by Doctor MC
Mom shrugged. “I’m sure it’s a good one. She’s very stylish.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her that. I’m sure she’ll be pleased.”
The conversation turned to other subjects then. Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief.
As I was rinsing my dishes in the sink, I said, “Mom, can you iron my white shirt if it’s wrinkly, please? I want to look right for Uncle Warren’s funeral tomorrow.”
Behind me: dead silence.
I turned around. My parents were giving each other embarrassed looks. At last my mother said, “Um, not a problem, Marvin. I can do yours too, Steve, if you want?” My mother said this last part with a raised eyebrow.
“Um, sure, Lucy, that’ll be great. Thanks,” Dad said. He sighed.
****
After breakfast, I cut the grass, and weeded the lawn some. Then I washed my car. This gave me time to Think.
When I came inside, Mom was watching the first Harry Potter movie. She invited me to join her, and I was sorely tempted. But that would cut into my Thinking time, so I said no. Upstairs, I showered, then I took my white shirt downstairs and gave it to Mom. I came back to my bedroom, I lay down on my bed, I stared at the ceiling, and I Thought.
The rest of the day, I Thought and Thought. I fell asleep Thinking. Sunday morning, I woke up Thinking. As I was shaving, I Thought; as I ingested cornflakes, I Thought; and as I put on my suit for the funeral, I Thought.
It didn’t matter. I still hadn’t decided what to wish for.
****
When my father walked in the living room with car keys in hand, I announced that I was driving my own car to the funeral home. My parents looked at me oddly, but didn’t argue.
Uncle Warren’s funeral didn’t take long, because nobody came. The only people there were my parents and I, and Aunt Claire (in a wheelchair). It was amazing that Aunt Claire had come to the funeral, because she was from my mother’s side of my family, so not related to Uncle Warren at all. But she had come, while most of Uncle Warren’s blood relatives had not. And she had gotten out of bed, gotten dressed, and come here when she was nearly dead herself—amazing.
A correction: Mr. Dodd (the lawyer) also was at Uncle Warren’s funeral. He showed us Uncle Warren’s will—
“Everything that I own, except for personal items (which I don’t care about), is to be passed to the Eisenhower Center and Library in Abilene, Kansas. However, before anyone else owns my computer, the hard drive is to be erased and then reformatted.”
Mr. Dodd confirmed that, as per Uncle Warren’s wishes, Uncle Warren’s will would not be filed with the probate court until Friday. Dad looked puzzled at this news; I guess it wasn’t normal procedure.
****
Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Dodd had left, the funeral director had left, and all my relatives except for Uncle Warren had left. I was staring down at an oblong pile of dirt.
I said, “Uncle Warren, six days ago in your hospital room, you predicted that you and I would have a heart-to-heart on Sunday. Well, you were right, it’s Sunday and here I am. Of course, when you told me that, you knew that you were going to die Friday, and you know that it was likely that I’d be the relative to inherit Fatima. You were right about that, too.”
No reply.
“You advised me, in so many words, to think this three-wishes thing through. But that’s my problem, Uncle Warren, I’ve been thinking over everything I’ve learned this past week.”
No reply.
“You worded your wishes well; you got what your 1943 self wanted. But were you happy in your life? The only reason I visited you in the hospital was because Aunt Claire embarrassed me, and the only reason that my parents came to your funeral today is because I embarrassed them. You probably got more sex in the last six months than I’ll get in the next six years, your house is as big as a hotel, and you’re a decorated war hero—and yet today, nobody mourned your passing. How sad, Uncle Warren.”
No reply.
“I’m happy with my life, Uncle Warren. My parents love each other and they love me, and I’m happy. If I die a virgin and have to struggle for every dime I ever get, I think I’ll be happy. Happier than you ever were, even with combat medals, and millions of dollars, and blowjobs from strippers. So I don’t need to wish for anything, Uncle Warren, because what I really need, I already have.”
No reply.
