Short Story Parts 4 and 5
Interesting note: Lonnie's dog, Shai, is named after the ancient Egyptian God of Fate.
PART 4:
PART 4 - WISH TWO
Benjamin spent the better part of that afternoon sitting in the skaters’ park, lost in his thoughts and considering how to best his new-found opponent. By four o’clock it had come to him, and he set off to find that blasted genie again. It occurred to him briefly that perhaps he should wait for Robin, but he was so eager to move along with his wishing that he simply didn’t have the patience, and so he forged ahead.
Arriving back at his house, he marched straight to the watering can, picked it up and slammed it down on the driveway. It bounced with a hollow plastic sound, skidded a few feet and rolled onto the front lawn. All was silent. “I know you’re in there!” shouted Benjamin, and he ran at the watering can and gave it an enormous kick that sent it halfway across the yard. Still there was no response. Benjamin stood quietly gazing at the still and silent dark green watering can lying on the grass. “I suppose it wouldn’t be useful to ask you politely to come out?” muttered Benjamin.
“Actually, I respond quite well to good manners,” snickered the Pyrex Genie in Benjamin’s left ear. Benjamin wheeled around but there was nothing behind him.
“Where are you?!” he exclaimed, aggravated once again.
“Inside your head,” responded the genie blithely.
“Get OUT!” Benjamin screamed, in a near-panic.
“HAHA!” laughed the genie obnoxiously, as he seeped slowly out of the gauge earring Benjamin always wore in his left ear. “I’ve been with you all along!” As he materialized on the driveway, he seemed to be bobbing up and down like some sort of bird. A huge defiant grin was on his fat face, and boy did it ever annoy Benjamin!
“Look here, buddy, you’d better stay the hell away from my body and my clothing and anything that is within three feet of me! Let’s get that completely clear right now!”
“Or what?” the Pyrex Genie licked his lips devilishly. “Look, kid, what do you want with me? You’re not going to trick me into answering any more of your dumb trivia questions. This ain’t a talk show or an autobiography. You want your body and clothes to yourself? Then keep out of my personal affairs, you brat kid. Finish with your damn wishes so I can go along my merry ol’ way.” The genie then pulled out the biggest, thickest cigar Benjamin had ever seen and began to suck on it determinedly. Even though it didn’t appear to be lit, smoke issued forth and formed enormous clouds around the genie’s face, obscuring the almost-malicious grin he was now proudly displaying.
Benjamin folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes. “Am I, or am I not, your master?” he asked shrewdly.
“Y’ are,” admitted the genie placidly.
“Then do what I SAY!” Benjamin seethed.
“I do what I want!” the genie loudly declared, and he began to spin in slow, quiet circles, blowing cigar smoke in Benjamin’s direction every time he was facing that way.
“I want to make my next wish!” Benjamin stomped his foot like a spoiled little boy and blew the smoke right back in the genie’s face.
The genie coughed. “Ahem. Proceed, then, Lovie!”
Benjamin pointed at the house across the street. The genie looked. A young boy of about ten years old was sitting on the front lawn playing with a small terrier. The boy appeared somewhat dejected, though he was expensively dressed. There was an air of loneliness around him, as he threw a stick repeatedly for the dog. Every time, the terrier retrieved it loyally, carried it back and licked the boy’s face with devoted affection. The boy did not seem to crack a smile, however.
“That’s little Lonnie,” Benjamin informed the genie. “His parents both work. He comes home to an empty house during the school year, and now, during the summer, he’s alone a lot. There’s an old lady sitting in that house who watches him, but she doesn’t really pay any attention. He’s always out in the yard by himself with his dog. I’ve never, ever seen him play with another kid. He seems like a total loser, but today-”
“What is your point?” interrupted the genie rudely. “Make your stupid wish already!”
Just then, Benjamin heard someone screaming his name in the distance. “BENNNNNYYYY!!! WAIT!!!!!!” Robin came running as fast as she could up the sidewalk toward him, from the direction of the park. She caught up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, then bent double, red in the face and panting to catch her breath. “Benny… I…. was…. looking everywhere… for you… you haven’t…. wished yet… have you?” Then she sat abruptly down on the sidewalk and put her head between her bent knees to recover.
“I’m about to, Robin.”
She was silent for about thirty seconds. The genie heaved a gigantic, impatient sigh and kicked at Robin’s bent head, but she didn’t notice, seeing as his foot was ethereal and went straight through her without doing damage. Benjamin scowled at the genie. “Hold your horses, Pyrex,” he snarled.
Then Robin stood slowly, and dusted off her bottom. “Benjamin, I was just talking to my aunt, but I didn’t finish. She said not to make any more wishes until we talk to her!”
“This wouldn’t be your Aunt Claire, by any chance, would it?” asked Benjamin suspiciously.
“Um, well, yes…” Robin began hesitantly. “But, she really does know a lot about things like this! I swear!”
“No way, I’ve got a plan now, and it can’t wait. It’s for Lonnie over there, and it’s gotta be right now. I don’t buy your aunt’s wifty bullshit anyway. That stuff’s not real.”
“Not real?! How can you say it’s ‘not real’ when there’s this big frickin’ genie standing right here?!” Robin jammed her thumb in the direction of the genie, who was licking his lips and watching them through beady little eyes, almost as if he might eat them if they took any longer to make up the next wish.
“Uh…” but Benjamin really couldn’t think what to say to that. The girl made an excellent point.
“Your wish, MASTER?” demanded the genie impertinently.
“Look, Robin, I’m sorry but I just don’t think your aunt knows what she’s talking about. And my mind is made up.” He leaned down and whispered in Robin’s ear, “I’m going to wish for something really horrible, so that something good will happen to Lonnie. I think you’ll like it.” He smiled at her, one of the most sincere and hopeful smiles she had ever seen. It made her heart skip a beat, and she suddenly felt strangely optimistic.
Robin bit her lip. “Mm-k, Benjamin, I just really hope you know what you’re doing!”
Benjamin cleared his throat loudly. “Alrighty then, smarty-genie. I wish…” and he pointed his finger dramatically at the dog across the street, “that Lonnie’s dog would die!”
Robin let out a horrified gasp. “No, Benny, don’t do that!” she exclaimed. But he smiled at her confidently. “Shhh…” he said, “just watch.”
