The Christmas Genie

by Dan Gutman

“This isn’t about you,” Mrs. Walters told Genie Bob. “My class gets the wish, remember?”

  “Maybe you should tackle the underwear problem,” Alex told Hannah. “That seems doable.”

  “So, we can have any wish in the world,” said Elizabeth, “and you think we should wish that Hannah’s brother would stop throwing his underwear at her? Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

  “It was a joke!” Alex said. “Lighten up.”

  “If I just wish to end poverty in the world, then there will still be people who get horrible diseases,” Hannah complained. “And if I wish that there were no horrible diseases, then there will still be drugs and crime and global warming and all those other serious problems.”

  “These are the kinds of decisions that our political leaders have to make every day,” Mrs. Walters told us. “There are a lot of problems in the world, and we can’t solve all of them at the same time, or all of them by ourselves.”

  “Why not?” Hannah asked. “I thought we could wish for anything.”

  “Sorry,” Genie Bob said. “Even in the wish community, life ain’t always fair.”

  “But I can’t decide which one to wish for,” Hannah said.

  “Neither can I,” said Mrs. Walters, as she reached into the bowl for the next card.

  WISH #16:

  I WISH I COULD SPEAK SPANISH.

  “That one’s mine,” said Madison. “My family took a trip to Mexico last summer, and I couldn’t communicate with the people there. Spanish sounds like such a beautiful language, so I wish I could speak it.”

  “You know, next year when you kids are in sixth grade you’re going to start learning foreign languages,” said Mrs. Walters. “You can take Spanish then, Madison.”

  “Yeah, but that will involve a lot of work,” Madison said. “I don’t want to spend years. I want to be fluent tomorrow. I want to snap my fingers and be able to speak Spanish.”

  “Why don’t you just wish you could speak every language?” said Josh. “I mean, if you’re gonna wish, wish big. That’s what I say.”

  “I’ll tell you what I wish,” said William. “I wish we didn’t have to learn another language in school next year.”

  “Yeah, what do we need that for?” said Logan. “I’m not going anywhere. I like things right here in the good old U.S. of A.”

  “Everybody should speak American,” said Christopher.

  “American isn’t a language,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “We speak English.”

  “Well, those people in England ripped off our language,” Christopher said. “That’s why we had to go kick their butts in 1776.”

  I was going to tell Christopher what a dope he is, but I didn’t want Mrs. Walters to tell me I need to respect other people’s opinions no matter how dumb they are.

  “Learning another language makes you a broader, more interesting person,” said Mrs. Walters.

  “I’m plenty interesting right now,” William said.

  “Isn’t it confusing to learn more than one language?” asked Mia. “Wouldn’t you get them mixed up in your head?”

  “Oh, no, not at all,” Mrs. Walters said. “There are people who speak dozens of languages.”

  “Why don’t we vote on it?” asked Alyssa.

  “Fair enough,” Mrs. Walters said. “All in favor of wishing to speak Spanish, raise your hands.”

  Madison and a few other kids put their hands up.

  “All opposed, raise your hands,” Mrs. Walters said.

  Most of the rest of us raised our hands. Some kids didn’t vote for either option.

  “Sorry, Madison,” said Mrs. Walters.

  WISH #17:

  I WISH I HAD A TIME MACHINE.

  “Yeah!” a bunch of us exclaimed.

  “That one was mine,” Ethan said. “If I had a time machine, I could travel back to any period in history. I could meet Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. I could see how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. Nobody knows, y’know.”

  “Having a time machine would be cool,” David said.

  “And of course,” Ethan added, “I would take you guys with me, so it wouldn’t be a wish just for me. It would be for all of us.”

  “That’s very altruistic of you, Ethan,” said Mrs. Walters.

  “If I had a time machine, I would go back five years so I could be a little kid again,” said Ashley. “Life was simpler when we were little.”

  “I would go back to the Sixties and prevent the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Hannah.

