Imagine

by Jill Barnett

  Her eyes shot open. She was almost afraid to close her eyes again, afraid of what her mind might come up with next, so she stared down the beach.

  Hank and Theodore weren’t in sight. They had gone to search the north end of the beach, combing the beach for anything they could use.

  “No, Annabelle. I don’t want it.”

  She looked up at Lydia, who was pushing away a banana that Annabelle was trying to stuff in her face. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I’m sick of bananas. Isn’t there anything else to eat?”

  “Breadfruit. Those large round things, but Hank said they have to be cooked.” She paused. “How does one cook a breadfruit?” She gazed off at one of the breadfruit trees.

  Lydia didn’t respond.

  Margaret sighed and turned back to look at the sand. After a moment, she picked up a black shell and held it up. “There are plenty of mussels.”

  Lydia wrinkled her nose.

  “Mussels are wonderful.” She opened one of them. “Especially these little ones with the green tips.” Lydia groaned.

  “Really. There’s a little Italian restaurant back home in North Beach. They serve the best mussels in white wine.” Margaret stared at the black shell in her hand. She turned it this way, then that. “If I could only figure how to cook these things.” She looked at Lydia. “I’m not much of a cook.”

  “Mama was a wonderful cook.”

  Margaret saw an opening. She looked at Lydia and smiled. “Was she?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “What did she cook?”

  The girl shrugged. “Stuff.” Lydia started to walk away.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Hank said we needed driftwood. I see some down the beach.”

  “I’ll help.” Margaret stood up.

  “That’s okay,” Lydia said. “I can do it by myself.” She kept on walking.

  Margaret sat on a rock, her chin in her hand, her elbow propped on a knee, thinking about everything and concentrating on nothing. Annabelle plopped down next to her and was getting ready to eat a handful of waxy kelp leaves.

  Margaret snatched the leaves away. “No!” She shook her finger. “No.”

  Annabelle blinked at her, then frowned at the leaves.

  Margaret picked up a banana and peeled it. “Look, Annabelle. See? Bah-nan-nah. A banana. Here. Eat this.” She held it out.

  Annabelle stared at her.

  Margaret took a big bite and made her eyes go wide. “Mmm, good.”

  Good grief… I sound like a moron.

  Annabelle must have thought so too because she was busy playing with her own feet and completely ignoring her.

  Margaret tossed the banana over her shoulder. Lord, how life could change almost overnight. Here she was talking baby talk, thinking unfathomable thoughts about a convict, a man who held in contempt everything in which she believed. She was trying desperately to communicate with a young girl who wanted nothing to do with her.

  She picked up Annabelle, then stared bleakly at the ocean. Nothing was right, she thought. A few minutes later, she walked down the beach.

  On the north side of the lagoon, Hank walked down the stretch of sand pulling along a makeshift wagon—a wooden crate with a piece of rope. It was half filled with stones, rope, and driftwood—anything that they could use to build a better shelter on the island.

  He figured last night’s storm should have stirred up the seas and washed up plenty of debris they could put to good use. So he walked along the section of fine sand that was still wet from the rain but fast growing warm and steamy in the bright sun.

  “Hank! C’mere! Here’s one! Come see!” Theodore stood a few yards away, his shirt flapping in the slight breeze and pants rolled up like Hank’s. He’d tried to make a cap from banana leaves and kelp, but the trade wind had loosened his childish weaving and the leaves were trailing down the sides of his head like lop ears. His bare feet were half covered by the foamy tide and a long, wet piece of old weathered rope dangled from one hand.

  He walked over to the kid.

  “See?” He held the rope up proudly.

  Hank ruffled his red hair, and more banana leaves slipped free. “Yeah. You did good. Put it in the crate with the driftwood.”

  Before he had finished his sentence, the kid put the rope in the crate and was back at the tide line, bent over, and rummaging through the kelp and shells that littered the beach.

  “Hank, c’mere! Look at this!”

  At this rate, he thought, he would only find enough wood to build a small fire. He moved over and looked at the seashell that the kid wanted him to see. It was just like the last twenty he’d showed him.