The Pyrex Genie’s face had gone strangely white and now he twiddled his thumbs nervously. “Hmm, well… er…” and then his face lit up. “You know, you really might want to hear more about my history after all. You see, I was also-”
“Quit stalling!” yelled Benjamin.
“I’m not stalling! It’s just that I…” But at that moment a bright red convertible Lamborghini came roaring around the bend, and the genie sprang into action. “It shall be so!” he squealed, and he waved his arms. A rabbit came immediately darting out of some nearby bushes as if it had been summoned, and the terrier yelped excitedly and lurched after it, directly into the path of the accelerating vehicle. Lonnie gave a helpless cry of terror and snatched at the air, missing his dog by a few inches. And then the worst thing imaginable happened. The rabbit narrowly dodged the car’s spinning tires, but the dog was not so lucky. Benjamin and Robin covered their eyes as Lonnie’s terrier was suddenly no more. The driver of the speeding car did not even seem to notice the damage he had done, and just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone around the next corner.
“NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!” howled Lonnie in anguish. “Not Shai!” He ran into the street, tears streaming down his face. “Please don’t die, Shai! You’re all I have!” He picked up the dog’s lifeless body in his small arms and carried him to the curb on the side of the street opposite where Robin and Benjamin were looking on in horror. With that, Lonnie sank to the ground and began to sob with tears of rage and sorrow.
Benjamin stared, transfixed, utter shock on his every feature. His shoulders slumped and his hands hung helplessly at his sides. He could not believe what he had just witnessed. Although Robin was also watching the scene unfold, she did happen to glance sidewise at the genie, and she noticed that a peculiar expression of surprise momentarily crossed his face. His jaw hung open and his eyes were wide as he took in the scene. But only for a moment; his expression changed quickly to one of elation. “Hoooooooo boy!” he exulted, “Now THAT was some good wishing, there, buddy! Weeeellllll, I think I’ll just leave ya now to clean up that one. HAHA!” And once again, the genie vanished.
Robin took a moment to clear her head and then strode purposefully across the street to sit down beside the young boy, whose shoulders were heaving with every choking breath. “Hey Lonnie,” she whispered soothingly, “I saw what just happened, and I’m really, really sorry. More sorry than you can imagine. Come on… let’s bury Shai, alright? We’ll give him a really nice little funeral. And then you can stay with me for today if you want, okay? We can do whatever you want.” Lonnie clutched at Robin as if she were the mast of his sinking vessel. He wrapped his arms around her and cried into her chest while she held him silently for awhile.
Benjamin did not move for a solid five minutes. He did not make a sound. This had not been what he had been planning; not at all. The genie had said that the opposite of what you wish for was what always happened. He’d honestly been trying, in the first altruistic moment he had experienced in years, to improve Lonnie’s life, not to make it infinitely worse. And yet, that genie had tricked him once again. Benjamin clenched his jaw tightly and watched Robin comforting the stricken child. Finally, a few tears rolled down Benjamin’s cheeks and he did nothing to stop them. With balled fists, he silently stalked off around his house and into the woods behind it.
There Benjamin sat on a fallen tree beside the creek until long after dark, barely stirring. He allowed cathartic tears to stream at will down his cheeks. They would come in fits and starts - sometimes in long parades, like marchers with banners, as if celebrating a new-found freedom, and then there would be nothing for a long time; during these empty silences, Benjamin felt an absolute dryness, as though his eyes were so parched he would never need to blink again. When the tears came, he cried because of what had happened to Lonnie’s dog, imagining the sadness of the little boy. He cried because he was responsible, and the guilt was heavier than any of the old junk his mother had made him carry out of the basement that summer. He cried because he cared so much about Robin, and because she would probably never speak to him again after what he had just done. But mostly, he cried because of a pain deep in his chest that he had never before acknowledged - the pain of all the loneliness he had been carrying for years; the pain of his father leaving, of kids picking on him in grade school, of not having friends he could turn to, of not knowing how to take care of his mother, of giving up on the goodness of the world and on believing in anything. He would have thought he’d have felt like an idiot, a nineteen-year-old guy crying by himself for hours behind his house. But he didn’t. Instead, he found that strangely, the more tears he shed, the more alive he began to feel. He hadn’t felt such sorrow, or compassion, or really even anything at all, in more years than he liked to think about.
Robin, meanwhile, spent the entirety of the rest of the day with Lonnie. She helped him bury Shai in the backyard. They each said a few words over the dog’s body in the small hole, and then they filled it in with dirt and a few handfuls of special sand from Lonnie’s sandbox. Then, after explaining the situation to Lonnie’s babysitter, they walked around the park until it was growing dark. Lonnie clutched Robin’s hand tightly all the while, and mostly his face was grim and determined. He seemed to have the heart of a young warrior, as he completely stopped crying after the initial shock had worn off. As the fireflies were just beginning to come out, Robin returned him to his house. Lonnie hugged her tightly around the waist, whispered, “Thank you for being my friend today,” and quietly shuffled into the house.
“I’ll be your friend any day,” Robin called after him. And sure enough, on that day the start of a lifelong and very special friendship had begun; in fact, Robin’s kindness to him in the coming months would later inspire Lonnie to become a great counselor and teacher, and to found an after-school volunteer program that would change the lives of many inner-city teenagers… but that is another story. For now Robin went searching for her dearest friend of all, knowing that his heart must have been aching. She searched behind his house; she begged his mother for information. She trudged to the skating park and scouted all over. But she could not find Benjamin anywhere, and at 11:30 that night Robin suddenly realized that she had forgotten to return to her aunt.
Although she raced back to the shop, she found to her chagrin that all was dark and silent. Standing in despair on the back door step, after pounding the living daylights out of the door to her aunt’s private entrance and getting no response, she slouched against the wood paneling with a tired, aching mind. “How could you not be here?” she sighed, and as she rested her head in frustration against the door, a paper that had been caught partway through the mail slot came loose. It fluttered onto her large boot, and in the bright moonlight, in the moment right between the last night of June and the first morning of July, she could read, scrawled in her aunt’s vivacious spirally writing, “Robin: had to rush off for a bit. Will send word soon.”
