Free Akiko and the Great Wall of Trudd by Mark Crilley Page A

sound effects as he went along. It was definitely the best robot story I’d ever heard. (Actually, it was the
only
robot story I’d ever heard, but you know what I mean.)
    Finally Poog sang us a little song. It was a soothing, quiet song that seemed to wash over us like water, with beautiful airy sounds like flutes and strange, exotic harmonies that I could hear only if I tilted my head a certain way. Even with all the snow around, there was something very warm and almost tropical about the music.
    Spuckler stoked the fire with plenty of wood so that it would keep us warm all night long. Gax said he’d add more wood later if the flames started to die down.
    I suddenly found myself thinking about Throck, and the way Poog had stared at him, and the way he’d finally backed down and left us.
    “Mr. Beeba,” I whispered as I watched the firelight flicker on the underside of the bridge, “who do you think Throck
is
? Why is he trying to stop us from going to Alia Rellapor’s castle?”
    “Throck is as much of a mystery to me as he is to you, Akiko,” said Mr. Beeba. “My guess is that he works for Alia Rellapor. He’s probably been hired by her to prevent us from rescuing the Prince.”
    I sat and thought that one over for a minute. If this Throck guy was just an assistant, I wondered how scary
Alia
would turn out to be. Still, it was reassuring to know we had Poog around to protect us. It was almost like having a guardian angel at our side. If not for Poog, who
knows
what Throck might have done to us?
    “You saw how Poog and Throck looked at each other, didn’t you, Mr. Beeba?” I asked. “What do you think was going
on
there?”
    “I’m not entirely sure, Akiko,” he replied, “but I suspect that Poog and Throck have met before. Maybe once, maybe many times.”
    “Did you see the look on Throck’s face?” I asked. “He looked really, really
scared
.”
    “He most certainly did,” Mr. Beeba answered, “and I can’t say I blame him. Poog has powers far beyond the likes of you and me. There’s no telling what he’s capable of doing in our defense.”
    I turned and looked at Poog. He was floating near the fire, and his eyes reflected the flames as clearly as pools of water. He was still humming to himself, and he wore an expression of deep, deep concentration. I wish I could have known what he was thinking, if only for a moment.
    We all curled up in the warm sand near the edge of the fire and got ready to go to sleep. I found myself looking back on everything we’d done in the past two days: our long walk through the grasslands, our perilous climb to the top of the Great Wall of Trudd, our delicious lunch at Yabby’s restaurant . . . Some of it already felt as if it had happened a very long time ago.
    “Sleep tight, everybody,” Spuckler said as he folded his arms and rested his head on his chest. “Tomorrow we’re goin’ to Alia Rellapor’s castle!”
    What a thought to try to sleep on!

    Our journey was nearly at an end. Would we really make it to Alia’s castle the next day? I wondered what the place would look like. I wondered what
Alia
would look like. And I wondered most of all if we’d really succeed in our mission to rescue Prince Froptoppit. I thought all the way back to when I had first come to the planet Smoo, and how King Froptoppit had put me in charge of rescuing his son. In my mind, I suddenly had a very clear image of the King with his lanky arms, oversized ears, and enormous white mustache.
    “I need you to be in charge of this mission,” he’d said to me that night. “And what’s more,
you
need you to be in charge of this mission.”
    The fire crackled and popped, and I rolled over to warm the other side of my body. My head was filled with all kinds of questions. Normally I’d never have been able to fall asleep with so many things left to think about. But I was very tired, and my eyelids felt very, very heavy, and I knew that once I closed my eyes I’d be asleep in