“Please stop!” I begged. “You don’t know how long I worked on that!”
Roy grinned. “Okay. You can have it back. Catch!”
He flung the head straight up in the air.
I watched it sail up until it hit the ceiling of the garage. It stuck for a moment. Then started to fall.
I made a diving catch.
The head brushed against my fingertips. Then it splattered on the concrete floor at my feet.
I knelt by the head of my sculpture.
I picked it up. A gray, shapeless blob.
My face turned red hot. My whole body trembled with anger.
“Nice try, butterfingers,” Roy giggled.
“Looks better to me,” Mike chimed in. “I think we fixed it!”
They hooted and howled.
Then they climbed back on their skateboards and disappeared.
Okay, Burgers, I thought. You asked for it. This time you messed with me once too often.
It’s payback time.
12
I found Jesse and Gene in Jesse’s room. Gene was down on his hands and knees, puzzling over the pieces of the TV set.
I dragged Jesse to my room and told him that I agreed with him. “We have to make a wish to pay back the Burger brothers. But how should we ask it? We have to be careful.”
“Let’s just turn them into bugs or something,” Jesse suggested.
I shook my head. “They already are bugs!” I grumbled.
I thought for a moment. “How about if we wish that they get stuck to their skateboards permanently!”
Jesse shook his head. “Not good,” he murmured. “They’d probably like that!”
“You’re right,” I agreed. I rubbed the palms of my hands together, thinking. “What if we made them really fat? So fat they could barely move?”
Jesse made a face. “I don’t think making them bigger is such a good idea.”
“True,” I agreed. “We don’t need the Burger brothers any bigger than they already are.”
I shut my eyes and tried to think of terrible things Gene could do to the Burgers. But each time, I thought of ways Gene could get it wrong.
Jesse turned to me and smiled. “I’ve got it! We’ll wish for Mike and Roy to be terrified of us—just the way we are!”
“Hmm . . . sounds good,” I said.
“Every time they look at us, they’ll shake from fear,” Jesse continued excitedly. “Imagine them running away from us—the two shrimpiest kids in class!”
I thought it over. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t think of any way Gene could mess it up. “It’s perfect,” I declared. “There’s no way we could get hurt if we make that wish.”
“All right!” Jesse pumped his fist in the air. “Let’s make the wish right now! I can’t wait!”
Jesse and I dragged Gene away from the TV pieces and brought him into my room.
“Okay, Gene, listen up. We have a very important wish to make,” I shouted.
Gene held his ears. “Hoo. You don’t have to yell. I’m not deaf, you know. Go ahead. Make your wish. But don’t give me a headache first!”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m just a little excited.”
“So—make a wish!” the genie demanded impatiently.
Jesse cleared his throat. “We wish for Mike and Roy Burger to be terrified of us.”
“But you can’t change us at all,” I added. “They have to be scared of us the way we are.”
Gene bowed. “That’s an easy one. A lot easier than putting the TV back together.”
I bit my lip and waited for Gene to do his stuff—hoping he wouldn’t mess up this time. I could feel my hands sweating. I wiped them on my jeans and crossed my fingers.
“Please, please let this work!” I begged.
Gene closed his eyes. He waved his arms and hips around in his crazy hula. In a moment, he turned himself into a cloud of sour purple smoke.
Jesse and I watched as the cloud drifted up to the ceiling and then floated out the window.
Jesse and I stood alone in the room. Gene had vanished.
“Jesse?” I asked quietly. “Is there anything wrong with me? Am I really huge or something?”
Jesse studied me. “Nope,” he said. “How about me?”
“Same as ever,” I replied.
We smiled at each other and then started to laugh.
“Nothing went wrong!” Jesse cried. “I bet it worked!”
I slapped Jesse a high-five. “By tomorrow, the Burger brothers will be totally afraid of us! I can’t wait to go to school in the morning!”
13
The next day Jesse and I were so excited, we ran all the way to school.
“I can’t wait to see them whimper and cry when we walk by!” Jesse exclaimed as we ran up the steps of Shadyside Middle School.
We hurried straight to our lockers. The Burger brothers usually wait for us there. They like to tease us first thing in the morning.
One morning last fall, they stuffed Jesse into his gym locker. They locked him in—and left him there to suffocate on the aroma of sweaty gym socks.
Another time they pushed me into the cutest boy in school, Dave Reynolds, and told him I was in love with him. I thought I was going to die!
But this morning they were nowhere in sight.
We waited at our lockers until right before the first bell.
As we headed to our classrooms, Jesse sighed. “The one morning I’m looking forward to seeing them—and they’re late for school.”
“Weird,” I murmured.
Jesse chuckled. “Maybe they were too scared to get out of bed this morning.”
I laughed too, thinking of the Burger brothers cringing and quaking under their sheets.
“Well, we’ll definitely see them at lunch,” I told Jesse. “Those big apes never miss a meal.”
At lunchtime I sat with my friends Kristen and Laura at our usual table by the windows. While they talked about our math test, I scanned the lunchroom.
Sometimes Mike and Roy sat with the twins, Cornelia and Gabrielle Phillips. But today the twins were sitting by themselves, staring at one of those cool 3-D posters you have to cross your eyes to see.