PART 5:
PART 5 - WISH THREE
Two days passed by without a word between Benjamin and Robin; two extremely humid and lengthy summer days. She tried to call him at his house; tried, two mornings in a row, to show up at his doorstop. But both mornings he would not come to the phone or to the door. He spent the two days in bed, moving as little as possible. He told his mother he was ill, and because he’d done such a good job of cleaning out the garage and the basement, his mother gave him the benefit of the doubt and left him alone. For two days and nights he lay like a stone, paralyzed by his remorse and anxiety, exhausted by the burst of emotion he’d felt. By the third day, Robin was going out of her mind with worry. The third day, of course, was the day on which Benjamin had to make his third and final wish, or else they both ran the risk of disappearing into thin air. On top of that, she had still heard nothing from her aunt, and the hours upon hours she had spent doing internet research on genies had yielded nothing useful. She did, however, spend most of those two days with Lonnie, introducing him to her younger cousins, who cheerfully accepted him into their imaginative play. For the first time in his life, Lonnie had friends his own age, and something cheerful to do with his time.
Finally, on the third morning, Robin charged past Mrs. Dendrich and up the stairs, down the hall and through Benjamin’s door without even knocking. She entered his chaotically messy bedroom and saw a man-shaped lump under the bed sheets. Eyes flashing, Robin crossed the room, yanked the sheets out of Benjamin’s clenched fists and threw them onto the floor, exposing his curled body, lying on the mattress in nothing but boxers. “Benjamin Derek James Dendrich!” exclaimed Robin, not even pausing to be embarrassed by his near-nakedness. “What is WRONG with you?! I know you’re not sick! You’re hiding, and I won’t let you hide from me! Get out of bed. You have GOT to pull yourself together and undo this mess you’ve made.”
Benjamin peered up at her through exhausted and fuzzy eyes. “Robin, it’s no good,” he muttered. “I can’t do this anymore. That genie’s beaten me. I don’t know how to make a wish anymore. I’ve tried not caring. I’ve tried caring. He’s out to get me, and I’d rather just stop existing than let him get the best of me again.”
“Benjamin, you’re being ridiculous.” Robin sighed, sitting down beside him on the bed and picking up his limp right hand to rub it between her two agitated palms. “This is not a war to be won. No one is going to get a trophy for being the smartest here. There’s really nothing to WIN, Benny… You’re just going to have to get through this.”
“What’s the use? Just look at this world. I tried your way; tried to do what was right. And I tried to let myself feel it, but ya know what? It all just sucks too much. I was right before, right that there’s no divine plan, no purpose to any of this shit. Look what happens when you try to do something good. It only makes things worse!”
Robin smiled sadly, softly. “Maybe it’s just that what happens isn’t really up to you after all.”
“Well if that’s the case, then what’s the point of doing anything at all?”
“I don’t know, Benny, but you’ve gotta get up and go on living. You’ve gotta make this decision and go forward. Get dressed, eat something, and call me when you’re ready to go back to living.” With that, she hopped off the bed and strode out of his room.
When Benjamin had heard the front door click behind her, he felt an even greater pain and emptiness than before she’d come. He knew, somewhere deep down, that she was right. But he didn’t want to play that genie’s game anymore if he didn’t stand a chance of winning it. He got out of bed, picked up the sheets from his floor, and curled up under them once again, closing his eyes and drifting back into a sleep that lasted for many hours.
Benjamin woke from his three-day stupor around six p.m. that evening to a repetitive buzzing and tapping sound coming from the screen of his open summer window. He had only a groggy sense of time, and supposed it was around noon. Curiously, he sat up in bed and watched with interest as a tiny but determined fly kept trying to beat its way through the metal barrier and into the sunshine beyond. “Stupid fly,” muttered Benjamin. “You’re never going to get through.” He rolled over and tried to fall asleep again, but a haunting feeling wouldn’t let him. It was that accursed fly. It wasn’t the fact that it made a small knocking and jingling sound as it banged over and over into the screen. It was the futility that bothered Benjamin. Heaving a sigh, he got up and unfastened the screen from the window. Triumphantly, without giving any credit or the merest nod to its rescuer, the fly zoomed out the open window and into the great beyond. Benjamin leaned out the window and took a deep breath. Then he started to laugh. And once the laughter had begun, it issued forth of its own free will without his control. He laughed so hard his sides hurt, his belly gurgled emptily (he had eaten practically nothing in almost two days) and his eyes watered. He laughed with reckless abandon, and he laughed for nearly an hour. And in the very center of himself, in the middle of all that insane laughing, he found that he actually knew just what his last wish should be. In all the insanity, right at its very heart, was peace. When he finally stopped the ludicrous laughter, he replaced the screen and went down to the kitchen to get something to eat.
Finishing his bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, Benjamin noticed with a start that it was growing dark outside, and was several hours past the time when he was supposed to have disappeared for not completing his third wish. “NO!” he thought frantically. “What if I’m only visible to myself and Robin? I might have ruined her life!”
“MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he screamed, jumping up from the table in a panic. There was no response, even though he could hear the television in the next room. Why had she not come in to say something to him when he’d moved around the kitchen? “MOOOOMMMMMM!” He howled like a five-year-old child, racing into the living room.
“What?! Benjamin, what on earth are you hollering for?!” exclaimed Mrs. Dendrich with terror scrawled across her face as she sat up hurriedly from a nap on the couch.
With relief, Benjamin stared at his mother, who was obviously staring back at him. So he did still exist! “Oh, hey Mom. Nothin’ much,” said Benjamin as nonchalantly as he could manage.
“Nothing?!” repeated Mrs. Dendrich confusedly. But her erratic son had already dashed out the door. “Heaven help that boy!” she sighed, and flopped back down on the couch.
As Benjamin hurtled out the front door, he saw Robin running across the lawn, grinning. “Benny, we’re still here!” she exclaimed. “I just spent a few hours crying in the skaters’ park, cause I thought you’d never get off your ass again and we’d both vanish into nothingness. And when it started to get dark I saw all the fireflies and I went to catch one and I ran past this old lady sitting on a bench, and she smiled at me and said hi! So then I realized that genie was wrong. Somehow, we’re still here!”
