Genie in Charge

by Meredith Badger

  Lexie’s carpet-tracker suddenly beeped very loudly.

  ‘Has it found Lightning after all?’ said Poppy hopefully.

  ‘I wish!’ sighed Lexie. ‘No, it’s just reminding me that I should start the search straight away.’ As she spoke, another two threads fell from Thunder and drifted to the floor.

  Lexie pulled out her Location Lamp – the device genies used when they wanted to move between the Genie Realm and the normie one – and adjusted the dial on top. Poppy waited for her to disappear, but then Lexie turned back to Poppy, fixing her with her green eyes.

  ‘There’s another reason why you have to try your best with Aggi,’ she said. ‘If you don’t do well as a mentor, your genie-job wish might be twisted at graduation.’

  Poppy looked at her nervously. ‘And when you say twisted, you mean …’

  ‘It means you might not be granted the genie-job that you really want,’ said Lexie. ‘You might end up with a job you don’t like at all.’

  ‘Oh,’ gulped Poppy. She definitely didn’t want to risk getting her job wish twisted. Right then and there, Poppy made up her mind. One way or another she would just have to make things work with Aggi.

  As she waited in the Funfair Bottle, Poppy’s mind jumped from thought to thought, none of them very pleasant. She kept wondering where Lightning could be, and she was very worried about Thunder. Then, of course, there was the Aggi situation. Poppy was determined to win Aggi over, but she knew it wouldn’t be easy. And what should she do if Aggi didn’t even bother to turn up? If any other tweenie received a Dial-Up message from Lexie telling them to go somewhere, they would go there straight away. But Aggi, thought Poppy, was just strange enough to ignore the message altogether. And even if Aggi did turn up, there was no guarantee things would go more smoothly than last time. But I have to try at least, Poppy reminded herself.

  ‘Hi, Teeny Weeny!’ called a cheerful voice. Poppy turned to see Jake and his trainee Nico appearing in a very large (and smelly) cloud of smoke. Poppy coughed as she flapped it away.

  ‘You had the same idea as me, huh?’ said Jake. ‘Bring your trainee to the funfair to get to know each other.’ Jake clicked his fingers at Nico. ‘Run and get me a volcano shake, would you?’ he said. ‘The stand is just over there.’

  Nico took off obediently and Jake grinned at Poppy. ‘Lady Topaz was right. The trainees can help us. Nico has already polished my shoes and tidied up my bottle. This mentoring thing isn’t so bad after all!’

  Poppy raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think Lady Topaz meant for the trainees to be our servants, Jake,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Nico doesn’t mind. And I’m teaching him cool stuff – the sort of stuff they don’t teach you at Genie High. Like how to make a really stinky cloud of smoke when you arrive somewhere. He’s good at it.’

  ‘Yeah, I noticed!’ said Poppy, pulling a face but laughing too. She felt a little better.

  ‘Where is Aggi anyway?’ said Jake, looking around. ‘Did you send her to get a volcano shake too?’

  ‘I’m waiting for her to show up,’ Poppy explained.

  ‘What’s she like?’ asked Jake.

  ‘She’s awful,’ said Poppy. It felt OK to admit this to Jake. She knew he wouldn’t tell Lexie. ‘She’s really rude and strange, and she’s only interested in jigsaws.’

  ‘Boy,’ said Jake, shaking his head. ‘She sounds painful.’

  ‘She’s totally painful,’ said Poppy gloomily. ‘And I have to put up with her or my genie-job wish might end up being twisted.’

  Nico returned then with a bright red cup that had frothy bubbles around the top.

  ‘Thanks, Nico,’ said Jake, smiling. But his expression soon changed. ‘Hang on. My drink is half-gone! What happened to the rest of it?’

  Nico grinned cheekily. Poppy thought it looked a lot like Jake’s own cheeky smile.

  ‘Hey, it was a long walk back,’ said Nico. ‘I got thirsty.’ And, before Jake could say anything more, Nico pointed to a puff of smoke that was forming in front of them. ‘Look! Someone’s coming!’

  It was Aggi.

  ‘Hi, Pops,’ she said, stepping out of the smoke.

  ‘Pops!’ chuckled Jake. ‘I might start calling you that too, Teeny Weeny.’

  Poppy glared at him. ‘You’d better not!’ She gave Aggi her best fresh-start smile. ‘Hi, Aggi. I’m glad you came.’

