Zacktastic (5 page)

“No offense,” I continue. “It's not that I think you're lying about this genie business. But maybe you're confused. I heard that can happen to old people.”

Uncle Max makes the
humphhhh
sound again. I guess I hurt his feelings. I feel bad about that. But more than that, I feel worried. People die from old age. There's nothing anyone can do about it.

“Take off your shoe,” Uncle Max says.

“Huh?”

“Your right shoe. Take it off.”

“All right,” I say. I take it off.

“The sock, too,” he says.

“Okay.”

My sock used to be white, but it's turned pink from soaking up the calamine lotion. I peel it off, and Uncle Max reaches for my foot. He
pinches the big toe between his fingers. At least he doesn't care about how badly my foot stinks. Or that it's pink and slippery. “You see this mark,” he says, “right here?”

I've had that squiggle, sort of like a backward S with a dot on top, my whole life. “My birthmark? Sure, I see it.”

“That's a genie bite.”

“Now you're saying a genie bit me?”

“No, that's just what that mark is called,” he says. “You're right that it's been there since birth—I checked both you and Quinn when you were born. The shape it takes indicates your genie age.” He pokes some more at my toe. “This shape means ten. So sometime during the year you're ten, your powers will emerge.”

My voice is supersoft, almost a whisper, when I say, “Uncle Max, I think you need to see a doctor. I think you have that Old Timer's disease.”

“You mean Alzheimer's?”

Is that what it's called? “Yeah, you should
really talk to someone about it.”

“Is that so?” he asks.

I nod miserably. Mr. Walden, my science teacher at Pinemont Elementary, is fond of saying the most likely answer is usually the correct one. And what's more likely in this case? That I'm a genie or that Uncle Max is sick and mistaken?

“Well, okay then,” Uncle Max says. “I figured it would come to this.”

“Come to what?” I ask.

But instead of answering, he licks a finger and twirls it in the air. “Watch your foot,” he tells me.

Why is Uncle Max so obsessed with my foot? Is that something that happens right before an old person dies? I'm so worried about him, and I don't know what to do.

If Dad were here,
he'd
know what to do.

Mom is the next best thing. I should go inside and call her. Better yet, I should run home. I'm about to put my shoe back on and race to her when I notice something: The mark on my
big toe has turned bright purple. It's been pale pink my whole life. Could it be a reaction to the calamine lotion? I've never heard of an allergic reaction that turns birthmarks different colors.

Wait, now it's blue. I blink a bunch of times really fast, and now it looks like it's flecked with glitter. I press the balls of my hands hard onto my eyeballs. When I remove them, my whole foot is shining like there's a lightbulb inside of it.

My heart is
boom-boom-booming
in my chest. I want to scream, but my voice is caught in my throat. What's happening to me? Is my foot going to fall off next? Or worse—am I gonna die? People can die from allergic reactions, you know.

I turn toward Uncle Max. He's changed. His white hair is combed smooth and slicked back; his mouth is set straight. Everything about him seems polished and powerful. It's him, but it's not him.

“Check it out, over there,” Uncle Max says.

Holy smokes! There's a car on the lawn! When did that get here? Now it's turning into a horse, and I'm hurling through the air toward it. I manage to land squarely on its back. It starts running around in a circle, faster and faster, and I'm clutching on for dear life. Beneath me, the horse changes to a zebra, then to a dinosaur.

A dinosaur? That's impossible! This is all impossible!

“Car, horse, zebra, dinosaur—wasn't that it?” Uncle Max says, cackling.

I'm hanging on to the dino's neck as tightly as I can. It slows to a trot, then stops completely. Then
poof
, it's gone, and I fall to the ground. Uncle Max is at my side. He scratches his hair with his fingers, and it's back to its floppy style.

“So you're a . . . ,” I say. “You're a . . .” I can't even get the word out.

“Genie,” he finishes for me. “Yes, I am.”

5

A
NGER AND
B
ARGAINING

“S
ince when?” I ask.

“Since I was born,” he says. “But my powers emerged when I was fourteen, just as yours are starting to now.”

“So that means you've been lying to me for my whole life?”

“I've never told you anything that wasn't true.”

“You didn't tell me anything at all.”

“I'm telling you now.”

Like that makes up for everything. I don't know what to think or feel. My head feels heavy with too much information. “You could've killed
me!” I practically shout.

Uncle Max shakes his head. “Nonsense. I've only come close to killing someone once, and that's a story for another time,” he says. “Now, about the gift I just gave you—”

“Oh, no,” I say, cutting him off. “I am NOT living inside that thing.”

“Zack,” Uncle Max starts.

“No way,” I tell him. “No how. I'd never get to see my friends!”

In the back of my head I can hear Quinn's voice saying,
But, Zack, you don't have any friends
.

“And how would I eat?” I go on. “And what about . . . what about when I have to go to the bathroom?”

If my feet smelled bad, the inside of that bottle would be ripe!

“It's not like a genie could fit a toilet in there,” I say.

“Slow down and look at me,” Uncle Max says. “
I'm
not living in a bottle, am I?”

“No, but—”

“Listen, what you're feeling right now is perfectly normal. You're in the anger stage, the second stage of finding out you're a genie.”

“I have every right to be angry! I just found out you've been keeping the world's biggest secret from me—that I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life granting other people's wishes. Unless that part of the movie isn't the way it happens in real life.”