  “If I had a time machine,” said Natalie, “I wouldn’t travel to the past. I’d go to the future. Then I could see what I’m going to be like as a grown-up, where I’ll live, what job I’ll have, what my family will look like.”

  “You’d be able to see all the next-generation video game systems and cool technology they’ll have too,” said William.

  “Like flying cars and stuff,” added Christopher.

  “And you could see who is going to win the Super Bowl that year,” said Jacob. “Then you could come back and bet on it and win a lot of money.”

  “I don’t think that would be legal,” said Mrs. Walters.

  “How would anyone catch you?” asked Jacob.

  “I saw this movie once about a guy who goes back in time and accidently kills his mother,” Natalie said. “So she never gave birth to him, and he didn’t really exist anymore.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” said Logan.

  “But Natalie makes a good point,” said Mrs. Walters. “If you traveled back in time, you would have to be very careful. Because anything you do in the past could change everything that happens after that point in time.”

  “I’d make sure not to kill my mom,” Alex said.

  “But what if you were walking down the street and you happened to kick a seed with your foot,” said Natalie, “and years later that seed grew into a tall tree. And the tall tree got struck by lightning and fell on a house. And it just happened to be, say, Thomas Edison’s childhood home. And he was killed when the tree crashed into his bedroom. And he never grew up to invent the lightbulb. We would be sitting here in the dark right now. And it would be your fault because you kicked that little seed.”

  “You have a sick mind,” said Logan.

  “Logan!” said Mrs. Walters. “I guess the moral to the story,” said Alex, “is not to kick seeds.”

  “If I was going to wish for a machine it wouldn’t be a time machine,” said Christopher. “I’d wish for a machine that did my homework for me automatically.”

  “That would be cool,” said David.

  “I’m not sure I would approve of that,” Mrs. Walters said.

  “Why not just wish that we didn’t have homework in the first place?” asked Ella. “Then you wouldn’t need a machine to do it for you.”

  “What’s wrong with homework?” asked Madison. “Doing homework is how we learn things.”

  Everybody turned around and looked at Madison. Obviously, she had lost her mind.

  “If I was going to wish for a machine,” said Natalie, “I would wish for a pencil that allows you to draw things that become real as you need them. Like, you could draw a picture of a house, and then a real house that looks just like it would appear in front of you.”

  “If I was going to wish for a machine,” said Abigail, “I would wish for a machine that turns dirt into gold. Then I’d make a fortune.”

  “If you could turn dirt into gold, gold would become worth nothing because there would be so much of it,” claimed Mia. “Gold is valuable because it’s rare.”

  “Yeah,” said Alex, “but if you turned dirt into gold and the gold was worth nothing, you could make a fortune selling dirt.”

  “Why don’t we just wish for a magical machine that can do anything we want it to do?” suggested Natalie.

  “How about just going with my original idea?” said Ethan. “A time machine.”

  “Speaking of tim
e,” said Genie Bob, “you only have ten minutes left. Looks like you’re going to miss your Christmas vacation.”

  “Let’s hurry,” said Mrs. Walters. “We need to get through everyone’s wishes.”

  WISH #18:

  I WISH I HAD SUPERPOWERS.

  “Yeah!” a bunch of us exclaimed.

  “Mine,” claimed Josh, raising his hand.

  “Sorry, dude, but you need to be more specific,” Genie Bob told Josh. “If ya simply tell me you want superpowers, I might give you the power to eat a ton of broccoli, or the power to lick your own elbow, which, by the way, is impossible for humans.”

  Genie Bob licked his elbow. We all tried to lick ours. He was right. Impossible.

  “Okay,” Josh said, thinking it over. “I need to pick one superpower? That’s a no-brainer. I wish I could fly. Like, on a flying carpet. I wish I could jump up to the sky and stay there and relax on the clouds.”

  “That would be cool,” said David.

  “Yeah!” we all agreed. Of all the superpowers, nothing could possibly be better than flying.

