Three More Wishes: Be Kind To Your Genie Page 15

  I said, “Fatima, please come here and hand me the glass, without walking here.” My ‘please’ and my raised eyebrow told her what I meant.

  “Yes, Master.”

  FOOM—instantly Fatima went from standing at Mom’s elbow, to standing at mine. Fatima handed me the glass and I put it on the table, as if nothing unusual were going on.

  “What just happened?” Dad demanded.

  My mother, meanwhile, had stopped where she’d been when Fatima had FOOMed; Mom now was staring at Fatima and me at the table.

  Ignoring Dad’s question, I turned to Fatima and said, “I think we’re ready to eat. Take your seat, please.” Again I shot Fatima a raised eyebrow.

  “Yes, Master.”

  FOOM—Fatima went instantly from standing next to me, to sitting in the chair across the table from me.

  I gestured to Mom (who was still standing in the kitchen and staring at me) to take her seat at the dining-room table. When Mom finally did, her face was full of questions.

  I looked at my mom, then my dad, and said, “Folks, there’s two things you need to know. One, this last week I haven’t been honest with you. Two, Uncle Warren met this woman in 1943.”

  ****

  About an hour later, Dad said, “I have a question for both of you. Marvin, why did you wish for so little? Fatima, why did you then give him so much?”

  I said, “Because, Dad, practically the first words out of her mouth were, ‘When you make your wishes, I’m gonna twist the wording in the nastiest way I can, and then I’ll laugh at you.’ ”

  Fatima nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  I continued, “That’s why I didn’t make a wish to inherit Uncle Warren’s stuff. I imagined the nasty genie fixing things so that instead of only Aunt Esther challenging the will, there would be a hundred relatives, and a lot of lawyers saying a lot of slanderous things about me, that a lot of people believed. So I’d be constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, I’d have gold diggers chasing me. And it would be twenty years before some judge let me move in.”

  Fatima shark-grinned. “Except I’d have never thought about news coverage. I have to remember that for next time.”

  I continued, “So I decided what X I could live with. Then I told Fatima, ‘I wish for at least X,’ knowing that the nasty genie would give me exactly X and no more.”

  Mom, frowning, then asked Fatima, “You were really planning to trick Marvin?”

  Fatima didn’t flinch. “Yes, Mrs. Harper, if Marvin had made the usual selfish, greedy, perverted wishes that I’m used to hearing—”

  “Uncle Warren,” I muttered.

  “—then I would’ve tricked him.”

  “Like she tricked Uncle Warren,” I said.

  Dad looked at Fatima and said, “Let me ask again: Once Marvin made his wishes, why were you so generous?”

  Fatima said, “Mr. Harper, let me tell you what it’s like to be a bound djinni. I can cast a spell and fill a room with gold coins. I can change my appearance so that I’m the most desirable woman in the world to the man in front of me—”

  I said, “Really? Can you do Megan Fox as Nakeda? Yowza!”

  Fatima gave me a sexy smile. “Just tell me when, Master.” Then Fatima turned back to Dad and said, “I can have all the riches I want, and all the sex I want. But what I can’t give myself is time out of the lamp. And eight days ago, my new master gave me hours out of the lamp. Even after I’d promised to trick him.”

  I shrugged. “She’d been stuck in the lamp since 1943, and who knows how long before that? It seemed cruel to say, ‘Back you go.’ ”

  Fatima continued, “Eight days ago, Master didn’t have much money, but he spent what money he had, in order to show me things that I’d never experienced before. Like 3-D movies, and tomatoes.”

  Fatima lifted her glass (filled with tomato juice) and toasted me with it.

  Then Fatima said, “Not much to tell after that, Mr. Harper. When your son spoke his wishes, I thought of the other bound djinn laughing at me: ‘Ha-ha, Fatima got played by a human!’ But then I asked myself, ‘Can I be mean and cruel to a human after he’s been so generous to me? Then how can I say afterward, Djinn are better than humans?’ ”

  Mom smiled at me. “You always make us proud of you.”

