The Third-Class Genie. Robert Leeson

you see my project book over there on the bed. I want it cleaned up.”

      For a second the project book vanished, or seemed to. Then it reappeared. But what had that raving genie done now? The front of the book and the first ten pages, which had been stained with canal mud, had been cleaned up. They’d been wiped clean, completely. There was nothing on them.

      “Put it back, Abu, put it back,” he yelled.

      There was silence for a second.

      “Come on, genie-us,” demanded Alec, “make with the project.”

      From the front room Alec’s mother knocked on the ceiling.

      “A bit less noise up there, our Alec.”

      Alec groaned. Then Abu said hesitantly, “I fear I cannot put back what you wrote. For I cannot know what it might have been.”

      Alec stared. That hadn’t occurred to him. It wasn’t Abu who was daft; it was he. He’d just have to be more careful what he asked. Abu had warned him about all the disasters that had happened to his previous masters.

      “It was a story of the Crusades,” he said.

      “Crusades?”

      “When King Richard and the other knights went out to the Holy Land to drive out the Saracens and fought Saladin.”

      “Aha, Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf, Lord of Ishshaan, might hammer of the faithless. Who does not know that great story?”

      “Do you? It took me an awful time to look it up in the school library. If I have to do all that again…”

      “Fear not, Alec. Take up thy pen. I shall tell, you shall write and the empty pages shall be full once more with great truth. Let us begin with the mighty victory for the true faith at the battle of Hattin…”

      Alec rushed to his desk, got out his fountain pen, and began to write, while Abu tirelessly told of sieges, battles, storms of arrows, flash of scimitar and sword, thunder of hooves, and burning sand and sun. There was still much to tell when Alec had filled up the blank space in his project book. But his mother knocked on the ceiling again which was the signal for him to get ready for bed. Outside it was dark now and Alec was tired, but he felt happy again. His project was rescued. True, his trainers were still in a disastrous state, but surely with Abu’s aid he could put that right.

      Now that he had Abu Salem, genie of the fight brown ale on his side, nothing was too much. From now on, triumphs would hammer disasters ten nil every day Thanks to Abu. Good old Abu.

      “Well, Abu, I’m off to bed, if you’d like to climb back into your can. I’ll leave the lid up slightly to give you some fresh air. It must smell like a brewery in there. Cheerio for now.”

      “Ma’asalaama,” murmured Abu.

      Alec undressed, wandered out to the bathroom to brush his teeth, but at the top of the stairs he stopped. He could hear his mother and father talking in the kitchen where they were having a cup of cocoa.

      “I don’t know, Connie love. It doesn’t matter how you switch around those bedrooms, we haven’t really got room.”

      “Well, I’m fed up with it, Harold. For one reason or another we’ve never had enough room.”

      “We could get a four-bedroomed house if we moved out to Moorside.”

      “The only way you’ll get me to Moorside is to carry me in a coffin. Miles from anywhere, freezing cold in winter…”

      “All right, all right, Connie. Anyway, let’s get to bed. Is our Kim in yet?”

      “Not her, still, she’s got the back door key.”

      Alec heard them move their chairs down in the kitchen and shot quickly back into his own bedroom. He switched off the light and looked out of the window. The railway arch loomed up against the skyline; the Tank, hidden in the dark shadows of the arch, could not be seen. But Alec knew it was there. He had his hideout, and his new friend Abu. Ginger Wallace, Mr Cartwright and all infidels would bite the dust from now on. Flash Bowden, Scourge of the Cosmos, Defender of the Faith, Keeper of the Kan, was on the warpath.

      He tucked the can carefully under his pillow and went to sleep.

Chapter Five BOWDEN THE BEAST

      ALEC DREAMT THAT he sat at a huge table in the stateroom of his elegant 20,000-ton yacht, as it floated at anchor in the Bugletown Canal. Through the porthole he could see the mate, Monty Cartwright, urging on his trusty crew. The state-room door opened and Ginger Wallace, in steward’s uniform, entered bowing and scraping.

      “Alec,” he said.

      “Admiral Bowden to you,” replied Alec and dismissed Ginger with a wave of his hand.

      But Ginger would not go. He shouted, “Alec!”

      Alec waved his hand irritably, but Ginger only went on shouting, louder and louder. Then Alec was awake and his mother was banging on the bedroom door.

      “Alec, it’s half past eight!”

      “HALF PAST EIGHT?”

      At times like this, Alec wished he were an octopus. He’d put on his shoes with one hand (or tentacle), his trousers on with another, wash his face with a third, eat his breakfast with a fourth, pack his school bag with the fifth, tie his tie with the sixth, while the other two were busy walking down to Station Road. Mr Jameson, the biology teacher, once said that an octopus brain was just as good as a human brain. If they’d come to live on land there’d be no doubt about who would be boss.