  “Big mistake,” Genie Bob told us. “Believe me, everybody wishes they could fly. I get that wish all the time. But ya know what happened the last time somebody wished they could fly? The poor guy crashed into a plate glass window and landed on a fence. Believe me, ya don’t want to wish that on anybody. Things are dangerous enough as it is without the sky being filled with flying people.”

  “How about superstrength?” suggested Abigail. “Then I could crush a piece of coal in my bare hands like Superman and turn it into a diamond.”

  “Why not just wish for a box full of diamonds?” said Ella. “Avoid the middleman.”

  “Is that all people care about?” asked Hannah. “Money? Diamonds? Buying things?”

  “I would rather have X-ray vision,” suggested Matthew. “Then I could see through walls.”

  “I never understood the big attraction of seeing through walls,” said Alex. “You can just walk through the door and see what’s on the other side of the wall with your regular vision.”

  “I would wish for superhearing,” suggested Ashley. “Then I could hear what people are whispering about me.”

  “You would also pick up every conversation people are having miles away,” said Mia. “You’d hear every bird chirp, every door creak, every time somebody sneezed. You wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Superhearing would probably drive you insane.”

  “I wish that I had the power to communicate with ghosts,” said Anthony, “and to bring dead people back to life.”

  “That’s just weird,” Alyssa said, “and creepy.”

  I guess the wheels were turning in our heads, because everybody started suggesting superpowers they wish they had. Kids wished they could be invisible, invulnerable, or able to read minds. Jacob wished he could run really fast so he would be the greatest athlete in the world. Olivia loves to swim, and she said she wished she could breathe underwater. Andrew wished he could control the weather. Isabella wished she could create clones of herself and morph them into animals. Alex wished he had heat vision so he could toast marshmallows at any time. And me, well, I wished I could walk up walls like Spider-Man.

  “Man, you kids are greedy!” Genie Bob said, “I hate to rain on your parade, but this ain’t no grocery store. You don’t come to me with a list and pick stuff off the shelves. You get one superpower, and that’s all.”

  “You know, for a genie, you’re really not all that nice,” said Sophia.

  “Yeah, go ahead and complain,” Genie Bob said. “Maybe the next time a meteorite crashes into your class and a genie pops out, he’ll be nicer than I am.”

  “There’s no need to get snippy about it,” said Mrs. Walters as she pulled the next index card out of her jar.

  WISH #19:

  I WISH MY PARENTS WOULD GET BACK TOGETHER.

  When Mrs. Walters read that card, nobody jumped up to say it was theirs. We were all looking at each other nervously. Then, finally, Ella raised her hand in the back corner of the room.

  “I didn’t know we were going to say out loud who made each wish,” Ella said. “I would have chosen another one.”

  “That’s okay, Ella,” Mrs. Walters said. “How many of you have a family in which Mom and Dad are no longer together?”

  About ten kids raised their hand. So did Mrs. Walters.

  “At least I’m not the only one,” Ella said. “My parents just got separated a few weeks ago.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ella,” Mrs. Walters said. “I know how difficult that can be. My parents split up when I was about your age.”

  “My parents split up twice,” said Andrew. “First my dad left after my folks weren’t getting along. Then they went through counseling and he moved back home. But then they got along even worse and he moved out again. They get along better now than they did when they were together.”

  “That happens sometimes,” Mrs. Walters said. “In some cases it’s good for two people to split up because they just can’t get along.”

  “I still wish my parents were together again,” Ella said. She looked like she might cry.

  “I wish I had a brother or sister,” said Isabella. “I’m an only child.”

  “I wish I had no brothers or sisters,” said Alex. “There are five kids in my family, and I’m the youngest.”

  “I wish I could meet my real mother and father,” said Alyssa. “I was adopted.”

  “I wish my mother was still alive,” Mrs. Walters said.

  It was quiet in the room. I guess everybody had some kind of unusual relationship in their family that they were thinking about. My uncle got in trouble last year, and he was in jail for a while, but I didn’t say anything about it.

