Clothes are important to Quinn. She takes about an hour to choose an outfit in the morning, and usually goes through several “test” outfits before settling on the one she’s actually going to wear for the day. But now she is dressed in nothing she’d ever pick out for herself: khaki pants, a green-collared MA shirt, thick white socks, and brown loafers.
There’s something else strange about her, and it takes me a second to realize it’s her hair. It’s parted down the middle with the left half up in some kind of braid, and the right half hanging loose across her shoulder.
But I still can’t get any words out, and she’s not done speaking anyway.
“Zack? ZACK? ZACHARY NOAH COOLEY, I’M GOING TO TELL MOM ON YOU AND YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!”
“I . . . I . . . ,” I stutter. I move past her and glance into the stall she just came out of, looking for Trey. But he’s not in there. Not that I expected him to be. In fact, I suspect I know what’s going on, but my suspicion is insane, and out of this world. It’s absolutely, positively the most crazmazingest thing I’ve ever suspected before.
For just a second, the bathroom is silent, except for the slightest gurgle, gurgle from the sink. Quinn puts her hands on her hips. “You have three seconds before I start to scream. Three. Two. O—”
“All right. All right. I was at Uncle Max’s and he gave me a bottle and—” I stop short. “The problem is, if I just tell you flat out what happened today—that I learned I’m a genie—you’re not going to understand me.”
“What?” she asks.
“I tried to tell you before,” I say. “It’s not my fault the words don’t make sense. It’s a safety mechanism the board put in place.”
“A safety mechanism? From the board?” Quinn repeats. She’s shaking her head. “You’re right you’re not making any sense. And hey, genius, if you’re a genie, where’s your bottle, then?”
“The Reggs took it with them,” I say. But then I cut myself off. “Wait, you understand me?”
“I understand you’re a nut job and a liar.” Her eyes scan the room and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out where she is and how I managed to get her here.
But there’s something I just figured out. “Holy smokes! I just discovered an exception to Genie Board Decision two hundred and fifty-eight!”
“Zack!” Quinn says. “Tell me what’s really going on here!”
“I am telling you,” I say. “It’s supposed to come out like gibberish when I talk about genie stuff. That’s what Uncle Max said. But I can tell Trey, of course, since he’s the one who rubbed the bottle. And if he makes a wish and I turn him into you—”
“Who the heck is Trey?”
“The one who made the wish that brought you here,” I tell her. “You turned into him. Well, sort of. It’s you, but you’re wearing his clothes.”
“You expect me to believe that this kid, this Trey—someone I’ve never met—made a wish to become me?”
“Not exactly,” I say. “He wished to turn into someone people liked. And you popped into my head because, well . . .” I toe the ground, feeling a little embarrassed. I may be a genie, but I don’t know how to be popular, like Quinn does. “People like you,” I mumble.
“That’s right, they do,” Quinn says. “Unlike some people I know.”
“Don’t get such a big head about it,” I say. “I don’t think Trey would actually like being you. But at least it helped me discover the exception. So I can talk about being a genie and you’ll understand.”
“I understand that you need serious help,” Quinn says. “Mom will probably send you to a mental hospital when I tell her.”
“She will not,” I say. But really I’m not so sure. After all, I was convinced Uncle Max had Alzheimer’s disease when he first told me. And explaining things to Mom might be impossible with Genie Board Decision 258 in place. Unless there’s a second exception to the rule, in the event your mom is about to have you committed. I’ll have to ask Uncle Max about that—if I ever see him again. Which reminds me, I have bigger problems right now.
“You know what else I think?” Quinn asks, and she keeps on talking without waiting for my answer. “I think there was another pair of twins being born at Pinemont Hospital on this exact day, ten years ago, and you got switched out with my real brother.” She’s nodding to herself now. “Yeah, that’s it. We’re not really related after all!”
“Wishful thinking,” I mutter.
“I know you love to play make-believe and pretend to swoop in and rescue people, but you’ve gone too far this time.”
