still got to go to piano though. He turned and ploughed away. You can argue amongst yourselves until I get back.

We won’t be here. I’ve lost all feeling in my feet already. Lily had Doc Marten’s on, but, considering the weather, she would have probably been better off with woolly socks rather than the black tights she was wearing.

2.

Dreamer.

It carried on snowing for anther three days and Fripperley ground to a halt. School was closed on Monday and Tuesday and some of the teachers still couldn’t get in on the Wednesday, so they let us all go home early. Which was great because I was so tired.

You see the night after the glowing guy crashed into me, not the Friday night, the night it happened, but the Saturday… well, I had this dream, and I kept having it again and again. It seemed like every time I feel asleep I had it. The exact same dream every time. I never got very far into it before it stopped, and I woke up. Always at the same place. Always with the same thing happening.

It was one of those dreams that seemed so real that you didn’t realise it was a dream until you woke up. In fact that was the really shocking part, waking up in the dark and finding that it hadn’t really happened.

To begin with everything in it was something I recognised. I was walking through the estate I lived on. There were some people about, but not many, and it was the kind of Summer’s day that you remember forever; roasting hot, a bright blue sky with no clouds, and that smell of scorched grass and melted tar. Everything was normal as I walked into Cherry Tree Drive, but the closer I got to our house the more I became aware of a deep bass drone creeping up on me. It seemed like it was all around me and above me, and ever so slowly it was getting louder. Then I turned and saw it. Up in the sky, above the tiny semi-detached houses that spread out behind me was some sort of Ship. It was so big it looked like a mountain had suddenly appeared above the estate, but it was creeping towards me, hovering above everything. It was difficult to tell how high it was, or how big, but it started to fill the sky and cast an enormous shadow. It was sort of fish shaped, smooth and sleek, a bit like a manta ray, but more rounded. Still it kept coming. Now you could see some details on it, lights and bumps and stuff, some windows maybe. Mostly though it was huge, you still couldn’t see the back of it behind the streets.

All of a sudden there was a distant THUDD over to my left, and when I looked over there was another one of these giant ships in the far distance, moving slowly in the same direction as this one, but now floating above some sort of expanding mushroom cloud. I looked around and there to my right was a third ship about as far away as the one to my left, but beyond it, probably as far away again was another one. Suddenly the furthest one lit up somewhere underneath and a beam shot out towards the ground. The beam was orange, the same colour as the light around the glowing guy. Instantly another cloud began to rise up around where the beam must have struck the ground. Then, seconds later a THUDD just like the first, as the sound reached me.

Still the ship above me moved forwards so that it’s nose was almost directly above Cherry Tree Drive. There was a fizzing, buzzing sound that was building to a scream, again to my right. It was the closer ship firing it’s orange beam. This time you could see debris flying into the air and flashes like lightning lighting up the dust cloud. The sound that followed was much more of a KABBOOM than the dull thuds of earlier, and it had hardly died away when a KKLUNK, WHIRRRR high above made me look straight up at the belly of the first ship where an iris had appeared. As it widened an amber globe started to push out of the middle and begin to glow with that familiar orange colour. This time the fizzing, buzzing was building to a scream so loud it felt like my head was going to explode.

The globe seemed like it was throbbing. The noise was terrifying. Then, when it couldn’t be contained any more, the orange beam shot out, straight towards Cherry Tree Drive.

It was at this point in the dream every time that I found myself sitting bolt upright in my own bed, sweating buckets despite the snowstorm going on outside the window. I remember trembling and having a struggle to catch my breath.

It happened three more times that night, and it felt like it would carry on forever. Eventually though I dropped to sleep. I guess it must have been about four, four-thirty and I’m not sure why it didn’t happen again. Maybe I was just too exhausted?

I woke up at eleven-thirty on the Sunday with my Mum knocking on my bedroom door.

Cup of tea, love. Can I come in?

