Roy drove the family car patiently and silently. Efrat was dosing off in the front passenger seat. Sitting in the back seat was their only son, Danny, about 12 years old, dark haired, slender, of medium height, wearing headphones attached to a smartphone, with an expression of eternal boredom on his face, not even swaying to the sound of the music he was listening to over the headphones.
The car entered the hotel parking lot, and Efrat statled, rose and exchanged glances with her husband. He shrugged with resignation, turned his head and said firmly: "Hey, Danny!"
Danny took off his headphones reluctantly. "Are we there yet?"
"Yes, we are. And you remember our deal, right? After we check in and get settled in the room, you leave your phone and go down the pool. There are a lot of kids your age and the entertainment team organizes games and activities. I'm sure you'll find something interesting to do."
Efrat smiled lovingly and encouragingly at her son, but it was clear that even she knew her attempt was doomed to failure from the start. "Make an effort, OK, honey? That's all we ask."
Roy opened the car door, stepped outside, clapped his hands and called out, putting on an excessively cheerful front: "Come on, let's show this town what the Gordon family is all about!"
It turned out that Roy was right, though unwittingly. The entertainment team’s pool games held no appeal at all for Danny, because most of the children who participated in them were a lot younger, and he walked past the pool and down to the hotel beach, where he could pick up the sounds of older children playing. Two groups of children were playing beach volleyball, surrounded by a crowd of about twenty more children standing and cheering. He stood for a moment and watched until a stray ball rolled to a stop at his feet. He hesitated for a moment, bent down and picked up the ball, and by the time he stood up again, he was surrounded by a group of children with facial expressions ranging from curiosity to irritation. He swung the ball, asked simply: "May I?" And hit a precise blow at one of the boys who remained standing on the other side of the makeshift net.
It was nearly five in the afternoon, and the passionate game lasted for over an hour. Danny found himself enjoying it, and even managed to prove himself as a good enough player, because of his agility and speed. None of the players and spectators paid any attention to the skies, which were growing darker by the minute, until a sudden gust of strong wind, accompanied by an equally sudden burst of torrential rain, caused everyone to flee for shelter. In spite of the turmoil, a shiny object lying on the top of a pile of stones caught Danny’s attention and made him stop. The object was a glass bottle, very old looking, full of sand and dirt, apparently washed ashore somehow by the sea. Danny was about to throw the bottle back, but something made him change his mind. He turned the bottle and shook it, and to his surprise, a rolled up piece of parchment dropped out of the bottle. The back of parchment was covered with strange drawings, but fearing that the parchment might get wet in the rain, Danny quickly stuffed it in his pocket. He threw the bottle and continued running towards the hotel.
Danny lay in his bed, wearing the headset connected to the smartphone and facing the TV set which was almost muted, but he didn’t pay much attention to either. His hands were holding the piece of parchment he found on the beach. It was the size of an average notepad page. It seemed very old, and he had never seen such an old object out of the museum his class went to on a yearly field trip. The front side of the parchment was covered with a writing Danny could not identify.
His father's firm voice, coming out of the bedroom, pulled him out of his reverie. He took off his headphones and listened with deliberate impatience.
"Danny, we'll be down at the club. We won’t be too late. We left you a sandwich in case you get hungry and you can take whatever you want from the minibar..."
"OK, Dad."
Efrat, who has just finished getting dressed was also out of the bedroom, walked towards the bed. "Don’t you open the door to anyone and don’t leave the room before we get back, is that clear?" She said with an equal mix of severity and lightheartedness. "If you need anything, you call." She hurried to plant a smacking kiss her son’s forehead of before he could protest. "Don’t go to bed too late. Good night, honey."
Roy and Efrat were already by the front door when Danny's voice stopped them. "Dad?"
Roy turned around in surprise. "Yes?"
Danny picked up the rolled out piece of parchment. "I found this on the beach today What do you think it is?"
Efrat took a step back towards her son, but Roy stopped her with a hand gesture. "Not now, Danny. We’re in a hurry. Show it to us tomorrow, OK?"
Danny put the headphones back on and did not reply. Roy and Efrat exchanged frustrated looks and left the room.
A border patrol jeep drove slowly on the beach. The three officers sitting in it looked rather bored by what seemed to be another routine and uneventful night patrol, until the youngest of the officers, sitting in the passenger seat next to the driver, suddenly tensed up and called out: "Stop! Stop!"
The driver stopped the jeep so suddenly it shook the three occupants, almost knocking the officer sitting in the back off his seat. "What the hell…" he called out angrily. "Are you out of your fucking mind?!"
