FROM SECRET OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR:

Danny quickly crossed the street, but the older boy was closing in. In a panic, he ran up some steps and pounded on a door. Then he realized it was where Joy’s grandfather lived.
The door opened. Danny gasped as he saw, in the doorway, the old man from his dream!
  The old man smiled at Danny, then down at Carl waiting below. “I’m Socrates,” he said. “I guess you’re Danny.”
  “How—how did you know my name?” Danny stammered.
  Instead of answering, Socrates handed Danny a bushel basket. “I’m going to pick a few apples in the front yard. I could use some help.”
  Glancing back toward Carl, Danny decided to follow the old man into the safety of his yard.
  Socrates climbed a ladder and started to pick the crisp red apples, tossing them one by one to Danny, who put them into the basket.
  “Uh, Mr. Socrates . . .” Danny began.
  “Not ‘mister,’” the old man interrupted. “Just Socrates. And you can call me ‘Soc.’”

FROM QUEST FOR THE CRYSTAL CASTLE:

Socrates turned and stared at Danny. Then, abruptly, he stood. “If you’re looking for excitement somewhere else, there’s something you need to see.”
  “I hope it isn’t more bugs,” Danny joked, following Soc up the hill.
  As they climbed higher, Danny noticed something strange: Frenchman’s Hill was little more than a big pile of earth, hardly taller than the housetops. But now they were climbing higher than he had ever been before—up into a cold gray mist so thick that Danny could barely see his own feet.
  What seemed like hours later, they emerged from the fog and stood on a lofty peak overlooking miles of dark forest below in a valley Danny had never seen before. There was no sign of his home, or of the world he knew.