“I know,” smiled Benjamin. “And this might be crazy, but I think I’ve got a good idea this time.” Robin looked into Benjamin’s eyes, and something of the laughter must have remained, because suddenly she started to laugh too, inexplicably. There was a rush of every emotion she’d ever felt, and it seemed to be reflected back at her in Benjamin’s eyes, brighter than they’d ever shone, at least in all the years she’d known him. For a couple minutes they just gazed at one another with recognition and giggled. Then Benjamin’s look deepened into a suddenly serious one. “You know what else, Robin? You’re pretty great. I’m really, really glad you’re my friend. And you were right before. I’m sorry I haven’t been the best friend to you. But I’m going to try harder from now on. I promise.” And he squeezed her tightly, which made her blush, but by now darkness had settled in and he couldn’t see the color in her cheeks.
Together they walked around back of the house, where the green watering can lay lifelessly on the driveway. Of course, they had no idea where the genie was presently hiding, but they figured it might be the same general area, so they stood there and Robin softly called, “Ohhhh geeeeenie, come out wherever you are!”
“WHOOOSH!” hollered the genie, as he zoomed out of the eaves of the house above their heads and flew down to the driveway like a rocket ship landing. Plumes of smoke billowed around him, and he grinned widely. “You kids are finally getting polite!! Now, HOW can I help YOU?!” he shouted, and then he dissolved into a fit of giggles for no apparent reason.
“You’re a real bull-shitter, aren’t ya?” smiled Benjamin.
“Come again?!” roared the genie, and he folded his arms across his chest, only he wrapped them twice around himself like he needed a reassuring hug. He pouted. “Name calling, are we? You don’t wanna play that game, believe me.”
“We didn’t disappear,” Benjamin pointed out evenly.
“True,” remarked the genie, as if it were really most unremarkable. Then he shrugged. “Ah well… you win some, you lose some. Or in your case, you lose them all. HAHA.”
“Alright, Mister Pyrex Sir, you win. Sure. But since you always seem to know what I’m going to do next… won’t you tell me your secret? How come you seem to be always one step ahead of me? And how did you know my father left me?”
“You IDIOT! You stupid, stupid kid!” squealed the genie, “Anyone can see your father disappeared from your life. It’s not rocket science, just basic human psychology. I’d have to be almost as dumb as you not to notice you’re an emotional train wreck! Typical case… a young boy, abandoned by his father, shuts off all his emotions so he doesn’t have to deal with the pain of it. Convinces himself that nothing matters, that nothing is of more value than anything else… blah blah blah. It’s one big fat coping mechanism and it takes up as much space you do, you FAT idiot! And if you think, for one minute, that- ”
“EXCUSE ME!” Robin burst out abruptly. “Don’t you EVER talk to my friend that way! There’s a lot more to him than that!” Now she was spluttering with rage. “You… you… you can’t just peg everyone like they’re a story in a textbook! You don’t know Benny, and you don’t know me, and you don’t even know shit about yourself I’ll bet!” And then an expression of surprise crossed Robin’s face as her own words sunk in. She smiled for a minute as she cleverly deduced for herself something about the fourth type of genie. Then she folded her arms across her chest and added, for good measure, “YOU’RE the stupid, stupid IDIOT, Pyrex!”
“Wow, Robin,” exclaimed Benjamin delightedly, “I’ve never seen you scream like that. You rock!” But then he chuckled and turned back to the genie. “Did you actually just call me fat, Muscles? Cause I’m pretty much the lankiest kid ever. So that doesn’t exactly hurt. Yeah, the father speech kinda hurt, and the whole ‘you shut out everything’ speech was a good one. But fat? Come on, man, be more creative!”
The Pyrex Genie gaped for a moment, then grinned. “Well lookie who’s finally wearin’ the pants!” he boomed, wrinkling his nose. “But there’s more where all this came from! I’m not finished with you yet, kid. So, if we’re quite done with all the name-calling…” and he paused dramatically, “what’ll it be then? Your last wish, Good Master?” And he snickered in that familiar and profoundly obnoxious way.
“I wish,” said Benjamin, “-and I truly have no idea what will come out of this-that some good thing would happen. It doesn’t have to be life-changing, but it does have to be nice. Something that doesn’t harm anybody.” He smiled benignly at the genie. “Your choice,” he added. “I’m not playing anymore. I give it up.”
“My choice?” growled the genie. “What kinda weird promo is this?!”
“There’s no trick,” said Benjamin. “I just wish for something good to come out of all of this.” Robin’s mouth was hanging open at this change, but a smile was dancing through her eyes.
“It shall be so!” exclaimed the genie, and waved his arms, but nothing appeared to happen. He glanced around furtively. “Hey, never promised you’d see the results,” he snickered.
“And now you’re free!” said Benjamin, “And we can all just go back to our own lives.”
“Well, it’s been nice knowing you,” said the genie calmly, and vanished.
Benjamin breathed a huge sigh of relief and sat down on the driveway in the darkness. “Thank God that’s over!” he grunted.
“Yeah, seriously,” said Robin, joining him on the ground. “That was one intense ride! But that was a really good way out at the end…”
“I realized you were right, Robin. It was wrong of me to keep trying to beat him at his game. We were always playing by his rules. The only way out was just to let go of it and trust it. I figure we might not have a lot of choice in this crazy ride called life, but when we do get to make decisions, we should just try and do the best we can. From now on, I’m going to pay more attention. And I’m going to help out where I can…”
“Wow,” sighed Robin. “Happy endings are so great!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” was the unpleasant and uproarious laugh they heard floating above their heads, just then.
“Oh no,” cringed Benjamin, and buried his head in his knees, “What now?”
“SURPRISE!!!!!” screamed the genie, re-appearing right in front of them, as Benjamin looked up rawly. “There’s something I forgot to telllllllll yooooooouuuu. HE. HE. HE.” The genie was giggling and cackling so loudly now that the driveway seemed to shake.
“What?” asked Robin, in a small whisper of a voice.
“YOU GET A FOURTH WISH!!!!!” trilled the genie exultantly, spinning rapid and dizzying circles around them. “HAHAHAHAHA! Because you broke my home, there’s an extra wish! I know this will utterly DELIGHT you! And you can NEVER REPEAT A WISH!” And this time, when the genie vanished, he did so in the puffiest, purplest, most dramatic cloud of smoke one could imagine.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Benjamin said quietly, “Genie, I know you can still hear me, and I’ll make that wish right now.” He looked fondly at Robin. “I’ve been wanting to give you something anyway, but I didn’t know what… Hey, genie! I wish… to give my extra wish… to Robin.”
Robin gasped, “NO!”
But they heard the genie’s voice, sounding as if it were very far away indeed, mumbling, “It shall be so!”