Where are Mike and Roy? I wondered. Those two never skip school. They hate missing the chance to tease Jesse and me all day.
I caught sight of Jesse on my way out of the lunchroom.
“Where do you think they are?” I asked, jogging over to him.
“Maybe they’re sick or something,” Jesse offered.
As we walked out of the lunchroom, we spotted Roy and Mike’s teacher leaving the teachers’ lounge.
“Let’s ask Ms. Hartman,” Jesse suggested. “She probably knows where they are.”
“Ms. Hartman, have you seen Mike and Roy today?” I called, trying not to sound too nervous.
“Funny you should ask,” Ms. Hartman answered. “I was just wondering where those two might be. They didn’t show up this morning. And their mother hasn’t called to say they’re sick. It’s not like them.”
A queasy feeling gripped my stomach. Something is wrong here, I thought. Very wrong.
“Well, if I hear anything about them, I’ll let you know,” I told Ms. Hartman.
“Why, thank you, Hannah. It’s very nice of you to be so concerned about them.” Ms. Hartman patted my shoulder.
Jesse and I said good-bye and hurried down the hall. “Gene messed up again,” I whispered. “I know it.”
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “Or maybe Mike and Roy are just absent. It’s kind of nice being able to walk the halls and not worry about running into them.”
“True,” I agreed. “But they’re never absent. Never! Do you think that Gene—”
I didn’t get to finish my question. The bell rang. We both hurried to our classrooms.
* * *
I kept thinking about the Burger brothers all afternoon.
Gene was supposed to make them terrified of Jesse and me. Were Mike and Roy too terrified
to come to school?
Finally the bell rang at the end of the day.
I caught up to Jesse and his friends out front. As we began to walk home together, I told Jesse how I couldn’t stop thinking about Mike and Roy.
“Don’t worry about them.” Jesse shrugged. “Do you think the Burger brothers would be worried about us if we were absent?”
“Probably not,” I mumbled.
When we stepped to the edge of the school parking lot, Jesse stopped short. He pointed to a white station wagon. “Hey, that’s Mom. What’s she doing here?”
Mom rolled down the window and started waving frantically.
“What’s going on?” I asked her as we piled in. “You never pick us up.”
“Well, I was a little worried,” Mom said, biting her bottom lip.
“Worried?” I demanded.
“I thought you two might be upset. You know. About those two boys in your school. The Burger brothers.”
I gasped.
“What about them?” Jesse choked out. “What happened to them, Mom?”
14
“Didn’t you hear?” Mom asked. “Didn’t they tell you in school? The Burger brothers—they disappeared last night!”
I stared at the back of Mom’s head as we drove along in silence.
Disappeared.
The word bounced around in my brain over and over again.
Disappeared, disappeared, disappeared.
Jesse sat in the front seat with Mom. He didn’t say a word the whole ride home.
Mom peered at me through the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry if I scared you two. Everyone is very concerned. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“We promise,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” Jesse echoed. “We promise.”
We’d better be careful, I thought. Because of us, there’s a crazy genie on the loose.
A genie who made two boys disappear!
Jesse and I went straight from the car to my studio in the garage. Once Mom was in the house, I slumped down in an old armchair in the corner.
“It’s all our fault!” I wailed. “We made a wish—and Gene made them disappear!”
“But that isn’t what we wished!” Jesse cried. “It’s not really our fault!”
“Of course it is!” I moaned. I stood up and paced the floor, thinking.
“We have to get Gene back here,” I decided finally. “He has to tell us what he did.”
Jesse unfolded a beach chair and plopped down on it. “Why?” he asked. “The Burger brothers are finally out of our lives for good. I think it’s great!”
“But, Jesse,” I argued, “what about Mrs. Burger? She’s always so nice to us. I’ll bet she’s freaking out right now.”
“I suppose.” Jesse sighed. “All right. Let’s get Gene back here. He still owes us a wish anyway.”
“No more wishes!” I begged. “Gene doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s too dangerous.”
“So we won’t wish for anything dangerous,” Jesse argued. “We’ll wish for new bikes or something. That can’t hurt us.”
“Gene will find some way to mess it up!” I cried. “He’ll make the bikes bigger than our house! Or they’ll have a mind of their own and take us where we don’t want to go! We are not making any wishes. All we’re going to do now is call for Gene. And make him bring back Mike and Roy—wherever they are.”
Jesse frowned. “Well, how do we call him? It’s not like he has a phone.”
“Hmmmm.” I thought about it for a few moments. Then I had an idea.
I ran inside the house. Seconds later, I came back carrying the little portable TV Mom keeps in the kitchen. I set the TV on a box and plugged it in. I turned it on and cranked up the volume.
“Gene! Geeeeene!” I called. “Would you like to see how this TV works?”
We waited. Soon a wisp of purple smoke drifted into the garage from outside. A few seconds later Gene stood before us.
“You’re here!” Jesse cried.
“Can I really take apart this TV?” Gene asked eagerly. “It’s so small. I’m pretty sure I could put this one back together.”
