Last part of short story!
PART 6!!! THE END!!!
PART 6 - THE EXTRA ONE
“But Benny!” wailed Robin, after only a moment’s pause. “The genie said YOU had to make the wishes, because you’re the one who broke his house!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” snorted Benjamin, not even seeming to notice anymore that she was calling him Benny all the time. “But he never said I couldn’t WISH that you’d have my wishes. This guy’s middle name is loophole… Pyrex Loophole Genie. So, whatever. I found one. Two can play that game, so ha.”
“Yeah but now it’s ME who has to come up with some profound solution!”
Benjamin smiled sheepishly. “Well, you’re really smart… you’ll come up with something awesome. Way better than anything I could have.” Benjamin scraped his sneaker against the driveway, but his grin faded as Robin fell silent and pensive.
An hour passed in total silence. “…Are you mad at me now?” Benjamin finally asked.
“Naw, Benny, I’m not mad,” sighed Robin. “Just trying to decide what to do… Can you just leave me alone for awhile?”
“Sure…” Benjamin stood up stiffly and shuffled off to his house. He looked back over his shoulder once, wanting to help, but she was lost by then in her own world and he didn’t dare disturb her.
Robin sat for a long time, contemplating. She was remembering only a few days earlier, the evening she’d sat in the skater’s park, dreaming about the one thing she’d wish for herself if she wanted to be truly selfish with her wish: Benjamin’s heart, of course. It was the one thing she’d dreamed of, wanted and believed in for the past five years. She couldn’t even say why, exactly. She knew that all the other girls had given up on him by freshman year of high school, but something in her had continued to believe that something good lived in him at his core, waiting for another chance to shine. And in the last week, she’d started to witness him coming back to life like a long-dormant river flowing over with fresh spring rain. She even believed it would last. Robin’s mind went round and round over the issue for several hours, right there on the pavement of Benjamin’s driveway, until… “Argh!” she gasped out with mental anguish. “It would be wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!”
“Genie!” she hollered.
The genie floated obligingly up from the driveway directly at her feet. At first only his head showed, and his brow was raised curiously. Eventually his whole body emerged and he hovered just above the asphalt, eyes sparkling with interest. “…mmm hmm?” he simpered.
“Genie…” began Robin tentatively. She cleared her throat and smoothed her hair.
“You look worked up,” said the genie, and Robin thought she could actually detect a trace of compassion in his smooth tone this time.
“Well,” began Robin, “Benny tried wishing for something stupid and meaningless. But it changed everything. Then he tried to wish for something awesome; something to change someone’s life. But you tricked him, and it backfired. Something terrible happened. Finally, he gave up and let go of trying to manipulate the situation, wishing for something good to come out of all this, and we don’t even know what happened, but we believe and hope it was something genuinely good.”
“Sounds familiar,” nodded the genie in demure agreement.
“So… I have this wish in my heart that’s been there for years… but I think it would be wrong.”
“I can guess what it is. Once again, human psychology, not rocket science, my dear.” The Pyrex Genie patted the top of Robin’s head affectionately, but she couldn’t feel his wispy fingers.
“Would it… would it be so wrong?” whispered Robin.
“Course not, my dear. You should always wish for whatever you truly want,” coaxed the genie.
Robin narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“And, of course you’re wishing for Benjamin to fall in love with you?” he continued.
“Well, yeah…” Robin nodded. “Why are you being so nice now?”
The genie began to cackle madly, rocking back and forth on his haunches and holding his belly. “HOOO BOY,” laughed the genie, tears streaming down his face and turning into smoke in the air. It looked like he was crying dry ice. “HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
He wouldn’t stop laughing for several minutes, and Robin started to cry. “Why are you laughing?” she asked him.
“You said you wish for Benjamin to fall in love with you!”
“Yeah,” she said, flinching at the thought.
“IT SHALL BE SO!!!!!!” screamed that horrible spectre once more, and then he vanished, without smoke, without sparks, and without a sound.
“What?” Robin blinked in confusion. “But… I didn’t actually WISH for it! I never said I was wishing for that!”
But the sound of emptiness was all that answered her. That, and her own sobs catching in her throat. “What have I done?” she whispered, and then she got up and went home in a trance, certain only that she must never see her dear friend again.
