The Third-Class Genie

by Robert Leeson

  “Hey,” said Dad a moment later, “I wasn’t joking when I said our family had been in the wars. There’s our Alec’s school here as well.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Listen to it: Race riot at Bugletown Comprehensive. That’s the headline…”

  “Race riot? Get off – never,” exploded Kim. “What’ll they think of next? Why, there’s hardly any black people round here.”

  “There’s a lot in Boner’s Street,” said Mum. “Miss Morris is always going on about them. She has a family living upstairs from her. She reckons they put coal in the bath.”

  Granddad suddenly choked on his cream cake.

  “Hetty Morris wouldn’t know what a bath’s for.”

  “That’s very unkind, Granddad.”

  “Well, I sat next to her at the Senior Citizens’ Club yesterday and I ought to know.” Granddad wrinkled his nose.

  “She reckons they ought to re-house them out at Moorside. Some of those houses in Boner’s Street are real slums.”

  “Would Hetty Morris go and live out at Moorside?” demanded Granddad. “You bet your life she wouldn’t. And those houses in Boner’s Street are a long way from being slums. They’re overcrowded, but the buildings are in better shape than some of the houses on this estate. They only need seeing to.”

  Alec took a deep breath.

  “Anyway, it’s a lot of old toffee. There wasn’t a riot at our school. It was just a punch-up, black against white.”

  “And how do you know so well?”

  “Because I was in it. There was Ginger Wallace and his mates from Boner’s Street on one side, and Spotty Sam, I mean Sam Taylor, and his mates on the other.”

  “What were you doing in it?”

  “Well, er, I…”

  Dad put his paper on one side. “Perhaps Alec should go up and get his homework out of the way for the weekend. I’m off to the Club for my meeting.” He rose. Mum looked displeased but said nothing. Alec and Kim began to clear the table and Granddad went quietly out of the back door.

  “Did you say Wallace?” Kim asked Alec.

  He nodded.

  “I think I know his mother. She works on our section at the factory. She’s all right. Her daughter goes to your school, a smashing looking girl called Eulalia.”

  “Eulalia?”

  “That’s right. Do you know her, Alec?” Kim suddenly looked across the table and Alec blushed.

  “What are you blushing for? Hey, Mum, our Alec’s blushing.”

  “Gerroff,” growled Alec.

  “He’s growing up, you know. He’s started noticing the other sex.”

  “Shut up, will you?” said Alec.

  “Stop it, you two! Leave those tea things and get out of here. You make my head ache with your rowing.”

  Alec went upstairs. His homework was done in under an hour. There was plenty of light. But he felt fed up with everything.

  All that argument at the tea table had spoilt the Friday evening feeling. Why did people have to row about everything? Why did Mum have to worry about Councillor Blaggett nosing round? He changed into his jumper and jeans and wandered out to the back. Granddad was sitting on the caravan steps looking glum.

  “Is it right, Granddad, what Mum said about Councillor Blaggett? Could he make trouble for you?”

  “Well, he could and all. I’m supposed to be living in the house, not in the caravan. Your dad’s only supposed to use that for holidays.”

  “Well, never mind, Granddad. If he comes round, you can have my room, and I’ll go in the boxroom.”

  Granddad ruffled Alec’s hair.

  “You’re a good lad, Alec. But you’re forgetting that our Tom, Elaine and the baby are moving back in as well. If I were you, I’d keep that under your hat, too. If some helpful person reported that to the council, there’d be trouble.”

  “But couldn’t Tom and Elaine get a flat in one of those blocks out at Moorside?”

  “They might. Now Moorside’s a lovely place. Well, it was anyway. But it’s best for peewits and skylarks, not for people. One pub and two shops, no place for the kids and four miles out from Penfold, let alone six miles from Bugletown. It gets parky there in winter, I can tell you.”

  Alec was silent for a moment, then:

  “Granddad. Do you reckon it’s right, what Miss Morris said about the Wallaces keeping coal in the bath?”

  Granddad chuckled.