"Look!" The young officer ignored his colleague’s annoyance and pointed his arm towards a point further down the beach.
It took a few seconds for the two officers to realize that it was a person sitting alone on the beach, motionless, facing the sea. The anger of the officer sitting in the back seat, apparently the patrol commander, subsided immediately and he tensed up. "Come with me," he ordered the young officer, and then the driver: "Point the light at him and cover us."
The commander and the young officer started to move toward the figure, while the driver pointed the Jeep’s powerful searchlight at it. In the light, more details of the figure became discernable. It was a man of an undeterminable age, probably around 40 or 50, wearing a colorful vest and a just as colorful pair of pants, a golden sash around his waist and a red turban on his head. He sat cross-legged, seemingly oblivious to the light directed at him and to the two officers approaching him, who were so surprised that they forgot for a moment to point their weapons at him. When they stopped next to him, they could also hear him muttering to himself monotonously, in an unintelligible language.
"What is this, did he just come out of a costume party or what?" The young officer whispered to the commander.
"You think?" The commander replied sarcastically, and then turned to the Stranger and said loudly: "Hey, you!"
The Stranger continued to mumble unintelligibly, motionless and unresponsive.
"Maybe he doesn't speak Hebrew," the commander said tensely. "Tell him to stand up, turn around and put his hands up. Come on!"
The young officer, who spoke good Arabic, called in Arabic: "Get up, man! Turn around! Hands up!"
The Stranger did not respond. The commander repeated the order in English, and when no response came, he cocked his weapon and motioned with his head towards the young officer. The young man came up to the Stranger, grabbed his shoulder and called: "Come on, get up!"
He tried to pull the stranger up to his feet, and surprisingly enough, the Stranger stopped mumbling and did not resist. When he turned around to face the officers, his face expressed wonder, almost like a child who had just unwrapped his new toy and could not yet make up his whether he liked what he got or not. He was a tall, muscular-looking, and it was quite obvious that there was no room for a hidden weapon in his weird cloths.
"Who are you?" Asked the commander loudly and clearly. "Do you understand me?"
"I understand your question, I do not understand you," the abrupt answer, in an ordinary, completely normal voice, in Hebrew with an unidentifiable accent, came like a shock to the two officers.
"Don’t you know it’s forbidden to be in this area after dark?" The commander asked.
"No," The stranger replied simply. "And who would forbid me?"
The two officers exchanged glances. The initial shock wore off, and with it also the fear that they were dealing with a terrorist or a violent offender, making way for the conclusion that this was a person not in their right mind, perhaps under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but basically harmless. "We are the police, do understand what that means?"
"Police?" The Stranger repeated the word as if he really did not understand its meaning, but then his face brightened. "Police? Will you help me find my bottle?"
"Uh..." The commander was at a loss for words for a moment. His eyes desperately searched the eyes of his younger colleague for help. "Your bottle? You lost your bottle?"
"Yes!" Replied the Stranger, apparently relieved at what seemed like the first expression of sympathy for his plight. "My bottle! Have you found my bottle?"
"No, I'm sorry," the commander decided he might be better off playing along with the harmless fantasy, at least until more details became clear. "You know what? Come with us, we'll help you find your bottle."
The two officers began to walk back towards the Jeep. The Stranger joined them without any resistance. They got on the Jeep, the commander and the Stranger in the back, and the young officer in his place at the driver's side. The driver turned off the searchlight and started the Jeep.
"Report back to normal," the commander ordered a few seconds later.
The young officer, for whom the order was intended, reached for the radio and said, "Command, this is 11."
"Roger, 11," Came the metallic, broken up reply.
"Back to normal. Returning to base with one prisoner. Not violent or dangerous. Stand down alert."
"Roger, 11, over and out," came the reply.
The Stranger sat in the interrogation room at the police station, looking lost and confused. Across the table from him sat Haim Toledano, a veteran detective at the Eilat Police Department, and another uniformed officer, older and more experienced looking, with a tag on his uniform shirt pocket bearing the name Alex Marinov. In the observation room, behind the two-way mirror, sat the three border patrolemen, glued to their spots with burning curiosity.
"So I hear you're looking for your bottle," said detective Toledano casually, as if taking the Stranger’s story completely seriously. "Tell me, what does it look like and where did you lose it?"
"A glass sea-green colored bottle, decorated with etchings," said the Stranger. "It was washed ashore during the storm. A small person, about this high - " He marked the approximate height with his hand. "took it."