Benjamin had slept long and hard that night, but woke up at ten a.m. on the dot. For a moment he felt a sort of blissful unawareness he had not known in a long, long time. But suddenly the events of the last week, and especially the last evening, hurtled back into his mind and shook him out of bed. He felt terrible for what he had thrust upon Robin last night, the burden she must now be trying to sort out. He didn’t want her to go through that alone… or for her to go through anything else alone, for that matter. He wanted to care for her, to protect her, and for her to be happy.
Oh, and there was something else, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He jumped to the floor, something nagging him in the dark corners of his being… a feeling that was all at once alive and urgent and strangely familiar. He had the sense that there was something he had to do, some important task that had been left undone for far too long. Then it flashed into the forefront of his awareness: “Robin!” his heart seemed to scream. He blinked and began to sweat. “I’m… in love with her?” he queried breathlessly. And as soon as he’d spoken the words, that same laughter he’d experienced a few days before came rushing back in reply, and he knew it was true. Without another thought, Benjamin threw on the nearest clothing he could find, putting on his same old Atreyu shirt once more, inside out this time, and forgetting to lace up his sneakers. He then raced out his front door and sprinted, bee-line fashion, for her house.
Benjamin rang her doorbell and waited impatiently on the doorstep, out of breath. When she opened it, still wearing the same bright orange flowing skirt and black tank top she’d had on the night before, and her face all red with the remnants of tears, he thought she’d never looked more radiant.
“Robin, I love you!” he gasped. “And I think you love me too! I think we’ve loved each other for ages!” He nearly choked on the words, but he got them out, then looked hopefully and directly into her eyes.
Robin slammed the door in his face. Benjamin stared with shock at the wooden door, ornate and beautifully carved, and listened to the friendly splashing of the fountain in the front yard.
Robin, slouching down the other side of the door and sinking onto the ground, began to cry again. She had only stopped an hour earlier, for pity’s sake, and had not slept all night. She heard a soft tapping against the door, the tapping of her best friend, and a person whom she loved with all her heart; a person whose freedom she had never meant to take away.
The door opened again to Benjamin with a soft, inviting click. “Benny, I’m so, so sorry. I really didn’t mean to do that… it was… uh… a reflex,” she stammered helplessly.
“That’s the reflex you have when you hear the words ‘I love you’?” he asked dejectedly, “Or is that just when you hear it from me?”
“Noooo?” she attempted. And then, “NO,” she repeated more assertively. “Benny… I messed up.”
His eyes went wide with surprised and confusion. “You messed up? How?”
Robin just looked at him with chagrin and remorse, and suddenly the light dawned on his face. “You DID NOT wish what I think you wished, did you?” he demanded.
“I didn’t mean to…” she asserted in confusion.
“Just like you didn’t mean to slam the door in my face,” Benjamin replied with deadly calm. “Right! Well that just sucks! Now how am I supposed to ever STOP feeling this way?!” His voice began to escalate as rage sank into him at this betrayal. I can’t believe you would be that stupid… how could you trust that genie? He’s such a liar! He’s been nothing but a liar this whole time, and you went ahead and wished for something that affects ME?! I wondered why I suddenly had these feelings! After all these years… our friendship ruined… And now what? Am I supposed to just go on feeling this way forever?! Did you want me to be your slave, too, while I’m at it? Or WHAT?!” Benjamin’s face had turned a bright, angry scarlet and a couple tears were actually forming in his eyes because of his obviously raising blood pressure.
“I’m sorry,” Robin muttered. “Benny, it was such a mistake… and I… I don’t expect you to ever love me, or speak to me, after this. You’re free to go.” Her eyes were dim as if the light of her soul had been extinguished right out of them for good.
“Free! HAH! You basically just put a SPELL on me! That SUCKS!” exclaimed Benjamin, and he stormed away from the house, down the driveway and disappeared at the end of the street.
Robin sat limply on the front stoop of her house, and now her mind would not stop echoing all of Benjamin’s angry statements. “Friendship ruined… did you want me to be your slave?...” Like a broken record, it went on and on: “You’re so stupid… how could you wish for something that affects ME?... that genie’s been nothing but a liar this whole time…” Robin blinked. She rewound the angry tape in her head and listened to it again, and then a theory that had been gradually forming in her subconscious burst into full view. Wordlessly, purposefully, and with hope fluttering in her chest like a homing pigeon freshly released from its cage, Robin went looking for that blasted, jerky genie one more time.
