'Grandaddy! Where have you been? You know we couldn't start the game without you!' Doctor Koala was peeved, as he always was when their daily card game was delayed. He had them in his hands, and was shuffling them mechanically.
'Now, Doctor, don't get upset, we have plenty of time to play. Have a seat, Grandaddy,' said the King, who was sitting on a chair at the head of the roughly hewn wooden table that was placed at the upper-right end of a small clearing at the lower edge of the 'Royal Arboreal Complex,' that area at the southern tip of Eucalyptus Grove where the monarch lived, and carried out his official functions on a day-to-day basis.
The King was used to smoothing things out between his two older friends. His gentle demeanor, natural diplomatic talent, good will, tolerance for the weaknesses of others and generally noble behavior had, after all, been the main reasons why he had been chosen to be the leader of Eucalyptus Grove just before the migration several months earlier, even though he had barely reached middle age.
Of only average height, the sovereign was nonetheless physically quite strong, though this wasn't immediately obvious. Despite his exalted position in the grove, he only wore his fancy royal garments and crown on solemn occasions. On normal days, he dressed quite modestly, a simple pair of navy blue, unadorned overalls being his clothing of choice. The dark blue bib of the garment formed a noble-looking contrast to the pure white fur on his chest, a genetic trait present in a number of koalas of all ages, even those whose other bodily hair was a darker shade of gray, as was the monarch's.
'I'm sure Grandaddy has a good reason for being late,' the leader smiled.
'Well, this time I do indeed,' the Judge said. He then went on to tell the whole story of Joey, the hawk, and Handy's expert shot.
'Why, that is remarkable,' the King wondered aloud. 'Imagine, hitting a hawk in mid-air, right in the middle of its dive! Doctor Koala, remind me to commend Handy when I see him.'
'Pure luck, if you ask me,' replied the Doctor. 'Oh, I know that Handy can handle a slingshot as well as anybody around, but to hit a hawk in the head at that speed? Pure luck, I say. That Joey can be glad he's still in one piece, which he may not be for long, once his mother hears about it.'
'No need to worry about that,' said Grandaddy. 'I convinced Handy not to tell Hana anything. You know how she is.'
'Good for you!' Doctor Koala exclaimed. 'The last time Joey got into trouble, Hana was convinced he needed some medicine or another to 'calm him down', as she put it, and she bothered me for a half hour, trying to make me give her some potion that would make him behave better.'
'What did she say when you refused?' asked the King.
'Refused? Why, I gave her some mint tonic,' the Doctor replied.
'Mint tonic? Since when does that make a young koala change his behavior?' the Judge asked.
'Well, I know it doesn't do any such thing, but the point is, I got her to believe it does, so I gave her a bottle of it. Only way to get rid of her.'
'Why, Doctor Koala!' the King laughed. 'I do believe you're an old charlatan!'
'An old charlatan that needs his daily nap,' Doctor Koala chuckled as he removed his spectacles for a moment and gently rubbed his right eye, 'and that Hana has a knack for always calling on me just when I'm about to fall asleep.'
Doctor Koala, despite his occasionally gruff manners, was perhaps the most respected citizen of Southern Koalaland. Already past middle age, but not yet a so-called senior citizen, he seemed older than his years, no doubt the result of constant overwork. His brownish fur was now streaked with a softer, grey-white color. Never one to fret about how he was dressed, Doctor Koala nonetheless possessed two pairs of overalls, one brown, the other a very dark green, though both had faded over time, since they had been washed so often, this being a necessary measure where a medicine koala's apparel was concerned. His pace was slow and somewhat deliberate when he walked, and sometimes showed traces of a limp, though as far as anyone knew, he had never been seriously injured. It was almost as if he were weary of walking from one end of the grove to the other, every single day, tending to those koalas whose debilities didn't permit them to come to the little shack at the base of his tree which he affectionately, yet rather exaggeratedly, called his 'hospital'.