  Aggi rolled her eyes. ‘I’m only here because Lexie said I had to come. So, what is there to do in this place, anyway?’

  ‘Whatever you feel like doing,’ said Jake. ‘There’s rides or sideshows or things to eat. It’s all awesome.’

  Nico lifted his nose and sniffed the air. ‘Mmmm, I can smell comet cakes,’ he said. ‘I love those.’

  ‘Ha!’ scoffed Jake. ‘A little Stage Two tweenie like you couldn’t eat more than one bite of a comet cake. They’re so hot. Especially the fiery tail.’

  ‘Yes, I could,’ retorted Nico. ‘I could eat twenty at least.’

  ‘OK then, let’s all go to the comet cake stand,’ said Jake. ‘We’ll get a bag full and see who can eat the most.’

  Poppy looked at Aggi. ‘Coming?’

  Aggi sighed deeply. ‘I guess so,’ she said.

  Anyone would think I was asking her to do something terrible! thought Poppy crossly. But she kept her mouth closed.

  Nico won the comet-cake-eating competition. He managed to eat five, even though his face was bright red after three. Poppy ate two. Aggi refused to even try one. Jake ate seven without sweating, but then Nico realised he had a stick of anti-hot chewing gum in his mouth, and Jake was instantly disqualified for cheating.

  ‘Oh, cooool!’ said Nico, pointing to a brightly painted metal box nearby. ‘A fortune vending machine. Let’s try it out.’

  ‘Does it actually work?’ asked Poppy doubtfully.

  ‘Of course,’ said Nico. ‘You put a genie coin in the slot at the bottom and turn the handle. Then your fortune shoots out the top. Watch.’ Nico put a coin in the machine and, a moment later, a piece of paper printed to look like a magic carpet shot out the top with a little puff of smoke. Nico read his fortune out loud:

  ‘Smart machine!’ said Jake. ‘It’s telling you to do what I say, Nico.’ He pulled out a coin. ‘Let’s see what it says about me.’

  Jake’s fortune said:

  ‘Stupid machine,’ muttered Jake as the others laughed. ‘Maybe I should practise my kicking on you.’

  Poppy bought a fortune for Aggi. It said:

  ‘Who knows what that even means,’ Aggi said, throwing it away.

  Poppy put her coin in last. ‘I bet mine will say that I’ll get a stomach ache later from eating too many comet cakes,’ joked Poppy as she waited for the fortune to appear. But what it actually said was something much stranger:

  ‘That’s crazy,’ said Poppy, scrunching it up. ‘I’m not part of the Genie Royal Family.’

  ‘You could become a princess,’ said Nico. ‘No-one is born royal in the Genie Realm, like they are in the normie world. It’s a job like any other job. Anyone can end up wearing the crown. You just have to wish for it at the genie graduation ceremony.’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘I won’t be wishing for that, I can promise you!’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Nico. ‘I’d love to be a prince. It’d be awesome. You’d get to live in the Genie Palace Bottle and order people around all the time.’

  ‘It’s not actually like that,’ said Poppy. As much as she liked and admired Lexie, there was no way she wanted to do her job. Lexie never seemed to have time for fun things, like flying carpets. She lived in a very grand Palace Bottle but Poppy much preferred her own little bottle.

  Jake nudged her. ‘I bet that’s the job you’ll end up with if your job wish gets twisted,’ he teased. ‘You’re Golden after all. You’d be perfect as a princess.’

  Poppy went cold. What if Jake was right? I don’t want to be a princess, she thought. I want to work in the stables and ride magic ca
rpets! It made Poppy more determined than ever to do a good job of mentoring.

  ‘Time to check out the rides,’ said Nico. ‘What should we go on first?’

  Poppy nodded. Going on a ride was a good idea. Something very fast and very scary that would shake all those scratchy princess thoughts out of her mind! And she knew exactly the ride that would do it. ‘Let’s go on the Big Flipper,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Nico.

  Before Poppy could answer, Jake yelled, ‘Duck!’ and an enormous carpet swooshed overhead, overladen with shrieking, laughing tweenies. Then the carpet sped off out of view, twirling and looping as it went.

  Nico looked around, his eyes bright. ‘That’s the Big Flipper, isn’t it?’ he said, his voice full of awe. ‘I have to go on it. Now.’

