“Zack!” Mom suddenly screams.
I look up again. “What?”
“Your face—it looked like it was on fire.”
I touch my fingers to my cheeks, and the skin feels smooth and normal. But maybe this tradition is too dangerous. Kids all over the world are leaning too close to fire on their birthdays. I take a step back. “Come on,” Quinn says impatiently.
“Don’t lean too close,” I tell her.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“All right,” Mom says. “Let’s try this again. Make a wish, kids—and be careful.”
And so I do make my wish. Then I lean forward—not too far forward—and blow.
3
THE GIFT
After the party, Quinn and I each get to have a friend stay for a little while. Quinn invited Madeline. I invited Eli, but he has to go visit his dad. His parents are divorced. That’s why he moved to our town, Pinemont, in the first place. His dad lives an hour away, in Philadelphia, which is a big city. Eli sees him every other weekend. This is technically his dad’s weekend, but he was allowed to stay at his mom’s long enough to go to my party. My cousins also had to leave, because it’s a long drive back to their house on Long Island.
I thought at least I’d have Uncle Max to hang out with. But after the whole present thing, I’m not so sure I want to.
Uncle Max is in the den with Mom, and I head into my room with my presents. There’s the keyboard from Will and George, which is cool because now I can add a musical element to my safety reports. But I don’t feel like doing that now. Eli got me a microscope. I stick my finger under the lens and examine it. Blown up, the lines of my fingerprint look like worms, or a maze. And then there’s my last present, from Mom. It’s a watch, just like the one Dad used to wear. I put it on. It makes my wrist look more mature. Like my dad’s, except his wrist was hairier.
There’s a knock at my door. “Can I come in?” calls a voice. Uncle Max’s voice.
“I guess,” I say.
“Can I sit down?” he asks when he steps into the room.
“Sure.”
He sits. “Anything you want to talk about?”
Yes, I want to say. When did Quinn start being your favorite? “No,” I say instead.
And then I notice that he’s holding something. Some kind of box. Or not a box, exactly. A towel, kind of bulky like there’s something inside it. It’s folded up and secured with safety pins.
That’s just the way Uncle Max would wrap a present for someone, if he had one to give.
“Is that for me?” I ask.
Uncle Max nods and hands it over. “I wanted to give it to you in private.”
“I knew you wouldn’t really forget me,” I say. Even though I hadn’t known that, and if you want to know the truth, I wish I’d found that out in front of the other kids. I would’ve liked them to at least see me get a really cool present, no matter how private it is.
But this is no time to worry about all of that. I unhook the pins (and recap them so they won’t prick anyone), and unwind the towel. “Careful,” Uncle Max says.
“I know,” I say. You have to be careful with night-vision goggles. The lenses are made of glass, and if you break them, they won’t work. Plus, the shards of glass could be sharp and cut you. If a cut is bad enough, you could die. Or at least need stitches.
The towel is unwound. My present is in my lap. It’s not goggles. It’s not even a silver box like Quinn got. It’s a bottle.
A scratched-up old green bottle that you definitely wouldn’t pick up if you found it washed up on the beach. The letters SFG are engraved on the side. They must be someone’s initials, but they’re not mine. Which means the bottle used to belong to someone else. Which means it’s a used gift. Even Quinn got something new from Uncle Max. You could tell because they were her initials engraved into the silver jewelry box.
There’s no top on my “new” used bottle. Whatever was once in it is gone, and it’s empty now. I turn it over in my hands. The number SEVEN and the word PORTAL are engraved on the bottom.
“You know what it is?” Uncle Max asks.
“A bottle,” I tell him. Duh.
What am I supposed to do with a bottle? A used one at that. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t open this in front of Quinn and her friends after all. But just because Uncle Max spared me the humiliation of the World’s Worst Present in front of the other kids doesn’t make me feel any better.
He nods. “It’s for genies.”
“Geniuses?”
Even if I am a genius, I still wish Uncle Max had gotten me a better present.
Sorry, that might be rude. But it’s the truth.
“Genies,” Uncle Max repeats, this time a beat slower and a decibel louder. “You know what they are, right?”
“Of course,” I say. I’ve seen the movie Aladdin. The kid rubbed the bottle, out came a big blue genie, he got three wishes, and . . .
Wait a second.
“Are you saying you got me a genie? Because I’m ten now. I don’t believe in make-believe things anymore. In fact, I stopped believing in them a long time ago.”
“You need to open your mind a bit more.”
“Open my mind to believing there’s a genie in this bottle? I’m not that gullible.”
“No, there’s no genie in the bottle. Not now anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Zack,” Uncle Max says, looking more serious than I’ve ever seen him look. “You are the genie.”
4
IT AIN’T JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT
A genie?
A bottle-dwelling, wish-granting, all-around magical genie?
Yeah, right.
I break into a grin. “Oh, Uncle Max, come on.”
“This isn’t a joke,” he says, with that serious look still on his face.
But I’m onto his plan: He’s going to try to get me to believe this unbelievable story, and then he’ll burst out laughing and hand me my real present. The goggles, I’ll bet.