But tired though he often was, nothing could ever stop Doctor Koala from making his rounds. His sense of duty had formed the habit, which had long since become a veritable addiction. Despite his frequent complaints, he would most probably be visiting the sick until he himself passed on to a better world. Countless nights of study, writing, classification of thousands of medicinal plants and herbs, and scientific experimentation had taken their toll on his vision, which he corrected with a pair of spectacles that old Mr. Johnson, the koalas' only human friend, had given to him a couple of years before.
Doctor Koala didn't have much of the diplomat in him. He could be direct to the point of incivility, and wouldn't hesitate to insult a patient outright if he saw that his orders weren't being followed. He had argued, at some time or another, with at least half the koalas in the grove, but nobody could ever hold a grudge against him, for they knew that he had dedicated his entire life to helping the sick, and to doing his best to see to it that the healthy ones stayed that way. But that in no way meant that his patients didn't quarrel with him frequently, for despite his compassion, Doctor Koala could be quite cantankerous at times.
'Sometimes I think I should just go off somewhere to an island, where there isn't a sick koala to be found,' the Doctor said to the King and Grandaddy. 'After all, it's like fighting a losing battle here. Take that Warooey, for instance. He came to me last week with a cut lip, and bruises all over his face, and told me he had fallen out of his tree.'
'Well,' Judge Grandaddy commented, 'no wonder his face was bruised.'
'Hah! As if I didn't know the signs of an old-fashioned fistfight!' Doctor Koala continued in a sarcastic tone. 'That no-good devil got himself into a brawl, then got beat up, didn't want to admit it, and to top it off, thought he could lie to me, his Doctor. And when I told him what I thought of that, he called me an old quack!'
'What did you say that made him say such a thing?' the King inquired.
'Why, I told him that if he lied to me like that again, I might just punch him in the snoot myself!' Doctor Koala answered.
The Judge and the King laughed heartily at that. 'Well, Doctor, Warooey always did get himself into trouble, and for his kind, it's not easy to admit he lost a fight,' Grandaddy explained. 'And no wonder he calls you a quack if you threaten to punch him!' he added, still chuckling.
Even Doctor Koala couldn't hold back a smile. 'Well, maybe I did exaggerate a bit, but the truth is, I'm getting sick of having to patch up koalas, give them potions, or whatever, just because they do everything they can to damage their health. I ought to go on strike some day.
Then maybe they'd wise up and start taking care of themselves for a change, instead of always running to me for the least little thing.'
'Oh, Doc,' the King smiled, 'if you forgive me for saying so, you've been complaining for as long as I've known you. But do you know what? I think that deep down in your heart, you love every single koala in this grove. That's why you chose your profession, and that's why you'll never give it up.'
'Hah!' the Doctor scoffed, 'I just don't want to see any of them drop dead before their time, that's all. And if you'll forgive me for saying so, you're our King, not a psychologist, so I'll thank you for stop trying to analyze me!'
The King and Grandaddy both broke out laughing again. There weren't many koalas who would dare to speak in such a tone to their monarch, but the King could never take offence at anything Doctor Koala said. He knew him too well for that. The Doctor had been a friend of his family since before the King was a king at all, and even before that: Doc had been his physician since he was a small koala baby. For the King, Doctor Koala was almost family, and more so since all of the King's immediate relatives had passed away.
'Now, if you two will stop bickering, maybe we can get this card game started,' Judge Grandaddy suggested with a smile, taking the cards from Doctor Koala and shuffling them deftly.
'It's about time,' Doctor Koala agreed. 'Deal them, Grandaddy. I can't wait to beat you this time. You took me for all I was worth last week!'
'And I might just do it again this week, too,' the Judge replied, slowly and deliberately.
'Not if I can help it,' the King chimed in. 'I plan to wallop both of you this time, so let's get started!' The three friends chatted on as they began their daily game of 'Lost Koala Found'.
After a couple of hours, Doctor Koala decided to go, for he wished to take his nap. The King was about to retire to his tree as well, but Grandaddy told him he would like to speak with him alone.
'Sire, as you may know, Handy and I were over in Koalaville this morning,' the Judge began.
'Oh, yes, you had said that you wanted to mark off some of the land there in order to improve our map. How did it go?' the King inquired.
