Oops! I Caught a Genie!

Chapter 29

Fritz led me out of the room and we made a mad dash for the upper decks where we hoped the lifeboats were. It occurred to me that we didn't even know if there were any lifeboats on this ship, but I hoped that the Titanic had been a lesson to these people.

The alarm blared in our ears, making it hard to run. I could not focus on anything but Fritz's hand, that I was gripping so hard he had probably ceased to feel it. They hadn't found us yet it appeared. There was no one in the halls, that could mean a bigger blockade further out. Did they know that Fritz couldn't poof me away? I assumed they hadn't given up. If they had, I think the alarms would have shut off.

Before I could register stopping, Fritz was pushing me into a lifeboat. I slid under the tarp covering the boat headfirst. Lying stomach first on the bottom between the bench seats in the darkness, I waited for the tarp to be removed. However, it never happened. Instead, I felt someone crawl in the boat with me. Despite my better judgement I squealed. A hand covered my mouth firmly.

"If you want to be found so badly, stand on the boat and shoot off a flare!" Fritz whispered.

"Sorry." I said through his hand.

"Now, don't scream. I can't lower the boat gently into the water without them catching us instantly. I'll have to cut the cables."

"Excuse me?! Aren't those cables there for a reason?!"

"Why yes, to hold the boat up."

"There are fail safes aren't there? The fall would have us in the water, or worse!"

"Magic."

I heard the groan of the cables over the whine of the alarm. The boat moved to the right and there was a sickening snap. In the blink of an eye Fritz wrapped his arm around my waist and the boat fell.

I hugged anything I could reach, trying to anchor myself to something. I ended up with one arm wrapped around the seat and the other around Fritz's neck. Our descent slowed after a few seconds and I felt the boat touch the water.

"Leggo my neck so I can steer..." Fritz rasped.I withdrew my arm sheepishly. I felt him shift and the boat started to move, hopefully away from the ship.

"How'd we survive the fall? I would have thought we at least would have capsized."

"I'm a djinn." He grumbled.

"So you have boat stabilizing powers?"

"Wind. Easy to control and uses a bit less power than actually levitating things."A silence fell between us and the only sound that could be heard was the ocean water parting in front of the boat.

After a few minutes I still hadn't heard any sound of pursuit.

"Are they just going to let us go? They must have seen us."

"I don't know, I was expecting them to chase as well."

"Maybe they all fell asleep?"

"You can dream."

"Where are we now anyway?"

"You ask a lot of questions. I don't really know the answer to this one."

"So we're lost, in the middle of the ocean."

"Pretty much."

"You don't have a magic djinn GPS system in your head?"

"GPS?"

"A tracking system? Global positioning?" I said, I had forgotten that he hadn't been in the world for about twenty years, he was bound to not know something.

"No."

"How do you know where you are when you poof then?"

"Instincts and guesses. And we usually travel a lot when we're younger to see where all the places are." Suddenly, I remembered something.

"My phone! Oh, wait... I left it in my bag. On the ship."

Fritz sighed and the boat slowed to a stop.

"Wha?"

"Give me a second."

A red light lit up the interior of the lifeboat. It was so small that if it was airtight, we would have suffocated. The light illuminated Fritz's hair, making it a brighter red than usual. I was so transfixed on the bright red light that I jumped in surprise when my bag was pushed at my chest, hitting my head on the tarp.

"How'd you get this? Isn't the ship heavily guarded?"

"They're not as used to dealing with djinn magic as they'd like to think."

"How far away are we from the ship anyway?"

"Miles, we were going in the opposite direction at a higher speed."

"If they can't see us, can we take this tarp off? It's stuffy."

"You do it, I need to rest." Fritz said, rolling under one of the two benches. For the size of the ship, the lifeboat was extremely pitiful. Probably six people could fit on it. Even the Titanic had bigger lifeboats. The binders probably assumed that they could get themselves magically to safety or something.

I tried pushing up on the tarp, but it wouldn't budge. I stuck my hand out the side and felt around. My hand dipped in the water for a millisecond before I jerked it out and found a large buckle securing the tarp to the top of the lifeboat.

"Fritz," I whined, "I can't undo the buckle."

"I'll get it when my energy is at a stable level."

"You're unstable? Why didn't you say something earlier! We could have left my bag, or I could have rowed or something!"

"Shhhhhhh, I wasn't about to let you do work that could put you in danger. I'm here to rescue you, master." There was only a slight sarcastic edge to that last word.

"Shut up and eat this jerky." I said, handing him a slim-jim from my bag.

"You keep meat sticks in your purse?" He asked incredulously.

"I get hungry. It's protein."

"Alright, alright. I'll humor you."

I turned to the side of the boat when I heard the crackle of the wrapper and stuck my hand out again. This time when I found the buckle I stuck my other hand out as well.

I fumbled with the buckle for a while until I heard a satisfying click and that side of the tarp loosened.

"Yes!" I cheered.

"Five more to go!" Fritz mumbled.

It took me twenty minutes to get the rest of the buckles undone, but it was worth it. I folded one side of the tarp over to the other so that we could get air and light without losing the tarp in the ocean. I felt like we might need it if it rained or something.

I turned to Fritz to congratulate myself further, but he was already asleep.I crawled under the other bench and fell asleep as well.