Be a Genie in Six Easy Steps (18 page)

“Stop?” Michael shook his head. “Too late. We've already done it!”

“But
what
have we done?” breathed Jess.

Suddenly, Milly realized that Skribble was looking
past
them, and that Jess was staring in the same direction. She swung around.

And saw a small, brass vase rocking slowly to and fro. No, not a vase, she realized. A
lamp
. A lamp that was being
used
as a vase. She stared in horror as it started to rock faster and faster.

As if there was something trapped inside.

Something angry.

The two orange flowers stuffed in the spout of the lamp withered and crumbled to dust. The dust spiraled in the air and started to thicken into smoke.

“We sent the evil genies back to their lamps, all right,” whispered Jason, transfixed. “We just never imagined one of their lamps was
here in the shop with us all the time.
”

“So what? They can't get out if we don't rub the
lamp,” said Milly. “Can they?”

“It looks like no one's told
them
that!” Michael's voice rose with panic as the smoke began to take the shape of a tall, thin woman.

The children backed away as Vega shimmered into view, her eyes dark and glittering in her beautiful face.

“Give up this contest,” she warned them. “You can never escape from us. Never!”

As the children stared, horrified, Vega turned and softly caressed the brass lamp on the shelf beside her. “Come forth, Sabik!”

In a flash of red light, Sabik burst from inside it. He seemed bigger and broader than before, his moustache thicker and greased into curls at each end. He was holding another, smaller lamp—bright gold and studded with colorful jewels, which he passed to Vega. She took it and stroked it tenderly.

“That must be
her
lamp,” Michael realized, turning to Sabik. “You were carrying it around with you all the time—so when we sent you into your own lamps, all you had to do was rub hers to set her free.”

“Naturally.” Sabik smiled coldly. “Since I was separated from my own lamp, carrying Vega's was a sensible precaution. Would you not agree?”

“I don't agree with anything!” shouted Milly, too
terrified even to cry. “I don't get it! How come your lamp was here in the shop?”

“It was Mum!” Jess said in a breathless whisper. “Remember she said she'd bought something in Junk and Disorderly that same day we did?
That's
what she must have bought—Sabik's lamp!” She remembered the parcel Vega had been carrying in the junk shop. “That day we first saw you—you sold Sabik's lamp to Barry, the owner, didn't you? But why?”

“It was a trap,” Vega said simply. “We had been waiting for so many centuries in the Genie Realm, for the handbook's magic to be awoken. When at last it was, we followed the faint glimmer of its magic to your settlement here. The magic was too weak for us to track the book precisely. However, we knew that the first thing the book instructs its students to attain is…”

“A worthy vessel,” breathed Milly. “A lamp!”

Jess nodded. “So you left Sabik's lamp in the junk shop because you knew it was just the sort of place a trainee human genie would search for one.”

Jason looked at Jess. “If we'd bought it and tried to get inside, Sabik would have known straightaway!”

“Yes,” Sabik agreed. “You would have been caught as surely as a fly in amber. And with a single wish from Vega we would have come to you and taken our prize…
that for which we have spent nearly two thousand years searching….”

Hidden behind the lamp, Skribble gave a low moan of fear. Then he dived into the book and back out of sight.

“But your plan didn't work, did it?” Jess said, looking at the genies. “We got to the shop before you.”

“And, unlucky for you, there was already a lamp there,” Michael chipped in.

Jess nodded. “We bought it and left just as you arrived, so you had to start looking for us the hard way.”

“That is so,” Sabik boomed. “We watched and waited for the magic to guide us. The trails grew stronger. We followed them. Three times, we saw you at places where magic had been cast—but never once with a lamp. And so we bided our time, waiting to be sure we had the right people….”

“Time has little meaning for us,” said Vega. “But the same cannot be said for you, little humans. Your lives are over so quickly….”

The genies walked slowly toward them….

“S
tay away from us,” Jess warned them in a shaky voice.

“Yeah, leave us alone!” Michael snatched up the book and hugged it to his chest. “Just 'cause Skribble is good and you're evil!”

“Skribble?” Vega frowned, halted her advance.

