“It’s a request, Lewis,” Prince Casimir smiled, “a request, not a command. If you would just open your window for a few minutes … to please me, Lewis!”
Lewis grinned and stuck his tongue out at the djinn before heading for the bedroom where he pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Casimir seethed furiously. Just let him wait! Once he got him to Ardray, he’d soon teach him to show some respect for his elders and betters!
“If my mother comes in and finds the window open, I’m in trouble,” Lewis said aloud, knowing that the djinn could hear him. “The central heating’s on full blast, you know!” Nevertheless, he went to one of the windows and, hooking his fingers through the old-fashioned brass rings, pulled the window up. Six inches was enough. The magic carpet that had been hovering outside almost knocked him on his back as it flew in on the icy blast that whistled through the room.
Lewis scrambled to his feet, pushed the window down and stomped into the bathroom so that he could speak to Casimir face to face. “You might have told me you were expecting a magic carpet!” he said in annoyance. “It gave me the fright of my life!”
Casimir, however, was still dizzy with relief at the return of his carpet! It had answered his call. Now he could go home. Home to Ardray!
“That little mirror we bought yesterday, Lewis. Look into it, will you, so that I can talk to you in the bedroom and tell you about my carpet.”
Lewis nodded and went to fetch the mirror, wondering why he had ever been worried at the thought of having a djinn inside him, for he had not only become accustomed to living with Casimir, he was actually feeling grateful to him. So far, he had to admit, the djinn had more than kept his side of the bargain.
When he’d woken up to his first morning in Edinburgh, his first wish had been for cash. He was quite sure that Edinburgh would have all the big music stores and as he was desperate to bring his CD collection up to date, he’d asked for a hundred pounds. Casimir, however, had suggested a thousand. A hundred pounds, he’d advised, didn’t go far nowadays. The bundles of five pound notes that had then thumped down on the bathmat made Lewis blink and, worried that Mrs Sinclair might prowl round upstairs to see if he really was keeping his room tidy, he had gathered them up and hurriedly locked them in his suitcase.
As it turned out, he hadn’t been able to go shopping that morning as his parents had taken him with them to the hospital to visit his Gran. The hospital was huge and when Lewis got to the ward, he found it hard to believe that his kind, friendly grandmother had turned into the frail, shrunken old lady lying in the narrow bed. The change in her had frightened him and his face had been thoughtful as he’d left the hospital.
The next morning he’d asked Casimir anxiously if he could make his Gran better. Casimir’s lips tightened and he gave Lewis a most peculiar look. What Lewis didn’t know was that in the world of magic, Casimir was generally regarded as being proud, arrogant and aloof by his fellow magicians. Indeed, his opinion of himself was so high that he very rarely deigned to speak to anyone less well-bred than himself. He was certainly not the type to be involved in good deeds, neither was he prone to being charitable; rather the opposite, if the truth be told. Casimir, therefore, was a good deal taken aback to find that Lewis quite naturally expected him to behave with compassion.
A bargain, however, was a bargain and Casimir was not ignoble. So he’d looked at Lewis strangely and said that it’d take some time but that yes, he could make his Gran better. And that afternoon, Lewis found his mother in the living room, her eyes shining with hope. The hospital had just phoned to say that his Gran was responding surprisingly well to new drugs and that she seemed set to recover.
Lewis, therefore, was feeling really grateful to the djinn and went quite happily into the bedroom where he found the magic carpet draped over one of the radiators, steaming gently. He looked at it dismissively for although he knew it was a magic carpet it was, as far as he was concerned, certainly nothing to write home about. It was a pitiful thing, really, he thought; thin, patched and almost threadbare in places. He could see from Casimir’s face in the mirror, however, that he was really upset at the state of the carpet.
“What happened?” Casimir asked the carpet, his voice choked with emotion. “What happened to you?”
Lewis didn’t understand half of the story that poured from the carpet. What on earth, he wondered, were storm carriers and who were Prince Kalman and Lord Rothlan?
Casimir’s face was a picture for he was looking totally devastated, furiously angry and filled with concern for his carpet, all at the same time. Lewis lifted it from the radiator. He could see from the colours and the weave that it must, at one time, have been a beautiful carpet. Now, however, its colours were faded, it was patched in several places and its silken threads were so thin as to be threadbare.