“No, that part is true. But here's something that's also true: You're now a part of something much bigger than just yourself. If you could only see that.”

“What if I don't want to be part of anything bigger? What if I just want to be myself—the exact version of myself that I was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that? Shouldn't I get a say in this? I mean, why is this even happening to me? I'm not that . . . I'm really not that . . .”

My voice trails off, but here's what I'm thinking:
Quinn is right. I'm really not that special
.

“Can't you take it back?” I ask softly. “Make me not a genie, please.”

“I can't take it back from you any more than I can take it back from myself,” Uncle Max says. He slips his right foot out of his sandal and shows me a wavy circle on his own big toe. I'd never noticed it before. “This is my genie bite.”

“Wait a second—I caught being a genie from you? Like it's some kind of disease?”

“No, no, it's not catching,” Uncle Max says. “It's passed down through family bloodlines.”

“I can't get anything from your bloodline if we're not related,” I remind him.

“Ah, but we are,” he says. “I'm your great-grandfather, seven times over. Your mom doesn't know it. Her dad didn't know it, and his dad didn't know it. The genie gene usually skips a few generations. There was no reason to tell them the truth.”

“So you
did
tell me something that wasn't true.”

“I never actually told you that,” Uncle Max says. “I just didn't contradict anyone when they told you I was an old family friend. I've been around too long for anyone to really keep track.”

“Well, I'm keeping track, and that counts for lie number two! How many more are there?”

“Listen, Zack, it was the best way for me to stay in the family, stay in everyone's lives, without anyone suspecting anything. Not that they would suspect
this
. But I'm glad it's out in the open between us now. It's about time.”

“Time? Time for you to die and leave this genie thing all to me?”

“I'm not dying. That's not how this works.”

“So being a genie means I'll live forever? That's even worse! Everyone I know will die, and I'll still be here.”

“Zack,” Uncle Max says.

“No, this can't be true,” I say. “It's just a dream.
A really, really bad dream. That's the only way this makes sense.” I pinch myself to try to wake up, but that doesn't work. So then I look away from Uncle Max, up to the sky, like I'm praying. I should clasp my hands together. Okay, done. “If it's a dream, then I will be nice to Quinn,” I say.

“Ah, the bargaining stage,” Uncle Max says.

“I don't want to hear any more about stages!”

“Then hear this: Being a genie, granting wishes for other people, is a powerful job,” Uncle Max explains. “There is value in power, as long as it's used wisely.”

“But I—”

Hold up. Power has
value?
Does he mean like
money?
Will I be allowed to wish for things for myself? If that's the case, if genies can grant their own wishes, then shouldn't Uncle Max be rich? But his house is on the small side, and most of the stuff he has is pretty old.

Maybe he just hasn't wished for money. Maybe there isn't anything he really wants to
buy. But I don't think there'd be anything wrong with wishing up a few things for myself. It's not like it'd hurt anyone else.

“Fine, I'll be a genie, but there has to be something in it for me. I have some wishes of my own, you know.”

I'm starting to see the possibilities. I could conjure us up a great big house—one where Quinn and I each got our own bathrooms. Maybe we could each have our own staircases leading to our own rooms. Our own
suites
, I mean! Super big to fit everything I could ever want in the world, and I'd never even have to pass Quinn in the hall.

Forget night-vision goggles. I could buy a super high-tech surveillance system for the whole house with cameras everywhere connected to a wall of TV screens in my bedroom.

Or I could wish for a force field to be set up around our property so no one who's not invited could get in.

Or . . .

Holy smokes. I could wish for Dad. Go back in time and tell him, “Sure, I'll go run errands with you.” He'd wanted me to go, and I'd said no because
Space Invasion
was on TV. That dumb show about fake people. I'll never watch it ever again. If I'd gone with Dad, if I'd changed that one little thing about that day, everything would have been different. We would've stopped for ice cream. He wouldn't have been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the accident would never have happened.

Or maybe I don't need to go back in time. I'll just wish him back to life right now, and I can catch him up on the last two years myself.

I don't care which way it happens, just as long as I get him back.

“Do I make wishes out loud, and suddenly they'll be granted?” I ask. “Are there special wishing words?”

“You aren't the one who makes the wishes, Zack,” Uncle Max tells me. “That isn't how it works.”

“But, Uncle Max, that's not fair!”

“Fair doesn't have anything to do with it,” he says. “But don't worry about that right now. What you need to understand at this moment is that you're in the seventh genie family. There are twelve genie families in this world, and we twelve are the only ones entrusted with this power—with this responsibility. It's our destiny.”

“My destiny,” I say. I've never thought about having a destiny before. I just thought you live your life the best you can and cross your fingers that bad things like car accidents don't happen to you.

“Yes, destiny,” Uncle Max repeats. “Ten years old is a bit young to start your genie work—four whole years younger than I was—and this is a job that demands some maturity. You're going to learn a lot about people by what they wish for, sometimes more than they even know about themselves. I know you're a good kid, Zack, a smart kid, and this all needs to be handled with the utmost care. But we'll talk about all of this,
I promise. Meantime, in the next few weeks, strange things may start to happen. As your powers begin to emerge, you may feel a bit like a spark plug. You're a current of energy, and you don't know how to control it yet. You have to be careful, and—”

“When can I start making the magic happen?”