  Fatima raised a finger. “Not to mention, after the movie he asked me to memory-read him. So I’d learn 2010 English, he said. That happened, but what I didn’t tell him was I’d also learn everything that Marvin had done, said, or thought, up to that moment.”

  “Oh, shit!” I muttered.

  “Master, don’t worry. It was all good,” Fatima said.

  Then she looked at my parents. “I memory-read him three hours after he’d rubbed the lamp. During the movie, I learned, Marvin had thought, ‘I could wish to be tall and strong like Rubert. I don’t have to stay five-foot-two anymore.’ But do you know what Marvin didn’t think? Never once in three hours did Marvin think, ‘Once I’m tall and strong, I’ll beat the tar out of Hank Miller.’ ”

  “Who?” my mother asked.

  “The starting quarterback,” I said. “That is, till last Tuesday.”

  Fatima said, “Anyway, short Marvin wanted to be tall and strong not so he could bully anyone, but so he could help people.”

  “Like Rubert in the movie was doing,” I said.

  Family smiled. “Truly good people like Marvin should be rewarded. So that’s what I did, I rewarded him. Hank Miller, ditto.”

  ****

  About ten minutes later, Fatima’s blue glass was a foot above the dining-room table, and a pitcher was pouring tomato juice into that glass. No hand touched either the pitcher or Fatima’s glass.

  Dad gestured toward the floating pitcher and glass. “If it weren’t for that, there would still be a part of me wondering whether everything you’ve said was a big, fancy tale, just to flimflam your mother and me.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Mom said, “is that in a few stories, the genie grants one wish, but in most stories, it’s three. How did you wind up with six?”

  I said, “Because of something that isn’t in the stories. I—”

  The pitcher and Fatima’s glass each hit the table with a thump. Fatima said, “Master, on behalf of all bound djinn, I beg you not to answer your mother’s question.”

  “Fatima, I really would like to tell my folks this story. It makes me look good. Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?”

  Fatima’s green-glow eyes bored into mine. “How do you find people who are the truly virtuous, so you can reward them? By not telling them that they might earn a reward. If you tell your story, it might wreck what King Solomon set up.”

  My dad said, “Whoa! King Solomon, like in the Bible? It was him who set up the genies?”

  I said, “Yep, ol’ Baby-Splitter himself. He made up the rules, and he personally stuck Fatima into her lamp.”

  I thought about Fatima’s request, while everyone was silent. Then I asked, “Will it violate genie secrecy to tell my folks how common six wishes is? How many genie masters have there been, and how many got six wishes because of you-know-what?”

  Fatima summoned her scrying ball (which startled my parents), and spent twenty minutes working it. Then she turned her face toward mine. She said, “You are the 147th master since King Solomon bound we six djinn into Vessels. None of the 146 other masters have earned six wishes—in fact, the one other master who is alive now, forfeited two of her three.”

  I turned to my mom and said, “Sorry, Mom. Fatima has never asked anything of me before, and she makes a good argument.”

  Dad laughed. “Fatima made a very good argument, son, because she had to speak it in code around your mother and me.”

  Fatima said, “But Mrs. Harper, while we won’t answer your question, know that you can be proud of your son. He’s done something that no other genie’s master has ever done.”

  Chapter 24

  I Rescue Janice


  Fatima and I stayed at my parents’ house till shortly before noon. The reason for such a long visit? My parents were fascinated to hear “the real truth” about all the genie stories, especially “Aladdin”—while Fatima pumped my parents for everything they’d spill about me in my younger days.

  Shortly before noon, Fatima and I left my parents’ house and got in my car, with me intending to drive to the high school for my final costume fitting. I told Fatima that she had permission to “foom off somewhere,” but she smiled and told me that she was enjoying being with me.

  When Fatima and I walked hand-in-hand into the Home Ec Lab, Mrs. Williams sighed and rolled her eyes. But Ilyana smirked and said, “Another one, Marvin? She makes six in your harem?”

  I smirked right back and said, “Eight. Yesterday I recruited Anna Kay Henderson and a substitute teacher.”

  Ilyana laughed and shook her head.