“Not so fast,” I said, stepping between Gene and the TV. “What did you do to the Burger brothers? They disappeared last night.”
“They did?” Gene’s eyes bulged in surprise. “Hoo! They disappeared? But I wanted to make them small and weak—so they would be terrified of you.”
“You made them disappear,” I accused Gene sternly.
“Wow.” The genie shook his purple head. “I am sooo out of practice.” He sighed. “All those years in the bottle. You get a little rusty—you know? Oh, well . . . those are the breaks—huh?”
I struggled to keep calm. “Gene, please, you’ve got to do something about Mike and Roy. You have to find them.”
Gene narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not happy? You want them back?”
“Yes,” I replied. “It isn’t right. You can’t just make two kids disappear.”
“Whatever,” he muttered. He stood straight and closed his eyes. He reached his arms out to the open garage door and chanted something in another language.
Gene swayed his arms and hips from side to side as he chanted.
Nothing happened.
No Burgers anywhere.
Were they really gone forever?
Then I caught a flash of movement at the doorway.
Two baby bunnies hopped up the driveway. They stared at Jesse and me.
As I walked closer, their furry little bodies trembled with fear.
“Yo!” one of them whispered.
“Hey—yo!” the other bunny mouthed.
I gasped. No way.
It couldn’t be!
“Jesse! I—I think it’s Mike and Roy!” I stammered.
“Excuse me?” Jesse stepped up beside me, his eyes on the bunnies.
“Yo!” one of the bunnies whispered.
“Yo—hey!” the other coughed.
“Oh, wow—it’s true!” Jesse cried. “It is Mike and Roy!”
Gene laughed. “See? My magic did work! I made them into timid little bunny rabbits! Now, every time they see you, they will be afraid of you! Hoo! I wish I could kiss myself! I am good. I am good!”
Jesse dropped to his knees. He stared down at the trembling bunnies. “Boooo!” he screamed.
The bunnies froze in terror.
Jesse laughed. “Ha! See how that feels, you creeps?”
“Gene, you’ve got to turn them back!” I cried. “They can’t stay like that!”
Gene’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Huh? I did what you wished.”
“No. It’s no good!” I cried. “Turn them back. Turn them back—now!”
“Nope,” Gene replied coolly. “No way.”
15
“Excuse me?” I cried.
Gene shrugged. “Rules are rules. I cannot turn the bunnies back into boys unless you wish for it. You’ve got to use your third wish.”
“Hey—no way!” Jesse cried.
“It isn’t fair!” I agreed. “We never asked for this,” I said, pointing to the two frightened bunnies.
“Ah, but you did.” Gene wagged his finger at me. “You said you wanted these guys to be frightened of you just the way you are of them. And now they are! You should be congratulating me. Hoo. I’m good!”
I turned to Jesse. “We don’t have a choice. We have to use our third wish.”
“Whoa.” Jesse groaned. “What do you mean? Use our last wish for the Burger brothers? Uhh-uhh!” He shook his head.
“Would you really leave them the way they are?” I asked.
Jesse reached down and stroked one of the bunny’s ears. “They’re definitely cuter this way,” he argued. “And besides, think about all the kids at school who won’t be bullied anymore.”
“Jesse, we can’t do this. Not even to Mike and Roy,” I scolded.
Jesse sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. Go ahead and turn them back to their nasty old selves. Se
e if I care.”
I turned to Gene. “Okay, turn them back. And do it right this time. Don’t change me into Mike or Roy or something.”
“Whatever you say, master. This is your last wish.” Gene stood up and stretched. He closed his eyes and went into his trance, waving his arms and doing his crazy hula dance.
When we saw the purple smoke swirling toward us from outside, Jesse and I braced ourselves. As it came closer, it whipped up papers and paintbrushes in the garage. Rakes and ladders fell off their hooks and flew through the air.
I ran into the corner. Jesse followed. We crouched there together, ducking for cover.
I couldn’t see the bunnies through the purple smoke. Finally the smoke swirled out of the garage. I let out a sigh of relief as it lifted up into the sky.
The Burger brothers stood in the doorway of the garage, hugging each other. Their eyes were bulging, and their faces were chalk white.
“L-let’s get out of here,” Roy squeaked. He grabbed Mike’s hand. The two boys ran out of our garage—like two scared rabbits.
I frowned as I watched them run down the street. “They could have thanked us,” I muttered. “But I guess they were too scared.”
“Well,” Gene said, rubbing his hands together, “I’m sorry to say, that was your last wish.”
“Boy, were we cheated,” Jesse griped. He slumped back into the beach chair.
“That’s okay. I’m glad,” I said. I held up Gene’s bottle. “Now—time to go back where you came from.”
I couldn’t wait to get that genie out of our lives forever.
Gene waved his hands as if shooing away the bottle. “Put that thing down. I’m not going in there.”
“Huh?” I gaped at him. “But—but—”
“I told you,” the genie insisted, “I am never going back into that bottle again.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I pictured Gene spending the rest of his life in our house, taking apart the TV sets and eating all the pizzas. There was no way I would let that happen!
“I explained it to you,” the genie insisted. “I’m never going back in. We made a deal. One of you has to go into the bottle now.”