“What did you do?” she asked. “That was spectacular.”
Ray stood up rather unsteadily. He looked around, but he could see only guardian angels and children. “Where’s Froister?” he asked, all of the last few minutes coming back to him in a rush. “I want a word with that man.”
“Gone,” Reverend Barnes said.
Ray threw his head back and howled at the sky. “Coward!”
“Now, calm down,” the Reverend Barnes said severely. “That’s not worthy behavior for a conquering champion.” Ray was embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he said. He heard another outcry, dozens of voices together.
“Get us out of here!”
Ray and the others ran through the swinging doors to the back room. Chanel threw herself at her grandmother and was rebounded several feet by the barrier. She tried again. When she couldn’t batter through, she turned on Ray.
“Get her out!” she demanded, her face set. “Right this minute!”
“Hold on, Chanel.” The Reverend Barnes shook his head. “It takes the genie who put it up to break it down. Who was that?”
Matthew was in a corner of the warehouse, imperiously ordering all of the other children to place lamps in rows. The djinni stood in rows, too, staring straight ahead with their arms folded. Reverend Barnes put the question to them.
A glassy-eyed Zeon was unable to lie. “It was Hakeem.”
“Hakeem?” Bobby asked. “Ray’s buddy made an invisible wall?” His whole concept of big brothers and their relative boringness had been dented forever today, if not entirely shattered.
“Hakeem’s not here,” Ray said, searching the crowd of gangbangers.
“All the lamps are accounted for,” Matthew said. “We rubbed all the others left in the showroom twice to make sure.”
“Then he’s somewhere else in here,” Ray said. He looked around for the shop’s cashier, and found her hiding under the cash desk. He helped her to her feet. “Miss, excuse me, are there any more lamps in this store?”
She looked at him as if he was crazy. “The place is full of them. In boxes. In the back.”
“No, it’d have to be a used one,” Ray said. “Like these others.” She shrugged, looking dazed. Ray went back to Zeon. “Where’d it go?” he demanded, stifling the urge to grab the other by the collar and shake the information out of him. Zeon must have thought worse was in store for him. His face was covered with beads of sweat.
“I don’t know. Froister, he took it with him the other day.”
“Need string,” Rose shouted, leaning on the barrier. “He’s in trouble. He’ll be needy. I’m sure you can find him, Raymond. You’re the only one with a wand.”
Ray looked at her gratefully. He emptied a load of broken glass out of his pocket, but the wand was there, too, safe and whole. As his family and friends watched with wonder, he tested the air with the shining star.
The wand felt so marvelously good in his fingers after all that evil that he enjoyed it just for a moment before concentrating on the task. Off to one side was the bundle of need strings belonging to the gangbangers, a pretty pathetic lot all told. Ray tested the cube containing the FGU. No wonder he wasn’t able to sense them from the street. This thing was a very effective barrier. It was a miracle the brownie points had gotten through to him.
But there was one hopeless string calling to him, apart from all the others. He followed it, with Antoinette, the Reverend Barnes, and all the kids trailing behind him, to a small office in one of the near corners of the warehouse. Ray pushed through the doors. The trace was coming from the desk, from a pretty, dainty lamp made of milk glass with a painted scene on the body. He gawked at it.
“Hakeem? That’s his lamp?”
“Well, I like it,” Antoinette said. “I’d hate to see what you would choose. Maybe you have hidden artistic tendencies, too.”
Ray thought ruefully of the green art lamp, now smashed to splinters. “I guess so.” He brushed the side of the milk glass pane. Hakeem appeared with folded arms.
“What wouldst thou, O my mother?” he said, in a flat voice. Then he blinked. “Ray? Thank heavens, brother. I’ve been stuck in there for ages!”
“It’s all over,” Antoinette said reassuringly. “Are you all right?”
“Where’s Mr. Froister?” Hakeem asked, his eyes wide.
“Split,” Ray said. “His buddies, too.” Hakeem looked relieved.
