The Genie of Sutton Place by George Selden Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Oh, boy, I remember it still … At this point you can imagine where my head—and my heart, too—was at. A place where the impossible turns real …
    When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Sam and I both looked back. There he stood: Abdullah—my Genie—silhouetted in the dim light from the museum behind him.
    The second most exciting day in my life …
    *   *   *
    But it ended badly, drearily predictable—after all that magic, too.
    I was hoping against hope that Aunt Lucy would be asleep. But as soon as the cab pulled up in front of the apartment house, the doorman rushed out and said, “Timothy Farr, where have you been? Your aunt’s half crazy—”
    It was one o’clock in the morning, and from a grownup’s point of view, for a kid my age that’s a very bad time to be still at large.
    â€œTimothy—!”
    The whole apartment was bubbling with worry. Rose was still up, and Mr. Watkins was also there.
    â€œI’m sorry, Aunt Lucy.” I really was sorry, too. If it wasn’t something critical, like conjuring a Genie, I’d never have dreamed of staying out all hours.
    â€œI’ve even called the police—!”
    â€œI’d better attend to that.”
    While Mr. Watkins attended on the telephone, Aunt Lucy went on dressing me down. “I’m really more provoked than I can say.” She had a right to be, too. I’m all in favor of Women’s Lib, and that includes the liberty to be furious. But with Aunt Lucy being so short, it just didn’t work. She wanted to seem in a towering rage, but with her it was only a jiggling rage.
    To make matters worse, right then Sam plodded in from the hall, and as he always did in the presence of Aunt Lucy, he sat down dreamily in front of her and leaned his head against her leg. “Sam!” I don’t think she would have kicked him, but I dragged him off right away anyway. “Now this is the last straw! I promised myself—when the boy comes back, I won’t be too angry, because I realize that you’ve had to—but you haven’t.”
    â€œAunt Lucy, don’t worry,” I said—sort of begged. “The problem of Sam can be solved.”
    â€œI know that.” She withdrew into dignity. “I shall solve it myself.”
    â€œMiss Farr—” Rose interrupted, to give us some air—“I’d like to ask—have you had any supper, Tim?”
    â€œI’m honestly not hungry—”
    â€œMake him a sandwich, Rose, if you would.” Aunt Lucy took Rose’s way out of all the quarreling. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”
    In the kitchen, while she was making a spiced ham and lettuce sandwich, with mayonnaise, which she knew was my favorite, even Rose wouldn’t talk to me. There are some people whose silences are worse than other people’s noise.
    I tried to start a conversation. “She’s awfully angry, isn’t she?”
    â€œMan, you’ve gone and done it now” was all that Rose would say to me.
    I put Sam in his box at the foot of my bed, kissed him good night, and said, “Boy, we are both in the doghouse now! That Genie Abdullah had better pan out.” He’d already begun to feel like a dream.
    The last thing I did that night was to hide the Arabic genie spell. I thought about it a very long time and decided the safest place would be way back in the top of my closet, behind all my things. My Good-Luck Devil is hollow—the eyes are the openings—and I carefully folded the paper up and pushed it in through the left one.

6
    Dooley
    I slept late the next morning … Too late.
    Usually the first thing I do when I wake up is crawl down the bed, say good morning to Sam in his box, and pet him awhile. Then I give him his breakfast, two biscuits from the can I keep under the bed. But on that morning Sam was not there. And Sam has