  Hank stood there for a moment, then said, “Listen, kid.”

  Theodore looked up from kneeling in a bed of kelp, his fists filled with seashells.

  Hank nodded down the beach. “I’m going to walk down that way and search that section of beach. You stay here and go through the seaweed. Make a pile of anything you find.”

  “Okay!”

  “And don’t wander off. Keep me in sight. You understand?”

  Theodore nodded seriously.

  And Hank moved on.

  Muddy lay inside his bottle, three plush tasseled pillows behind his head, the sound of waves crashing in the distance. No bouncing around. No flying through the air. Just peace and quiet. Everything was in its place. And he was reading a dime novel.

  Terrible Tom Torture was about to abscond with brave lawman Bowie Bradshaw’s horse and his woman, Clementine Purdy, in The Adventures of Bushwhacking Bowie Bradshaw. It was one of the small books he had slipped inside his bottle before he had granted his former master his last wish.

  He was just reading the part where Tom had raised his Colt to shoot Bowie in the back when Muddy heard something and looked up, listening.

  Thud . . . thud . . . thud!

  He dropped his book and stared up at the stopper way up in the top of his bottle. Had he heard footsteps?

  Thud . . . thud . . . thud . . .

  There they were again. They were clearly footsteps. He shot off his bed and leaped up and down. His purple turban slipped over one eye, and he shoved it back on his head. The bells on the curly toes of his shoes tinkled, and he waved his hands frantically.

  Here I am! Here I am! Find me!

  He stopped and held his breath, listening, waiting, hoping.

  There was no sound but the surge of the sea.

  A moment later, the footsteps just walked past.

  Muddy stood staring at his stopper, then he looked at his rug for a moment, sighed, and sagged back against the cushions. The same thing had happened so many times over the years that disappointment was becoming a natural emotion.

  He glanced back at the novel, but he’d lost interest in Bowie Bradshaw’s troubles. He rested his chin on his hand and wished for a little luck and excitement in his boring and lonely existence.

  A second later the bottle tilted suddenly, then shook up and down. Muddy flew back and forth, tumbling upside down and sideways. He bounced on the cushions and pillows and ducked when the cursed baseball bat flew past his head.

  Then it happened.

  The stopper popped open.

  A shaft of bright golden sunlight pierced the bottle’s interior.

  In a cloud of purple smoke, Muddy blasted upward. Like the suction in a waterspout, air pulled at his silk turban and sucked on his golden earrings. A cloud of magical purple smoke swirled around him, and he passed through the mouth of the bottle into the thick, sweet-smelling air of the tropics.

  He curled in a smoky circle and spiraled to the ground. His feet hit the sand. He put his right hand to his forehead and bent low in a salaam while the cloud dissipated.

  The ancient lines of the genii ran through his head by rote. He had said the words Greetings, oh master enough throughout the centuries. But in a moment of whimsy, his mind flashed with the image of hero Bowie Bradshaw.

  Muddy drop
ped the salaam and raised his head. He tugged on the waist of his billowing pants. “Whoa . . . Howdy there, pardner! This here’s yor lucky day!”

  He heard a loud gasp. It was always the same. Disbelief. Skepticism. Cynicism. He waved the smoke aside and blinked a couple of times.

  The bright sunshine turned his vision into a blur for a second. He shook his head slightly and rubbed a hand over his eyes, then stared at the face of his newest master—a little red-haired boy.

  Chapter 13

  “You’re a child.”

  “You’re a genie!”

  Muddy clamped his gaping mouth shut. The boy’s speech was American. He was red haired, freckled, and small, barely three feet tall. He was dressed in ragged brown pants with the cuffs rolled up and patches of damp sand on the knees. Sticks of driftwood and bits of mossy rope stuck out of his baggy pants’ pockets.

  He wore no shoes, and his bare toes curled in the wet foam of a receding wave. Next to the boy’s right foot, the silver stopper from his bottle lay amid a scattering of spilled seashells and bits of cobalt glass.