“But when you have a magic lamp, such contentment creates a problem. Do you know, I’m actually considering donating the lamp to the Salvation Army?”
****
If I’d hoped at the cemetery for a revelation or a brilliant insight on how to wish wishes, I was disappointed. Eventually I came home, changed clothes, and did homework. I went to bed at ten o’clock, with no firm plans about what to say to Fatima.
I couldn’t sleep.
At 11:45, I threw off the covers, turned on the bedside light, and found the padlock key on my key ring. Fifteen seconds later, Fatima was standing in my bedroom. My finger to my lips warned her, Don’t wake my parents.
She’d de-smoked facing away from my clock, but she now said, “It is almost midnight. Do you want to wish now, or wait fifteen minutes for a new day?”
“What difference does it make?”
“If you start wishing before midnight, and you are still wishing at midnight, you forfeit whatever wishes were spoken completely or partially by midnight. If you speak all three wishes before midnight, then I must grant all three wishes by midnight, or any ungranted wishes are forfeit. And then, I must be back in my lamp by midnight, or all granted wishes become un-granted.”
“Wow, you guys sure have a lot of rules that allow forfeiting wishes.”
She gave me an impudent smile. “If I give you the address of Solomon’s Temple, you can write a complaint.” Without turning to look, she pointed at my clock and said, “I advise you to wait the thirteen minutes.”
“No. I want to get this done with.”
She looked alarmed. “Master, please—”
“Is there any trickery in what you’ve told me? Is there anything you don’t want to tell me?”
“Master, there is no trickery. I have told you the whole truth. But I fear that soon I must tell you, ‘You have forfeited wishes.’ And the only way for you to get more wishes then, is from a different genie.”
“So you advise me to wait till after midnight.”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “My first wish: I get at least as much sex as is average for guys my age, and I’m always happy with the sex I get.”
Fatima looked resigned. “Number two?”
“From now through the rest of my life, I wish to have enough money to be comfortable. To clarify: I wish to never worry about money, not for a minute.”
Fatima nodded. “Three?”
“I wish that you cure Aunt Claire of all cancers as much as you can, for as long as you can, so that her fated death is postponed by exactly 120 lunar cycles, and she is pain-free for as much of that time as possible.”
Fatima stood there, not moving, not speaking, staring at me. I said, “Shouldn’t you be granting wishes now?”
She said, “Master, do you remember me mentioning a Wishing Rule that I can’t tell you until you’ve spoken your wishes?”
“Go on.”
“If anyone uses one of his three wishes unselfishly, he is to be granted three more wishes!”
“The stories and legends don’t mention that. Gosh, I should’ve asked for world peace.”
“Can’t. I’ll explain next time. Master, we have a little over ten minutes for you to make your three more wishes, for me to grant them, and then for me to scoot back in the lamp. Please hurry!”
Geez, I crashed the servers trying to think up three wishes—now I got to make it SIX? “Um, uh...”
“Master, please!”
Eventually I said, “Number four: I wish that my parents have a really, truly happy marriage because they never ever get hit with any problem that their ma
rriage can’t handle.”
“Good one. Five?”
“I wish that Anna Kay Henderson and Natasha Ludmenkov each get her heart’s desire in a life-long intimate relationship.”
“Master, your first two bonus wishes have been unselfish. But that won’t get you any bonus-bonus wishes.”
“So I should finish with a selfish one? Hm.” I looked at the clock: five minutes until midnight. And my mind was blank.
I threw up my hands and said, “Okay, fine. I wish that Hank Miller will never again bully me.”
Fatima murmured, “Four-and-a-half minutes. Gonna be close.”
Pop. In midair, in front of Fatima’s face appeared a crystal ball. But this one wasn’t the size of a grapefruit, it was the size of a volleyball. Fatima started waving her hands, and images appeared and disappeared in the ball.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I’m scrying,” she answered distractedly. “Scrying balls were how people Googled before Al Gore was born.”