  “How should I know? I’ve never been in the Wallaces’ and I’ll bet Hetty Morris never did. But I’ll tell you something for nothing. When we first moved into these council houses before the war, the people down in Boner’s Street used to say we kept coal in the bath. It’s an old sort of joke, if you can call it a joke.

  “Gracie Fields used to sing a song, you know…

  “We’ll have a bathroom, a beeyootiful bathroom

  And a lovely bath where we can keep the coal…”

  Granddad sang so loudly that Alec felt embarrassed and looked round to see if anyone was listening. Granddad stopped singing just as suddenly as he started and burst into laughter.

  “People in Boner’s Street were very posh in those days. When I was a lad, we lived in Upshaw Street, off School Lane. When kids from Boner’s Street came down our way, going to the grammar school, that’s where your school is now, we used to make them go the long way round. We used to give them a right pasting if they didn’t.”

  Granddad looked at Alec’s amazed expression.

  “Why, what’s up, lad? Have I said something wrong?”

  “Oh no, Granddad. You just made me think of something, that’s all.”

  Next day, Alec was allowed to stay in bed as long as he liked. But he felt restless and got up to moon around the kitchen until his mother sent him out to Station Road, to pick up something she had forgotten when she and Dad did the shopping on Friday. Alec suddenly had an idea.

  He raced upstairs, took the can from beneath his pillow and woke up Abu.

  “Salaam Aleikum, Abu. Keef Haalak? How are you this bright and sunny morning?”

  “IlHamdulilaah,” responded Abu sleepily. “What is thy wish?”

  “We’re going shopping. I need some money. So make with the shekels.”

  “How much is it your wish that I should make?”

  “Oh, fifty pence, I reckon.”

  “What is fifty pence?”

  “Oh, Abu, surely a genius like you ought to know that. It’s a seven-sided silvery coin about this big.” Alec held out his hand. In that instant a coin appeared in it. He thrust it into his pocket, ushered Abu back into the can and went out. He kept his own shopping until last. He had his eye on a rather special sort of ice-cream with fruit, nuts and a dash of something or other like rum. It usually cost too much, but not today, ah, not today. He breezed into the shop and slapped the coin on the counter. The shopkeeper looked at it, turned it over and grinned.

  “Look, Alec. I know we’re part of the EU and all, but this won’t do. Why, it’s not even European. It looks as though it came from the Middle East or somewhere.”

  He turned away to serve a young man who had just come in asking for cigarettes, leaving Alec staring at the coin with its intricate network of Arabic lettering. He might have known. He just might have known. There had to be a snag somewhere.

  “Let’s have a look at that, kid.”

  Alec looked up. The young man, tall, slightly pimply and dark haired, stood over him, holding out his hand. Alec held up the coin, but was reluctant to let it go. The young man’s eyes narrowed.

  “That’s a nice coin.” He gestured with his shoulder and Alec followed him out of the shop. “I collect coins like this. I’ll give you – hm – twenty-five pence for it.”

  Alec hesitated. It wasn’t much, but then, if he wanted English money –

  “Fifty pence,” he said impulsively.

  “All right, I’ll give you thirty pence for it. Where did you get it?”

  Alec shrugged, pocketing the thirty pence.


  “Got any more like it? I’m interested,” wheedled the young man.

  “I might have one or two.”

  “Tell you what. You get me some more and I’ll give you a quid for every four. How’s that?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Look. I’ll meet you at the bottom of the station steps at two o’clock tomorrow. I’ll have up to five quid on me. It’s up to you, kid.”

  Alec went home slowly and thoughtfully. Once home he climbed up to his bedroom and took out the can. He explained to Abu what he wanted. Abu was silent for a moment.

  “I like it not, O Alec.”

  “Yours not to reason why, Abu. Make with the shekels.”

  Abu made disapproving noises but produced twenty shining coins of the same shape and size. Alec opened his drawer where he kept odds and ends, old badges, tokens, marbles, and took out a bag to put the coins in. Then he put it in his back pocket.