Fortunately, Benny was nowhere to be found at his parents’ house. Robin could guess with fair accuracy that he’d probably gone either to the woods out back or to the skaters’ park to brood over this latest dilemma. So she felt free to roam around, banging on every object the genie had once inhabited. She kicked the watering can so hard it split in two. She knocked and knocked on that huge tree out front, clattered the lid against the trashcan, ringing it metallically. She threw pebbles at the eaves of the house, and stomped and jumped on the driveway, all the while screaming things like, “PYREX! Get your stupid, trickster ass out here and face me like a MAN,” accompanied by numerous expletives. “You’re still around here, aren’t you?! Still around here gloating over what you just did! Had a nice laugh, have you?! GET OUT HERE NOW!” And by now her voice had become so shrill that she could hear windows being slammed down the street.
“Shut up! It’s still before noon and people are sleeping!” someone hollered.
And then he was there, after all, still smirking and beaming at all the chaos he seemed to thrive on.
“You!” Robin practically yelped as he floated, transparently, calmly, and ghost-like, through the front door of Benny’s house as if he’d been living in there comfortably for some time and only just now felt like emerging to check out what sort of serene day the neighborhood was having. He drifted over to her, standing on the sidewalk, and joined her there with a condescending smile on his wide face.
“Yeeeees?” he asked placidly.
“You’re the FOURTH TYPE of genie, aren’t you?” demanded Robin, pointing an accusing finger straight at the region of his heart.
“I beg your royal pardon?” queried the genie. “Excuse me, but if you want an interrogation, I think I’ll just make myself comfortable.” With that, the genie poofed away and then rematerialized wearing pink bunny bedroom slippers and a long red-and-white striped bathrobe. He looked like a candy cane, right there on the sidewalk on a sweltering morning in July. “Hehe,” he snickered.
“Yeah, funny,” glowered Robin. “I figured it out,” she insisted, and she plowed onward. “You’re a liar. A numero-uno bullshit artist. Are you even for real at all?”
“You should know, from experience,” declared the genie, smiling phonily. “You’ve seen the affects of my power!” He flexed his muscles, and then giggled once again, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It really was the most irritating thing Robin had ever seen or heard.
“Let’s review the facts,” said Robin coyly. “You claimed that you were ancient, that you’d lived in all these old artifacts and profoundly affected history. But all the things you knew about Benny and me, like about his dad, and my feelings for him, you got just by observing us. You said Benny had to make the wishes! But then you let him give one to me! You said we’d disappear if he didn’t wish within three days, but when he went over the time limit, nothing happened. You said the opposite of whatever we wished for would happen, but when Benny wished for the dog to die you took it quite literally!”
“Aha, but I did make the dog die!” exclaimed the genie with glee, “and I made that girl fall in love with that guy in the skaters’ park!”
“It was a fluke!” shouted Robin victoriously, as if carrying the baton across the finish line in an Olympic relay race. “That’s why you were stalling when he made the wish about the dog. You knew you didn’t have that kind of power. You had to WAIT until that car was driving by, and all you did was make a rabbit run out of a bush. Sure, you changed the color of a guy’s shorts, but SO WHAT? You call that MIGHTY POWER?! You’re a total and complete fraud! I’ll bet you didn’t even do anything for that third wish, and that’s why you’re STILL HERE! Cause you can’t leave until you actually DO make something good happen!”
“You forget,” the Pyrex genie blithely remarked, “that I just made Monsieur Benjamin fall in love with you, because you’re a selfish little brat and would rather have what you want than your friend’s freedom! But what’s done is done, and I made him love you, so there’s no taking it back.” He began to twitch anxiously, shifting his legs in the air and tightening his ugly candy-cane bathrobe around his torso.
“Or did you?” Robin narrowed her eyes at him.
“Eh? Come again? Did you not just SEE the results?” mocked the genie.
