The Genie of Sutton Place (14 page)

So had I!

I collected Sam from the living-room rug and carried him into our bedroom. At first I thought I'd get the spell and pull everything back together again. But then I decided there already was so much chaos around, if everybody reappeared, it would only make things worse. One night in the carpet wouldn't be too bad for Dooley, and one night in his box wouldn't be too bad for Sam. In fact, he deserved it. I poured him out on his cushion, which I'd kept there for old times' sake, and said, “Now just go to sleep,” and thought that was the end of my birthday party … It wasn't.

The next end was, while I was dozing off, I heard Sam stir and pad into the hall, still weaving a little, toward Aunt Lucy's room. I followed him. Her door was ajar, and he nosed it open and stood there, just looking.

She'd changed into pajamas and was sitting at her dressing table, wearing a housecoat with butterflies on it. She saw Sam watching. At first she was angry: her little features frowned, remembering all the broken bottles, I guess. But then, in spite of themselves, they relaxed. She patted her knee and said, “Come in, Sam.”

Sam approached her very carefully.

“Good old Sam,” she said. “I'm almost glad to see you again.”

Sam lifted one paw to her knee. Which she shook. And then ordered him gently, “Go on, now. Go back to Timmy's room.”

He came into the hall—and found me watching. His head drooped down, ashamed … So did mine. I don't like to eavesdrop. Even on dogs.

*   *   *

The next morning Sam was sure he was dying. He lay in his box making fatal sounds—low howls, whinings, and sighs of doggy despair—which I have to admit I thought were quite funny.

“Sam, it
isn't
hydrophobia.” I tried to console him. “It's only a hangover.”

With a little coaxing, he lapped up two aspirins from the palm of my hand. But you know how dogs are about pills. Even after some water they got stuck in his throat. He didn't like the taste of them either and made me an angry face and gave a very disgruntled woof.

Then I thought an ice pack might help, so I got some ice cubes out of the freezer and tied them up in my face cloth. But the string came untied, and the ice fell all over his head.

Poor Sam … I was being mean, and laughing and having fun at his expense … The best thing was just to let him sleep it off.

At breakfast Rose was preoccupied. She hadn't even asked me what I wanted the ice cubes for. I suspected her mood was because of Dooley—little wise guy that I was that day, but I was going to get what was coming to me—and I asked her, all fake innocence, if she'd heard from him yet this morning.

“No.” She stirred her coffee and made the cup rattle. “And we probably won't.”

“Why not, Rose?”

“I think he's just one of those rolling stones, that's all. You heard him tell about all those places he's been—swimming in the River Jordan. Probably in some place like Bangladesh right now!” She sipped her coffee, spilled some on her chin, and said, “Damn!”

“I wouldn't be surprised if Dooley came back, Rose.” Little Mr. Fixit here—all I had to do was recite the spell.

“Well,
I
would!”

“You sort of liked him, didn't you, Rose?”

“Oh, sure.” She could do some faking, too. “He was okay, I guess.”

“You liked him quite a lot—”

“Just finish your breakfast, nosey. And leave the psychologizing to Freud. You got troubles of your own! With that dog.”

*   *   *

But the funny thing was, I didn't. At least not the troubles Rose was thinking of.

Aunt Lucy came into the kitchen, and before anybody could even offer “good morning,” she formally announced, “Timothy, I've decided that you can keep Sam.”

“I can
keep
him—?” Complications swarmed like bees in my head.

“Yes, dear. If you love him enough to have hidden him all this time—although I can't imagine where. Probably right under our noses, Rose— Well, it's cruel to want someone so much and then have him suddenly—”

“I'll have to ask Sam—” I was thinking out loud.

“
Ask
Sam?”

“I mean—tell him. He'll be happy. To be out in the open. At least, I think he will—”

She attributed my confusion to childish pleasure and surprise, and gave me a very auntlike smile. “You tell him then. And tell him that all is forgiven between us.”

“Between you and Sam? He'll be glad to hear that.”