“Oh dear,” groaned Robin.
PART 4:
PART 4 - WISH TWO
Benjamin spent the better part of that afternoon sitting in the skaters’ park, lost in his thoughts and considering how to best his new-found opponent. By four o’clock it had come to him, and he set off to find that blasted genie again. It occurred to him briefly that perhaps he should wait for Robin, but he was so eager to move along with his wishing that he simply didn’t have the patience, and so he forged ahead.
Arriving back at his house, he marched straight to the watering can, picked it up and slammed it down on the driveway. It bounced with a hollow plastic sound, skidded a few feet and rolled onto the front lawn. All was silent. “I know you’re in there!” shouted Benjamin, and he ran at the watering can and gave it an enormous kick that sent it halfway across the yard. Still there was no response. Benjamin stood quietly gazing at the still and silent dark green watering can lying on the grass. “I suppose it wouldn’t be useful to ask you politely to come out?” muttered Benjamin.
“Actually, I respond quite well to good manners,” snickered the Pyrex Genie in Benjamin’s left ear. Benjamin wheeled around but there was nothing behind him.
“Where are you?!” he exclaimed, aggravated once again.
“Inside your head,” responded the genie blithely.
“Get OUT!” Benjamin screamed, in a near-panic.
“HAHA!” laughed the genie obnoxiously, as he seeped slowly out of the gauge earring Benjamin always wore in his left ear. “I’ve been with you all along!” As he materialized on the driveway, he seemed to be bobbing up and down like some sort of bird. A huge defiant grin was on his fat face, and boy did it ever annoy Benjamin!
“Look here, buddy, you’d better stay the hell away from my body and my clothing and anything that is within three feet of me! Let’s get that completely clear right now!”
“Or what?” the Pyrex Genie licked his lips devilishly. “Look, kid, what do you want with me? You’re not going to trick me into answering any more of your dumb trivia questions. This ain’t a talk show or an autobiography. You want your body and clothes to yourself? Then keep out of my personal affairs, you brat kid. Finish with your damn wishes so I can go along my merry ol’ way.” The genie then pulled out the biggest, thickest cigar Benjamin had ever seen and began to suck on it determinedly. Even though it didn’t appear to be lit, smoke issued forth and formed enormous clouds around the genie’s face, obscuring the almost-malicious grin he was now proudly displaying.
Benjamin folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes. “Am I, or am I not, your master?” he asked shrewdly.
“Y’ are,” admitted the genie placidly.
“Then do what I SAY!” Benjamin seethed.
“I do what I want!” the genie loudly declared, and he began to spin in slow, quiet circles, blowing cigar smoke in Benjamin’s direction every time he was facing that way.
“I want to make my next wish!” Benjamin stomped his foot like a spoiled little boy and blew the smoke right back in the genie’s face.
The genie coughed. “Ahem. Proceed, then, Lovie!”
Benjamin pointed at the house across the street. The genie looked. A young boy of about ten years old was sitting on the front lawn playing with a small terrier. The boy appeared somewhat dejected, though he was expensively dressed. There was an air of loneliness around him, as he threw a stick repeatedly for the dog. Every time, the terrier retrieved it loyally, carried it back and licked the boy’s face with devoted affection. The boy did not seem to crack a smile, however.
“That’s little Lonnie,” Benjamin informed the genie. “His parents both work. He comes home to an empty house during the school year, and now, during the summer, he’s alone a lot. There’s an old lady sitting in that house who watches him, but she doesn’t really pay any attention. He’s always out in the yard by himself with his dog. I’ve never, ever seen him play with another kid. He seems like a total loser, but today-”
“What is your point?” interrupted the genie rudely. “Make your stupid wish already!”
Just then, Benjamin heard someone screaming his name in the distance. “BENNNNNYYYY!!! WAIT!!!!!!” Robin came running as fast as she could up the sidewalk toward him, from the direction of the park. She caught up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, then bent double, red in the face and panting to catch her breath. “Benny… I…. was…. looking everywhere… for you… you haven’t…. wished yet… have you?” Then she sat abruptly down on the sidewalk and put her head between her bent knees to recover.
“I’m about to, Robin.”
She was silent for about thirty seconds. The genie heaved a gigantic, impatient sigh and kicked at Robin’s bent head, but she didn’t notice, seeing as his foot was ethereal and went straight through her without doing damage. Benjamin scowled at the genie. “Hold your horses, Pyrex,” he snarled.
Then Robin stood slowly, and dusted off her bottom. “Benjamin, I was just talking to my aunt, but I didn’t finish. She said not to make any more wishes until we talk to her!”
“This wouldn’t be your Aunt Claire, by any chance, would it?” asked Benjamin suspiciously.
“Um, well, yes…” Robin began hesitantly. “But, she really does know a lot about things like this! I swear!”
“No way, I’ve got a plan now, and it can’t wait. It’s for Lonnie over there, and it’s gotta be right now. I don’t buy your aunt’s wifty bullshit anyway. That stuff’s not real.”
“Not real?! How can you say it’s ‘not real’ when there’s this big frickin’ genie standing right here?!” Robin jammed her thumb in the direction of the genie, who was licking his lips and watching them through beady little eyes, almost as if he might eat them if they took any longer to make up the next wish.
“Uh…” but Benjamin really couldn’t think what to say to that. The girl made an excellent point.
“Your wish, MASTER?” demanded the genie impertinently.
“Look, Robin, I’m sorry but I just don’t think your aunt knows what she’s talking about. And my mind is made up.” He leaned down and whispered in Robin’s ear, “I’m going to wish for something really horrible, so that something good will happen to Lonnie. I think you’ll like it.” He smiled at her, one of the most sincere and hopeful smiles she had ever seen. It made her heart skip a beat, and she suddenly felt strangely optimistic.
Robin bit her lip. “Mm-k, Benjamin, I just really hope you know what you’re doing!”
Benjamin cleared his throat loudly. “Alrighty then, smarty-genie. I wish…” and he pointed his finger dramatically at the dog across the street, “that Lonnie’s dog would die!”
Robin let out a horrified gasp. “No, Benny, don’t do that!” she exclaimed. But he smiled at her confidently. “Shhh…” he said, “just watch.”