“I posit that there WAS no fourth wish at all!” exclaimed Robin, eyes ablaze with the fire of her certainty. “That’s why it didn’t matter that I didn’t ACTUALLY make that wish! Cause it was all a trick” Robin folded her arms over her chest defiantly while the genie regarded her with a long, awkward stare.
He was silent for an expansive minute, chewing his lips and staring at her with ominous eyes. “Clever girl,” he finally muttered.
“Yes, I am,” she said, quite proudly, and stood a little bit taller. “And I think I know how you got this way. My Aunt Claire said there is great power in intention. She said nowadays, people don’t understand magic, or even know that it exists. You…” and Robin once more pointed her unwavering finger at the genie before dropping the death blow. “…you… are an ACCIDENTAL genie! You stumbled accidentally into genie-hood, probably by tampering with some magical object you didn’t even understand. Because there was almost no intention in what you did, you have almost NO power. You can make a bunny scared, or change the color of someone’s shorts. But that’s ABOUT IT!” Just to emphasize her final point, Robin stuck her tongue out impertinently at the genie.
The genie opened his mouth, closed it, then re-opened it, and finally cleared his throat as if to speak. However, he was interrupted by the sound of someone screaming, “Robin!!!!!!” and then they both turned to see Benny running up the road at full tilt from the direction of the skaters’ park.
Benjamin ran up panting, once more, and stopped right across from Robin. He didn’t seem to notice that the genie was hovering there, looking deflated and forlorn. “Robin,” he panted, “I…” He had to stop for a few minutes to recover his voice. When he looked up into her face, his eyes were beaming exultantly at Robin. “Robin!” he began, “I don’t care that you wished for this! I’m sorry I lost my temper. I… so maybe I didn’t choose this… but so what? I love you, and I know it, and I don’t care why or how or… whatever! I just know that I love you, and it FEELS like I always have, and I couldn’t possibly stay mad at you. Please… please forgive me for being such an asshole all the time. I don’t even deserve how wonderful you are. Please, Robin… I really, really mean it…”
Robin gaped at him in wonder. She had been so distracted and delighted at finally debunking the obnoxious genie that she had failed to realize what else this meant - that when Benny had woken up that morning knowing he was in love, he had only been feeling what was truly in his heart. He loved her in freedom, after all. Moreover, he didn’t even care if she was imperfect and selfish and human enough to hurt him. He loved her in spite of that. Waves of warm joy washed over her, and she just smiled radiantly at him. Benjamin took that for enough of an answer, and he kissed her soundly.
The genie had been sitting there taking in this interaction, and as he watched them kiss on the sidewalk he began to laugh harder than ever. This shocked them back to awareness of his unpleasant presence.
“What now?” demanded Benjamin.
“Something good just came out of all this!” hollered the genie. “I’ve completed the third wish, and I am free to go! YEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!” He began to do the stupidest-looking dance either Robin or Benjamin had ever seen, which was saying a lot since they had both just completed high school. It consisted of him clapping both his feet together and smacking his hands on top of his head as if it were a bongo drum. He then bounced back and forth up and down the sidewalk with absolute glee, exclaiming, “You stupid kids! You stupid little pawns! Experience my POWER! By the way, you two look HORRIBLE, with your inside-out shirts, your swollen red eyes, your shoelaces untied.” With mirthful laughter, he ricocheted off the gigantic tree along the road, off the trashcan lid, off the pavement of the driveway, off the watering can, as if to touch once more all the places he’d briefly called home. “HAHAHAHAHA! I WIN! I TRICKED YOU! And I’m FREE!” He was grinning from ear to ear, a horrendous sight.
“Whatever, Pyrex,” snorted Benjamin, too joyful to care about some rude genie. He started into his house, clearly expecting that Robin would follow. But she didn’t, at first. The Pyrex Genie was putting on quite a display. She watched the genie pummel his surroundings ecstatically, gloating and gurgling at his own cleverness. “I WIIINNNN!” he screamed as he finally jet-propelled himself into the sky. “Stupid kids!!!” It was the last thing that could be heard as he disappeared over the rooftops, a gleaming speck growing farther and farther away in the bright summer light. Even after he’d completely vanished, Robin cocked her ear and thought she heard one more time, distantly, “I WIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNN!”