  “There’s no such thing as a perfect family,” Mrs. Walters told us. “How about this? Let’s all agree to be supportive and respectful of each other. And if one of us ever needs to talk to someone, we’ll be there for them.”

  “Yeah,” we all agreed.

  “For now, let’s move on,” said Mrs. Walters.

  WISH #20:

  I WISH FOR A PLANE TICKET TO SOUTH DAKOTA BECAUSE I WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE WILD BUFFALO AND WALK IN THE MOUNTAINS.

  “Me!” William jumped up and proudly claimed credit.

  “They have wild buffalo in South Dakota?” asked Mrs. Walters.

  “I saw it in a comic book once,” William said.

  “Your wish is for a plane ticket?” said Josh. “Are you kidding me? Why don’t you wish for your own private jet? Then you can go anywhere you want, whenever you want.”

  “I’m sure everyone here has a special place they would like to go,” said Mrs. Walters.

  “I would wish for an all-expense-paid trip to Pluto,” said Christopher.

  “The temperature on Pluto is minus 369 degrees,” Ava pointed out. “Your body would be frozen solid in about a second. And there’s no air, either.”

  “Then I would wish for a heated space suit,” Christopher said.

  “I wish I could go to the moon,” said Anthony.

  “That would be cool,” David said.

  “I’ve been to the moon,” Genie Bob said. “It’s way overrated. Big bore. Nothin’ going on there. Believe me, ya don’t want to go to the moon.”

  “I wish there was a magical place where no one could go but me,” said Madison. “Nobody could tell me what to do. The flowers would gleam and there would be a wide open field. And pixies would fly over your head.”

  “Pixies?” we all said.

  “Why are we arguing over where we wish we could go?” said Ethan. “Why don’t we just wish for the whole class to have the power to teleport wherever we want? Like on Star Trek. That would be even better than a time machine.”

  “If everyone in the world had that power,” said Hannah, “we wouldn’t need cars, trains, planes, or ships. We wouldn’t need to burn gas. There would be no global warming.”

  “And we would save so much time,” Natalie
said. “Can you imagine if you could go from New York to California in seconds?”

  “That would be cool,” said David.

  “My mom works for an airline,” said Mia. “She would lose her job.”

  “Everyone in the travel industry would lose their jobs,” Ella said.

  “My dad is a truck driver,” said Christopher. “Would he lose his job?”

  “Sure,” Mia said. “If we could teleport stuff, we wouldn’t need the travel industry, shipping companies, the post office, railroads, highways. It would be a different world.”

  “Isn’t it kind of risky for us to make a decision that would change the world so dramatically?” asked Ashley.

  “We would be changing it for the better,” insisted Ethan.

  “Maybe we would be changing it for the worse,” said Mia. “You don’t know. We can’t predict what might happen.”

  “Teleportation!” exclaimed Ethan. “What’s the debate? It would be like the invention of the lightbulb, or the airplane.”

  “If it weren’t for the airplane, there would be no 9/11, no Hiroshima, no Pearl Harbor,” said Mia.

  “Oh, give me a break!” said Ethan. “Are you gonna claim the plane is a bad thing because there have been some tragedies involving planes? You can say that about anything. “If we didn’t have water, nobody would ever drown. So should we get rid of water?”

  “Water is a necessity,” Mia pointed out. “Airplanes aren’t.”

  “Christmas vacation . . .,” Bob said, rolling his eyes. “Slipping away . . .”

  Mrs. Walters picked the next card out of the bowl.

  WISH #21:

  I WISH I HAD MY OWN REALITY TV SHOW AND I WAS REALLY FAMOUS SO I LIVED IN A MANSION AND RULED THE WORLD WHERE I COULD CONTROL THUNDER, LIGHTNING, AND RAIN.

  “That one’s me, baby!” said Andrew, jumping up to high-five Logan.

  “You are such an egomaniac,” said Elizabeth.

  “You know it!” Andrew said proudly.

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” Elizabeth said. “Egomaniacs are selfish jerks who think the whole world revolves around them.”