  When Mrs. Williams announced that Ilyana earned an ‘A’ on her project, Fatima pulled a digital camera from her purse, and took pictures of Ilyana and Mrs. Williams, each standing next to “Captain America.”

  Minutes later, Fatima and I were back in my clunker, with the Captain America costume in my trunk.

  Next stop: checking up on my locker-neighbor, Janice Wesley, who had missed the last three days of school.

  ****

  Janice lived in a shabby trailer park. Anything wooden that I could see, was gray; anything made of steel was rusty; anything painted had paint coming off; and anything living was overgrown.

  In other words, my clunker had finally found a home.

  So you can imagine my alarm when I got close to Janice’s trailer and discovered a shiny, metallic gold, late-model Mustang GT convertible parked in front of Janice’s trailer, and a man’s yelling coming from within the trailer.

  I shut off the engine and rolled down my and Fatima’s windows, the better to hear.

  The man was yelling, “YOU THINK I’M GONNA LET MY CAR GET REPOED BECAUSE OF SOME UPPITY CUNT WHORE? I’M NOT GONNA HEAR THIS SHIT ANY MORE! YOU ARE GETTING YOUR ASS BACK ON THE STREET TONIGHT, AND YOU’RE GONNA BE NICE AND HAPPY FOR THE MEN, GOT IT?”

  I asked Fatima, “Who’s in there besides Janice?”

  She summoned her scrying ball and seconds later told me, “A young man named Gregory and a young woman named Holly.”

  “What are their relationships with Janice and each other?”

  “Gregory is Janice’s pimp. She thought he loved her, but now she’s wondering if she was tricked. Holly is another of Gregory’s whores. Gregory brought Holly to clean Janice up, because Janice is filthy and Gregory doesn’t want to touch her. Janice and Holly don’t dislike each other, but they’re not close.”

  “And Janice’s mom and dad, where are they?”

  Several seconds later, Fatima replied, “Mom’s at work. She has two jobs. Right now she’s waitressing. Janice’s parents divorced three years ago—her father lives in South Dakota and drives a garbage truck.”

  I nodded, thought a few seconds, then asked, “How many doors does this trailer have? Just this one?”

  Fatima moved her hand sideways through the air. Where her hand had been, the air turned into a floating light-green slate. Fatima gestured, and on this floating slate appeared a map of the trailer, marked in dark green. Three flashing green lights, marked ‘J’, ‘G’, and ‘H’, showed where the people in the trailer were.

  Fatima’s magic map showed another door on the back side of the trailer. The magic map also showed that Holly was in the master bedroom’s bathroom, at the far west end of the trailer—while Gregory and Janice were in the bathroom at the far east end of the trailer. Since Gregory was still yelling, he and Janice clearly weren’t taking a sexy shower together.

  I pointed at the other door on the map. “Is this door locked?”

  Fatima replied, “Yes.” Then her eyebrows shot up. “The front door is locked too.”

  I nodded. “That would give Gregory the few seconds he needed, if Janice made a run for it.”

  I said, “Fatima, please unlock both doors without Gregory knowing. Also, I want to be able to walk through this back door and make no noise. No door squeaks, no door slams. Will you do that for me?”

  She gestured. “I’m putting a Space of Silence for a cubit around that door. Meaning that nobody will hear whatever noise the door makes. But Master, that same magic means that when you step through the door, you’ll be deaf.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. I kissed Fatima, then I stepped out of the car and walked around the west side of Janice’s trailer, far away from Gregory and Janice.

  The wooden steps going up to the trailer’s back door were lying in the grass, two feet from where they needed to be. I smiled, as I put the stairs in place: Gregory wouldn’t expect anyone to come through this back door.

  The back-door stairs had three steps. I heard my feet hit the bottom two steps, but not the top step.

  Just before I stepped up to that top step, I heard a woman’s scream from inside the trailer, to my left.

  Where Janice was.

  ****

  I jumped up onto that top step, and all the sounds that I was hearing—Gregory’s yelling, a sports announcer on someone’s TV, birdcalls, and a motorcycle moving along a street—all went completely silent.

  The back door opened inward. I stepped into a narrow walkway by a compact washer and dryer.

