Hank shrugged. “What we’ve been doing. You can help me, like you did with the sail and the hut.”
“Do buddies do things together?”
“Sure.”
“Like fishing?”
“Yeah, kid, we could do that.”
“Swimming?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“You can learn.”
“If I can learn to swim, then why can’t you learn to be a father?”
He could have sworn he heard someone mutter, “Answer that one, chump.” But when Hank looked at the genie again, he hadn’t moved.
He turned back to the kid. “Because it’s easier to learn things when you’re young.”
Theodore was thinking. “Oh. I guess that has something to do with your ways.”
“What ways?”
“I don’t know. Smitty told us you were set in your ways.”
“She did?”
He nodded.
Hank supposed that was better than telling the kid he was a pigheaded bastard, which both he and Smitty knew was true.
“Will you teach me how to play baseball?”
Hank spun around. “How did you know—” He cut himself off.
The kid had picked up the bat, and he was looking at Hank with a startled expression.
Hank realized with a sudden uneasiness that he had yelled at the kid about something the boy knew nothing about. No one here knew.
He looked over at the genie. He wasn’t reading the book. He was watching Hank with penetrating interest. Hank scowled at him, but it didn’t do any good this time, so he took the bat from the kid and tossed it on some pillows. “Let’s get outta here, kid.”
“But —”
“Now.” Hank held out a hand. “Let’s go.”
The kid looked him, then set down the badminton racket and birdie. He took off the cap, wreath, and toga, solemnly handing them to Muddy. “Thank you. We have to leave now.”
The genie set the things on the divan before he came over to Hank, the kid’s hand held in his. Without a word he extended his other hand to Hank.
A second later they blasted out of the bottle.
* * *
Margaret knelt over Hank.He lay flat on the sand. Around him, a misty ring of purple smoke was slowly fading. Theodore, Muddy, and Lydia, who was holding a sleeping Annabelle, stood nearby and leaned over.