Yeah, sure. I ached as I tried to sit up.

How are you this morning? Mum put the cup on the bedside table and felt my forehead.

OK, I think. I’ve had a really weird dream though. I took a sip of the tea.

I’m not surprised. Your brain’s probably still rattling about in there. It was quite a thump you got.

I explained it was the same dream that kept repeating, and I told her just how it played out. She sat on the bed and listened intently. I think after all that talk of space-aliens after you were knocked out has probably set you thinking, and this dream is just you trying to work it all out.

But it seems so real every time. Much more real than any other dream I’ve ever had.

My dreams always seem incredibly real. I’ve never been one for flights of fantasy, they’re always about conversations I’ve had, and things I wish I’d said. Sometimes I’m rich or powerful and I get to tell people just what I really think of them, or to make them do what I want for a change. But it’s all just wish fulfilment, isn’t it? Your brain trying to sort out all of your thoughts. Tidying up the raggedy bits of your mind.

"I know that, it’s just… Mum?

Yes.

Who said anything about space-aliens?

How’d you mean?

You said after I was knocked out we were all talking about space-aliens.

Did I? Mum was genuinely puzzled.

Yes, you did.

Oh, I don’t know. It was a figure of speech, I suppose. All that talk of orange glows and the like.

I was sure Pete and Lily had never mentioned anything about aliens, but my Mum’s throwaway comment had instantly struck a chord. I needed to talk to my two friends and as soon as possible. I waited until Mum took the tea cup away and then called the both of them, and Eddie.

Space aliens?!

Is it any sillier than anything else? I felt a bit self conscious all of a sudden.

Yes! I kinda knew they’d say that.

OK, so it’s a bit far fetched. Who’s got a better idea?

Jimmy, you’re my best friend, but I’ve got to tell you I’m embarrassed even talking about it. Lily might have said it, but it was pretty much what all four of us were thinking. As she looked at us all I’m sure we all looked a bit sheepish. We certainly didn’t say anything I mean, I’m pretty sure of what I saw. I know Pete thinks he saw exactly the same things; the golden glow around him, the plasma thing that came from his eyes, the speed that he ran off. She counted things off on her fingers. The thing is that this is not an episode of Star Trek. None of us are even the sort of kids who want to believe any of that kinda stuff.

I don’t know about that. I’d like to believe we might be in contact with extra-terrestrials. Eddie shrugged. I just don’t.

OK, fair enough, there’s nothing wrong with that, but none of us are comfortable enough with the fact that it’s real that we’re shouting it from the rooftops. Right?

Right. we all nodded.

So, somehow me and Pete saw these two or three unbelievable things that none of us can explain, all happening because of this really strange looking guy, none of us have ever seen before. On top of that everything we saw with our eyes Jimmy somehow saw in his head, while he was unconscious. Then, when you add it all up, it sounds like the sort of thing that we wouldn’t dare tell anyone else because it would make us sound like the sort of deluded sci-fi geek that writes books about being abducted, and probed, and goes on the local news in a tin-foil suit so they can’t be monitored from orbit.

Steady on. I wondered where Lily had dragged all that up from.

Sorry, but you all know what I mean. If even we don’t believe it, how do we expect anyone else to?

Do we need anyone else to know? I wasn’t sure how giving our story to the rest of the world would help us. Was the glowing guy gonna call us if we got the story in the papers.

I’d really rather not go down the ridicule route, if you don’t mind. Eddie already had the brainiac, piano-prodigy thing going on, and though he pulled that off pretty well I could see why he didn’t want to add to it.

Don’t worry, I think we’re all in the same boat on that one. We’re not going to the press just yet.

What about never?

Maybe, but I’d like to see what we can dig up on the net or something.

Lily laughed and shook her head. I’m sure if we use the internet we can dig up everything we need to to prove this exact thing happens all the time, all over the place. Even in little towns in the North of England that no-one from thirty miles away has ever heard of, never mind space aliens.

