The Genie Rings

by Jack Henseleit

  ‘It must get boring sometimes, always having to go along on work trips,’ said Ali with a wink. ‘I hope we can find a way to keep your time with us interesting.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Max appreciatively.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Anna.

  Ali beamed. ‘We are having some entertainment beside the camp tonight,’ he said. ‘It has been a long week of digging, and so some of the locals are going to put on a show, to keep our spirits high. You can rest now while I show your father around the camp, and then we’ll all get together again in an hour or two. Does that sound all right to you?’

  The children thought it sounded very all right indeed. With another wink, Ali led the Professor back out into the sun.

  Max unwrapped the pillowcase from his head and pounced on the lolly bag. He pulled out a small golden-brown ball with ridges on the sides and put it cautiously into his mouth.

  ‘Delicious!’ he announced happily. ‘It tastes just like a doughnut.’

  Anna dropped her backpack and flopped down onto her bed, finally unwinding the long black scarf. She noticed that ‘42B’ had been stamped in serious black ink onto the roof of the tent. Underneath it, somebody else had painted some words in curling red script: The Desert Rose.

  ‘So,’ said Max, munching on another doughnut ball. ‘What exactly is going on?’

  It was a very good question. Anna thought about everything that had happened so far.

  ‘There’s an old story,’ she said slowly. ‘About a jeweller named Zareen. And in the story, she makes some really valuable treasures.’

  ‘I know,’ said Max. ‘A ring. I was listening.’

  ‘But Zareen died a long time ago,’ continued Anna, ignoring him. ‘So her treasures were probably buried with her. So if anyone could find out where she was buried, they’d be able to find the rings. That’s what Ali’s trying to do, but now he needs the Professor’s help.’

  Max frowned. ‘Does Ali want to control the genie?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I think he was just saying all that to scare us,’ she said. ‘He’s more like the Professor, really. He just wants to know the end of the story.’ She grimaced. ‘But there’s something else, too. Ali said that someone might be trying to sabotage the expedition – stealing things, and stuff like that. So maybe someone else out here is looking for the ring as well.’

  ‘But we know that fairies are real,’ said Max. ‘So what if someone does find the ring, and then a big terrible genie comes out?’

  Anna shivered. The Professor had always been interested in old stories about fairies and magic, but so far he had no idea that some of them were true. How would the fairies react if a whole campsite full of adults suddenly found out their secret? With a shiver, she remembered the fearsome snarl of the stone monster on the other side of the sand dune.

  Something told her that the fairies wouldn’t be very happy at all.

  ‘Well, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,’ said Max, with a touch of bravado. ‘I was looking out at that desert the whole trip, and I didn’t see any genies. No vampires either, and no trolls, and no creepy forests for fairies to hide in, and especially no wi–’

  He trailed off suddenly, a little embarrassed. Anna pretended not to notice, trying very hard not to roll her eyes. If there was one type of monster Max feared more than any other, it was definitely witches, although these days he always claimed he’d only been afraid of them when he was very little. But did witches really exist? Anna didn’t know. In fact, even though she and Max had now survived two encounters with terrifying fairy creatures, they still seemed to know almost nothing about magic at all.

  She turned away with a sigh and unzipped her bag, pulling out the two books that she always kept close to the top. She set aside the emerald green notebook and began to flip through a book with a dusty red cover, which was so old that it was starting to fall apart at the spine. Her fingers brushed over the faded gold title: FAIRY TALES FOR DARING CHILDREN.

  The words in the book were small and cramped and often difficult to read. Anna scanned each heading carefully as she riffled through the pages. Her eyes alighted on a paragraph that had already been much-underlined in pencil.

  ‘Listen to this!’ she exclaimed. She read the passage aloud.

  ‘“The flame-men of the desert are amongst the most diverse of all the fairy tribes. These genies – or djinn – can be further divided into five classes, organised according to their status in court. In ascending order, they are the impish jann, the ever-hungry ghulan, the devilish shaitan, the noble ifrit and the rebellious marid.

