Frederick Watson's head jerked around. His eyes widened. In one motion he took Johnny into his arms and jumped to the ground. Seconds later Johnny was in a big hunting tank headed for home, a home for the first time in ten years empty of a little bouncing bear.
[CHAPTER NINE]
The Price of a Brother
Johnny had some tall explaining to do about his lack of armor. He was in a tight spot, for the less he let anyone know, the more chance he had to find some way of rescuing Baba.
Johnny was very careful about his explanation. There might still be a way. The fact that he had been seen on top of New Plymouth Rock made his explanation easier. He simply said that he had been looking for a place to hide the little bear and, in order for Baba to help take him up the rock, he had had to chance taking off his armor. He said nothing about Baba and the arrow-birds.
Being found in the jungle was harder to explain without telling a lie—but he managed it. He said that he and Baba had taken a route down that had made them land on the jungle side of the rock. It didn't explain why they were beyond the clearing, but his parents seemed to assume that he had been trying to get among the brush where he could hide from the animals. He said nothing at all about the caves in the rock. It was a pretty thin story, but his family was too relieved that he had come home alive to worry much about it.
It was long past supper time when the explaining was over and his mother began to prepare a meal.
Ordinarily Johnny's father would not have been home even for supper. Rocket day was a busy time for the leader of the colony. But with all the confusion, the business of the day had to be put aside.
It was a strangely sad and silent house. Johnny himself was so good his parents could hardly recognize him. He had showered without being asked and changed into clean clothes. His hands were perfectly clean at the table. His mother had hidden Baba's high chair away; the little bear had always sat with them at table. It was a quiet meal.
Often after the before-sleep meal Johnny and his father worked on model rockets, but this evening models were forgotten. Johnny got a book and his father busied himself with papers. But Johnny didn't read. He kept thinking of Baba, all alone in the settlement storage house, surrounded by guards. The whole area was lit up in case hunters should try to steal the little bear just as they had stolen the marva claws.