Be a Genie in Six Easy Steps (16 page)

J
ess looked back down at Skribble and the book on her lap—and found that both had gone. She gasped, turned to Michael…in time to find him slipping the book inside his robe. In a daze she realized he must have snatched it the second he saw the genies.

Now the man and the woman had reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Stay away from us,” said Milly, her voice wavering. “Or I'll scream, and my dad and mum will come and get you and—”

“No one will hear your screams, child,” said the woman, her voice as cold and jagged as icicles. “We have drawn a veil of silence around your parents' room. They will hear nothing beyond it.”

Michael grabbed Milly's hand and squeezed it tightly. “What do you want?”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “You have in your possession things that do not belong here.”

“No, we don't,” protested Michael.

“You lie!”
boomed the man, his eyes burning. “I am Sabik, and my companion is Vega. We have journeyed from the Genie Realm. We have traced the magical emanations of the handbook—it is useless to lie to us about what you have and do not have.”

If Sabik had a fiery temper, the woman, Vega, was more like frost. “We want the book back now,” she said coldly. “We know you have it. Return it to us.”

A strangled squeak of alarm came from the direction of Michael's robe. He hastily coughed.

“NOW!” Sabik thundered.

Jess found the courage to speak. “No!”

“You dare defy us?” Vega exclaimed.

“We can do magic, too,” said Milly fiercely. “We've been
training
.”

“Fools,” snapped Sabik. “Meddle no more with the great mysteries. It is not for human infants to train as genies!” He held out his hand. “Surrender the book and your lamp at once!”

“And make no attempt to deceive us,” Vega warned. “We will detect the magic around the lamp. We will know if you have been inside it.”

Jess was about to retort that the lamp wasn't even down here in the den, when Jason stood up, his legs trembling.

“All right,” he said. “If you want the lamp, you can have it.”

“No—” Michael began.

Then he saw that Jason had picked up the duck flashlight!

Jason slowly crossed the den to give it to the genie couple.

Sabik sneered. “What monstrosity is this?”

“It's…it's a modern lamp,” stammered Jason, his palms sweating. Vega swept it from his hand.

A frown crossed her beautiful face as she studied the flashlight. “The child speaks the truth, Sabik. Primitive magic surrounds this lamp. I can tell a trainee has been inside it.”

“He abuses our craft.” Sabik frowned. “I must cleanse this lamp from within.” He spoke strange-sounding words and a haze of yellow light engulfed him. Then he shrank and spiraled into the flashlight.

A moment later a deep cry of anger echoed around the room and blue sparks erupted from the plastic duck.

Vega dropped the flashlight and backed away. “What trickery is this?” she exclaimed in alarm.

Michael saw their chance. “Everyone up the stairs!” he yelled. “NOW!”

Milly grabbed Jason by the hand and fled up the stairs
with him. Michael and Jess made to follow as Sabik suddenly burst back into being at the bottom of the staircase.

But he was stuck—hunched over and helpless, just as Jason had been! Vega crouched to help her companion.

Jess jumped over them both. “Come on!” Clutching the book tightly beneath his robe, Michael did the same.

“Stop the humans, Vega!” Sabik shouted.

Vega pointed to the top of the stairs. The door swung shut.

But Michael and Jess had already thrown themselves through it, just in time.

“Where's the real lamp?” Michael gasped.

“Beside my bed!” Jess was already sprinting for the stairs in the hall.

As they took them three at a time, they could hear Milly and Jason trying to open the door to their parents' bedroom.

“It's stuck!” Jason cried. “Locked or something.”

“Wake up!” Milly shouted. “We're all in danger!”

“They can't hear you,” Michael yelled. “Veil of silence, remember?”

Jason nodded. “I know. I just thought…” He shrugged, close to tears. “I don't know what I thought!”

Michael's voice softened. “Hey,” he said. “That trick
with the duck flashlight, that was brilliant, Jase. That was inspired!”

Milly nodded. “I can't believe Sabik went inside it.”

“I wasn't expecting him to,” Jason admitted. “I just thought he might believe that was the real lamp and leave us alone.”