“Son, destroy that magical barrier out there,” the Reverend Barnes said, pointing out the door at the crowd of fairy godparents leaning as closely as they could to see. Hakeem looked at Ray for instructions.
“What he said,” Ray told him.
“With pleasure!”
Hakeem blinked, and the crowd of fairy godparents swelled toward them as the barrier dropped, and the ones leaning on it stumbled over. Rose pushed her way through to come in and kiss Ray.
“Oh, I am so proud of you!” she said. Ray was so glad to see her alive and well and spunky that he couldn’t say a word. He hugged her back.
Hakeem held up his wrists as if the bracelets were handcuffs. “Somebody, get me out of these things, please! Now!”
“Does it take anything special?” Ray asked the guardian angels.
“Not if he doesn’t mind letting go of the power,” Alexandra said, pushing her way through the crowd to stand at Ray’s side. “Just wish him free.”
“I don’t mind at all, ma’am,” Hakeem said, desperately. “Please!”
“I wish you to be free,” Ray said, at once. The bands fell with a clang to the floor. They all looked at them. Hakeem stepped over them, breathing in great gulps as if air was a new and wonderful commodity.
“Never again,” he said, beaming until his round cheeks bulged out. “No gangs, no drugs, no nothing. I swear it.” Ray grinned at him, and they embraced.
The crowd surrounded them as they came out of the office, slapping Ray and the others on the back, and shouting congratulations. His grandmother came to meet him, with Bobby and Chanel hanging on to each hand. Grandma Eustatia shook off the two young ones and gave Ray a warm hug.
“I always knew you were special, sweetheart,” she said. She gave Hakeem a hug, too.
“Ray, you should have seen this child,” Grandma said, holding onto Hakeem’s hand. “He told off that ridiculous Froister to his face. Real dignity. You’d have been proud.” Hakeem looked ashamed of himself.
“I should never have gotten into this in the first place,” Hakeem admitted. “I wasn’t so smart.”
“Well, you got your second chance, child, and it didn’t even cost you your miracle,” Grandma Eustatia said.
Ray pulled Rose forward.
“Grandma,” he said, “this is Mrs. Rose Feinstein. Rose, this is my grandmother, Eustatia Green.” They both looked at him, puzzled. “You’re two of my three favorite ladies in the whole world. Why don’t you two call each other by your first names?”
They looked at each other. Rose shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d want it,” Rose said. “You never asked me.”
“I thought you just would if you wanted to,” Grandma said, puzzled. They laughed and embraced one another. Antoinette put her arm around Ray and squeezed his waist.
O O O
“What do we do with the rest of these boys?” George Aldeanueva asked, surveying the rows of djinni. Alexandra located their wands in a safe. It took a quick wish from one of the static djinni to open it. She distributed them to the membership, who received them with joy. The fairy godmothers received theirs and flitted away without so much as a backward thank-you to anyone but Raymond Crandall.
“First, fix their wounds,” Rose said, whisking her wand to and fro. She enjoyed the feeling of being connected again. It was time to do some more good in the world, as soon as they’d cleared up in here, and she’d made some kind of explanation to her son and his family. “Then, we’ll have to make these tykes forget what they saw. It’s not a good idea to have them involved in magic too s
oon. They need to grow up first.”
“Awww!” the children chorused.
“Hey, we helped,” Peter protested, coming up to put his hand in Rose’s. “Don’t make us forget!”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Rose said, trying to think of an explanation that would satisfy him. Eustatia came to the rescue.
“You can all remember it in your dreams,” Grandma Eustatia said, and no one dared to sass in her face. Then Rose, George, and Alexandra went into a huddle to come up with exact wording that would free the genie-Jackals and genie-Wolves from the magic bonds.
“I wish you were a normal young man again, with no interest in gangs, drugs, guns, or mayhem,” Rose said, starting with the big youth Ray identified as Zeon. “I wish you to forget all you had to do with the DDEG and magic. And finally, I wish you free.”