The Pyrex Genie’s face had gone strangely white and now he twiddled his thumbs nervously. “Hmm, well… er…” and then his face lit up. “You know, you really might want to hear more about my history after all. You see, I was also-”
“Quit stalling!” yelled Benjamin.
“I’m not stalling! It’s just that I…” But at that moment a bright red convertible Lamborghini came roaring around the bend, and the genie sprang into action. “It shall be so!” he squealed, and he waved his arms. A rabbit came immediately darting out of some nearby bushes as if it had been summoned, and the terrier yelped excitedly and lurched after it, directly into the path of the accelerating vehicle. Lonnie gave a helpless cry of terror and snatched at the air, missing his dog by a few inches. And then the worst thing imaginable happened. The rabbit narrowly dodged the car’s spinning tires, but the dog was not so lucky. Benjamin and Robin covered their eyes as Lonnie’s terrier was suddenly no more. The driver of the speeding car did not even seem to notice the damage he had done, and just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone around the next corner.
“NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!” howled Lonnie in anguish. “Not Shai!” He ran into the street, tears streaming down his face. “Please don’t die, Shai! You’re all I have!” He picked up the dog’s lifeless body in his small arms and carried him to the curb on the side of the street opposite where Robin and Benjamin were looking on in horror. With that, Lonnie sank to the ground and began to sob with tears of rage and sorrow.
Benjamin stared, transfixed, utter shock on his every feature. His shoulders slumped and his hands hung helplessly at his sides. He could not believe what he had just witnessed. Although Robin was also watching the scene unfold, she did happen to glance sidewise at the genie, and she noticed that a peculiar expression of surprise momentarily crossed his face. His jaw hung open and his eyes were wide as he took in the scene. But only for a moment; his expression changed quickly to one of elation. “Hoooooooo boy!” he exulted, “Now THAT was some good wishing, there, buddy! Weeeellllll, I think I’ll just leave ya now to clean up that one. HAHA!” And once again, the genie vanished.
Robin took a moment to clear her head and then strode purposefully across the street to sit down beside the young boy, whose shoulders were heaving with every choking breath. “Hey Lonnie,” she whispered soothingly, “I saw what just happened, and I’m really, really sorry. More sorry than you can imagine. Come on… let’s bury Shai, alright? We’ll give him a really nice little funeral. And then you can stay with me for today if you want, okay? We can do whatever you want.” Lonnie clutched at Robin as if she were the mast of his sinking vessel. He wrapped his arms around her and cried into her chest while she held him silently for awhile.
Benjamin did not move for a solid five minutes. He did not make a sound. This had not been what he had been planning; not at all. The genie had said that the opposite of what you wish for was what always happened. He’d honestly been trying, in the first altruistic moment he had experienced in years, to improve Lonnie’s life, not to make it infinitely worse. And yet, that genie had tricked him once again. Benjamin clenched his jaw tightly and watched Robin comforting the stricken child. Finally, a few tears rolled down Benjamin’s cheeks and he did nothing to stop them. With balled fists, he silently stalked off around his house and into the woods behind it.
There Benjamin sat on a fallen tree beside the creek until long after dark, barely stirring. He allowed cathartic tears to stream at will down his cheeks. They would come in fits and starts - sometimes in long parades, like marchers with banners, as if celebrating a new-found freedom, and then there would be nothing for a long time; during these empty silences, Benjamin felt an absolute dryness, as though his eyes were so parched he would never need to blink again. When the tears came, he cried because of what had happened to Lonnie’s dog, imagining the sadness of the little boy. He cried because he was responsible, and the guilt was heavier than any of the old junk his mother had made him carry out of the basement that summer. He cried because he cared so much about Robin, and because she would probably never speak to him again after what he had just done. But mostly, he cried because of a pain deep in his chest that he had never before acknowledged - the pain of all the loneliness he had been carrying for years; the pain of his father leaving, of kids picking on him in grade school, of not having friends he could turn to, of not knowing how to take care of his mother, of giving up on the goodness of the world and on believing in anything. He would have thought he’d have felt like an idiot, a nineteen-year-old guy crying by himself for hours behind his house. But he didn’t. Instead, he found that strangely, the more tears he shed, the more alive he began to feel. He hadn’t felt such sorrow, or compassion, or really even anything at all, in more years than he liked to think about.
Robin, meanwhile, spent the entirety of the rest of the day with Lonnie. She helped him bury Shai in the backyard. They each said a few words over the dog’s body in the small hole, and then they filled it in with dirt and a few handfuls of special sand from Lonnie’s sandbox. Then, after explaining the situation to Lonnie’s babysitter, they walked around the park until it was growing dark. Lonnie clutched Robin’s hand tightly all the while, and mostly his face was grim and determined. He seemed to have the heart of a young warrior, as he completely stopped crying after the initial shock had worn off. As the fireflies were just beginning to come out, Robin returned him to his house. Lonnie hugged her tightly around the waist, whispered, “Thank you for being my friend today,” and quietly shuffled into the house.
“I’ll be your friend any day,” Robin called after him. And sure enough, on that day the start of a lifelong and very special friendship had begun; in fact, Robin’s kindness to him in the coming months would later inspire Lonnie to become a great counselor and teacher, and to found an after-school volunteer program that would change the lives of many inner-city teenagers… but that is another story. For now Robin went searching for her dearest friend of all, knowing that his heart must have been aching. She searched behind his house; she begged his mother for information. She trudged to the skating park and scouted all over. But she could not find Benjamin anywhere, and at 11:30 that night Robin suddenly realized that she had forgotten to return to her aunt.
Although she raced back to the shop, she found to her chagrin that all was dark and silent. Standing in despair on the back door step, after pounding the living daylights out of the door to her aunt’s private entrance and getting no response, she slouched against the wood paneling with a tired, aching mind. “How could you not be here?” she sighed, and as she rested her head in frustration against the door, a paper that had been caught partway through the mail slot came loose. It fluttered onto her large boot, and in the bright moonlight, in the moment right between the last night of June and the first morning of July, she could read, scrawled in her aunt’s vivacious spirally writing, “Robin: had to rush off for a bit. Will send word soon.”