“That’s what you think,” said Robin, following Benny into the house.
PART 6 - THE EXTRA ONE
“But Benny!” wailed Robin, after only a moment’s pause. “The genie said YOU had to make the wishes, because you’re the one who broke his house!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” snorted Benjamin, not even seeming to notice anymore that she was calling him Benny all the time. “But he never said I couldn’t WISH that you’d have my wishes. This guy’s middle name is loophole… Pyrex Loophole Genie. So, whatever. I found one. Two can play that game, so ha.”
“Yeah but now it’s ME who has to come up with some profound solution!”
Benjamin smiled sheepishly. “Well, you’re really smart… you’ll come up with something awesome. Way better than anything I could have.” Benjamin scraped his sneaker against the driveway, but his grin faded as Robin fell silent and pensive.
An hour passed in total silence. “…Are you mad at me now?” Benjamin finally asked.
“Naw, Benny, I’m not mad,” sighed Robin. “Just trying to decide what to do… Can you just leave me alone for awhile?”
“Sure…” Benjamin stood up stiffly and shuffled off to his house. He looked back over his shoulder once, wanting to help, but she was lost by then in her own world and he didn’t dare disturb her.
Robin sat for a long time, contemplating. She was remembering only a few days earlier, the evening she’d sat in the skater’s park, dreaming about the one thing she’d wish for herself if she wanted to be truly selfish with her wish: Benjamin’s heart, of course. It was the one thing she’d dreamed of, wanted and believed in for the past five years. She couldn’t even say why, exactly. She knew that all the other girls had given up on him by freshman year of high school, but something in her had continued to believe that something good lived in him at his core, waiting for another chance to shine. And in the last week, she’d started to witness him coming back to life like a long-dormant river flowing over with fresh spring rain. She even believed it would last. Robin’s mind went round and round over the issue for several hours, right there on the pavement of Benjamin’s driveway, until… “Argh!” she gasped out with mental anguish. “It would be wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!”
“Genie!” she hollered.
The genie floated obligingly up from the driveway directly at her feet. At first only his head showed, and his brow was raised curiously. Eventually his whole body emerged and he hovered just above the asphalt, eyes sparkling with interest. “…mmm hmm?” he simpered.
“Genie…” began Robin tentatively. She cleared her throat and smoothed her hair.
“You look worked up,” said the genie, and Robin thought she could actually detect a trace of compassion in his smooth tone this time.
“Well,” began Robin, “Benny tried wishing for something stupid and meaningless. But it changed everything. Then he tried to wish for something awesome; something to change someone’s life. But you tricked him, and it backfired. Something terrible happened. Finally, he gave up and let go of trying to manipulate the situation, wishing for something good to come out of all this, and we don’t even know what happened, but we believe and hope it was something genuinely good.”
“Sounds familiar,” nodded the genie in demure agreement.
“So… I have this wish in my heart that’s been there for years… but I think it would be wrong.”
“I can guess what it is. Once again, human psychology, not rocket science, my dear.” The Pyrex Genie patted the top of Robin’s head affectionately, but she couldn’t feel his wispy fingers.
“Would it… would it be so wrong?” whispered Robin.
“Course not, my dear. You should always wish for whatever you truly want,” coaxed the genie.
Robin narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“And, of course you’re wishing for Benjamin to fall in love with you?” he continued.
“Well, yeah…” Robin nodded. “Why are you being so nice now?”
The genie began to cackle madly, rocking back and forth on his haunches and holding his belly. “HOOO BOY,” laughed the genie, tears streaming down his face and turning into smoke in the air. It looked like he was crying dry ice. “HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
He wouldn’t stop laughing for several minutes, and Robin started to cry. “Why are you laughing?” she asked him.
“You said you wish for Benjamin to fall in love with you!”
“Yeah,” she said, flinching at the thought.
“IT SHALL BE SO!!!!!!” screamed that horrible spectre once more, and then he vanished, without smoke, without sparks, and without a sound.
“What?” Robin blinked in confusion. “But… I didn’t actually WISH for it! I never said I was wishing for that!”
But the sound of emptiness was all that answered her. That, and her own sobs catching in her throat. “What have I done?” she whispered, and then she got up and went home in a trance, certain only that she must never see her dear friend again.