"You mean a child," Officer Marinov intervened.
The Stranger shrugged as if the word meant nothing to him. "Yes. A child," he said.
"I'm sorry, I don’t know anything about a child," said detective Toledano. "What can you tell me about this?"
On the table before lay a pocket watch attached to a chain, very ancient looking. It was the only object found in the search of Stranger’s pockets when he was taken to the police station.
"It’s a timer," the Stranger replied simply.
"A timer? And it belongs to you?"
"Yes, for... three thousand years."
"May I see it?" Officer Marinov reached for the watch, picked it up and examined it closely. "I'm pretty sure that three thousand years ago there were no such watches," he said a few seconds later, and was about to put the watch back on the table when suddenly his mind picked up on a strange fact. "Certainly not ones that go backwards…"
"Backwards?!" Detective Toledano interrupted him sharply.
"Yes," replied officer Marinov. "Maybe we should get it to the lab for testing, you know, to make sure it is real and not stolen ..."
"Yes, you take care of that," detective Toledano agreed. "And now ..."
He was interrupted by a loud, official sounding knock on the door. The door opened and a young woman in a lab coat came in. She handed the detective a sheet of printed paper, whispered something in his ear and left the room. Detective Toledano looked briefly at the sheet of paper, and then looked at the Stranger, whose face remained expressionless throughout the interrogation.
"So it turns out that you are not drunk," detective Toledano finally said. "And the bottle you're looking for is not a bottle of wine or whiskey, right?"
"True," the Stranger said.
"Well, I really don't know what to do with you. Since you don't have a residential address and I can't let you go back to the beach, you will stay here tonight. We will bring you something to eat and drink, you can get some sleep, and tomorrow morning we'll see."
The Stranger did not respond. Detective Toledano and officer Marinov left the interrogation room. Outside, the three Border Patrolmen waited with baited breath. .
"A total whack job, right?" the patrol commander said sympathetically.
"You think?" detective Toledano retorted ironically, unaware that those were the exact same words used by the patrol commander himself just a few hours earlier. "Do me a favor, when your shift is over, take him straight to the psych ward at Yoseftal, will you?"
The three officers exchanged "what did we do to deserve this?" glances, but said nothing.
After breakfast, Danny surprised his parents by announcing that he was going down to the pool. Some of the kids who participated in the volleyball game were already there, but because their number was insufficient for a game of volleyball, they decided to move to the table tennis area. In the heat of the game, they were unaware that the floor was still slippery from yesterday's rain. Danny leaped to intercept a serve ball, slipped as he landed, tripped and fell. He injured his knee, which bled profusely from a deep cut. Two members of the entertainment team, alerted by the commotion that followed, came running and helped Danny onto a chair. A couple of minutes later a hotel EMT also showed up. Danny tried to put up a brave face during the cursory examination, but after a brief consultation with the entertainment team members, the EMT turned to Danny, and in the most encouraging tone he could muster at that moment he said, "OK, young man, what's your name?"
"Danny, Danny Gordon," Danny said.
"Great, Danny, from what I can see, your leg's fine, right? But we're taking you to the emergency room, just for a quick X-ray. Where are your parents? I'll call them, they must be worried..."
"No, don’t call them!" Danny interrupted him sharply, and then added in a more subdued tone: "I mean, they are not in the room. Leave a message at the reception, so they know where I am. When they come back, they'll find me."
The EMT hesitated for a moment, then turned to the two entertainment team members. "Stay with him until the ambulance gets here," he said.
At the emergency room Danny was met by the attending physician, a pleasant-looking elderly man who managed to keep his grandfatherly demeanor after many years of hard and grinding work. He held up the X-ray of the knee he has just received from the technician, examined it carefully and said reassuringly: "Hmmm ... it seems to me that everything is fine. Just blunt trauma. We'll bandage your leg and everything should be fine within a day or two. Tell me how it happened, OK?"
Danny grew more relaxed as the pain in his knee subsided.
"We were playing ping pong, the floor was wet from yesterday’s rain and I slipped, that's all. Stupid, really," Danny replied with a shrug. Talking about the rain suddenly reminded him of the parchment that was still in his pocket, and with a sudden determination he pulled it out and showed it to the doctor. "Look what I found on the beach during the storm."
The doctor took the parchment and examined it carefully, growing more and more curious by the minute. "Interesting..." he mused. "You found it on the beach? Are you sure?"
"Yes, it was in a bottle," Danny said, deadly serious, as if he was describing the most natural thing in the world.