  ‘Let’s go line up!’ said Jake.

  Jake and Nico started hurrying off. But Aggi stayed where she was.

  ‘Come on,’ said Poppy. ‘The ride fills up really quickly.’

  Aggi folded her arms tightly across her chest. ‘I’m not going on that ride,’ she said. ‘No way.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Poppy in surprise.

  Aggi frowned. ‘Because … well, because carpet-riding is completely boring and stupid,’ she said. ‘And only losers do it.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ said Poppy, shocked. ‘Carpet-riding is the best part of being a genie.’

  ‘Well I think it’s stupid,’ retorted Aggi. ‘It’s the stupidest part of the whole stupid Genie Realm.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that, Aggi,’ said Poppy crossly. ‘Or …’ She groped around for something to say. Something that would show Aggi how annoyed she was. ‘Or I won’t be your mentor anymore.’

  Oops, thought Poppy the moment the words were out. I probably shouldn’t have said that.

  Instantly Aggi’s face scrunched up. ‘Guess what?’ she flung back at Poppy. ‘I don’t want you to be my mentor anyway. So consider yourself fired. Goodbye and good riddance!’

  There was a puff of pink smoke and Aggi vanished.

  Up ahead, Jake and Nico had stopped and were looking back. ‘Uh, what just happened?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Aggi just left!’ spluttered Poppy. ‘For no good reason!’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said Nico. ‘I thought she was kinda funny.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ said Jake.

  ‘She’s not funny,’ snapped Poppy. ‘She’s totally impossible! I keep trying to be nice and helpful but she won’t let me. She’s mean and rude. How am I supposed to mentor someone like that?’

  ‘Come on. She’s not that bad,’ said Nico.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ said Poppy. Her face felt hot, as if she’d eaten fifty comet cakes. ‘She told me she didn’t even want me to be her mentor!’ Poppy decided not to mention what she’d said to Aggi first.

  ‘But you have to be her mentor,’ Jake pointed out. ‘Or you’ll end up with some terrible genie job, remember?’

  Poppy bit her lip. She’d forgotten about that. ‘Well, I can’t be her mentor if I don’t know where she is,’ she said. Now that she didn’t feel quite so angry, she was feeling a little worried instead. Had she just done something really stupid? ‘She didn’t exactly say where she was going when she disappeared.’

  Poppy’s Dial-Up beeped from inside her backpack. ‘I know where Aggi is,’ it said, when Poppy pulled it out. ‘Her Dial-Up just sent me a message. She’s gone back to her normie house. It said something strange too. Apparently Aggi’s never coming back!’

  The Big Flipper swooshed overhead again, and Jake watched it longingly. ‘Don’t worry about it, Teeny Weeny,’ he said. ‘Let’s go on a ride. Aggi will come back when she’s ready. I mean, who’d want to stay away from all this for long?’

  Poppy hesitated. It would be nice just to stay here and forget about that annoying Aggi. But what if Aggi was serious about not coming back to the Genie Realm? That would be a huge problem. Poppy’s graduation wish would almost certainly be twisted, for one thing. And she’d be responsible for Aggi not being a genie anymore!

  Poppy sighed and pulled her Location Lamp out of her bag. ‘I have to go,’ she told Jake and Nico. ‘I need to find Aggi and sort this out.’

  ‘Aggi?’ called Poppy, when she’d landed in the normie world and the smoke from the Location Lamp had begun to clear. ‘Are you here?’

  When there was no reply, Poppy took the opportunity to have a look around. She was definitely in a girl’s bedroom – a very normallooking one. There was a desk, a bed with a stripy cover and a bookshelf filled with books. There was a pot plant on the windowsill, a rug on the floor, a wardrobe in the corner, a washing basket and a bathrobe hanging on a hook behind the door. It was the sort of bedroom you might find anywhere in the normie world. But there was something about it that told Poppy she was definitely in Aggi’s room: she had never seen so many jigsaws in her life. They were everywhere! There were boxes of them stacked on top of the bookshelf and even more under the bed. There was a half-finished one on the desk and so many on the floor that it was hard to see the carpet. There was a jigsaw shaped like a globe of the world and another one shaped like a pyramid.