Benjamin had slept long and hard that night, but woke up at ten a.m. on the dot. For a moment he felt a sort of blissful unawareness he had not known in a long, long time. But suddenly the events of the last week, and especially the last evening, hurtled back into his mind and shook him out of bed. He felt terrible for what he had thrust upon Robin last night, the burden she must now be trying to sort out. He didn’t want her to go through that alone… or for her to go through anything else alone, for that matter. He wanted to care for her, to protect her, and for her to be happy.
Oh, and there was something else, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He jumped to the floor, something nagging him in the dark corners of his being… a feeling that was all at once alive and urgent and strangely familiar. He had the sense that there was something he had to do, some important task that had been left undone for far too long. Then it flashed into the forefront of his awareness: “Robin!” his heart seemed to scream. He blinked and began to sweat. “I’m… in love with her?” he queried breathlessly. And as soon as he’d spoken the words, that same laughter he’d experienced a few days before came rushing back in reply, and he knew it was true. Without another thought, Benjamin threw on the nearest clothing he could find, putting on his same old Atreyu shirt once more, inside out this time, and forgetting to lace up his sneakers. He then raced out his front door and sprinted, bee-line fashion, for her house.
Benjamin rang her doorbell and waited impatiently on the doorstep, out of breath. When she opened it, still wearing the same bright orange flowing skirt and black tank top she’d had on the night before, and her face all red with the remnants of tears, he thought she’d never looked more radiant.
“Robin, I love you!” he gasped. “And I think you love me too! I think we’ve loved each other for ages!” He nearly choked on the words, but he got them out, then looked hopefully and directly into her eyes.
Robin slammed the door in his face. Benjamin stared with shock at the wooden door, ornate and beautifully carved, and listened to the friendly splashing of the fountain in the front yard.
Robin, slouching down the other side of the door and sinking onto the ground, began to cry again. She had only stopped an hour earlier, for pity’s sake, and had not slept all night. She heard a soft tapping against the door, the tapping of her best friend, and a person whom she loved with all her heart; a person whose freedom she had never meant to take away.
The door opened again to Benjamin with a soft, inviting click. “Benny, I’m so, so sorry. I really didn’t mean to do that… it was… uh… a reflex,” she stammered helplessly.
“That’s the reflex you have when you hear the words ‘I love you’?” he asked dejectedly, “Or is that just when you hear it from me?”
“Noooo?” she attempted. And then, “NO,” she repeated more assertively. “Benny… I messed up.”
His eyes went wide with surprised and confusion. “You messed up? How?”
Robin just looked at him with chagrin and remorse, and suddenly the light dawned on his face. “You DID NOT wish what I think you wished, did you?” he demanded.
“I didn’t mean to…” she asserted in confusion.
“Just like you didn’t mean to slam the door in my face,” Benjamin replied with deadly calm. “Right! Well that just sucks! Now how am I supposed to ever STOP feeling this way?!” His voice began to escalate as rage sank into him at this betrayal. I can’t believe you would be that stupid… how could you trust that genie? He’s such a liar! He’s been nothing but a liar this whole time, and you went ahead and wished for something that affects ME?! I wondered why I suddenly had these feelings! After all these years… our friendship ruined… And now what? Am I supposed to just go on feeling this way forever?! Did you want me to be your slave, too, while I’m at it? Or WHAT?!” Benjamin’s face had turned a bright, angry scarlet and a couple tears were actually forming in his eyes because of his obviously raising blood pressure.
“I’m sorry,” Robin muttered. “Benny, it was such a mistake… and I… I don’t expect you to ever love me, or speak to me, after this. You’re free to go.” Her eyes were dim as if the light of her soul had been extinguished right out of them for good.
“Free! HAH! You basically just put a SPELL on me! That SUCKS!” exclaimed Benjamin, and he stormed away from the house, down the driveway and disappeared at the end of the street.
Robin sat limply on the front stoop of her house, and now her mind would not stop echoing all of Benjamin’s angry statements. “Friendship ruined… did you want me to be your slave?...” Like a broken record, it went on and on: “You’re so stupid… how could you wish for something that affects ME?... that genie’s been nothing but a liar this whole time…” Robin blinked. She rewound the angry tape in her head and listened to it again, and then a theory that had been gradually forming in her subconscious burst into full view. Wordlessly, purposefully, and with hope fluttering in her chest like a homing pigeon freshly released from its cage, Robin went looking for that blasted, jerky genie one more time.