“
I've
got the real one,” Jess cried, bursting from her bedroom.

“And I've still got the book,” said Michael. He pulled it out as he ran along the landing to join her, the others close behind. “Skribble? You okay?”

The bookworm stuck out his trembling head. “We must flee! That trick won't delay them for long!”

They heard an ominous thump from downstairs as the door to the den was thrown open. “You will never escape!” Sabik was roaring. “Now that we have finally traced the book, we can follow it anywhere—however fast you flee.”

Jason looked dismayed. “Vega must have unstuck him.”

“And now they're in the hall,” Milly realized. “And we're trapped up here!”

“No, we're not,” said Jess. “We just need to use some magic ourselves! Jason, quick—get in the lamp!”

Jason nodded. “Genie me!”

He swooshed away into the cold brass spout. Jess rubbed the lamp and he emerged a moment later in a puff of green smoke and full genie gear, his turban spotlessly white, his slippers extra curly, and his moustache neatly groomed. “What is your wish?” he boomed.

Jess lifted her chin. “I wish that you, me, Milly, and Michael could
fly away
through the window to the middle of Moreham Wood!”

“As you say!” Jason grinned and clapped his hands grandly. The glass vanished from the windowpanes. And the next moment, all four of them started rising slowly into the air!

“I don't believe it!” breathed Michael.

Milly squealed. “We're flying!”

Jess felt a moment's panic as she found herself moving with the others toward the window. But then suddenly she was soaring through the sky in her satin pajamas, clutching the lamp tightly. Her fear faded away as she gave herself up to the incredible feeling. She was weightless, blown like a feather through the chilly morning, looking down at the garden far below and the pointed tops of the conifer trees. Magic had never seemed more special or intense.

Then, all too soon, Jess found herself slowly dropping down into the heart of Moreham Wood. Her bare feet hit the cold, muddy ground and she almost slipped over.
She felt heavy and clumsy, holding the lamp so tightly her fingertips had turned white.

“That was amazing,” said Milly, landing neatly on a pile of leaves in her furry rabbit slippers.

Jason nodded. “Let's do it again!”

“Wish us farther away, Jess,” Michael urged her, shivering in the thin daylight. “This is too close to the house. They'll find us again.”

Jess nodded and opened her mouth—but no sound came out. She gasped and wheezed, but couldn't form a single word.

“Jess?” said Jason, concerned. “What's up?”

Skribble pushed his way out of the split in the book's cover, butting Michael in the ribs with his head. “Sabik and Vega must know that she made the wish,” he cried. “They have taken her voice so she can wish no more.”

Milly rushed to Jess and hugged her. “Oh, no! Poor Jess!”

“And Jason can't be freed unless Jess says so,” Michael realized. “We're helpless again!”

Jess shook her head, gave Milly the lamp, then dug her finger into the muddy ground and started to write: G…E…N…I…E…

“She's writing down the release words!” Milly realized.

Jason looked at Skribble. “Will that work?”

“It had better,” said Michael.

Jason shot back up the spout of the lamp and waited.

Jess concentrated hard. As she scrawled in the mud, she wished as hard as she could that Jason would burst back out of the lamp in his blue pajamas, normal again….

“B…E…F…” Michael was reading each letter aloud. “R…E…E!”

Even as he spoke the last letter, Jason was blown back out of the spout and went staggering into a tree.

“Jess, you did it!” Milly cried, embracing her again, and Jason grinned gratefully.

“Nonverbal lamp control,” said Skribble approvingly. “A clear sign of natural magical ability.”

Michael looked around. A noise had started up in the distance. It sounded like someone crashing through the woods. “They know we're in here,” he said grimly. “Jess, get in the lamp.”

She frowned at him, pointing to her mouth. He pointed back at the ground. With a sigh, Jess bent back over and used her muddy finger to daub,
GENIE ME!

With a soundless gasp of surprise she was tugged feet-first into the spout of the lamp. Milly rubbed it and Jess came back out again in a shower of silver glitter. She was
wearing her cutoff top, tiara, gold sandals—and a big black puffer jacket. Michael looked surprised. “It's cold!” she mouthed at him.