“We know you're evil!” said Milly. “We know you want to punish us for doing magic.”

“Silly child, we have no real quarrel with you,” said Sabik. “Why do you suppose we sent a harmless burrowing creature to pursue you below the ground?”

“The mole,” Michael realized.

“You used the power of the book but you did so innocently,” said Vega. “You are but an irritation to be swept aside. We desire only to take back that which is ours.”

“I don't care!” Milly said. “Skribble isn't yours, and you can't have him!”

Jason nodded. “You can take our lamp, but you can't
have the book
or
Skribble.”

“Not unless you're prepared to come through all of us first,” agreed Michael grimly.

“Skribble? Who is this Skribble?” Suddenly Sabik began to smile. “Surely, you cannot mean…”

Vega looked at him and smiled too. “Skribbaleum? Skribbaleum El Lazeez Ekir—after all this time?”

Sabik boomed with laughter. “Well, well! So
this
is where he ended up.”

“What are you talking about?” said Michael nervously.

“You infants really think we have been after…
him?”
Vega shook her head, her gaze lingering on the book in Michael's arms. “That is the only prize we seek. A humble book for genie children…but the final volume needed to complete the rebuilding of the Great Genie Library of Magical Muses.”

Skribble popped up through a hole in the cover. “What are you talking about?” His specklike eyes were as wide as they would go. “Don't be ridiculous! You are looking for
me;
of course you are!”

Sabik laughed louder than ever. “You were ever a miserable worm in spirit—now you are one in body, too! How could
you
possibly interest us, Skribbaleum El Lazeez Ekir?” His eyes glittered contemptuously. “As a genie you
were incompetent, lazy, and shirked your duties.”

Skribble gasped. “No—”

“It is true, and you know it,” Vega snapped. “You are nothing!”

In front of everyone's eyes, Skribble's body seemed to deflate as if he was a balloon stuck with a pin.

“Don't be so mean!” Milly shouted at the genies. “Leave him alone!”

“Yeah, Skribble was a
great
genie,” Jason said loyally. “He told us he was!”

The genie couple both looked at Skribble.

A piteous moan broke from the little bookworm's mouth.

“Skribble?” Jess said uncertainly.

Milly crouched down. “What are they talking about? Please tell us. I know you weren't completely honest about wanting us to help you, but—”

“You
were
a great genie…” said Jason, “weren't you?”

Skribble whimpered.

Michael and Jess exchanged looks over Milly's and Jason's heads. Jess hesitated and then knelt by Milly. “Skribble, it doesn't matter if you've been lying,” she said, glancing back at Michael, who gave a brief nod. “Just tell us the truth now. We need to know. What's going on?”

There was silence.

“Well, Skribbaleum?” Vega said. “Do you not think these children who champion you have a right to know?”

Skribble lifted his head. “Perhaps…I didn't tell you…the whole truth. I
could
have been a great genie.” He glanced warily at the couple, as if waiting for them to contradict him, but Vega nodded slightly. “I had more natural magical ability than any of the other genies, but I…I squandered that gift.” The worm took a deep breath. “Remember I told you that I had done nothing to deserve being locked up?”

They nodded.

“Well, I suppose I
really
meant that I deserved being locked up because I had done nothing. Nothing at all!” He cringed with shame. “I was lazy. I took shortcuts. I granted shoddy wishes.”

Michael couldn't believe it. “All the stuff you've been moaning at us for!”

“I was warned. Time and again I was warned,” Skribble went on. “But I did not heed those warnings. And then, at the mighty Sultan Alishka's seventieth birthday party…” The little worm shuddered at the memory. “The great sultan was granted a wish from every genie in the Realm. Of myself, he wished that he could seat himself upon solid gold, wherever and whenever he went.”

“Sort of like a portable throne?” Michael considered. “Sounds like that wish would've taken some planning.”

“Indeed, it would have,” Sabik boomed. “But you had no interest in planning, did you, Skribbaleum? So you simply turned the sultan's own
bottom
into gold!”

“Oh, Skribble,” Jess said.

“It was what he wished for!” Skribble argued. “Wherever he sat, he sat on gold!”