Aunt Lucy chuckled to Rose at my charming belief that Sam could understand what I said. But I was sure hoping he could—that enough of his understanding had lasted—because it was going to have to be his decision. Aunt Lucy was going out for the morning, and I left her and Rose in the kitchen, discussing what to have for lunch.

Sam was snoring in his box. “Wake up, Sam.” He likes to have me wake him up by scratching his neck.

“Woof,” he said sleepily. He still was bleary-eyed, but seemed much better than when I had left him.

“Aunt Lucy says I can keep you.”

“Woof?”

“I mean—keep you as a dog.”

“Woof!”
He jumped out of his box. And he was understanding, all right.
“Woofwoofwoofwoofwoof!”

“All right, all right, Sam. Cool it now.” There's such a difference between a yes woof and a no. “But you acted very badly last night. You acted—like a dog.”

“Woof,” he apologized and hung his head.

“You might be happier—”

“Woof!”

“It's hard being a man. You may not be up to it—”

“Woof!” he declared.

“—and I'd love you just as much—”

“Woof. Wooooooof—” he pleaded and laid his head on top of my foot.

“Well, all right. But this is your last chance. I'll get the spell. I've got to get Dooley out of the carpet anyway.”

I pulled a chair over in front of the closet, to reach the top compartment. I was wondering if I could say it right there and Dooley would just appear in my bedroom—or whether a better idea would be to go back to—

The top shelf was empty … No bone, no Aztec bowl, not any of my special things. And no Good-Luck Devil from Borneo.

“It's gone—” I said, but couldn't believe.

Sam started barking hysterically. No conversational woofing now—just pure canine panic at the thought that he might be trapped in himself for the rest of his life.

“Hush up, Sam!” I tried to put a plug in the volcano of fright that was erupting in my chest, too. “Rose may have only moved things around—”

But in the kitchen she shot down any hope I had. “That junk in the closet?”

“Yes, Rose. That junk.”

“You remember the day, a month or so ago, when you stayed out so late at night?”

“Yes—”

“Well, next morning, when you were gone, your aunt said there were going to be some changes made around here. And the first one was, I should throw out all those creepy things you lugged up from the Village.”

“Did you—?”

“Right down the incinerator.”

“But the statuette—with the hollow eyes—”

“That little old ugly idol?—it went down first of all.”

“Oh, my gosh!”

“What's wrong with that animal?”

“Easy, Sam.” I tried to soothe him and stroked his head. “I have to think.”

*   *   *

All I could think of to do was go back to Lorenzo's diaries. (I looked through the last couple of pages I'd taken from them. Instead of putting them in the closet, I'd just tucked them in my copy of
The Hobbit.
Save time, I thought.)

In the cab Sam was whining pitifully. The driver, who was a nice man, thought I was taking him to the veterinarian and kindly asked, “What's wrong with your pooch?”

“Mister,” I said, “if I even tried to tell you, you'd take us both straight to the psycho ward at Bellevue.”

I kept petting Sam's head, although it felt funny—knowing it had been a man's head only yesterday.

We barged into the shop, which luckily was empty except for Madame S. But every browser in Greenwich Village couldn't have stopped Sam or me that day. “Madame Sosostris, we've
got
to find—”

“Hi, Tim. And
Sam
—!”

“—that genie spell again!”

“When did Sam get back?”

“Never
mind!
Please help me, Madame S. You don't know how important this is—”

“I don't see why.” She shrugged. “That spell's a bust.”

“No, it's
not!
” There was nothing else to do. To help me she'd have to know the truth. “You know Dooley—?”

“Sure. Your aunt's—”

“He's a genie,” I said as factually as I could.

“And he moonlights as a chauffeur on the side?” She treated herself to a little chuckle.

“Don't
joke!
This is critical. That's how I smuggled him into the house. He came from a rug that's up in the National Museum, and he got returned there last night—by that one word ‘Allah'—and it's horrible for him. Because he's already been in there a thousand years. But it's even worse for Sam. I mean, Mr. Bassinger—”

“Mr. Bassinger?”