“I wish Jess had her voice back!” said Milly.

Jess clicked her fingers—and gasped out loud. “Thank goodness for that!”

Michael shushed her furiously; the crashing sounds were getting closer. “Okay, Milly, wish us away somewhere.”

“Shall we go flying again?” Milly asked.

“They'll spot us in the air,” said Jason worriedly. “Although, I guess if they've got magic vision, they can spot us wandering around anywhere.”

“Maybe not
anywhere
,” Milly replied with a crafty smile. “I wish we were all tiny and hiding in an underground tunnel beneath the woods!”

“As you command,” said Jess, wriggling her fingers.

Michael felt a weird, spinning sensation, and his stomach lurched like he was caught in an invisible lift, moving from the top floor to the basement at incredible speed. In a sprinkling of silver stardust, everything went dark, and he and the others found themselves all bunched up together. There was a thick, cold, earthy smell in the air, and it was pitch-black. Michael clutched the book close to him. He tried to stand up straight but banged his head on the muddy roof.

“Oh, lovely,” Michael complained. His voice sounded loud and strangely deadened by the thick walls of earth. “How tall are we?”

“I was aiming for the size of a pencil,” said Jess. “But it's too dark to really tell.”

“I wish there was some light in here!” Milly said.

With a clap of magic hands, Jess conjured a small lightbulb. It stuck out of the mud roof and gave off a strong, steady light.

“I went for a sixty-watt bulb,” Jess explained. “Is that okay, or would you prefer a hundred-watt one?”

“All right, Miss Show-off!” Michael complained.

“Milly,” said Jason, “can't you wish that they won't ever be able to find us?”

“That would never work,” said Skribble. “We would need to know the full extent of those two genies' abilities to be able to limit their powers.”

“And I can't see them telling us even if we
were
dumb enough to ask,” said Michael. “But we're not giving up. We're
not
. We've come so far. It's not fair that we can't finish the genie training!”

“You heard what Skribble said—and Sabik,” said Jess quietly. “We were never meant to start it. And when you look at some of the things that have gone wrong…”

“But we can't just hand over the lamp, the book, and
Skribble,” Milly protested.

Skribble nodded vigorously. “Quite so, Milly!”

“Hang on, Jess,” said Michael. “Maybe some things went wrong, but we've managed to put a lot of things right, too. Maybe we can use some of the stuff we've learned.” He pointed to Jason. “I mean, that stuff with the flashlight—you gave the genies what they wanted back in the den, but you twisted it so things went wrong for them—just like you did with Foxtrot. And, Jess, you've always been good at illusions. You were the best at making food, and look at the way you gave yourself that coat just now….”

Jess frowned. “So?”

Michael picked up two clods of soil. “Could you transform these into an identical lamp and a handbook to go with it?”

“Decoys!” said Jason excitedly. “To fool the genies.”

Michael beamed. “Exactly!”

“Make another book first,” Skribble said hastily. “It is I that they truly seek. They must have been hunting me for centuries….” His voice rose in a wail. “And now they will imprison me forever!”

“We won't let that happen,” declared Milly.

Jess bit her lip. “Show me the book.”

Michael passed it to her. “Don't just look at it, Jess.
Feel
it. Think of the way it tingles and shakes…the way it smells so old…you have to get this right.”

Jess closed her eyes and, running her fingers over the book, remembered the way she had felt when she'd first touched it. Its image seemed to shine in her mind.

Milly passed the lamp to Jason and took one of the clods of earth. “I wish we had an exact copy of
The Genie Handbook
,” she whispered.

“As you wish!” Jess boomed, sending showers of soil from the roof. When she opened her eyes, she saw Milly gazing down in delight at an identical copy of the book in her hand.

“That's amazing, Jess,” she said, opening it up. “The paper looks just right, and the ink, too! Even the cracks in the leather…”

Jess gave a relieved smile and passed the real handbook back to Michael.