And that kind of ended the discussion.

For me the dreams went on and on, between three and six times a night for weeks, months even. I think it was some time in April when I realised they’d stopped. I’d been aware they had tailed off, dwindled to the odd time, the odd night, by the middle of March, and by then I was so used to going through the same thing every time I was in the dream that I calmed down about it. Sort of coasted through, because I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Otherwise I drew an identikit of the Glowing Guy that we all agreed on, and then we all spent hours trying to find him or something like him on Google. I have to say there were loads that were similar in films and the covers of old science fiction magazines, but none of them were Glowing Guy.

We looked at all the conspiracy websites, and the abduction forums, and the UFO sighting blogs hoping that G.G. would show up, but not a sniff. Nothing. So, little by little we lost interest and assumed that that was it. We’d had a mysterious encounter, something freaky had definitely happened, but we couldn’t explain it. Secret government project? Who knows. Space aliens? I’m really not sure. Snowball inspired mass hysteria? Your guess is as good as mine.

By the Summer holiday of year ten we’d all but given up on it completely.

3.

The Day

Reading this some of you might think I was a geek. Some of you might be right. Don’t get me wrong, I loved sport, I was just getting to an age where I realised that I wasn’t as good at is as I thought I was. So I was kinda concentrating on other things just then. Things I was better at like drawing comics, and fixing computers. Classic geek stuff, right? Right.

The council estate my family lived on was in the North of England. My Grandma on my Mum’s side lived just around the corner, and my Grandma and Grandad on my Dad’s side were only a bit further away. You couldn’t be too far away in Fripperley, it wasn’t that big. It’s not a little village or anything, but it’s not a big town either. There’s a proper supermarket and all that. A shoe shop and a bank and stuff. Three or four primary schools and quite a big high school called Willow Park. That’s where I went to school, but with everything that’s happened I’m not even sure it’s there any more.

I was in year ten and I liked it. I was hardly the coolest kid in school, but there was nobody queueing up to flush my head down the bog either. I’d had the same three friends all the way through school, Pete Roberts, Eddie Turner and Lily Peach. Now we were getting a bit older Lily hated that name. She said it sounded like something out of a book for eight year olds, and something written in the 1950s at that. It certainly didn’t suit her, she was such a tomboy. Pretty enough I guess, if you could see through the shades and baseball caps, but definitely a tomboy. Her Mum, Rachel, was a kind of hippy, tie-dyes and sneakers. She looked after kids in care that had trouble fitting in. She was the nicest person ever. You’d never think she was Lily’s mum. I never met her Dad, and Lily and Rachel never talked about him. So nor did we. Rachel hated us calling her Mrs Peach by the way, she said it made her feel like someone’s grandma.

Out of the four of us the only one that Lily couldn’t beat in a fight was Pete. Pete was in the rugby team and he was already over six feet tall. When he played football he had two left feet and was always tripping over himself, but when he played rugby and could run straight at the other team there was no stopping him. He was as fast, and as strong as anyone in our year, and the year above, probably. He was also a pussycat. The only time I saw him get into any sort of a fight was if he was stopping some younger kid getting bullied, and the fight never lasted long. In fact mostly the other kid’d see the size of him and back off before it started. Those that did take the fight option soon looked stupid and crawled off with their tails between their legs. Even the real hard cases higher up the school looked twice before they messed with Pete.

Eddie, on the other hand made me look like The Terminator. As tall as Pete, but less than half his weight. Eddie was a genius. He’d done his O Level Physics and Chemistry two years before, and he’d been the pianist in the school orchestra since we got to Willow Park. His Dad was a scientist. Worked

Reviews for Protector

[Ellery_K · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved how this managed to feel like a real kid, with real friends and family, somehow having to deal with such massive, unbelievable changes in his life. My eleven year old loved it coz it's a great sci-fi adventure. Would definitely recommend.