“Yes. Mr. Bassinger is Sam. That is—Sam is Mr. Bassinger. I mean—they were going to exterminate Sam, so my genie turned him into a man, and—”

“Timothy—” Madame Sosostris put her hand on my shoulder—“I'm going to fix you an Alka-Seltzer with some soothing nightshade—”

“Oh, I
knew
nobody would ever believe me!” I had to find some proof—and I did. “Madame Sosostris, you remember your last séance with the Willy sisters?”

“The best I ever—”

“Dooley did that. The Fiendish Laughter—impersonating Nelly Willy—everything. Has anything like that happened since?”

She thought for a minute and admitted, “No—”

“I don't mean to put you down, Madame S.—sooner or later I'm certain you'll have your breakthrough—but it was Dooley who did all that. And last night—the bracelet trick, with all those extra scarves. And since when have you been able to carry a marble egg as big as a dinosaur's inside that turban of yours?”

The beautiful thing about Madame Sosostris is how quickly she believes.

One minute more and she held out her hand. “Put 'er there.” We shook. “To conjure a genie—wow!”

“So you see that we've got to find that spell.”

She rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. “Let's go!”

And we ransacked those books like bandits …

But nothing … Absolutely nothing … No way … Lorenzo had left England a few days after the last entry about Al-Hazred. And he hadn't gone back to the British Museum again … Oh, why hadn't I made a copy?…

“We're licked,” I admitted into a silence that was crushing us like iron.

Sam was lying on the floor, crying. He
was crying,
too, although most dogs don't cry—their eyes just water to wash out the junk. A last bit of Sam's humanity left over, I suppose. As his smile had been its beginning.

“What a way to celebrate your thirteenth birthday.” Madame Sosostris sighed. “But then, it's always been an evil number.”

“I should have stayed twelve forever,” I said.

My birthday party was
really
over now.

13

The National Museum

“There's only one thing left,” I decided. “We have to go up to the National and talk to Mr. Dickinson. Naturally he'll think it's all nonsense, but maybe he's got a good memory. In Arabic.” Better than me, I hoped. I couldn't even remember the spell in English. “And if that doesn't work, I'll tell Aunt Lucy that unless she flies me to England, I'll jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

So into a taxi, the three of us … Up to the museum … I deposited Sam in the bushes again, the way I had last time. He fretted and woofed a grumble at me, because of being left behind on such an important occasion, but I got him settled at last.

And down to Mr. Dickinson's office. “Now play it real cool, Madame S.,” I said. “This guy is a scholarly type, and I'll tell him—I'll tell him you're doing research on incantations—okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, enjoying the conspiracy.

“Well,
hello!
” He recognized me right away. And seemed quite glad to see us, after all that broken crockery.

I made the introductions.

“Oh—incantations. Most interesting,” Mr. Dickinson allowed.

“Yeah. I'm a medium,” said Madame Sosostris. “I need all the spells I can get.”

His eyes began to quiz her dubiously, so I barged right in to the point. “Mr. Dickinson—that genie spell I brought in—do you happen to remember it?”

“Oh dear no! I have the worst memory in the world.” Great! “I have to leave myself a note to close the window.” Mr. Dickinson's hair was a very strange thing. It was as if, when he got an idea, it tingled in those white puff balls on top of his ears. “But wait a minute. Was there something about a ‘lunar eye'?”

“Yes! yes! That comes back. What else—”

“Um-uh-er—” He rummaged through his mind, which was full of pieces of crockery. Then he shrugged and said, “I'm afraid that's all I can recollect.”

“Oh, Lord, Mr. Dickinson—!”

“Where is this carpet anyway?” said Madame Sosostris.

“Upstairs. You've never seen it?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Dickinson,
please!
We've got to—”

“Now, now, my boy. Don't exercise yourself so.” He made an aside to Madame Sosostris: “Marvelous imagination, the lad has!”