The wristbands fell off with a clatter. “There,” Rose said. “He can start over again. I hope he’ll do better.”
“What am I doing here?” the big youth asked.
“How do you feel?” Rose countered, smiling at him.
Zeon gave Rose a suspicious look, then stepped over the bands, and walked out of the ruin of the shop without looking back. The others followed him one by one as their magic was exhausted and their bonds were released.
O O O
With Speed Guthrie, there was a difference of opinion as to what to do.
“I want him to make some kind of reparation,” George said. “He kidnapped me. He misused his special knowledge as the observer to the FGU. And he’s the one responsible for this nonsense, apart from Albert Froister, that is.”
“Well, no revenge,” Alexandra said. “You don’t want to stink up your reputation.”
“Please,” George said, pained. “You only had to breathe it for a few days. I’ve been here two weeks. In that case, he’s just going to have to grant a lot more wishes than the others did. It’ll take a lot out of him, but serve him right. First, let’s fix up this place. We can’t leave it as a fire hazard for the neighborhood.”
“You heard him,” Matthew ordered.
His face strained, Speed Guthrie waved his arms. A huge cloud of smoke rose around him, but Ray was relieved to see that it was silver, not dark. Mr. Guthrie was doing a good deed, so there was no evil smell.
“Second, we send all these children back home.” Clarice, Peter, and the others pleaded to stay, but the magic surrounded them. In a moment, there were no children left in the shop but Matthew. Even Bobby and Chanel had been sent home. He wondered what they were going to tell their mother.
“Wish number three,” George said. “Make sure none of the lamps in this building can ever be used to contain djinni again.” Matthew, nodding, repeated the wish carefully to his captive djinn.
“My turn,” Rose said, taking the boy’s hands off the lamp. “Matthew, thank you for everything,” she said. “You’ll always be special to Ray and me.” She leaned over to kiss him. Ray shook his hand.
“You mean you’re sending me home?” Matthew asked, disappointed.
“I’ll visit,” Ray said. “Promise. Remember, you’re my first godchild.” Matthew was reluctant, but mature enough to know that there was no arguing with the adults.
“At least I get to remember the adventure,” he said, as Rose’s first wish wrapped him into a golden cloud that dissipated like a pinch of powder. His voice faded away like an echo.
“My goodness, I can see why this would get to be addictive,” Rose said, amazed at the ease of using lamp magic. “Before anything else happens or any of us get tempted, I wish you free, young man.”
Speed Guthrie wiped his nose, looked at the collection of assorted adults whose identities he no longer remembered, and sauntered casually out of the store. The cashier came over very timidly from where she had been watching.
“Do you …” she began tentatively. “Are you looking for members?”
Chapter 26
“There’s only one more matter to deal with before we all go home to our families,” Alexandra said, dusting her hands as the last of the young ex-djinni left the empty shop. “What shall we do about Ray?”
“Why?” Ray asked, hearing his name. “Did I do something wrong?” He hurried over to where the officers of the Fairy Godmothers Union were standing with Rose and his grandmother. He was no longer limping; the wish session had taken care of his cuts and bruises.
“No,” Rose said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “You did everything right. You were our last hope, you know, and you didn’t let us down. I’m so proud of you.”
“I wasn’t sure for a while there,” Morry Garner said. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you.”
“I knew he had it in him,” Grandma Eustatia said positively.
Ray was embarrassed. “I’m just grateful everyone’s okay.”
“Well, we must do something for you,” Alexandra said, limbering up her wrist. Ray looked into his mental piggy bank. The federation’s store of brownie points had gone back to their proper owners, but there were a few new, bright stars that belonged just to him. “Did you know he hasn’t had his miracle yet? Who’s his fairy godparent?”
“I’ll do it,” Morry Garner said.
“No, I will,” said Mrs. Durja. “He is such a good boy.”
“He’s one of mine,” said the beautiful, green-eyed lady from TV. Ray turned to her with shining eyes. “I think, though, I should cede the honor to Rose, because she knows you best. But I’ll give you my own reward.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss. Ray felt as if he had been sent on a quick trip to heaven. Antoinette nudged him in the ribs. When he opened his eyes, he saw Rose studying him intently.