I lean over and try to peer around Uncle Max. I don’t see any other package. He must have it hidden in another room.
Maybe it’s something even better than night-vision goggles. My mind races with things that could possibly be better. Walkie-talkies, so I can communicate with my family when we’re not in the same room. Or fire extinguishers for every room. Or . . . Or . . .
Or a dog! A guard dog to help me look after the house. I’ll name him Buddy, or maybe Crackerjack. He’ll love me more than anyone else—especially more than Quinn, and he’ll sit close to me on the couch when I’m doing my homework or watching TV. At night he’ll sleep in my bed, except for the times he leaves to patrol the halls and check for strangers. If he sees any, he’ll grab on to their legs and not let go until the police arrive.
Uncle Max could be hiding my new dog somewhere in our house, or maybe it’s back at his place. Either way, he’s not letting on that there’s any other present hiding anywhere.
Fine, I’ll play along. “So,” I say to Uncle Max, “people rub this bottle and I pop out, just like that?”
“Something like that,” he says.
“But I’m already outside the bottle right now,” I point out.
Poor Uncle Max. He didn’t really think this joke all the way through.
“When the time comes, you’ll be pulled into the bottle,” he says.
I don’t bother pointing out that I’m about four hundred times the size of the bottle.
“And then what? I’ll pop out and grant three wishes to whoever rubbed the bottle, like in Aladdin?”
“You know about Aladdin?”
“Of course I do. Everyone’s seen that movie.”
“Oh. That movie,” Uncle Max says, spitting the words out like they taste sour. He shakes his head, and a clump of his thick white hair falls in front of his face, obscuring his left eyeball. “It got a few things wrong—more than a few things. You know Hollywood—they take a nugget of the truth
and twist it around to make it ridiculous.”
I don’t know a thing about Hollywood. But come on. “You’re saying you think there were nuggets of actual truth in the movie—that it got some things right?”
Uncle Max nods gravely. “There are genies,” he says. “They travel through bottles that serve as portals. Do you know what a portal is?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Okay. What is it?”
“Umm,” I say. I didn’t expect Uncle Max to quiz me. “I forget.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, and I think you should commit this to memory. A portal is an entry port.”
“Okay.”
“Think of it as a doorway,” he continues. “You go in one portal and come out another. It’s the genie mode of transportation.”
“That’d be cool if it were true,” I tell him.
“Trust me, Zack, the truth about genies is cooler and more exciting than anything you’ve seen in some silly little cartoon. And now you’re a part of it.”
I shake my head. I can’t help it.
“There are several stages to finding out you’re a genie,” Uncle Max says. “The first one is denial. It’s true what they say—it ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
“Huh?”
“Just an expression. The Nile. Denial. Anyway, what I mean is you’re right on schedule. Your reaction is typical.”
Never in all of my ten years has Uncle Max ever called me typical.
“Come on,” I say. “Give it up already. This whole thing you’re describing is impossible—being a genie, and granting wishes, and getting sucked up into one bottle and popping out of another.”
“Very few things are impossible,” Uncle Max says. “Very few things indeed. That’s lesson number one.”
“Plenty of things are impossible,” I say, starting to tick things off my fingers. “For example, a car transforming into a horse, then into a zebra—”
“Lesson number two,” he says, ignoring me. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Then into a dinosaur,” I continue. “A real, live one that you can ride.”
Not that I’d ride a dinosaur. Or even a horse. Do you know how many people break their backs and die each year from falling off animals?
“All right, Zack,” Uncle Max says. “I get the picture. Car, horse, zebra, dinosaur. Let’s you and I get out of here.”
He calls to Mom and Quinn that we’re heading over to his house. Mom says, “Have a good time.” Quinn doesn’t say anything. I bet she and Madeline are taking inventory of all the stuff Quinn got today.
Uncle Max’s house is four blocks away. When we get there, we sit down on the porch swing in the back. He carried the bottle with him, tucked under his arm like a football.
A football would’ve been a better birthday gift. And I don’t even play sports. Not since before Dad, well . . . The point is, I don’t play anymore, because there are too many injuries. And I’d still rather have a football than an old, scratched-up used bottle.
“This bottle,” Uncle Max begins. “Now that I’ve given it to you, you have to take care of it.”
“No offense,” I say, “but it doesn’t look like the previous owner took such good care of it.” SFG, whoever he was, nicked it up real good. “And that’s another thing you’re getting wrong, by the way,” I tell him. “They used a lamp in the movie.”
“And I suppose that movie is the source of all your information on genies,” Uncle Max says. “Well, just so you know, stories about genies go back further in time than anything you see in the movies or on television. They go back further than movies or TV shows themselves.”
I wave him off. “Yeah, sure.”
“Zack, look at me,” Uncle Max says. I look at him—at his wild white hair, his curly mouth, his bright candy-colored shirt. “Have I ever lied to you?”
It’s true. He may have wacky hair and talk kind of fast and show up late sometimes. But he’s no liar. He told me the truth about getting your blood drawn: It hurts, no matter how tiny the needle is. He told me the truth about liver: It may be good for you, but it tastes disgusting.
