13
“You’re a child.”
“You’re a genie!”
Muddy clamped his gaping mouth shut. The boy’s speech was American. He was red haired, freckled, and small, barely three feet tall. He was dressed in ragged brown pants with the cuffs rolled up and patches of damp sand on the knees. Sticks of driftwood and bits of mossy rope stuck out of his baggy pants’ pockets.
He wore no shoes, and his bare toes curled in the wet foam of a receding wave. Next to the boy’s right foot, the silver stopper from his bottle lay amid a scattering of spilled seashells and bits of cobalt glass.
A rope of kelp the color of Greek olives hung around the open neck of the boy’s dirty white shirt. Low on his forehead he wore a crown of floppy waxy green banana leaves artlessly woven into a makeshift cap that looked like a tropical version of Nero’s olive wreath.
“A real honest-to-goodness genie,” the boy said with such utter belief and awe that Muddy wanted to prostrate himself at the boy’s bare feet.
A believer... a believer! Praise Allah and belly up to the bar, boys!
The boy looked from him back to the silver bottle. He raised the bottle to his eye and squinted inside for a second, then stared at Muddy. He frowned. “How’d you get through there?”
Muddy watched the boy closely. “The same way St. Nicholas comes down the chimney.”
The boy’s eyes grew as big as golden dinar. “Do you know Santa Claus?”
Muddy crossed his arms over his chest. “Do reindeer fly?”
“Santa’s reindeer do.” There was no doubt in the child’s voice.
Yes! Yes! Yes! A true believer!
The boy looked inside the bottle, turning it this way and that way.
“As surely as reindeer fly, I”—Muddy thumped his chest with a thumb—“know Santa Claus.”
The boy gave him a freckled grin.
Muddy took a deep breath and tapped together the thick gold bracelets on his wrists three times. He placed his right palm on his forehead and bent low. “Greetings, oh master!” He turned and peeked out from beneath his arm at the boy staring at him in rapt wonder. “I am Muhdula Ali, ancient purple genie of Persia. As a reward for freeing my most humble and subservient self from the lonely and desolate confines of my sadly unadorned silver bottle—”
“Huh?”
Still bent in a salaam, Muddy turned his head slightly and winked at his new master. “Give me a minute. I haven’t gotten to the important part yet. Now where was I?” Muddy stared at the sand and mouthed the ancient words. “Ah, yes, my sadly unadorned silver bottle, I, the most gratefully indebted purple genie, bondaged slave to—” He paused and shot a quick look back at the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Theodore.”
“To my master, Theodore, hereby grant him three wishes.” Muddy dropped the salaam and straightened. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“Wishes? I get wishes?”
Muddy nodded. “Three wishes.”
“Holy cow!”
“Yes, they are.”
“Huh?”
“Cows are holy. But I wouldn’t wish for one. They can start fires.”
The boy’s face creased into a confused frown. Muddy gave a wave of his hand. “Never mind.” “I know my wish, I know, I know!” Theodore hopped up and down in excitement. “I wish my mother and father were alive again!”
Muddy should have explained the limitations first. He dropped his arms at his side. “I’m sorry, Master Theodore, but my powers cannot bring back those who have died.”
