Three Wishes(5)

And the minute she could string three words together, she started to tell stories. And they were always the best stories… ever.

If she was talking about something that really happened, she could make the most mundane happening entertaining. But it was even better when she made up stories from scratch, those were the absolute, most bestest, best.

And she was funny. She could make even old lady Kravitz laugh and old lady Kravitz never laughed.

Everyone loved Lily, even old lady Kravitz.

There was a lot to love. Lily was, quite simply, perfect.

Except…

Fazire had to admit that he had made a wee, little mistake when he healed Becky’s womb and made it fruitful and set the wish that would be Lily.

He should have made her become beautiful a little quicker.

Or, at the very least, pretty.

He used the excuse to himself that he didn’t know.

He’d been created by the Divine One as a full grown genie. Then he’d gone to Genie Training School where you had to pay attention because if you didn’t and you messed up a wish or didn’t follow Genie Code, well, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

Fazire had never been to human school. He didn’t know how cruel children could be.

And Lily, although not ugly, was plain. And being so smart made other children think she was strange. And they made fun of her.

Sarah, Becky and Will worried about Lily. Well, Sarah and Becky did, it made Will madder than the dickens (this, a phrase Sarah had taught him and Fazire still didn’t know what “the dickens” was but he figured it was pretty bad by the way Sarah said it).

As the school years went by, more and more Lily would come home like she did today.

Sad.

He hid himself as she came into the house (as he did most days) and watched her surreptitiously steal the three Baby Ruth candy bars (named after one of Fazire’s heroes, Babe Ruth, a great baseball player who was nearly as round as Fazire).

She grabbed her ever-present book (another in a hundred romance novels that he knew she read) and ducked back out of the house. Fazire watched as she walked down the sloping lawn to hide herself in the trees at the bottom by the curve of the gravelled lane.

He knew exactly what she’d do. She’d eat the candy bars. She might even steal a few more. Then she’d have a big dinner and dessert. She would also, maybe, steal something else to eat before she went to bed.

Fazire liked his food but Lily didn’t. She didn’t eat because she liked it, she ate because… well Fazire didn’t know why.

And Lily was getting heavy. Not getting heavy anymore, she was beyond chubby.

And she read those books like, well, he knew why because Becky told him. They were her escape.

Somehow, Fazire knew, this was all because of the kids at school.

Now was the first time he ever wished one of his mistresses would ask for vengeance. If he even heard one of children saying cruel things to her like what Will told Fazire they were probably saying, he might do a wish for himself (which was outside of Genie Code) and blast the consequences.

Stupid, ignorant, jealous children.

He waited until she’d eaten the candy bars and hidden the wrappers like he knew she did then he walked down to join her.

She was sitting in a bed of dried fallen leaves the colours of red, brown, yellow and orange, some of the leaves even had all four colours, in one single leaf. Her back was pressed to the trunk of a tree. Her white-blond head was bent over her romance novel.

But she wasn’t reading, she was crying.

“What’s happened, Lily?” Fazire asked quietly.

She jumped and stared up at him, the tears glistening wet on her face.

“Fazire!” She tried to hide behind her smile but it was shaky. He’d seen her don her mask of false happiness a hundred times but he caught her before she could slip it firmly in place.

“Don’t you try hiding from me, Lily-child. This is Fazire you’re talking to. I know all,” he stated grandly in his best genie-in-a-bottle voice.

To his shock she didn’t make a joke or a further attempt to hide. She burst into uncontrollable, body-wracking, fourteen-year-old girl tears.

“Oh, Fah… Fah… Fazire. It’s was awful.”

Without hesitating he sat down next to her in the leaves (oh, his genie friends would just be horrified at him putting his greater-than-the-earth genie bottom on a bed of dead leaves), pulled her in his arms and let her cry it out.

“Tell me about it Lily. Get it out. Your Grammy said to me that she didn’t talk about her Jim missing in the war and she should have right when she knew it happened. Don’t bottle it in, my lovely. I know what being bottled in is all about!”

She giggled just a little and shook her head, getting herself under control.

“It’s silly, Fazire.” She tried to be brave but wasn’t succeeding. “Just, a boy at school said something about me… about, well, about me being fat.” She gave a little shudder and continued to look at the ground.

“You aren’t fat!” Fazire snapped in outrage although, it wasn’t exactly true, she was past chubby but he’d never describe her as fat.

Her eyes flew to his and her mouth did some funny movements as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I am fat, Fazire,” she said quietly and then pulled the Baby Ruth candy wrappers out of her jeans pocket and showed them to him.