And he told me the truth about my dad. All the other adults around me were acting like he’d recover and life would go back to normal. But it was Uncle Max who’d told me Dad was hurt bad, so bad that he wasn’t going to get better. He was going to die, and life would never be the same again.
So maybe he’s not lying now, either.
Suddenly I get it. And what I get makes me really sad.
“Well?” Uncle Max says, waiting.
“You always tell me to look beyond what people say,” I tell him. He nods. “So the thing is, uh . . .”
“Yes?”
How can I explain this?
“You’re kind of, well, old,” I tell him.
Not even kind of. Uncle Max is really and truly old. He won’t tell anyone his real age. If someone asks him, he just says, “I’m as old as the rest of me.” Whatever that means.
I don’t think about Uncle Max’s age so much because he acts young. Most old men are retired, not transponding, or whatever it is he does at his job. And they’re not riding roller coasters, either, or running around New York City all day without getting tired. But right now I’m noticing just how deep the lines on Uncle Max’s forehead are, as if they’d been carved that way. And he has so many crinkles at the corners of his eyes, I can’t even count them all.
“No offense,” I continue. “It’s not that I think you’re lying about this genie business. But maybe you’re confused. I heard that can happen to old people.”
Uncle Max makes the humphhhh sound again. I guess I hurt his feelings. I feel bad about that. But more than that, I feel worried. People die from old age. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.
“Take off your shoe,” Uncle Max says.
“Huh?”
“Your right shoe. Take it off.”
“All right,” I say. I take it off.
“The sock, too,” he says.
“Okay.”
My sock used to be white, but it’s turned pink from soaking up the calamine lotion. I peel it off, and Uncle Max reaches for my foot. He pinches the big toe between his fingers. At least he doesn’t care about how badly my foot stinks. Or that it’s pink and slippery. “You see this mark,” he says, “right here?”
I’ve had that squiggle, sort of like a backward S with a dot on top, my whole life. “My birthmark? Sure, I see it.”
“That’s a genie bite.”
“Now you’re saying a genie bit me?”
“No, that’s just what that mark is called,” he says. “You’re right that it’s been there since birth—I checked both you and Quinn when you were born. The shape it takes indicates your genie age.” He pokes some more at my toe. “This shape means ten. So sometime during the year you’re ten, your powers will emerge.”
My voice is supersoft, almost a whisper, when I say, “Uncle Max, I think you need to see a doctor. I think you have that Old Timer’s disease.”
“You mean Alzheimer’s?”
Is that what it’s called? “Yeah, you should really talk to someone about it.”
“Is that so?” he asks.
I nod miserably. Mr. Walden, my science teacher at Pinemont Elementary, is fond of saying the most likely answer is usually the correct one. And what’s more likely in this case? That I’m a genie or that Uncle Max is sick and mistaken?
“Well, okay then,” Uncle Max says. “I figured it would come to this.”
“Come to what?” I ask.
But instead of answering, he licks a finger and twirls it in the air. “Watch your foot,” he tells me.
Why is Uncle Max so obsessed with my foot? Is that something that happens right before an old person dies? I’m so worried about him, and I don’t know what to do.
If Dad were here, he’d know what to do.
Mom is the next best thing. I should go inside and call her. Better yet, I should run home. I’m about to put my
shoe back on and race to her when I notice something: The mark on my big toe has turned bright purple. It’s been pale pink my whole life. Could it be a reaction to the calamine lotion? I’ve never heard of an allergic reaction that turns birthmarks different colors.
Wait, now it’s blue. I blink a bunch of times really fast, and now it looks like it’s flecked with glitter. I press the balls of my hands hard onto my eyeballs. When I remove them, my whole foot is shining like there’s a lightbulb inside of it.
My heart is boom-boom-booming in my chest. I want to scream, but my voice is caught in my throat. What’s happening to me? Is my foot going to fall off next? Or worse—am I gonna die? People can die from allergic reactions, you know.
I turn toward Uncle Max. He’s changed. His white hair is combed smooth and slicked back; his mouth is set straight. Everything about him seems polished and powerful. It’s him, but it’s not him.
“Check it out, over there,” Uncle Max says.
Holy smokes! There’s a car on the lawn! When did that get here? Now it’s turning into a horse, and I’m hurling through the air toward it. I manage to land squarely on its back. It starts running around in a circle, faster and faster, and I’m clutching on for dear life. Beneath me, the horse changes to a zebra, then to a dinosaur.
A dinosaur? That’s impossible! This is all impossible!
“Car, horse, zebra, dinosaur—wasn’t that it?” Uncle Max says, cackling.
I’m hanging on to the dino’s neck as tightly as I can. It slows to a trot, then stops completely. Then poof, it’s gone, and I fall to the ground. Uncle Max is at my side. He scratches his hair with his fingers, and it’s back to its floppy style.
“So you’re a . . . ,” I say. “You’re a . . .” I can’t even get the word out.
“Genie,” he finishes for me. “Yes, I am.”
5
ANGER AND BARGAINING
“Since when?” I ask.
“Since I was born,” he says. “But my powers emerged when I was fourteen, just as yours are starting to now.”
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