PART 5:
PART 5 - WISH THREE
Two days passed by without a word between Benjamin and Robin; two extremely humid and lengthy summer days. She tried to call him at his house; tried, two mornings in a row, to show up at his doorstop. But both mornings he would not come to the phone or to the door. He spent the two days in bed, moving as little as possible. He told his mother he was ill, and because he’d done such a good job of cleaning out the garage and the basement, his mother gave him the benefit of the doubt and left him alone. For two days and nights he lay like a stone, paralyzed by his remorse and anxiety, exhausted by the burst of emotion he’d felt. By the third day, Robin was going out of her mind with worry. The third day, of course, was the day on which Benjamin had to make his third and final wish, or else they both ran the risk of disappearing into thin air. On top of that, she had still heard nothing from her aunt, and the hours upon hours she had spent doing internet research on genies had yielded nothing useful. She did, however, spend most of those two days with Lonnie, introducing him to her younger cousins, who cheerfully accepted him into their imaginative play. For the first time in his life, Lonnie had friends his own age, and something cheerful to do with his time.
Finally, on the third morning, Robin charged past Mrs. Dendrich and up the stairs, down the hall and through Benjamin’s door without even knocking. She entered his chaotically messy bedroom and saw a man-shaped lump under the bed sheets. Eyes flashing, Robin crossed the room, yanked the sheets out of Benjamin’s clenched fists and threw them onto the floor, exposing his curled body, lying on the mattress in nothing but boxers. “Benjamin Derek James Dendrich!” exclaimed Robin, not even pausing to be embarrassed by his near-nakedness. “What is WRONG with you?! I know you’re not sick! You’re hiding, and I won’t let you hide from me! Get out of bed. You have GOT to pull yourself together and undo this mess you’ve made.”
Benjamin peered up at her through exhausted and fuzzy eyes. “Robin, it’s no good,” he muttered. “I can’t do this anymore. That genie’s beaten me. I don’t know how to make a wish anymore. I’ve tried not caring. I’ve tried caring. He’s out to get me, and I’d rather just stop existing than let him get the best of me again.”
“Benjamin, you’re being ridiculous.” Robin sighed, sitting down beside him on the bed and picking up his limp right hand to rub it between her two agitated palms. “This is not a war to be won. No one is going to get a trophy for being the smartest here. There’s really nothing to WIN, Benny… You’re just going to have to get through this.”
“What’s the use? Just look at this world. I tried your way; tried to do what was right. And I tried to let myself feel it, but ya know what? It all just sucks too much. I was right before, right that there’s no divine plan, no purpose to any of this shit. Look what happens when you try to do something good. It only makes things worse!”
Robin smiled sadly, softly. “Maybe it’s just that what happens isn’t really up to you after all.”
“Well if that’s the case, then what’s the point of doing anything at all?”
“I don’t know, Benny, but you’ve gotta get up and go on living. You’ve gotta make this decision and go forward. Get dressed, eat something, and call me when you’re ready to go back to living.” With that, she hopped off the bed and strode out of his room.
When Benjamin had heard the front door click behind her, he felt an even greater pain and emptiness than before she’d come. He knew, somewhere deep down, that she was right. But he didn’t want to play that genie’s game anymore if he didn’t stand a chance of winning it. He got out of bed, picked up the sheets from his floor, and curled up under them once again, closing his eyes and drifting back into a sleep that lasted for many hours.
Benjamin woke from his three-day stupor around six p.m. that evening to a repetitive buzzing and tapping sound coming from the screen of his open summer window. He had only a groggy sense of time, and supposed it was around noon. Curiously, he sat up in bed and watched with interest as a tiny but determined fly kept trying to beat its way through the metal barrier and into the sunshine beyond. “Stupid fly,” muttered Benjamin. “You’re never going to get through.” He rolled over and tried to fall asleep again, but a haunting feeling wouldn’t let him. It was that accursed fly. It wasn’t the fact that it made a small knocking and jingling sound as it banged over and over into the screen. It was the futility that bothered Benjamin. Heaving a sigh, he got up and unfastened the screen from the window. Triumphantly, without giving any credit or the merest nod to its rescuer, the fly zoomed out the open window and into the great beyond. Benjamin leaned out the window and took a deep breath. Then he started to laugh. And once the laughter had begun, it issued forth of its own free will without his control. He laughed so hard his sides hurt, his belly gurgled emptily (he had eaten practically nothing in almost two days) and his eyes watered. He laughed with reckless abandon, and he laughed for nearly an hour. And in the very center of himself, in the middle of all that insane laughing, he found that he actually knew just what his last wish should be. In all the insanity, right at its very heart, was peace. When he finally stopped the ludicrous laughter, he replaced the screen and went down to the kitchen to get something to eat.
Finishing his bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, Benjamin noticed with a start that it was growing dark outside, and was several hours past the time when he was supposed to have disappeared for not completing his third wish. “NO!” he thought frantically. “What if I’m only visible to myself and Robin? I might have ruined her life!”
“MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he screamed, jumping up from the table in a panic. There was no response, even though he could hear the television in the next room. Why had she not come in to say something to him when he’d moved around the kitchen? “MOOOOMMMMMM!” He howled like a five-year-old child, racing into the living room.
“What?! Benjamin, what on earth are you hollering for?!” exclaimed Mrs. Dendrich with terror scrawled across her face as she sat up hurriedly from a nap on the couch.
With relief, Benjamin stared at his mother, who was obviously staring back at him. So he did still exist! “Oh, hey Mom. Nothin’ much,” said Benjamin as nonchalantly as he could manage.
“Nothing?!” repeated Mrs. Dendrich confusedly. But her erratic son had already dashed out the door. “Heaven help that boy!” she sighed, and flopped back down on the couch.
As Benjamin hurtled out the front door, he saw Robin running across the lawn, grinning. “Benny, we’re still here!” she exclaimed. “I just spent a few hours crying in the skaters’ park, cause I thought you’d never get off your ass again and we’d both vanish into nothingness. And when it started to get dark I saw all the fireflies and I went to catch one and I ran past this old lady sitting on a bench, and she smiled at me and said hi! So then I realized that genie was wrong. Somehow, we’re still here!”
“I know,” smiled Benjamin. “And this might be crazy, but I think I’ve got a good idea this time.” Robin looked into Benjamin’s eyes, and something of the laughter must have remained, because suddenly she started to laugh too, inexplicably. There was a rush of every emotion she’d ever felt, and it seemed to be reflected back at her in Benjamin’s eyes, brighter than they’d ever shone, at least in all the years she’d known him. For a couple minutes they just gazed at one another with recognition and giggled. Then Benjamin’s look deepened into a suddenly serious one. “You know what else, Robin? You’re pretty great. I’m really, really glad you’re my friend. And you were right before. I’m sorry I haven’t been the best friend to you. But I’m going to try harder from now on. I promise.” And he squeezed her tightly, which made her blush, but by now darkness had settled in and he couldn’t see the color in her cheeks.