  “Whilst the four lower classes have been known to have dealings with nomadic humans, the all-powerful marid should never be approached by humankind.”’

  There was a picture of the marid, too. Anna and Max stared together at the inky drawing of a vortex in the sky, its edges splattered with limbs and flames and lightning. A great face with evil eyes stared out from the centre of the abyss.

  Anna shut the book.

  ‘I’m sure they won’t find it,’ said Max.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Anna. ‘They probably won’t.’

  But as the children lay back in their beds, with the sandy winds rustling their tent, they couldn’t help but feel as if the desert was waiting to swallow them whole.

  5

  SWORD DANCING

  ANNA HADN’T MEANT TO FALL ASLEEP, BUT it was easy to drift away on the pile of velvety cushions. Before she knew it the Professor was gently shaking her by the shoulders, softly calling her name as she opened her eyes.

  ‘Did you find it?’ she asked him at once. ‘Did you find the ring?’

  The Professor chuckled. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘The carvings Ali has found are in a language I barely recognise. I’m not sure how long it will take me to decrypt it all.’

  Anna frowned. ‘So why aren’t you solving it now?’

  ‘Because the festivities are about to begin!’ said the Professor. He leant over to wake Max. ‘Ali said they’re going to start at sundown. It should be quite the experience.’

  Max’s eyes blinked open. He poked out his tongue, licking at the crust of sugar that had built up in the corners of his mouth. ‘Did you find the ring?’ he asked thickly.

  ‘No,’ said the Professor. ‘But I did find the rest of our bags. Make sure you bring a jumper out with you tonight, just in case the temperature drops!’

  It didn’t seem possible to Anna that she would need a jumper. She pulled out a cardigan from her bag, quickly stowing the green notebook and the book of fairy tales among the envelopes squashed at the bottom. She wondered what her friends would make of their current adventure. Would Jamie tell her to try to stop the Professor from finding the tomb? Would Isabella tell her to try to find the tomb first? Or would they both tell her that there was nothing to be worried about at all?

  ‘Come along,’ said the Professor. ‘We don’t want to be late!’

  He led the children out into the campsite. It was much quieter now that the digging was finished for the day. Anna was surprised by how cool the breeze felt in the shadow of the stone citadel. She slipped into her cardigan as they walked along a row of white tents, wondering where everybody had gone.

  Suddenly a voice called out from somewhere in the distance. More voices joined the first, yelling and hollering, before settling down together into a chant that carried easily on the low wind. A smattering of handclaps started up, beating out a steady rhythm. The Professor was walking very quickly now, ushering Anna and Max around the final curve of tents and tarpaulins.

  A great spurt of flame greeted them as they turned the corner. A mighty bonfire had been built on the desert floor, sparking and flaring, licking at the sky with its burning tongue. Sitting on the sand around it were the men and women from the campsite, all of them singing and chanting and clapping their hands. Anna caught sight of Dr Sassan, who looked far more excited now than he had when they first met him. His eyes glinted hungrily in the fi
relight as the children took their seats among the crowd.

  ‘Tavajoh,’ someone shouted over the commotion. ‘Bogzarid raghs shoro shavad!’

  Two men at the front of the crowd jumped up. They both wore long white robes, with red headscarves hanging down their backs. The crowd cheered them as they stood before the flames.

  ‘They’ve got swords,’ exclaimed Max, pointing.

  He was right – and in an instant, both men had drawn their blades. They began to circle around one another, hopping high into the air and spinning around, slicing their weapons back and forth. One of the men began to spin his sword around like a propeller, twirling it so fast Anna could barely see it.

  ‘Are they going to stab each other?’ asked Max.

  ‘I hope not,’ said the Professor. ‘I’m sure they’ve done this many times before.’ He frowned. ‘Although I suppose there might sometimes be accidents.’

  The men were certainly twirling their swords very quickly. The blades shone brightly in the firelight, almost as if the swords themselves were on fire. Each blade was long and curved, with a sharp point at the end.