  A rope of kelp the color of Greek olives hung around the open neck of the boy’s dirty white shirt. Low on his forehead he wore a crown of floppy waxy green banana leaves artlessly woven into a makeshift cap that looked like a tropical version of Nero’s olive wreath.

  “A real honest-to-goodness genie,” the boy said with such utter belief and awe that Muddy wanted to prostrate himself at the boy’s bare feet.

  A believer . . . a believer! Praise Allah and belly up to the bar, boys!

  The boy looked from him back to the silver bottle. He raised the bottle to his eye and squinted inside for a second, then stared at Muddy. He frowned. “How’d you get through there?”

  Muddy watched the boy closely. “The same way St. Nicholas comes down the chimney.”

  The boy’s eyes grew as big as golden dinar. “Do you know Santa Claus?”

  Muddy crossed his arms over his chest. “Do reindeer fly?”

  “Santa’s reindeer do.” There was no doubt in the child’s voice.

  Yes! Yes! Yes! A true believer!

  The boy looked inside the bottle, turning it this way and that way.

  “As surely as reindeer fly, I”—Muddy thumped his chest with a thumb—“know Santa Claus.”

  The boy gave him a freckled grin.

  Muddy took a deep breath and tapped together the thick gold bracelets on his wrists three times. He placed his right palm on his forehead and bent low. “Greetings, oh master!” He turned and peeked out from beneath his arm at the boy staring at him in rapt wonder. “I am Muhdula Ali, ancient purple genie of Persia. As a reward for freeing my most humble and subservient self from the lonely and desolate confines of my sadly unadorned silver bottle—”

  “Huh?”

  Still bent in a salaam, Muddy turned his head slightly and winked at his new master. “Give me a minute. I haven’t gotten to the important part yet. Now where was I?” Muddy stared at the sand and mouthed the ancient words. “Ah, yes, my sadly unadorned silver bottle, I, the most gratefully indebted purple genie, bondaged slave to—” He paused and shot a quick look back at the boy. “What’s your name?”

  “Theodore.”

  “To my master, Theodore, hereby grant him three wishes.” Muddy dropped the salaam and straightened. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

  “Wishes? I get wishes?”

  Muddy nodded. “Three wishes.”

  “Holy cow!”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Huh?”

  “Cows are holy. But I wouldn’t wish for one. They can start fires.”

  The boy’s face creased into a confused frown. Muddy gave a wave of his hand. “Never mind.” “I know my wish, I know, I know!” Theodore hopped up and down in excitement. “I wish my mother and father were alive again!”

  Muddy should have explained the limitations first. He dropped his arms at his side. “I’m sorry, Master Theodore, but my powers cannot bring back those who have died.”

  “You can’t?” The boy’s face fell.

  Muddy shook his head.

  “Why?”

  “I can only fulfill wishes in this life.”

  The boy just stood staring at the sand. A lazy wave sloshed over his bare feet and ankles, but the boy didn’t look up or move. In a moment thicker than the tropical air, he squatted down and picked up a couple of the seashells near his feet, then turned one over in his small hand. Muddy had the feeling he wasn’t seeing the shells. When the boy finally looked up at him, it was through the damp eyes of a wounded child. “That was the only wish I had.”

  A little while later Margaret was crouched down on all fours, her cheek pressed to the sand as she stared at a pile of wood that refused to light. She struck another safety match just as the rope at her waist jerked her back.

  She turned. “Annabelle! Come here.” She waited. “Annabelle!” The match singed her fingers. “Ouch!” She dropped it and stuck her burned finger in her mouth.

  Annabelle was running in circles again.

  She sat back on her heels. “Come here right now, Annabelle. Annabelle! I’m talking to you.”

  The baby stopped and looked at her, then plopped down in the sand and grinned. After a long pause, she waved her tiny hand. “Hi!”

  “Come here, please.” Margaret patted the ground next to her. “Come here.”

  The baby stuck her two fingers in her mouth and grinned.