Vega nodded. “But soon he sat upon a judge's throne, did he not?”

“Yes. I was found guilty of laziness and irresponsibility,” said Skribble, so quietly the children had to strain to hear. “The Genie High Council stripped me of my magic powers and compelled me to spend one hundred years locked in the great genie library, rereading, relearning, and inwardly digesting the wisdom from the books there. They decreed that after this time, I would regain some of my powers—but my full magic would not return until I helped someone achieve his heart's desire.”

“You
said
you were locked away!” Jason remembered. “But we thought you meant by evil genies.”

Skribble looked ashamed as he nodded. “I let you believe that.”

“But why?” Milly whispered. “Why didn't you tell us the truth?”

“I…” Skribble hesitated and then looked up at her. “I had come to…to
like
you.” He started weeping softly. “I did not want you to think badly of me.”

“Oh, Skribble.” Milly gently wiped away the tears with her little finger. “You should have just told us.”

Jess nodded. “We'd have understood.”

“
I
wouldn't have,” Michael grunted.

“Ignore him,” said Milly. “You wouldn't believe how many teachers have wanted to lock
him
up.”

“So, what happened?” Jason asked Skribble. “How did you come to be in the book? Did you really magic yourself inside it?”

Skribble nodded. “But not for the reason I told you. I was furious with the High Council for believing they could punish me.
Me!”
For a moment a familiar look of pride flashed across his face. “I decided that since they had told me to digest the books, I would do
exactly
that—and so I used the last of my magic to transform myself into a bookworm.”

Jason grinned. “So you could eat the books and
really
digest them!”

An impressed smile flickered across Michael's face, too. “Okay, that's actually quite smart, Worm.”

Skribble nodded, almost smugly. “As the decades went by I fulfilled the terms of my punishment, eating my way
through book after book….”

“It took centuries to repair the damage you caused,” rumbled Sabik.

Skribble gave him a defiant look. “I was chomping quite happily through
The Genie Handbook
when the library was ransacked and I was taken far away!”

“Hundreds of books were stolen that day,” said Sabik, his eyes clouding at the memory. “Many of them so magical they could alter the very fabric of human reality.”

Vega nodded. “Recovering those volumes took priority over a simple beginner's guide to geniedom.”

Skribble looked at her. “And as the centuries passed and I slept, you genies, you…” A fat tear squeezed out of his left eye. “You all
forgot
me.”

Sabik nodded, his face impassive as ever. “People live on in the memory through their achievements, Skribbaleum. In your life as a genie, you achieved nothing worth remembering.”

“But when the handbook was stolen, why didn't you change back to your true self?” Jason asked. “Why did you stay as a bookworm?”

Skribble sighed. “I have already told you, boy, I used the last of my magic to assume this shape! I will not be able to transform myself back until all my powers return, and that will only happen when—”

“You grant someone his heart's desire,” Milly realized.

“So that was your plan!” It all suddenly made sense to Jason. “That's why you made us vow that our heart's desire was to be genies, before we started our training.”

Michael nodded. “You thought if we got through the training and
became
genies, you'd get back your magic and your freedom!”

Vega looked around at the children. “I am forced to admit the four of you have shown great aptitude for a magical existence in your attempts to evade us.”

“You showed courage and spirit when you ignored the book's final instruction that it was safer to do nothing,” said Sabik. “By choosing to stand against us, you made the decision to fashion your own fates, just as you did when first you gave the book that memorable command—‘Genie us.'” He smiled. “This pleases us.”

Jess blinked. “It does?”

“Wait a sec, how do you know about us saying, ‘Genie us'?” Michael demanded.

Vega smiled at him, and the glitter in her eyes seemed suddenly more like the twinkling of the stars at night than the glint of ice. “Magic,” she said softly.

And as she spoke, the handbook shook and fell open in Michael's hands. He gasped and held it out as the pages flicked over. They stopped.

“Your labors are complete,” murmured Vega. “Behold, the judgment of the book.”

Michael stared down at the yellowed pages. For a few seconds, he held himself completely rigid. Then he held it out to Jess, Jason, and Milly for them all to see.