  The Professor smiled at Anna.

  ‘I bet you’d like a sword like that,’ he said.

  Anna thought about the white knife sheathed on her hip.

  ‘I think I’m okay,’ she said.

  The dance was coming to an end. With one final spin, both men lowered their swords, burying the tips in the sand. The crowd erupted with whoops and cheers; Anna noticed Dr Sassan wringing his hands together intently, as if disappointed the fight had ended so soon. But the show wasn’t over yet. Another group of dancers leapt up to the fireside, linking their arms as they began their performance. They started springing high into the air and landing in low crouches, kicking out their legs with acrobatic flourishes. The ends of their robes flapped like sails.

  It was a fantastic display. Anna didn’t want to look away, but the blazing light of the fire was beginning to hurt her eyes. She decided to turn away for just a second, blinking back into the stillness of the night. For a moment she could still see the outline of the bonfire, a greenish ghost-light hovering in mid-air; but then the illusion faded, and she was staring back at the empty camp.

  Except the camp wasn’t empty.

  The figure had slipped quickly from view, but Anna had seen it just the same. Someone small had been creeping between the rows of tents, their skin glowing pale in the moonlight. Anna frowned. Why weren’t they watching the dancing with everyone else?

  A shiver tickled its way along Anna’s neck.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ she whispered to Max. ‘I think we should go back.’

  Max frowned at her, surprised. ‘But they haven’t finished yet!’

  ‘Someone’s snooping around the camp,’ hissed Anna. ‘Remember what Ali said? What if the thief is looking for the ring?’

  Max’s eyes widened. He nodded.

  The Professor was so distracted by the fireside show that it was even easier than usual for the siblings to slip away. They scurried back across the sand, hiding in the shadow of the first tent they reached. Anna peeked around the corner to look down the row. There was no sign of the tiny figure.

  ‘Which way did they go?’ whispered Max.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Anna. ‘Keep your eyes open.’

  The crowd behind them let out a cheer as the children crept further into the camp. Anna tried to look for footprints, but the sand between the tents had been walked across so often that picking out any one track was impossible. It was dark, too. Anna gritted her teeth as she tiptoed along another row of decaying statues, knowing full well that the intruder could be hiding behind any one of them. Where had they gone?

  Max grabbed her arm. Anna almost cried out, but stopped herself just in time. A light had been left burning in one of the larger tents. It glowed like a beacon in the centre of the camp, casting strange, twisted shadows against the white canvas walls.

  One of the shadows was moving.

  It was easy to step quietly on a carpet of sand. Anna and Max walked silently to the front of the tent, taking care not to trip over the guy ropes pegged around the outside. The door flap was open. Anna took a deep breath, daring herself to peek in. The clapping of the crowd suddenly seemed very far away.

  Slowly, carefully, she looked inside.

  The tent was filled with papers. Countless pages of notes had been stuck to the walls, pinned over the top of one another so that they almost looked like feathers. A big map of the surrounding desert was spread across a table in the centre of the room, itself almost buried in even more piles of notes. The only thing that didn’t seem to be covered in paper was a large wooden chest in the corner of the tent.

  Standing over the chest was a boy.

  ‘Hey!’ said Anna indignantly. ‘What are you doing?’

  The boy jumped, almost banging his head on the lid of the chest. Anna walked into the tent, her hands on her hips. Now that she knew Ali’s mysterious intruder was just a little boy, she didn’t feel scared at all.

  ‘Man mote-asefam,’ said the boy. ‘Man gom shodam. Alan inja ra tark mikonam.’

  Anna wasn’t sure what the boy was saying, but she could tell he was lying. She narrowed her eyes. The boy was not wearing a shirt, and his skin was coloured with the strangest tan she had ever seen. In the flickering light of the lantern, it almost looked as if the boy were glowing. She wondered if he was wearing some sort of camouflage paint.

  ‘I think you’d better get out of here,’ she said. ‘And don’t come snooping around here again, okay?’