Fortunately, Benny was nowhere to be found at his parents’ house. Robin could guess with fair accuracy that he’d probably gone either to the woods out back or to the skaters’ park to brood over this latest dilemma. So she felt free to roam around, banging on every object the genie had once inhabited. She kicked the watering can so hard it split in two. She knocked and knocked on that huge tree out front, clattered the lid against the trashcan, ringing it metallically. She threw pebbles at the eaves of the house, and stomped and jumped on the driveway, all the while screaming things like, “PYREX! Get your stupid, trickster ass out here and face me like a MAN,” accompanied by numerous expletives. “You’re still around here, aren’t you?! Still around here gloating over what you just did! Had a nice laugh, have you?! GET OUT HERE NOW!” And by now her voice had become so shrill that she could hear windows being slammed down the street.
“Shut up! It’s still before noon and people are sleeping!” someone hollered.
And then he was there, after all, still smirking and beaming at all the chaos he seemed to thrive on.
“You!” Robin practically yelped as he floated, transparently, calmly, and ghost-like, through the front door of Benny’s house as if he’d been living in there comfortably for some time and only just now felt like emerging to check out what sort of serene day the neighborhood was having. He drifted over to her, standing on the sidewalk, and joined her there with a condescending smile on his wide face.
“Yeeeees?” he asked placidly.
“You’re the FOURTH TYPE of genie, aren’t you?” demanded Robin, pointing an accusing finger straight at the region of his heart.
“I beg your royal pardon?” queried the genie. “Excuse me, but if you want an interrogation, I think I’ll just make myself comfortable.” With that, the genie poofed away and then rematerialized wearing pink bunny bedroom slippers and a long red-and-white striped bathrobe. He looked like a candy cane, right there on the sidewalk on a sweltering morning in July. “Hehe,” he snickered.
“Yeah, funny,” glowered Robin. “I figured it out,” she insisted, and she plowed onward. “You’re a liar. A numero-uno bullshit artist. Are you even for real at all?”
“You should know, from experience,” declared the genie, smiling phonily. “You’ve seen the affects of my power!” He flexed his muscles, and then giggled once again, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It really was the most irritating thing Robin had ever seen or heard.
“Let’s review the facts,” said Robin coyly. “You claimed that you were ancient, that you’d lived in all these old artifacts and profoundly affected history. But all the things you knew about Benny and me, like about his dad, and my feelings for him, you got just by observing us. You said Benny had to make the wishes! But then you let him give one to me! You said we’d disappear if he didn’t wish within three days, but when he went over the time limit, nothing happened. You said the opposite of whatever we wished for would happen, but when Benny wished for the dog to die you took it quite literally!”
“Aha, but I did make the dog die!” exclaimed the genie with glee, “and I made that girl fall in love with that guy in the skaters’ park!”
“It was a fluke!” shouted Robin victoriously, as if carrying the baton across the finish line in an Olympic relay race. “That’s why you were stalling when he made the wish about the dog. You knew you didn’t have that kind of power. You had to WAIT until that car was driving by, and all you did was make a rabbit run out of a bush. Sure, you changed the color of a guy’s shorts, but SO WHAT? You call that MIGHTY POWER?! You’re a total and complete fraud! I’ll bet you didn’t even do anything for that third wish, and that’s why you’re STILL HERE! Cause you can’t leave until you actually DO make something good happen!”
“You forget,” the Pyrex genie blithely remarked, “that I just made Monsieur Benjamin fall in love with you, because you’re a selfish little brat and would rather have what you want than your friend’s freedom! But what’s done is done, and I made him love you, so there’s no taking it back.” He began to twitch anxiously, shifting his legs in the air and tightening his ugly candy-cane bathrobe around his torso.
“Or did you?” Robin narrowed her eyes at him.
“Eh? Come again? Did you not just SEE the results?” mocked the genie.