“I’m telling the truth, and I can prove it to you.”
“Oh, really? How?”
“Isn’t being here proof enough?”
“I don’t know where here is!” she says.
“This is Millings Academy,” I tell her. “In California.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Fine, if you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it another way.”
Uncle Max had licked his finger and twirled it in the air. So I do that, but nothing happens. There’s certainly no car-horse-zebra-dinosaur combination.
“This is ridiculous,” Quinn says.
“Okay, look,” I say. “See those sinks on the floor, and how their pipes aren’t hooked up?” Quinn nods. “Well, I made water come out of them! Just before you got here—I turned the faucet and the water rushed out. Here, watch.”
I twist the dial on the same sink I used before, but nothing. I try the knobs on the other two, but their spouts remain dry.
“Nice try,” Quinn says.
“No, really,” I say. “Look—I’m all wet from before—the water just came rushing out and—” But even as I say it, I realize my shirt and my pants and my feet are bone-dry, like I really had made the whole thing up. “Maybe genies can’t get wet,” I tell her.
“I don’t have time for this stupid game,” Quinn says. Her voice is shaky. I think she may even start to cry. “Madeline was in the middle of braiding my hair. She’s waiting for me. I’ve GOT TO GET HOME!”
“Don’t worry, I have an idea.” How come I didn’t think of this already? “Just make a wish saying you want to go back to who you were before.”
“I want to be who I was before,” Quinn says.
Nothing.
“It’s not working because you were Quinn before, and you’re still you. You need to say you want to be Trey again. And say ‘I wish.’ ”
Quinn folds her arms across her chest, like she really doesn’t want to be bothered saying it, but she does—probably because even if she thinks I’m a nut job, she still hasn’t figured out how I got her into this bathroom in the first place. “I wish I were Trey again.” She waits for about the amount of time it takes a hummingbird to flap its wings. “Nope. Didn’t work.”
“Go into the bathroom stall and come out again,” I say. “That’s what worked last time.”
Quinn turns around and heads into the same exact stall as before. The stall where the magic happens. But as soon as the oak door closes, my heart starts to pound. After all, I don’t know where Trey disappeared to when Quinn popped up in his place. And I don’t know where Quinn will be going now. Maybe home.
But maybe not.
Maybe she’ll disappear FOREVER!
“Quinn!” I shout.
“Yeah, nut job,” she says.
“Oh, thank goodness,” I say.
She opens the stall door and steps back out. “What do you have to be thankful for?”
I can’t tell her the answer. Instead, I stare down at my big toe, at my genie bite. The one I inherited from Uncle Max. “Let’s call Uncle Max,” I tell Quinn.
Another thing I can’t believe I didn’t think of. I’ll call Uncle Max, and he’ll come here and do whatever genie tricks need to be done to get it all sorted out.
“So we need a phone,” Quinn says. “I don’t have one and neither do you, since Mom won’t let us get cell phones.”
“But I know just where to find one.”
11
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
I push open the bathroom door extra slowly and peek out into the hall to make sure it’s empty. Then I motion for Quinn to follow. “Where are we going?” she asks.
“We have to retrace my steps back to the chapel,” I tell her. “That’s where Trey’s cell phone is.”
“His cell phone is in a chapel?”
“It fell out of his backpack, and it’s lying on the floor.” I silently scold myself for not grabbing it up when I had the chance.
“Why didn’t he pick it up?”
“It’s a long story,” I say. “Come on.”
I tiptoe down the hall. Quinn is following me, but apparently she didn’t get the memo that we’re supposed to be acting stealthy. Nope, she’s walking down the middle of the hall like she thinks she owns it, and she’s jabbering away: “I must be dreaming. That’s the only logical explanation. Madeline went home, and I had dinner and went to bed. I don’t remember those things, but they must’ve happened, and now I’m fast asleep.” She lifts her left arm and pinches the skin with her right fingers. “Okay, I felt that. But maybe that’s just a rumor, that you can’t feel anything in your dreams. It’s not like we can really prove it.”
