Three Wishes

Three Wishes

"What is it?" Jenny asked as she and her brother stood looking down to the strange object that lie in the sand at their feet. Rex shook his head slowly as he glanced back up to her before looking down again. "I do not know" He would then bend down and picked it up. "It looks like a funny teapot" Jenny said as she leaned in closer to get a better look at it. "It is all covered in sand" Rex replied and then reached up to begin to wipe the sand off with his sleeve to try and clean it off when he suddenly gave a shout and threw the object down jumping back his eyes widened. Jenny was startled as she watched him. "What is it? What happened?" She asked eagerly. At first Rex said nothing, as he could hardly believe it and wondered if he was just imagining things. "I thought"¦.I thought I felt it move." He would say at last. Jenny looked back to the object curiously for a moment. "It is probably just a crab that crawled inside." She offered reassuringly as she began to step closer to the object and was about to lean down to pick it up when she screamed and stumbled backward as it did move, it jumped upward and then fell back again to the sand.

            "What is that smell?" Rex complained and began to try and cover his nose with his shirt and Jenny was aware of a strange smell that had entered  the air and her nostrils twitched and she felt her eyes begin to water as the two started to walk backwards slowly, but still too fascinated to take their eyes away from the object. "LOOK!" Jenny cried as she reached over and tightly grabbed her brother’s arm. A strange and colorful mist began to rise up out of the spout of the strange object. They were too fixated by it all to move, and just stood there gaping, though Rex would cough a few times and tried to wave the mist away with his arm as it crept toward them.

It would all be over as quickly as it came with a sudden loud pop which caused them both to jump and Jenny to give a small cry the mist was gone and their eyes were transfixed upon the figure which now hovered just in front of them. It appeared almost to be made of the very mist as it had a strange translucentness to its form, but it was blue from head to toe and dressed in bright funny clothes with bells, and other various charms, reminding Jenny almost of some sort of clown. It looked down between the both of them with thick though wispy arms crossed over its wide chest, "Which one of you woke me from my sleep?" a loud voice boomed out. "Hedidshedid" they both said quickly and simultaneously, each one pointing to the other.

He looked between the two of them before giving the best interpretation of a bow, that one could give while floating in the air. "Very well then, My Lord, and My Lady, I am Shambhu Genie at your service young masters." Jenny was startled out of her fight as she stared in disbelief at what she had heard. "You mean a genie like from the stories?" Rex was feeling a bit emboldened and took a step forward. "You mean you can really grant us wishes?" The genie let out a loud laugh at this which shook his whole smoky body. "Of course I can, what kind of genie would I be if I couldn’t. You get three wishes, but because you both lay claim to me and my bottle, then you must agree on all three wishes and make them together. And no you cannot ask for more wishes." He would say before they even had the chance to ask as someone always did.

"Jenny! Rex!" They heard their names called out before they had a chance to do or say anything and looked behind them to see their mother waving them over before they looked back to the genie. Reading the question in their eyes he came to speak. "She cannot see me, no one can but the two of you." Jenny turned to start to head back across the beach, and Rex hesitated a moment until as a last impulse grabbed the bottle and started to head off after his sister.

"What is that?" Their mother asked when they made their way back to her and she saw the genie’s bottle within Rex’s hand, and she reached over to take hold of it to have a look at it curiously. "I don’t know, just something we found." Rex said with a shrug of his shoulders and then exchanged a quick knowing look to his sister who stood nervously near by, wondering what would happen if their mother woke the genie the way they had, but nothing happened, and she apparently decided it was harmless enough and handed it back to Rex. "Come on its time to get back home." She said and they began to follow her back to the car.

Once they were home Rex and Jenny sat together upon the bed in her room with the bottle between them as they discussed just what they should do. "I think we should each take one wish for ourselves, and then the last wish we will share between us." Rex said, as they tried to decide the best way to share the three wishes they had been given. Jenny thought about it a moment, but she supposed it really did make sense and she did not know how in the world the two of them would ever manage to agree completely on three wishes. "Ok" she spit in the palm of her hand and then held it out to him. "Lets make it a deal." Rex would do the same and they shook on it.

"So how do we decide who gets to go first?" Jenny would ask next. "We will play for it, rock, paper, scissor; best out of three gets their wish first." They played and Rex won the match. That would give Jenny some more time to really think about her wish, it felt like such a big responsibility to have only wish, and to be able to wish for anything. She did not want to make a mistake and wish for one thing and then realize she should have wished for another. She would have to go over this carefully. "Should we tell him what we decided?" Jenny asked as she looked toward the bottle. "He said we had to agree on everything and make each wish together, so maybe we should tell him we agreed to split the wishes." Rex would give a shrug of his shoulders and then looked to the bottle as he reached over and tried to peer into it. "Hey Mr. Genie?" He called wondering how to get him to come out again before giving the bottle a shake and trying to dump it upside down before Jenny snagged it out of his hands. "Not like that. Don’t you read the stories?" She scolded as she began to rub the bottle until she felt it shake in her hands and she dropped it on the bed. The room filled with smoke before the genie would once again appear. "Yes, have you decided upon your first wish?" He said looking to the two of them. "We are going to split the wishes" Rex responded. We agreed, I would go first, and then Jenny would have her wish and the last we would share" The genie made a bow "as you wish it young masters if you both agree, then so it shall be." And with that he was gone back into the bottle again.

The next day after giving it some careful thought, if not as critically as his sister, Rex knew what he wanted his wish to be. Rex and Jenny stood eagerly. She was filled with anticipation to see what would happen as Rex rubbed the lamp and they waited together until the genie would appear and Rex would come forward to make his wish filled with excitement. "I want to be like Superman!" Rex blurted out. The genie looked to them and without question he raised one of his hands and trace a trail of smoke in the air and soon Rex would bee engulfed in the mist. Jenny took a few steps back as she watched when there was a loud pop and the mist vanished and so did her brother. At first she just stared in shock at the empty space when something caught her eye. She leaned down and picked up the comic book which lay upon the floor where her brother had been standing and when she saw the cover she gave a cry and dropped the book spinning around to face the genie. "You"¦.you turned my brother into a comic book?" The genie looked to her expressionless his arms crossed over his chest as he spoke in even tones. "I granted his wish. He wished to be like Superman, and so now he is."

"I want my brother back" Jenny shrieked. "That is my wish, bring him back" The genie shook his head as he looked down to her. "I cannot do that, you cannot undo another’s wish. You had an agreement, he has made his wish. Now it is your turn." Filled with fear, anger, and deeply upset she blurted out the first thing which came to her mind. "I wish I never found you"

Jenny found herself upon the beach and a feeling of hope leapt within her. Everything would be alright now she thought. It was like it never happened to start, with, or maybe it was all a dream. She began to walk down the beach feeling the sand under her feet as she began to call out. "Rex! Rex! Rex!" She began to feel frantic. Where was he? She began to move more quickly down the beach. "Rex!" She called again when she was stopped in her tracks. "Jenny, what is it? What is wrong? Who is Rex?" She felt her breath stop as she looked to her mother in disbelief.

2:09 PM - 1/4/2007 - post comment

For though All are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. ~The Monk

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