  The boy nodded. He grabbed something from the chest and turned towards the door.

  ‘Hey!’ said Anna. ‘You can’t take that! Put it back!’

  But the boy did not turn back. Anna went to grab the thing in his hand, but the boy darted past her with surprising speed. She stumbled against the table, sending a sheaf of papers flying.

  ‘Stop him, Max!’ she yelled.

  Max had stepped into the doorway of the tent. He held up his hand in surprise as the boy ran forward – and then yelped in fright as the boy charged straight into him. He fell onto his side as the boy raced out of the tent and into the night.

  ‘Come back here!’ cried Anna.

  Max groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. Anna ran past him, whipping her head around to see which way the boy had gone. She saw something moving in the darkness to her left, and sprinted forward – and then her foot was snagged by a guy rope, and suddenly she was falling face-first towards the ground. Anna spluttered as she rolled over onto her back, spitting out a mouthful of sand.

  The boy was gone.

  Anna felt very cross. It hadn’t seemed right to pull out the white knife on a boy, but now she wished that she had. She promised herself that if someone ever tried to sneak past her like that again, she would definitely be ready for them.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she called to Max.

  There was no reply. Anna stood up, hobbling back to the big white tent. Max was still standing in the doorway. He was making a face as he rubbed his cold and clammy hand – the hand that had been almost-killed on their very first adventure.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Anna. ‘Did you get hurt?’

  Max shook his head. He looked up at his sister, his eyes bright.

  ‘I could feel him,’ he whispered. ‘He ran into my hand, and I felt it.’

  He held out his palm. Anna stared at it in astonishment.

  For the first time since Max had met the vampire in Transylvania, the skin of his dead hand had turned pink.

  6

  A DAY AT THE BEACH

  ANNA AND MAX REJOINED THE CROWD around the bonfire just as the festivities were ending. They smiled and nodded as the Professor talked to them about the different dances, and they laughed when Ali came over and told them some jokes, but all the time their minds were elsewhere, wondering about the strange boy who had returned the life to Max’s fingers. Max touched as many thin
gs as he could as they walked back through the campsite. He fell asleep running his fingertips over the velvet pillows in tent 42B, smiling a contented smile.

  When Anna and Max woke up the next morning, his hand was dead once more.

  ‘Oh,’ said Max. He stared glumly at his clammy grey fingers. ‘I thought it was back for good.’

  Anna had thought so too. Max had never seemed to mind that his hand was dead, but she didn’t really know what it felt like to have a body part that was partly broken all the time. She tried to give Max an encouraging smile.

  ‘We can still fix it,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’ll see that boy again today.’

  Max scrunched up his face. ‘You told him not to come snooping around again.’

  Now Anna wished that she hadn’t. Max’s hand had been drained by the vampire a long time ago, and yet somehow the boy in the tent had cured him with only a touch. But had the boy meant to heal Max’s hand, or had it been a mistake? What sort of weird powers did the boy possess?

  It wasn’t long before the Professor joined them for breakfast, reading from a page of notes as they all munched away at a plate of crispy omelettes. It was a good, filling meal, and by the end of it Max was looking decidedly more cheerful.

  ‘Do you think we can go for a swim today?’ he asked.

  ‘Ali says the water is very salty,’ said the Professor. ‘It might sting your eyes.’

  ‘We could just dip our feet in,’ said Max. ‘Please, can we?’

  Anna wasn’t sure that she wanted to go swimming anymore. Too many mysteries seemed to be circling the camp – mysteries with magical thieving boys, and deadly, long-forgotten monsters. But seeing Max cheer up made Anna feel happy as well, and it wasn’t long before the Professor had agreed to let them go for a dip. The children packed two water bottles and some sunscreen in their carry bag, and then walked through the camp, ducking past busy scientists and stepping over trenches, waving hello to Ali when they saw him dusting a rock with a tiny brush. The day was yet to reach its hottest point, and it felt entirely pleasant to be out in the sun. Soon they had reached the vast blue lake.