“Can’t you be quiet for once?” I hiss.
“It doesn’t matter if anyone hears me if I’m dreaming,” Quinn says, even louder.
“You’re not dreaming,” I say. My voice is barely a whisper. “You’re just in the denial stage.”
Uncle Max said there was a denial stage for finding out you’re a genie. Apparently there’s also one for finding out about your genie brother.
At the end of the hall I glance around the corner to make sure no one is there. When I’m sure the coast is clear, I make a mad dash for the lobby.
But Quinn is just standing there taking it all in—the checkerboard floor and chandeliers, the maroon walls and the oil paintings in gilded frames. “Whoa.”
“Come on,” I tell her. “Come on.”
I’ve already crossed the room and pushed open the front door. Quinn comes over and steps outside. Her eyes skim the expanse of lawn in front of us, perfectly groomed, the palm trees lining the borders, and the huge redbrick buildings. Above us the clouds are light gray, but they look heavier in the distance. Quinn, of course, isn’t worried about them.
“California, did you say?” she asks, and I nod. “It’s always been my dream to go to California. But in real life I would pick someone else to travel with.”
“Yeah, well, me too,” I tell her. “Anyway, that way is the under-construction athletic center.” I point as I remember. “And to get back to the chapel we have to . . .” It’s hard to retrace your steps when you made a stop in between them, but I don’t want to go all the way back to the Dumpster first, because that would mean having to spend even more time outside. “I think we go that way.” I turn around in a circle, trying to figure it out. “I need a map,” I say to myself. And just like that, there on the limestone sidewalk, the different buildings and pathways are carved out and glittering, like stars in the sky.
“Holy smokes! Look what I made!”
Quinn is barely impressed, until she notices one building on the map, the one labeled “Food Hall.”
“I’m so hungry,” she says. “I can’t remember ever being hungry in my sleep before. Maybe I went to bed without eating dinner.” She pauses. “At least I don’t remember having dinner.”
“Because you haven’t had dinner yet,” I tell her.
If not for this whole genie thing, Uncle Max probably would’ve made cheeseburgers for him and me. He has a very special way of making them—he chops up the cheese and puts it inside the burger part. It’s actually quite genius.
That’s genius, and NOT genie.
I could eat five Max burgers in one sitting—even if I wasn’t hungry. They’re just that good. And thinking of them makes me VERY hungry. But I shake my head. We cannot go to Food Hall. There is no time for a pit stop right now. “We’ve got to get to the chapel and grab Trey’s phone and call Uncle Max.”
“Can you stop it with that story already? This is ONLY a dream—and since it’s MY dream, Food Hall must have all my favorites.”
It’s annoying how Quinn can’t get it through her head that this genie thing is real, but I guess it’s dumberstandable.
Dumberstandable. Adjective. When someone is behaving in a dumb, and yet somewhat understandable, way.
Quinn starts marching up the pathway toward Food Hall. The chapel is just a few yards away. There’s no sign out front like the other buildings, but there is a large stained glass window on the side, so I know it’s the right place. I grab Quinn’s arm. Which is, of course, the exact wrong thing to do, because before I even know what’s happening, she’s holding my arm behind my back.
But I arch my back and twist free. It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to break out of Quinn’s grip.
“Whoa,” she says, shaking out her hand. “You’ve never been . . . that powerful.” She’s clenching and unclenching her hand. “Actually, I can’t make my fist as tight as I usually can.”
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get Trey’s phone. The chapel isn’t far.”
We sprint together, but when we get there, I pull open the door extra slowly and peek my head around. “The coast is clear,” I tell my sister.
We step inside. I’m about to head to the aisle, just left of the pews, where the backpack and all of Trey’s stuff had been. But Quinn has stopped in her tracks. “Whoa,” she says softly. “It looks just like . . . you know, it looks like . . . where we had Dad’s . . .”