  Margaret plopped down in the sand herself and rested her arms on her raised knees. About twenty feet separated them.

  Annabelle watched her as if doing so were the most important thing in world.

  Margaret returned her look. “Why won’t you do what I ask? Why? I’ve tried talking to you. I’ve been patient. I’ve asked nicely. I’ve asked repeatedly. This is getting absurd. You know that, don’t you?” Margaret poked herself in the collarbone with one finger. “I’m the adult here. Do you understand? Me. You are the child.”

  Annabelle raised one hand and wiggled her fingers at her. “Hi.”

  Margaret sighed. She couldn’t reason with her. When could one reason with a child? Wasn’t everyone born with the ability to reason?

  It was as bad as talking to Hank. And she got the same results. None.

  Margaret cast a quick glance at the pot of mussels she had gathered from the beach. Cooking them couldn’t be that difficult, she thought.

  Lighting the fire was another matter. She stared at the pile of driftwood. It was too damp to catch from just the small quick flame of a match.

  She thought about it for a moment, then picked up a piece of wood and broke it in half. It wasn’t soaked through, just damp from last night’s rain. She tossed it on the pile and tried to light the dry center of the wood with a third match, something she knew she shouldn’t be wasting.

  Still nothing. She stared at the wood for a minute. She needed something she could burn long enough to make the wood catch. She looked around for something useless to burn without the worry that she’d be sorry later.

  After going through all their supplies, she gave up. There wasn’t one thing she felt she could burn.

  The rope yanked on her waist again. She’d had enough. She whipped her head around. “Annabelle!”

  The baby was toddling toward her, Hank’s whiskey bottle in her small hand.

  “Oh, you brilliant child. There is something completely useless.” Margaret smiled and reached out her arms. Annabelle toddled into them and sat in her lap and let her take the bottle away. “What a good little girl you are.” She gave the baby a gentle pat on the head.

  Margaret pulled out the cork, lifted the bottle to her nose, and shuddered. It was strong. She read the label.

  One hundred and twenty proof, which as she recalled meant it was sixty percent alcohol.

  She smiled.

  She got one of the pots and pans Hank had given her—bless his cocky black heart—and she dumped the rest of the whiskey int
o it. She tossed a lit match in the pan. And whoosh! Blue flames danced around the pan.

  She laughed rather wickedly as she stuck a piece of wood into the flame.

  A few minutes later she had the perfect fire. She picked up the empty bottle and grinned, then tossed it over her shoulder in the same who-needs-it kind of way Hank had tossed away things. Then she sat there, Annabelle in her lap as she watched the fire lick into the air.

  She gave a big sigh. Cooking might not be so difficult after all.

  Hank walked back up the beach and felt someone’s stare. He looked up, and he saw Lydia standing there, her arms loaded with driftwood.

  Odd, he’d have thought she would have stayed with Smitty. But she was looking off in the distance, toward the thick jungle and the volcano.

  He closed the distance between them, then stopped when he was a few feet away from her.

  She glanced back at him, then said, “I found some driftwood.”

  Hank nodded at the crate. “Drop it in there.”

  She started to take a step but stopped. “Do you think anyone will find us?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Hank! Hank!” Theodore came running up the beach. “Look what I found! Look!”

  Another seashell, Hank thought with an internal groan.

  Theodore tripped and fell, then quickly scampered up. He ran toward them with something in his hand.

  Lydia touched Hank’s arm. “How do you know when a volcano erupts?”

  Hank glanced back at her. “There’s smoke and ash in the air. Why?”

  “Look.” She pointed toward the west. “Is that a volcano?”

  Hank turned around. Above a thick grove of trees and bushes near the sand, a large and billowing black cloud rose into the air.

  “That’s no volcano. That’s coming from the beach!” He dropped everything and took off running, the children following after him.

  Muddy had completely forgotten to explain to Theodore that he shouldn’t run. So he clamped a large pillow over his head and hung onto the bed, which he’d long ago bolted to the base of the bottle. A good thing, too. When Theodore ran, everything flew.