"In a bottle?" The doctor's curiosity turned into skepticism, and he gave Danny a quizzical look. But seeing the obviously disappointed look on Danny’s face, he added quickly in a lighter tone: "Look, I have friends at the university in Jerusalem who are experts in such things, archeology, ancient languages... I can send it to them for testing…"
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"No!" Danny yelled and snatched the parchment from the hands of the surprised doctor. "It's mine!"
"All right, all right!" The doctor raised his hands defensively. "Look what we'll do. Let me scan or photograph it, and I'll Email it to my friends in Jerusalem, OK?"
Danny hesitated. "You promise to give it back, right?"
"Of course," the doctor promised. "By the time the nurse finishes bandaging your leg, you'll get it back."
Danny relented and handed the parchment to the doctor.
The treatment room door opened and in came Roy and Efrat, breathless and hysterical. "Danny!" Efrat called, rushing to her son and huggung him with all her might. "What happened? Why didn’t you call us immediately? We were worried sick! Is everything all right?"
"Yes, why didn’t you call us right away?!" Roy exclaimed, his anger aggravated by his sincere concern for his son.
The doctor, who just walked in and heard the exchange, hurried to intervene. "Mrs. Gordon, Mr. Gordon, everything is fine. Danny has suffered only a blunt trauma. You’ll be able to take it back to the hotel right away. But if his knee bothers him during the night, bring him back here in the morning. He may need to have fluids drained out of his knee. Here's all the paperwork." He handed Roy an envelope containing the X-ray, and a smaller envelope probably containing the medical record summary, then offered his hand to Danny. "Take care, young man. I don’t want to see you here again, got it?"
Danny shook the hand, and was surprised to find a soft cylindrical object in it. He knew without looking that it was his piece of parchment, and looked gratefully at the doctor. Meanwhile, Roy and Efrat put their son in a wheelchair, and he took advantage of their momentary distraction to put the piece of parchment in his pocket. After a last farewell, Danny and his parents left the treatment room.
The doctor who finished treating Danny was on his way to the next patient when he saw a uniformed officer standing guard at one of the adjacent doors. A man wearing a business suit approached the room, a hospital identity tag attached to his pants pocket. The doctor knew him well as a colleague from the hospital’s psychiatric ward and called out to him: "Hey, Eli!"
The psychiatrist was stopped. "Hey, Sammy!" He called back. "What's up? Long time no see. I heard you had an interesting case this evening."
"Yes, a cute kid, but with a wild imagination," the doctor said, approaching the psychiatrist. "Look what he gave me." He displayed the image of the parchment he received from Danny on his cellpohone’s screen for the psychiatrist to see.
The psychiatrist looked at the image very intently, then smiled and said: "Looks interesting. Let's talk about this later, OK? I have an interesting case of my own."
"Of course," the doctor said. "We’ll be in touch."
The two shook hands, and the psychiatrist went to the room where the officer was standing guard in the doorway, showed his ID and walked inside.
In the treatment room, the Stranger picked up from the beach sat on the chair, still wearing his colorful cloths and Turban, which he refused to exchange for the comfortable training suit he was offered. The psychiatrist sat across from him, with a mixture of curiosity in the face of a hard case to crack and frustration about his inability to get his strange patient to talk.
"So let's summarize," he said finally. "You have no name, you have no home, your only possession is the watch the police found on you, and you insist that you are a... Genie?"
"I never said I had no name. I never said I had no home. I never said the watch was my possession. But yes, I am a Genie," the Stranger replied patiently.
"And tell me again briefly, how did you get here?"
"My bottle was washed ashore. A little person - a child - found it and freed me. According to the laws of the Genie, I must find the child and grant him three wishes before sunset, otherwise I will become a mortal myself."
"And you've been doing this for... 3,000 years?"
"Indeed. And I take pride in the fact that have never failed to do my duty, and I have no desire to fail this time around."
"The watch we found in your pocket, your only possession, is not 3,000 years old. I'm not an expert on antiques, but it is quite clear that it no more than…”
"200 years old," interrupted the Stranger. "I never claimed it was 3,000 years old. I said it belonged to me for 3,000 years. It's just a beautiful object I picked up along the way, after granting the third wish to…"
The psychiatrist looked confused for a moment, but quickly came to his senses and decided it was time to attack the problem from a different angle. "You have an answer for everything, don’t you?" He said, interrupting the Stranger. "Then answer me this. If you really are a Genie, why can’t you find the child on your own?"
