Oops! I Caught a Genie!

Chapter 8

I spent the next few hours asleep. When I woke up, it was six, dinner time. I was feeling better, it must have just been something small. I sat in my bed sipping my hot green tea and looking out of my window. All I could see was the brown brick wall of the next house. There was a sad little evergreen tree in the few meters of grass between the houses. I sighed, poor little tree.

“What is it now? Have you been popped?” Fritz groaned from my bedroom floor where he had been sprawled on my purple fuzzy rug.

“No. I was just thinking about that sad little tree. My mom planted it when I was six and it hasn't grown a bit since.”

“Well. Its not getting much in the way of anything.”

“Yeah…”

I lay back on my bed and stayed there for another minute before getting bored. I tossed my large blanket on top of Fritz and walked to my desk.

“Well you’re feeling better.” Fritz said, muffled by the comforter over his head. He also mumbled some uncomplimentary phrases that I chose to ignore. It took me a second to realize that he had been reading a book that Mangoo had brought us about binding spells. Fritz was in charge of reading it because I couldn't read whatever language it was in.

“Sorry. Forgot you were reading.”

“Lost my page, hope you’re happy.” He said, it was still muffled because he hadn't taken the blanket off of his head yet.

I opened my laptop and pulled up my tabs. Several get well wishes from classmates on my message board and some updates on online stories. I groaned and leaned back when I saw some teachers had emailed me about make up work. Can’t have a day off without getting really behind.

“Because I totally want to catch up and learn when i’m sick…” I grumbled.

“Sarcasm will get you nowhere.” Fritz called. The blanket was now lit up from the inside so he could read. He was just being stubborn and wasn't taking it off his head.

“Are you going to stop pouting like a toddler any time soon?” I asked sweetly.

“Nah, Maturity is for other people.”

I turned back around and continued deleting emails. Gradually the smell of smoke touched my nose. I whipped around and ran around the house frantically checking for the source. When I got into my room I looked closer at the light under the blanket.

“Are you burning something?!” I yelped.

“Yep.”

“Why?! WHAT!”

“So I can see. Candle.”

“Thats a fire hazard! Don't burn down my house!”

A hand crept out from under the blanket and with it was a burning candle. A small white candle with a little metal bowl around it. He moved the blanket so that it was over the flame and touched the flame to the blanket. I lurched forward, ready to stomp out any fire that may happen, but it never happened.

“How are you doing that?” I asked, panic mode gone and replaced by curiosity.

“Magic.”

I groaned and walked back to my desk, attempting to step on Fritz’s wrist as I walked by but he retracted it quickly. I settled for whapping him on the head with a stack on paper from my desk.

“Bully.” He whined.

“Yeah. Because you’re an angel.”

There was a puff of purple smoke and Mangoo appeared.

“Hate to interrupt your couple’s quarrel, but I have some urgent information.” He announced.

“Talk.” Fritz said, blanket suddenly off his head.

“There is no information in the libraries! Its all been destroyed!” Mangoo informed us cheerfully.

Fritz’s and my jaws dropped in shock.

“W-what?” I whimpered.

“You’re joking…” Fritz said incredulously.

“Nope!” Mangoo chirped. “You’re stuck unless you find something! Have fun!”

Mangoo then smoked away. Leaving Fritz and myself staring at an empty spot on my floor.

We continued staring blankly for a few minutes before Fritz broke the silence.

“Hey,”

“What?”

“That jerk who trapped me in my watch, He should have had notes…”

“You mean my dad? He probably did, my mom burned a lot of his papers though.”

Fritz pursed his lips and thought for a moment. I went into the study where we kept my father’s  old belongings and drug a box full of papers back to my room.

“These are some of the surviving papers, there are more in the study, i’ll go get them.” I explained when Fritz quirked an eyebrow at me.

I stacked the remaining three boxes and drug them as well. (Multiple trips are for the weak.) When I returned, Fritz had spread a bunch of papers across the fuzzy rug in my room.

“He was not very consistent in his research notes.” Fritz noted.

“Mom said he studied exotic animals, the notes that I read are about them.”

“Oh, yeah, exotic is right. I believe this ‘red monkey’ that he talks about is me.”

“You’re the red monkey? The one that bit him on the face?”

“How would you react if you woke up in a strange place with a strange dude hovering over you?”

“Alright…”

We continued reading about the red monkey for an hour, I was horrified that my my father had done this to Fritz. I learned that ‘red monkeys’ could be restrained and injured with holly and iron. After reading this, I found a chunk of metal in the box. It was about two inches long and three inches wide, give or take as it was rather lumpy. I assumed it was iron because it looked and smelled like it. I decided to test the statement in the notes and tossed it at Fritz. He reached up and caught it without looking. It instantly fell from his hand and he squeaked in pain.

“So it does work!” I exclaimed.

“YES! IT DOES! You couldn't have, ya know, ASKED me!?”

I decided that it was revenge for scaring me with the candle earlier and shrugged unapologetically. Now I just need to find the iron fire poker that we have by the fireplace so I could have a Fritz punishment stick.

We heard my mother pull into the garage and cleaned up for the day. Tomorrow we would finish reading. I ate a quick dinner of leftover rotisserie chicken and tortillas and went to bed.

 

Thanks to Binju and Manateegirl for being my inspiration!