“I know what you want,” Rose said.
“A regular magic wand?” Ray guessed.
“Certainly not. That will come in time.”
“That new car?”
“Nonsense,” Rose said, waving away speculation. “I know your real heart’s desire.”
He felt a jolt in the midsection. “But I blew it!” Ray said. “Insufficient grade point average, lack of application, no money, right? It’s impossible!”
“Pooh!” Rose said. “If it wasn’t impossible, it wouldn’t be a miracle. Trust me, right?”
“Right,” Ray said, squaring his shoulders.
“Right.” Rose raised the pink and gold wand and leveled it at him. Antoinette squeezed his hand tightly. Ray closed his eyes as the veil of pink light spread out over him.
O O O
The lamps jostled from one side of the cargo container to the other as the truck sped on its way. The seven men tried as best they could to make themselves comfortable in the dark crate on boxes and camp stools.
“Where did you say this thing was going?” Carson asked.
“California, for a ship to Yokohama,” Froister said, pulling a box under him just as the truck hit another bump and toppled his lamp standard over on his head. Swearing, he set the lamp down on its side and held it there with his foot. “Part of the US trade agreement with Japan is that they’ve eased the imports on American-made goods. They won’t be looking too closely at us.”
“And when we’re there, we can reformulate our plans,” Gurgin’s deep voice rumbled out of another corner of the container. “One day we’ll go back.”
“What good will that do?” Timbulo asked. “I bet the guild revokes our charter, just like that.” Froister heard his fingers click.
“And what of it?” McClaherty’s ringing voice demanded. “We’ve still got our lamps. They can’t take that away from us.”
“They can,” Bannion said. “But they gotta catch us first.”
“Dammit, the IRS will probably seize all my assets in the meantime,” DeNovo’s voice said irritably.
“Don’t worry,” Froister said with supreme confidence that he didn’t really feel. It was a good thing the others could not see him. “You’ll get it all back one day.” However many years it took, he thought.
The truck hit another bump.
O O O
Ray sat on the bus, heading north along Sheridan Road toward Evanston. He had to pick up his registration materials and get his orientation packet for pre-med. School started in less than six weeks. He had so much to do, and he and Hakeem were going to take in a ball game later on. He was going to miss Antoinette when she went away to Howard, but between school and going out to grant wishes with Rose, he was going to be too busy to blow his nose unless it was on the schedule.
The evening news had been full of the explosion at Enlightenment. People thought it was some kids, celebrating the Fourth of July a day early. Let them think that. Hakeem told him the way the slick guy, Froister, had talked about his dreams to take over the country. It’d be better if no one knew how grim the situation could have been. It was going to take time for the fairy godparents’ reputation to return to normal. He and Rose were already doing their parts. Last night had been fun, dragging Hakeem along with them, to see if maybe he was interested, although it sounded from what he’d said in the bar later that perhaps a career with the tooth fairies was more his speed. He didn’t want any more excitement, and Ray couldn’t blame him. The guys who owned the lamp shop had vanished, but the FGU had complained officially to the DDEG main headquarters. The merger was off for now. Things had been a lot quieter on the street the last few days. Ray was content.
The wand in his breast pocket radiated its goodness at him, agreeing with his happy mood. The bus stopped. He glanced out at the line of people waiting to get on. A little boy got on with his mother and moved toward a seat farther back in the bus. As he passed, Ray felt the need spring into being on the surface of the air. He started to get up. The bus was only a couple of blocks away from where he had to get off. He wondered if he could handle the kid’s wish in that time. Otherwise, he’d miss his stop. He took the little blue star halfway out of his pocket.
Someone touched him on the shoulder. He glanced around. The pretty lady in the cerise business suit was already on her feet behind him, red wand in her hand.
“I’ll take this one,” she whispered.
The Magic Touch Page 30