'Very well, Sire. Handy hammered a number of stakes into the ground to mark off the main sections. Then we did some measuring. But that's not what I wished to talk to you about.'
'Well, what is it, then?' the ruler was curious.
'Sire, Handy and I walked up into the forest, since we wanted to mark some territory there as well. A short distance into the forest, we saw a number of huge boulders, which form a sort of circle.'
'Oh, yes, those huge rocks. I saw them myself often, when I used to go up to the forest and collect berries,' the King reminisced.
'Yes, Sire, no doubt many of us have seen them over the years. Well, anyway, we walked around them, and saw that they did indeed form a circle, so we got curious about what was in the middle. Handy and I climbed up to the top of a boulder, and looked down into the space below. What we saw was most disconcerting.'
'Huh? What did you see?' the King's curiosity was piqued.
'Sire, we saw a huge round object. I don't know what to call it, for I have never seen such a thing before. Seen from above, it seemed to be perfectly circular in shape, and was flattened at the top, sort of like if you took a berry and squeezed it a bit. But this thing was huge, and seemed to be made of some kind of silvery-colored metal,' Grandaddy explained to him.
'How do you know what it was made out of?' the King wondered.
'Handy took a stone, and threw it down onto the object, and it made a metallic sound. It sounded as though it might even be hollow inside. And what was even more unusual was that the edges of the boulders extended inwards over the circumference of the object by a few inches, so that we couldn't see any way how the thing could have ever fit into that space in the first place, unless the rocks were placed there after the object, yet those boulders have been there for as long as anyone can remember. We saw no signs that they had been moved, and besides, they are so big that nobody could ever move them anyway.'
'Grandaddy, are you sure this isn't something you dreamed last night?'
'Oh, no, Your Highness, it was no dream. Ask Handy. He will confirm what I am telling you.'
'Well, if this is true – and I do believe you, of course – then why hasn't anyone ever seen this thing before? All koalas are excellent climbers, so it is hardly conceivable that over all these years, no-one would have thought of climbing up on one of the boulders to see what was in the middle,' the monarch mused.
'That's exactly what Handy and I thought, Your Majesty,' Grandaddy went on. 'Neither of us could figure out why nobody had seen that thing before. When we got back here a few hours ago, I asked two of our friends – Chashibu and Chosay, two of the oldest koalas in the grove, as you well know – if they had ever noticed the boulders in the course of their long lives, and both said they had, yet neither could recall ever climbing up to see what was in the middle, nor had they ever heard of anyone having done so. And even stranger was that they themselves were somewhat perplexed that they had never even been curious about it. I asked them to not mention this affair to anyone, as I wanted to discuss it with you, so that we could decide what course to take.'
'Yes, I see,' the King stroked his furry chin. 'I don't know what to make of it. Are we to believe that no-one, during all the years that we lived in Koalaville, ever climbed those boulders? Hardly thinkable, if you ask me. Yet if they did, why didn't anyone ever report having seen that funny object? Surely most peculiar.'
'I don't have any explanation either, Sire,' Grandaddy replied. 'What do you suggest we do?'
'Nothing. Nothing at all, at least for the moment. You know, Grandaddy, many things are happening now in Eucalyptus Grove. We will soon have a school and a monetary system; we will be establishing closer relations with our neighbors… all this in such a short time. I see no sense in getting everyone excited about some strange object that even we can't explain. If nobody noticed it before, maybe nobody will in the future, either. Nonetheless, when we have time, we can plan to send an exploratory group over there to investigate the matter further. Until then, I suggest we simply not worry about it.'
'Yes, Sire, I was thinking the same thing. Handy won't tell anyone, and neither will Chashibu and Chosay. There was no sign that it's dangerous, and as you say, there are many other, more pressing issues we will have to deal with in the next few months. We'll just put it on hold for a while,' Grandaddy said.
'It's agreed, then,' the King replied. 'Have a nice nap, Grandaddy. Maybe I'll see you later this evening.'
'Thank you, Sire. Have a good nap yourself. Till later, then!'
The Judge walked off towards his tree, his mind filled with unanswerable questions about the strange, inexplicable object that had made this day one of the most unusual in his long life.