A minute later, she murmured, “He called Master a ‘girly-boy,’ did he? We’ll see about that!”
Soon afterward, it was clear that something was frustrating her. “Come on, c’mon, think!” she kept murmuring. As minutes passed and Fatima got more upset, I got worried that she was going to miss the deadline.
Then Fatima gasped, grinned, and clapped her hands. “I got it!” The scrying ball popped out of my bedroom.
“Shh. Parents, remember?”
She spun around to face me. “Six wishes made”—her right hand moved around to describe the six faces of a cube, while her left hand made weird gestures—“six wishes granted.”
A ball of green lightning suddenly appeared between her hands. She shoved it toward me and, with no gravity drop, it flew through the air and hit me in the chest.
“What did you just do?” I asked.
She shook her head. “You’ll find out. Got to go.” She turned into smoke, which all rushed into the brass lamp. Then I glanced at the clock, and saw 11:59 become 12:00.
I locked the lamp in the footlocker, turned off the bedside light, and climbed back to bed. Yawning, I wondered, What will tomorrow bring? What have I done?
Chapter 7
No Longer A Shorty
My first clue that my life had changed forever, happened the next morning as I was getting out of bed. My feet hit the floor a fraction of a second before I expected them to.
My second clue was when I walked to the bathroom door, intending to take a shower. I reached my hand out, fingers curled, intending to slide them around the doorknob. Instead, my fingertips smacked into the doorknob. I looked down to discover that the doorknob was two inches lower than I remembered it being.
In the bathroom, I was as clumsy as a thirteen-year-old. The handle for the shower door, the soap dish, the countertop for the bathroom sink—everything was below where I expected it to be. I swear, even the toilet was smaller!
But it was when I went to pull on my jeans that I started to figure things out. With my jeans in my hands, my eye was caught by the sewn-in tag that gave the waist size and inseam. The tag said the inseam was 30 inches!
I had never owned a pair of inseam-30 pants in my life. If I ever bought a pair of pants like that, I’d either be stepping on my own pants and tripping myself, or else the pants would be so baggy that I’d look like an orphan. And yet—these were my jeans. There was a rectangular wear pattern in the right-rear pocket, exactly the size of my wallet. The left-leg hem was fraying in one spot, and there was a gouge in the right leg where I had scraped it against a corner of my lab table in Physics Lab. Somehow my jeans had grown two inches longer.
Likewise, my shoes were made by the same manufacturer as had made them yesterday, and had the same scuffs in the same places. But today my shoes were a size 9. And the shirts in my closet were all size Medium, not size Small.
Then I got an idea, and opened my wallet to look at my driver’s license. It was a state-issued license, complete with magnetic stripe and state seal, and my photo was the same. But my height was no longer 5′2″, it was listed as—Holy shit!—5′7″! I had grown five inches since midnight?
My next clue that things were different was when I picked up my book bag: it felt lighter. Of course, I figured that I’d forgotten a book, and opened up the bag to take inventory. But no books were missing—somehow, they had gotten lighter.
I made a clatter while getting a bowl for my cereal—the kitchen counter was two inches below where I put the bowl. But otherwise, breakfast was unchanged from before; my parents noticed nothing different about me.
****
After eating breakfast, I rushed upstairs, locked the bedroom door, and thirty seconds later, I had the lamp in my hand and Fatima in my bedroom. “Thank you for letting me spend time with you, Master!” she said.
“Not much time,” I said. “I’m in a rush. What can you tell me about today? I already noticed that I’ve grown five inches.”
“Master, I don’t know how to answer that. It’s 7:03, and you like to be in your car by 7:05.”
“Just the highlights, then.”
“The highlights are, you will really, really enjoy your life today. And you needn’t worry about Hank Miller at all.”
She glanced at the brass lamp, I nodded, and she green-smoked back into the lamp. As I was putting the lamp back in the footlocker, I noticed a yellow sticky-note lying inside the footlocker.