“I posit that there WAS no fourth wish at all!” exclaimed Robin, eyes ablaze with the fire of her certainty. “That’s why it didn’t matter that I didn’t ACTUALLY make that wish! Cause it was all a trick” Robin folded her arms over her chest defiantly while the genie regarded her with a long, awkward stare.
He was silent for an expansive minute, chewing his lips and staring at her with ominous eyes. “Clever girl,” he finally muttered.
“Yes, I am,” she said, quite proudly, and stood a little bit taller. “And I think I know how you got this way. My Aunt Claire said there is great power in intention. She said nowadays, people don’t understand magic, or even know that it exists. You…” and Robin once more pointed her unwavering finger at the genie before dropping the death blow. “…you… are an ACCIDENTAL genie! You stumbled accidentally into genie-hood, probably by tampering with some magical object you didn’t even understand. Because there was almost no intention in what you did, you have almost NO power. You can make a bunny scared, or change the color of someone’s shorts. But that’s ABOUT IT!” Just to emphasize her final point, Robin stuck her tongue out impertinently at the genie.
The genie opened his mouth, closed it, then re-opened it, and finally cleared his throat as if to speak. However, he was interrupted by the sound of someone screaming, “Robin!!!!!!” and then they both turned to see Benny running up the road at full tilt from the direction of the skaters’ park.
Benjamin ran up panting, once more, and stopped right across from Robin. He didn’t seem to notice that the genie was hovering there, looking deflated and forlorn. “Robin,” he panted, “I…” He had to stop for a few minutes to recover his voice. When he looked up into her face, his eyes were beaming exultantly at Robin. “Robin!” he began, “I don’t care that you wished for this! I’m sorry I lost my temper. I… so maybe I didn’t choose this… but so what? I love you, and I know it, and I don’t care why or how or… whatever! I just know that I love you, and it FEELS like I always have, and I couldn’t possibly stay mad at you. Please… please forgive me for being such an asshole all the time. I don’t even deserve how wonderful you are. Please, Robin… I really, really mean it…”
Robin gaped at him in wonder. She had been so distracted and delighted at finally debunking the obnoxious genie that she had failed to realize what else this meant - that when Benny had woken up that morning knowing he was in love, he had only been feeling what was truly in his heart. He loved her in freedom, after all. Moreover, he didn’t even care if she was imperfect and selfish and human enough to hurt him. He loved her in spite of that. Waves of warm joy washed over her, and she just smiled radiantly at him. Benjamin took that for enough of an answer, and he kissed her soundly.
The genie had been sitting there taking in this interaction, and as he watched them kiss on the sidewalk he began to laugh harder than ever. This shocked them back to awareness of his unpleasant presence.
“What now?” demanded Benjamin.
“Something good just came out of all this!” hollered the genie. “I’ve completed the third wish, and I am free to go! YEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!” He began to do the stupidest-looking dance either Robin or Benjamin had ever seen, which was saying a lot since they had both just completed high school. It consisted of him clapping both his feet together and smacking his hands on top of his head as if it were a bongo drum. He then bounced back and forth up and down the sidewalk with absolute glee, exclaiming, “You stupid kids! You stupid little pawns! Experience my POWER! By the way, you two look HORRIBLE, with your inside-out shirts, your swollen red eyes, your shoelaces untied.” With mirthful laughter, he ricocheted off the gigantic tree along the road, off the trashcan lid, off the pavement of the driveway, off the watering can, as if to touch once more all the places he’d briefly called home. “HAHAHAHAHA! I WIN! I TRICKED YOU! And I’m FREE!” He was grinning from ear to ear, a horrendous sight.
“Whatever, Pyrex,” snorted Benjamin, too joyful to care about some rude genie. He started into his house, clearly expecting that Robin would follow. But she didn’t, at first. The Pyrex Genie was putting on quite a display. She watched the genie pummel his surroundings ecstatically, gloating and gurgling at his own cleverness. “I WIIINNNN!” he screamed as he finally jet-propelled himself into the sky. “Stupid kids!!!” It was the last thing that could be heard as he disappeared over the rooftops, a gleaming speck growing farther and farther away in the bright summer light. Even after he’d completely vanished, Robin cocked her ear and thought she heard one more time, distantly, “I WIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNN!”
“That’s what you think,” said Robin, following Benny into the house.