  And instantly I discovered that I had a problem.

  Ten feet in front of me, Holly was rummaging through the refrigerator. Her back was to me, but her head was turned to the left, where the scream had come from. Now there was a good chance that she’d see me, and there was no place for me to hide.

  I stood still, not giving her any motion to notice. After a few seconds, her head turned forward, facing into the open refrigerator.

  So I was lucky, Holly didn’t know that I was behind her. No problem, I would just sneak up on her, make her my touch-slave, and she wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

  I took a step toward her. And then all the sounds that had been silenced out, came back.

  Plus a new sound. I hadn’t realized it till that moment, but the same magical transformations that had made me able to bench-press the trunk of my clunker, also made me heavy. And I was walking on floor that was two feet above the ground.

  When I took a step toward Holly, the floor creaked. Loudly. Holly spun around, spilling soda from the can she held.

  She gasped. She inhaled deeply, clearly about to yell or scream.

  I walked toward her, not so fast as to scare her, but fast enough to not waste precious time. As I walked, I pointed to her, then put my finger to my lips.

  She stood there, staring at me, her body rigid.

  As soon as she was within reach, my hand shot out, quick as a snake, and touched her bare arm. “I claim you, Holly,” I said.

  Holly’s muscles relaxed. “I am yours,” she told me.

  Then I heard Greg yell. “HOLLY, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE.”

  I pointed to the back door and whispered to Holly, “Walk out this door, walk around this side of the trailer”—I pointed west—“and by Gregory’s convertible you’ll see an old blue car with a woman in the front seat. Get in the back seat. Do not come back in this trailer unless I tell you to.”

  “Yes, sir,” Holly whispered, and hurried away.

  Okay, the little problem was taken care of. Now for the big problem: Gregory.

  ****

  I haven’t mentioned the smell. As soon as I’d opened the back door, I’d been unable to ignore the reek of vomit and diarrheic shit. And to all the human misery that those smells meant, new misery was being added: I was hearing a woman’s sobbing.

  I realized that I had no idea when Janice’s fated death was.

  From where I was, looking beyond the living room was a narrow hallway, which was to the right of anyone stepping in the front door. Off that hallway were doors to two smaller bedrooms, I
knew, and at the end of that hallway was the door to the other bathroom.

  Standing by the refrigerator as I was, I could see Gregory clearly. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, his attention on something happening in the bathroom itself.

  And if I can see HIM...

  I zoomed away from the fridge toward the kitchen table, onto the worn living-room carpet, and then around the living-room couch. Gregory wouldn’t see me before I appeared in the hallway, no more than thirteen feet away from him.

  Well, that was the plan, anyway. Did you know, Reader, that they have a saying in the military? The first casualty in any battle is always the battle plan.

  As I was walking in the living room from the recliner to the television, I heard Gregory’s voice: “GODDAMNIT, HOLLY, WHERE ARE YOU?”

  I walked around the TV and into the children’s-bedrooms hallway. Only to discover that Gregory wasn’t standing in the bathroom doorway anymore. Nope, he was in my end of the hallway, (only three feet away, in fact), and he was walking toward me.

  Gregory stopped, jumped back, and drew a snub-nosed revolver from his waistband. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

  I looked at the gun in his hand, I looked in his face, and I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “ ‘Thank you’? Are you some kind of retard?”

  I smiled at him again. “Your gun—whatever I do now is treated as self-defense.” Then I kicked him in the jaw.

  (Which is cool, when before, I’d only seen that stunt done in movies. Remind me to give Fatima a big kiss sometime.)

  Gregory wound up lying on his back, momentarily dazed. I planted my right foot by his waist, and my left foot kicked down onto his right forearm. At least one bone broke. Gregory screamed.

  “Who’s there?” Janice’s voice fearfully asked. “What’s going on?”

  I called back, “Janice, it’s me, Marvin. Everything will be fine now.”

  “No it won’t!” she said, sobbing. “He shot me up. I was clean for four days, and then five minutes ago, he shot me up!”

  Gregory sneered at me. “She was getting full of herself. A man’s gotta control his bitches.”