  Poppy took a closer look at a framed puzzle hanging on the wall over the bookshelf. It must have contained thousands of pieces! As she was looking, something brushed against Poppy’s leg. It was a piece of paper sticking out from between two books on the shelf. Poppy pulled it out gently. On the page was a drawing of a bottle – a genie bottle – with a plume of smoke curling out from the top and sparkling jewels inlaid around the side.

  It was coloured in with pale greeny-blue pencils and glitter had been sprinkled over the top so that the picture shimmered and shone. On the bottom of the page written in swirly, gold letters were the words, My genie bottle.

  Poppy stared at the picture. A lot of time and effort had gone into this drawing. But surely it couldn’t have been done by Aggi. Aggi had said that she hated genie bottles. It must’ve been done by someone else.

  Yet when Poppy turned the page over, there on the back was Aggi’s name and the date. The drawing had been done two days ago.

  Poppy turned the paper back over, suddenly feeling sure of something. Aggi doesn’t hate her genie bottle. She wouldn’t have made such a beautiful picture of it if she did. But why would she pretend to hate it, then? It was very strange.

  Poppy tucked the drawing into her backpack. She would ask Aggi about it later. She wanted to get to the bottom of all this!

  There was a rustling, crunkly noise, then – very soft and muffled.

  ‘Aggi?’ called Poppy again. ‘It’s me. Are you here? I need to talk to you.’

  The rustling stopped but there was still no reply, so Poppy began to search the room. She looked in the wardrobe and behind the door. She looked behind the curtains. She even pulled out the jigsaw boxes and looked under the bed, although it was a futon and to most people – to most normie people at least – it probably seemed too narrow a space to hide in. But Aggi was a genie, and Poppy knew from personal experience that genies could squeeze into some extremely small spots. Still, Aggi wasn’t in any of those places.

  Eventually there was only one place left to check. The wicker laundry basket. As Poppy walked over, the basket moved slightly and she heard something. It was a snuffling sound, like someone was crying but trying to do it very quietly.

  ‘Aggi,’ Poppy said softly. ‘I know you’re in there. Come out so we can talk.’

  When Aggi didn’t emerge, Poppy lifted up the basket lid. There, in between the dirty socks and T-shirts, was Aggi, holding onto a greeny-blue genie bottle that Poppy recognised straight away. It looked just like the one in Aggi’s drawing. Aggi’s eyes were red and watery and her nose was swollen. Poppy hadn’t thought Aggi was the crying type. But then, she hadn’t thought Aggi was the type to make a beautiful drawing of her genie bottle, either.

  ‘Looks like you found me, Pops,’ said Aggi gruffly.

  ‘Looks like it,’ agreed Poppy.
‘Are you going to come out?’

  Aggi shook her head. ‘No, I’m staying here.’

  Poppy put the basket lid on the ground. ‘OK then, shove over,’ she said, putting one foot into the basket.

  Aggi stared at her in surprise. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Well if you won’t come out, then I’ll have to come in,’ said Poppy with a smile.

  ‘But there’s no room!’ said Aggi.

  ‘Of course there’s room,’ said Poppy. ‘We’re genies, aren’t we? And this thing is way bigger than a genie bottle.’

  Sure enough, a moment later Poppy was squished into the laundry basket too, sitting on a pair of crumpled jeans and some smelly sports socks.

  ‘So, how long are you planning on staying in here?’ asked Aggi.

  ‘That depends,’ said Poppy, ‘on how long it takes you to tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ mumbled Aggi.

  Poppy decided to get straight to the point. ‘Listen, Aggi, I know you don’t really hate being a genie,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know why you’re pretending you do, and I want to know. I really do. So I’m going to sit in this stinky, squishy basket until you tell me.’

  For a long time, Aggi didn’t say anything. She just sat where she was, holding her genie bottle tightly to her chest.

  ‘Do they ever make mistakes?’ she said finally. ‘Lexie and Lady Topaz, I mean.’

  ‘What sort of mistakes?’ asked Poppy.

  Aggi rolled her genie bottle between her palms. ‘Like, have they ever thought someone had the Genie Gene when actually they didn’t?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of that happening,’ said Poppy. ‘They’re pretty smart, you know.’

  ‘They might have made a mistake this time,’ said Aggi. ‘With me.’

  Poppy looked at her in surprise. ‘Aggi! You definitely have the Genie Gene,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t be able to squeeze into a genie bottle if you didn’t.’