  That afternoon it rained and he passed the time in his room with Abu, having a quiet feast and talking of this and that. Abu told him of the great scientists and astronomers of his day. Alec told him of the great modern inventions, the jet plane, the motor car, space travel and television.

  “It is all as written in the Great Book of Magic,” said Abu, “the magic carpet, the all-seeing mirror, the flying horse. Yet from all you have told me, man is no happier.”

  “Oh, you’re just an old pessimist, Abu,” said Alec. He’d begun to feel a little uneasy about the genie. The more he knew him, the more he liked him. He was great company, but he had developed a rather nasty habit of commenting on things and giving advice, even when it wasn’t asked.

  On Sunday, when he went to meet the young man outside Bugletown Railway Station, he left Abu under the pillow. He handed over the bag and received in exchange five, highly useful, pound coins. On the whole he felt pleased with the weekend. He reckoned triumphs one, disasters nil, the first win for the home team this season.

  That evening, though, before he went to bed, he had a sudden disturbing thought. Ginger Wallace must still be brooding over last week’s defeat. He might do nothing at school, but on the other hand he might well lay an ambush in Boner’s Street. Alec had no intention of changing his route home from school. He was going to go home through Boner’s Street and the Tank, and Ginger Wallace should not be allowed to interfere with that.

  He called up Abu for the last time that day and placed the problem before him. Abu pondered for a moment, then said:

  “Rest assured, O Alec, sleep in peace. Tomorrow thy troubles will vanish like snow in the desert.”

  Chapter Nine

  ABU IN HIGH SPIRITS

  SCHOOL WAS QUIET and peaceful that week. There was no sign of Ginger Wallace; it seemed his mother had kept him home. For the first day or two Spotty Sam went about boasting that Wallace couldn’t take it, but after a while no one thought it was funny.

  Alec felt distinctly triumphal with five pound coins in his back pocket and his trusty can in his inside pocket. He bought himself a new pair of trainers, and though his mother might have been a bit suspicious, she wasn’t complaining. He found a copy of Treasure Island in the second-hand paperback shop and bought that. But, otherwise, like Biggs after the Great Train Robbery, he lay low and kept off the big spending. He didn’t want awkward questions about the source of his wealth. Apart from which he had a sneaking feeling that he hadn’t got Abu the Instant Genie programmed right yet. There was an art to this magic can business.

  Eulalia Wallace was at school, but looking grim. She passed Alec without laughing or making a face and this rather irritated him, though he tried not to show it. In the schoolyard at break times the soldiery figure of Monty Cartwright was to be seen, keeping an eye on things. Quarrels and grudges tended to fade and people passed the time in proving games of poker and brag in quiet corners. Life was so quiet that, by the middle of the week, Alec was beginning to be a trifle bored.

  On Thursday it rained and at lunchtime Alec felt he should pay an overdue visit to the club which Mr Jameson ran in the science laboratory. As he drifted in, a small group of Year Eights were watching the installation of a new pair of hamsters in one of the cages. The last pair were rumoured to be roaming the central heating pipes, coming out at night to feed off samples of homework books.

  There was a weird smell about the place. At least there was a new weird smell. Alec’s nose traced it to the back of the lab where three Year Twelves were busy with a complicated apparatus of tubes and retorts, all hissing and bubbling. Mr Jameson greeted him like a long-lost friend. A little too hearty, Alec thought, as though he’d been in the Antarctic for several years. But he didn’t mind. Mr Jameson’s mickey-taking was different somehow from Tweedy Harris’s sarcasm.

  Half an hour passed pleasantly and the other kids were drifting away. Alec took his chance to get Mr Jameson on his own and asked him,

  “Sir, is it possible to make things materialize and dematerialize?” He had to struggle with the last word, but Mr Jameson waited.

  “Well, matter can change from solid to liquid, liquid to gas, can’t it? And if the gas is colourless, you could say it disappears, but it’s still there in another form.”

  “No sir, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking, like, say,” Alec paused for a moment, “the story about Aladdin’s lamp and the genie who made money appear and lifted up palaces and shot them across the world.”