“I know,” I say. “But come on, the phone was right over here.”
Except now the aisle where Trey’s stuff had been strewn about is totally clear. I walk down the length of it to make sure. But there isn’t so much as a rubbed-down eraser on the floor.
“Where’s the phone?” Quinn asks.
“It’s gone,” I say. I hear a rustling noise coming from behind a back door I hadn’t noticed before. “Quick, Quinn!” I say. “Duck for cover!”
“What?”
There’s more rustling. When I look toward the door, I see the knob turning, turning.
“Between the pews, and fast!”
But while I nose-dive toward the navy-blue cushions, Quinn just stands there like a deer in headlights. I hear the door open, and the clomp, clomp, clomp of heavy footsteps. From my vantage point on the ground, I spy a man wearing the same MA shirt as the Reggs and Trey (I mean, Quinn). Except this guy’s shirt must be size XXXL. He’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen. He’s holding a broom in one hand and a big black garbage bag in the other.
“Zack,” my sister says, glancing down at me, and I can’t tell if she’s nervous or just irritated.
“No, I’m not Zack,” the man says. His voice is deep and gravelly.
“Sorry, I was talking to my brother.”
“You visiting him?” the man asks.
“I guess you could say that,” Quinn says. “But he’s hiding.” With her thumb, she points to me lying beneath a pew.
“Hiding, huh?”
No use in hiding now. I come out from under the pew. I have to tip up my chin to see the top of this guy’s head. He has to be at least nine feet tall. Or maybe ten feet tall. Double-digits height!
“Shouldn’t your brother be in class?”
“Class? On a Saturday?”
“There’s class every Saturday at Millings Academy,” he says. “Your brother never told you that?”
“No, but he doesn’t go here, exactly.”
“What exactly does he do?”
“We have to go,” I say. “Now.”
“Wait,” Quinn says to me. She looks back up—way up—at the man. “Can I ask you something?” The man nods. “Well, we were looking for a cell phone. My brother said this kid Trey left his on the floor in here—don’t ask me why he did
, but that’s what Zack said. Anyway, I wondered if you’d picked it up. Or maybe swept it up, and it’s in that garbage bag you’re holding.”
“I don’t know what the rules are at whatever school you attend, missy,” the man says. “But here at Millings Academy, we don’t encourage people to take property that belongs to others.” He reaches an arm as thick as a leg toward Quinn. “I think you better come with me.”
“Uh, Zack,” Quinn says.
“Zack?” the man repeats.
“Never mind,” I say. “We don’t want anyone else’s property.”
I try to pull Quinn out of the man’s grasp with my superhuman genie strength. But it seems right now all I have is regular Zack strength. (Or, more accurately, regular Zack lack of strength.)
My heart feels like it’s knocking around in my chest, and my brain hurts trying to think of a way to get us out of this.
Think, Zack. THINK!
If only there was a way to knock the giant off his feet, then he’d drop Quinn’s arm and she could get away . . . Wait a second. Maybe there is! This morning I’d made a shoving motion with my hands, and Quinn had been knocked to the ground.
I do it again. And again, and again. But it’s not working, and time is running out. He’s twisting around and pulling Quinn with him.
And then, from behind the man’s big basketball head, I notice a bumblebee flying toward us. My eyes do their click-click thing. I can see the bee’s yellow and black stripes as clear as if they’re under a microscope, and I can see, tucked between little fibers of hair on its legs, wads of pollen.
I’m allergic to pollen, and all of a sudden I feel a heaviness in the back of my eyes. They squeeze shut involuntarily, and from the deepest part of my chest comes the biggest, loudest sneeze of my whole entire life. Ahhhh ahhhh ahhhh AHHHH AHHHH CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
There’s a sound like the wind in a category-five tornado. When I open my eyes, the man is flying across the chapel. CRASH! He smashes against the back wall, and a potted plant falls on his head.
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