Gemma And The Genie

• Ciara Williams, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2012

It was a dark, stormy night. Gemma, the daughter of billionaire inventor, Fredrick Densly, was curiously scouring her father’s library, when she stumbled across a book called ‘Genie, Genie, Genie’. Next to the book she found a mysterious, old lantern. The lantern had strange markings around it with a picture of a fat creature she’d never seen.

As the rain started to pour down, boredom set in, so Gemma decided to read the book she had found. She opened it to a page that had a picture of a strange looking creature, one that resembled the figure on the lantern and began to read.
“She couldn’t help giving the ring another twist. There was a sudden puff of glittering smoke, and the ring was spinning on the desk in front of her.”

Suddenly Gemma started to smell smoke so she closed the book and looked up. In front of her was the lantern. It had plumes of smoke coming out of it so she shoved it off her bed. Her face had gone as white as a sheet and the palms of her hands had gone all sweaty. As the lantern hit the ground, a mysterious shape appeared out of it. It looked a bit like the shape of the creature on the lantern. Then the dark, gloomy shape started to look clearer and clearer. That’s when she opened the book again and realised that it was a Genie. Gemma had backed herself into a corner on the other side of the room in fear. The genie started to talk to her. He said,
“You are my master. You have three wishes.”
Gemma started to feel a little less worried for some strange reason. She said to the genie,
“How did you get here?”
The genie said, “My name is Mulla and I’m a magic genie from the land of Bungo.”
As Gemma started to talk to Mulla she started to feel more confinable.

The rain had finely stopped, so Gemma decided to go to bed. Before she hopped into bed she went down stairs to the kitchen to get a glass of warm milk. She started to drink her milk when she said to herself,
“I wish I had a nice choc chip cookie to go with this warm glass of milk.”
Suddenly a heap of gloomy smoke started to cover the kitchen bench. As the smoke started to fade, Gemma could see a large shape covering the whole bench. That’s when she realised it was a cookie, and that she’d made her first wish. Although she got what she wanted, she was still devastated that she’d used her first wish.

It was a new day. Gemma woke to the sound of birds churping. She started to walk down stairs to see what her father was doing. As she got to the bottom step, her nostrils started to fill with the delicious scent of her favourite meal, bacon and eggs. Once she started to eat her breakfast her head filled with memories of last night. She remembered that she had already made one wish and that she had two wishes left. It was a beautiful day and the rain had stopped so Gemma decided to go outside for a walk with her dog, Hurley. While she was on her walk, she saw Mulla sitting on a large branch of a Gum tree. He said,
“Remember, you only have two wishes left.”
Gemma ignored Mulla and kept walking.
Gemma had just passed the gate and was walking up the large, old, grey steps of her home, when she tripped and yelled,
“I wish those bloody steps weren’t there!”
Suddenly a puff of glittering smoke appeared, covering the steps. As the smoke started to clear, Gemma realised that the steps had disappeared and that she had used ANOTHER one of wishes!
In disappointment, Gemma went up to her room to lie on her bed. She slowly started to feel drossy and tired, so she fell asleep.

It was a new day. Gemma and her father had to go into town because Fredrick had to go to a meeting. So because Gemma couldn’t go to the meeting, she was going to stay with her friend Stella who lived in town. The town was full of old rundown buildings, but at one end of town there were lots of new buildings. That’s where they were going for the day. Gemma loved Stella’s house’ because it had the best view of the whole town.

For the whole day all the girls did was play outside, but while they were out there something went wrong. Mulla had appeared, he was sitting on the steps. The problem was, was the Stella could see him. Straight as she spotted him, her eyes lit up, as if she’d seen a ghost. Stella yelled out to Gemma. She said,
“Gemma help! There’s a ghost sitting on the steps!”
Gemma turned around to see Mulla sitting on the steps like he didn’t have a care in the world. Slowly Mulla started to fade away. Gemma was confused, because she still had one wish left. She said to herself,
“Where is Mulla? I still have one wish left. Has he disappeared because Stella saw him?”
It had been two hours since Mulla had disappeared. Stella was still talking about Mulla. Gemma thought to herself,
“Maybe if I can get Stella to forget about Mulla, He’ll appear again?”
So Gemma tried telling Stella that she was seeing things. She even tried to hit her across the head so she’d forget, but nothing worked! Gemma had given up. She went and sat down in a dark, gloomy corner by herself, and started to cry. While she was crying she said to herself,
“I wish this never happened!”
Just after she said that. Stella came up to her and said,
“Why are you crying?”
Gemma said in return, “Because you know about Mulla.”
“Who’s Mulla?” Stella said.
That’s when Gemma realised that her wish had come true, and that everything was back to normal.
THE END!