Together they walked around back of the house, where the green watering can lay lifelessly on the driveway. Of course, they had no idea where the genie was presently hiding, but they figured it might be the same general area, so they stood there and Robin softly called, “Ohhhh geeeeenie, come out wherever you are!”
“WHOOOSH!” hollered the genie, as he zoomed out of the eaves of the house above their heads and flew down to the driveway like a rocket ship landing. Plumes of smoke billowed around him, and he grinned widely. “You kids are finally getting polite!! Now, HOW can I help YOU?!” he shouted, and then he dissolved into a fit of giggles for no apparent reason.
“You’re a real bull-shitter, aren’t ya?” smiled Benjamin.
“Come again?!” roared the genie, and he folded his arms across his chest, only he wrapped them twice around himself like he needed a reassuring hug. He pouted. “Name calling, are we? You don’t wanna play that game, believe me.”
“We didn’t disappear,” Benjamin pointed out evenly.
“True,” remarked the genie, as if it were really most unremarkable. Then he shrugged. “Ah well… you win some, you lose some. Or in your case, you lose them all. HAHA.”
“Alright, Mister Pyrex Sir, you win. Sure. But since you always seem to know what I’m going to do next… won’t you tell me your secret? How come you seem to be always one step ahead of me? And how did you know my father left me?”
“You IDIOT! You stupid, stupid kid!” squealed the genie, “Anyone can see your father disappeared from your life. It’s not rocket science, just basic human psychology. I’d have to be almost as dumb as you not to notice you’re an emotional train wreck! Typical case… a young boy, abandoned by his father, shuts off all his emotions so he doesn’t have to deal with the pain of it. Convinces himself that nothing matters, that nothing is of more value than anything else… blah blah blah. It’s one big fat coping mechanism and it takes up as much space you do, you FAT idiot! And if you think, for one minute, that- ”
“EXCUSE ME!” Robin burst out abruptly. “Don’t you EVER talk to my friend that way! There’s a lot more to him than that!” Now she was spluttering with rage. “You… you… you can’t just peg everyone like they’re a story in a textbook! You don’t know Benny, and you don’t know me, and you don’t even know shit about yourself I’ll bet!” And then an expression of surprise crossed Robin’s face as her own words sunk in. She smiled for a minute as she cleverly deduced for herself something about the fourth type of genie. Then she folded her arms across her chest and added, for good measure, “YOU’RE the stupid, stupid IDIOT, Pyrex!”
“Wow, Robin,” exclaimed Benjamin delightedly, “I’ve never seen you scream like that. You rock!” But then he chuckled and turned back to the genie. “Did you actually just call me fat, Muscles? Cause I’m pretty much the lankiest kid ever. So that doesn’t exactly hurt. Yeah, the father speech kinda hurt, and the whole ‘you shut out everything’ speech was a good one. But fat? Come on, man, be more creative!”
The Pyrex Genie gaped for a moment, then grinned. “Well lookie who’s finally wearin’ the pants!” he boomed, wrinkling his nose. “But there’s more where all this came from! I’m not finished with you yet, kid. So, if we’re quite done with all the name-calling…” and he paused dramatically, “what’ll it be then? Your last wish, Good Master?” And he snickered in that familiar and profoundly obnoxious way.
“I wish,” said Benjamin, “-and I truly have no idea what will come out of this-that some good thing would happen. It doesn’t have to be life-changing, but it does have to be nice. Something that doesn’t harm anybody.” He smiled benignly at the genie. “Your choice,” he added. “I’m not playing anymore. I give it up.”
“My choice?” growled the genie. “What kinda weird promo is this?!”
“There’s no trick,” said Benjamin. “I just wish for something good to come out of all of this.” Robin’s mouth was hanging open at this change, but a smile was dancing through her eyes.
“It shall be so!” exclaimed the genie, and waved his arms, but nothing appeared to happen. He glanced around furtively. “Hey, never promised you’d see the results,” he snickered.
“And now you’re free!” said Benjamin, “And we can all just go back to our own lives.”
“Well, it’s been nice knowing you,” said the genie calmly, and vanished.
Benjamin breathed a huge sigh of relief and sat down on the driveway in the darkness. “Thank God that’s over!” he grunted.
“Yeah, seriously,” said Robin, joining him on the ground. “That was one intense ride! But that was a really good way out at the end…”
“I realized you were right, Robin. It was wrong of me to keep trying to beat him at his game. We were always playing by his rules. The only way out was just to let go of it and trust it. I figure we might not have a lot of choice in this crazy ride called life, but when we do get to make decisions, we should just try and do the best we can. From now on, I’m going to pay more attention. And I’m going to help out where I can…”
“Wow,” sighed Robin. “Happy endings are so great!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” was the unpleasant and uproarious laugh they heard floating above their heads, just then.
“Oh no,” cringed Benjamin, and buried his head in his knees, “What now?”
“SURPRISE!!!!!” screamed the genie, re-appearing right in front of them, as Benjamin looked up rawly. “There’s something I forgot to telllllllll yooooooouuuu. HE. HE. HE.” The genie was giggling and cackling so loudly now that the driveway seemed to shake.
“What?” asked Robin, in a small whisper of a voice.
“YOU GET A FOURTH WISH!!!!!” trilled the genie exultantly, spinning rapid and dizzying circles around them. “HAHAHAHAHA! Because you broke my home, there’s an extra wish! I know this will utterly DELIGHT you! And you can NEVER REPEAT A WISH!” And this time, when the genie vanished, he did so in the puffiest, purplest, most dramatic cloud of smoke one could imagine.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Benjamin said quietly, “Genie, I know you can still hear me, and I’ll make that wish right now.” He looked fondly at Robin. “I’ve been wanting to give you something anyway, but I didn’t know what… Hey, genie! I wish… to give my extra wish… to Robin.”
Robin gasped, “NO!”
But they heard the genie’s voice, sounding as if it were very far away indeed, mumbling, “It shall be so!”
“Oh dear,” groaned Robin.