“I have been thinking,” came Skribble’s muffled tones. Milly opened the book and out he popped, looking very sorry for himself. “Your plan is good…but doomed to failure.”
Michael threw his beard over his shoulder impatiently. “What’re you on about, Worm?”
“I mean that whatever we do, we cannot hide forever,” said Skribble. “You have bought us all valuable time…but Sabik and Vega will track us down. It is inevitable.”
Jess felt suddenly weary as she noticed the clock on the wall. “Look at the time. Six forty in the morning. All that effort, and we’ve only been on the run for about fifteen minutes!”
Jason’s face paled. “Fifteen minutes? It feels more like fifteen days!”
“Look on the bright side,” said Michael moodily. “If we are zapped into magic dust, we won’t be able to come to Dad and Ann’s boring opening party!”
“That’s not funny,” Jess snapped.
“Well,” said Milly firmly. “If we can’t get away from Sabik and Vega…we’ll have to get Sabik and Vega away from us. If only we could put them back in their lamps—they’d have to stay in there then, until someone summoned them!”
For a few moments, no one spoke as her words sank in.
Jason smiled at her. “Milly…that’s brilliant!”
Skribble looked up from the book, frowning. “You know, even as you spoke, Milly, I had hit upon that very same plan—to send them back to their lamps by using your human-genie magic!”
“The worm’s nicking your idea, Mil,” said Michael, giving her a thumbs-up. “Must be a winner.”
“But hang on, our magic only lasts until sunset,” Jason said. “Then they’ll be free again!”
“No!” said Jess. “Remember when Michael was stuck inside the lamp in Ollie’s room? Skribble said he might be stuck there forever!”
Skribble nodded excitedly. “No genie, whether trainee or master, can emerge from his lamp until the spell of release is said or the vessel is rubbed. If you can get the genies into their lamps, then it doesn’t matter that your magic will wear off at sunset—they will be held there by the ancient laws of geniedom!”
“Get wishing then, Jase,” said Michael, “and I’ll get stuffing those genies back in their lamps!”
“The task is beyond you, my boy,” Skribble told him. “It is beyond any single one of you to perform. These genies are extremely powerful.”
“They’ve been pretty soft on us so far,” Michael argued. “They haven’t killed us or anything.”
“They’re toying with us,” said Jason darkly. “I bet they just want to get Skribble and the book back safely—then they’re really going to punish us.”
Milly sat down heavily beside a case of secondhand crime novels. “But what are we going to do? If one of us can’t do it—”
“—maybe all four of us can.” Jess looked around at Michael, Milly, and Jason. “I mean, right from the start, we know the book’s been judging us all together.”
“A sort of group-genie,” Jason agreed.
Michael clicked his fingers. “Maybe, somehow, if we could all get into the lamp together…”
“Then Skribble could rub the lamp and bring us all out as genies!” Milly cried.
“Four times the power!” said Jess.
Jason turned to Skribble. “Would that work? Do you think we could do it?”
The book had already started to tremble, and Milly quickly set it down on the floor. “My tail’s tingling!” gasped Skribble. “Yes, I…I think the book agrees! You, Michael—revert to your usual dreary appearance at once. Everyone must start the spell in the same state.”
Michael spiraled off back inside the lamp. “Genie be free,” commanded Jason.
In the blink of an eye, Michael was back. “Come on, then!”
Skribble looked at them. “You all know what to do?”
“Yes,” said Jess, and the others nodded. Jason set the lamp down on the floor beside Skribble. Then he joined Michael, Jess, and Milly, standing a small distance away, facing the lamp.
Each of them took a deep, deep breath.
“Genie us!” they shouted.
Michael caught a crazy corkscrew glimpse of the others whizzing through the air, shrinking in size just as he was, as the lamp’s spout loomed up like the mouth of a bright brass dragon. They circled down inside its musty, metallic belly until at last they lay still, panting on the hard floor.
“Okay,” said Michael, picking himself up. He held out both hands. “Are we gonna do this?”
Without hesitation, Jess reached out and took his hand. Michael took Milly’s, and she and Jess took Jason’s.
“We’re up for the challenge,” Jason said, no waver in his voice.
“We can do it,” Milly declared. “I know we can.”
Then, before anyone could say another word, they felt a warm, swirling sensation and were sucked back up into the air and spat out through the spout, still holding hands. They made a perfect landing beside the cash register in a swirl of magnificent pinky-gray smoke and a slew of silver sparks.
Skribble was watching from beside the lamp. It might have been Milly’s imagination, but she thought she saw a glimmer of pride in his beady eyes.
“What is your wish?” Milly asked the bookworm, in perfect time with Michael, Jason, and Jess.
“I wish that you would cast Sabik and Vega back into their lamps,” Skribble cried, “wherever they may be!”
“Your wish is our command,” boomed the four genies-in-training.
Milly closed her eyes and pictured Sabik and Vega. She felt power flowing into her fingertips from Michael and Jason, and sent energy of her own back to them and to Jess. It was a wonderful, intoxicating feeling. We can do anything, she thought. Together, we really can!
In her mind, she pictured the two dark-eyed genies. Then she placed two lamps beside them, blurry at first but hardening into focus. She heard Michael, Jess, and Jason speaking in her head, and added her own voice to the chant. “Go back…go back…. Back to your lamp you must go…. Back to your lamp you must go!”
“It’s working!” Skribble said in delight. “Yes, it’s working.”
I know it’s working, thought Milly dreamily. I can feel it working.
“Good children! Fine, upstanding, outstanding children!” Skribble kept babbling on and on. “Of course, you are highly fortunate to have had as fine a teacher as me, someone who saw your potential and…” Abruptly, his voice dropped to a shocked whisper. “Oh, no…no…!”
“What’s wrong?” Milly asked, opening her eyes.
“Stop, children!” squawked Skribble, staring at them in alarm. “You must stop!”
“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….
Chapter Thirty-one
“Stay 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 wis
hed 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.
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