  “Hm. Well, I suppose our space rockets are just as fantastic. When a rocket lands it comes so quickly it appears out of nowhere. They say that one of the worst things about the V-2 rockets during the Second World War was that they just landed, without warning.”

  “But, sir. Do you think things could be made to dematerialize somewhere and then materialize somewhere else? Like a genie does, I mean.”

  “Well, if you could break things down into their atoms and then reassemble them. It’s a theoretical possibility, but a practical impossibility, I should have thought.”

  “The-o-retical?”

  “I mean, you can work it out in your mind, how it might be done, but the problems involved in doing it are too great. Now the old alchemists thought you could transform lead into gold. You might be inclined to laugh at them, but that would be wrong because we know that the atomic weight of lead and gold are close to one another. In theory one could vary the structure of one so it changed into the other.”

  “What are we waiting for then, sir?”

  Mr Jameson laughed. “Because it would cost more time, money and effort than the gold would be worth. Anyway, lead is very useful and valuable. If you worked in an atomic reactor a lead shield would be a million times more valuable than a gold one.”

  “But the alchemists were right?”

  “Oh, yes. The man who imagined a flying horse was right and so was the man who imagined a magic mirror that could see what other people were doing.”

  “Oh, that’s what Abu said…” Alec broke in excitedly.

  “Abu? Who’s he? Which year is he in?”

  “Oh, nothing, sir.” Alec was confused. “Thanks very-much, sir, anyway. I’ve never understood things as well before.”

  “You’ve never asked such searching questions before.”

  Alec was about to go when he was called back by one of the Year Twelves who lived on the estate.

  “Alec. D’you think your granddad would like a drop of our jungle juice?”

  “Jungle juice. What’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s just something we’re brewing up here.” He lowered his voice. “The powers that be are not supposed to know.”

  Across the lab, Alec thought he saw Mr Jameson’s shoulders begin to shake.

  “We’ll find a bottle for you,” said the Year Twelve lad. “Wait a bit, though. Is that an empty can you’ve got in your pocket there?”

  “Er…” said Alec.

  “Come on, give. That’s better than a bottle. We’ll seal it with sticking plaster and you can take it home to the old m
an with our best wishes.”

  Not knowing how to refuse, Alec handed over his can. It was filled, sealed and handed back to him.

  “Hurry up, lads, lessons start in thirty seconds flat,” said Mr Jameson.

  Alec left the lab. He could feel the liquid swishing in the can in his pocket. If he could nip into one of the washrooms and tip it out…

  “That’s the wrong way for English, Alec.”

  He looked up in dismay. Miss Welch, grinning cheerfully, stood in his path. Reluctantly he was steered into the classroom. Seated at his desk and keeping one eye on Miss Welch who was writing on the board, Alec quietly tried to scrape the sticking plaster off the top of the can.

  “What are you doing back there, Alec?” Miss Welch was looking at him. Alec slipped the can on to the floor. Perhaps if he allowed the can to lie on its side the liquid would seep out. “Miss,” squeaked Alice Rogers, “Alec Bowden’s wetting the floor.”

  Miss Welch steamed over from the front of the room and Alec slipped the can back into his pocket. It was upside down though and he could feel the liquid slowly draining out. If Miss Welch would only look away, he could slip the can into his school bag. But the wet patch on his trousers was uncomfortable, as well as embarrassing.

  Miss Welch sniffed. “Peculiar smell in this room. Like essence of burnt rubber.”

  She went back to the board and finished her writing.

  “Right, you lot. Answer those questions. I’m out for twenty minutes. But don’t get any ideas. Mr Cartwright has promised to keep his eyes on you.” She went out and after the first burst of noisy whispering the class was silent, save for the occasional mutter or cough. Alec waited five minutes and then slipped out through the door. A few yards down the corridor he was stopped.

  “Mr Bowden, I presume. Whither away?”

  It was Monty speaking through the partly open door of his office.

  “Just to the toilets, sir.”

  “Hm.”

  Alec scurried into the washroom, hastily ripped off the plaster seal and emptied the can. The liquid was a cheerful golden colour in spite of its pong.