The sticky-note’s shaky handwriting said, “Encrypted folder LAMP password: 1943June3. Safe combination: 43-6-3.”
****
My next clue that life was different was when I arrived at PSHS and walked to my locker: Kids stepped out of my way. I was used to students intentionally blocking my way to get my goat, so kids stepping aside for me was a nice surprise. And come to think of it, I was hearing a lot more Hi, Marvins than I was used to hearing.
While I was at my locker, raised voices got my attention. It turned out that Hank and Anna Kay were having an argument. At first I was interested only in the argument, but then I looked. Always before, Hank had been two inches taller than Anna Kay, but now they were the same height. Another look made it clear: Anna Kay had not magically grown taller, and she wasn’t wearing sky-high heels.
Since midnight, I had grown five inches, and Hank Miller had shortened two inches. Fatima was right—Hank was not going to be a worry for me today.
Chapter 8
I Make More Discoveries
“Say, Marvin, can I, um, ask you something?”
Monday morning, I was still standing at my locker, only seconds after Hank and Anna Kay had loudly argued. Now speaking to me was druggie girl Janice Wesley, whose locker was next to mine. Before today, I don’t think she’d said three words to me in a week.
“Sure, what’s up?” I replied.
Janice looked shy. “Have you been working out, or something? Something’s different about you.”
“No, not working out. Everything’s the same with me.” If you don’t count growing five inches since midnight.
“Oh. Okay.” She started to turn away, then turned back to face me. “Would you like me to get you something now? A soda, or a candy bar? I think there’s time before the bell if I run.”
What’s going on here? I wondered. Aloud, I said, “No, I’m good. Thank you.” Now it bothered me that she had complimented me, but I hadn’t complimented her in return. So I added, “I like your t-shirt.”
“Cool. You’re a fan of Paranoid Mushroom?”
“No, I mean the lettering, it’s light blue. Matches your eyes. Your blue eyes are pretty, Janice.”
“You really think so? Thanks.” She gave me a smile like small children give to mall Santas.
Come to think of it, before today I’d never seen Janice smile, either.
****
It’s amazing what someone can learn, just by listening carefully and by asking a few seemingly unimportant “Jog my memory, my mind blanked out” questions.
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Here’s what I learned, at school by the start of fifth period—
• I had “always” been 5′7″.
• Miller had “always” been 5′8″, and skinny. Too bad he couldn’t have been taller and bulkier, what with such a great throwing arm.
• Everyone called Miller “Harold” (which was in fact his birth name). Nobody recalled Miller ever being called “Hank.”
• Last August, Coach had chosen Jorje Rodriguez to be starting quarterback. Harold had been stuck as relief quarterback.
• Anna Kay had never dated Harold, not one time.
• Currently Anna Kay was without a boyfriend. The consensus was that she was waiting to start college before she dated again.
Now, Miller also learned all those things by the start of fifth period. But whereas I learned everything by listening to people’s talk and by asking questions, Miller learned it by shooting his mouth off and getting pounded for it. The argument with Anna Kay that I witnessed, happened because Miller demanded to know why Anna Kay hadn’t called him this morning.
Then there was that misunderstanding in the cafeteria that I witnessed. I truly thought that Jorje Rodriguez was going to beat Miller into strawberry pulp.
****
When Miller paid for his lunch, he then walked over to the football players’ table. He was displeased to see Jorje Rodriguez sitting in his seat, which was at the center of a semicircle.
If Jorje had pulled that stunt last week, Miller would have walked up to him and told him to move. Loudly. Loudly enough, in fact, that Jorje would have been humiliated in front of everyone in the lunchroom.
But today, it didn’t seem to be something worth making a fuss over. Miller took a seat at the end of the group.
Still, when Jorje stood up with an empty cup, and started walking toward the soda dispenser, Miller raised his own nearly empty cup. “Hey Rodriguez, fill mine up too. Coke, easy ice.”
Jorje stopped dead in his tracks. All the football players went silent, except for one voice that said, “What the fuck?”