"This is not the way of the Genie," said the Stranger, never losing his patience. "A Genie can only grant wishes to others, not to himself."
The psychiatrist closed his notepad and stood up. "OK. Let me check on a few things. I'll be right back."
The psychiatrist left the room and closed the door behind him. The officer on duty outside drew him a questioning look, and the psychiatrist said: "Stay here, I'm going to get him a transfer to the security ward."
The psychiatrist was sitting in his office, trying to concentrate on reading a medical file while waiting for his next patient, but something was troubling him. A few seconds later he put down the file, reached for the phone and dialed a number. When the answer came, he said: "Sammy? It's Eli. You got a few minutes?"
"For you? Always," came the lightheaded response in the voice of the emergency room doctor who treated Danny. "What's going on with your interesting case?"
"I sent him to the security ward, but something does not add up. Tell me, have you heard anything from your friends at the university in Jerusalem?"
"As a matter of fact, if you’re asking, I did," said the emergency room physician. "I just got an email from my friend in the archaeology Department. He says there is very good chance that this parchment is really 3,000 years old, and it seems that the writing is in some ancient Semitic language the name of which I can’t pronounce, but they can’t tell you more without examining the original."
"Where’s the boy who gave you the parchment?" the psychiatrist asked. "Did you send him back to the hotel?"
"Yes, his parents came for him."
"Which hotel?"
"I don’t remember, it’s in the file…"
"Look up the number. I’ll be right there," the psychiatrist said and hung up.
In the Emergency Room doctor's office the two doctors waited anxiously until the courteous voice of the _________ hotel’s receptionist finally answered: "Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir, but the Gordon family checked out of the hotel half an hour ago…”
"Checked out?!" The emergency room doctor exclaimed. "Did they leave a phone number?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I’m not allowed to give ..."
"Look, ma'am, my name is Dr. Germann, from the Yoseftal ER, I treated their son this morning, and I need the phone number of one of the parents immediately!"
The Gordon family car was filled with sullen silence. It was clear that not everyone was resigned with the decision to leave. Danny was lying in the back seat with his bandaged leg raised on a folded blanket, headphones on his ears, completely withdrawn. Roy pretended to concentrate on his driving, and Efrat's eyes were closed, although it was quite clear that she was not asleep or even dozing off.
The phone interrupted the silence and Roy hit the speaker button secretly welcoming the interruption. "Hello?"
"Mr. Gordon?" Said the voice on the other end. "This is Dr. Germann speaking, I treated your son in the emergency room this morning. I just wanted to make sure that everything is OK…”
"Yes, Doctor, everything is all right, Danny is fine, we simply decided that he would be better off resting at home, and tomorrow we'll take him to our doctor for a checkup…"
"Excellent, excellent," the doctor interrupted. "Mr. Gordon, I'll say it straight. I need you to turn around and come back to Eilat right away. We have… somewhat of an emergency here and we need your help. Especially Danny's help."
Efrat turned sharply toward her husband: "Tell him no!" She said in a firm whisper.
Roy hesitated a moment, then said into the headset: "I'm sorry, Doctor, but we can’t go back. We've are already…”
The two were unaware that Danny has taken off the headphones and was listening attentively to the conversation. He was awake and alert and even took his bandaged leg off the seat. "Tell him we're turning back, Dad!"
Roy turned his head in disbelief and almost lost control of the wheel for a moment. "What are you talking about!?" He exploded in anger. "It's too late! We can’t…”
"Tell him we're turning back! We have to go back!"
"Why?" Efrat demanded. "Why do we have to go back? What happened? What's so important?"
"We just have to!" Danny's voice expressed his plea, almost on the verge of tears. "Dad, please! Let's go back!"
Roy continued to drive for a few seconds more, until Danny's voice shouted in his ears from the back seat: "Daddy! Please!"
Roy slammed on the brakes. He exchanged glances with Efrat, who nodded. He realized that the doctor was still waiting for his answer on the other end of the line, and said, "OK, Doctor, we’re turning back."
The doctor's voice expressed profound relief when he said: "Thank you very much, Mr. Gordon. Go straight to Yoseftal, to the psych ward. I will explain everything when you arrive."
When the family arrived at the psych ward, they were met with a wheelchair for Danny, so he wouldn’t have to limp all the way. The admissions nurse was already instructed as to where to direct them, but when they arrived at the Stranger’s cell, the door was open, and the cell was empty. The Stranger was gone.
The emergency room physician and psychiatrist waiting by the cell. Roy, rolling Danny’s wheelchair, came to a sudden stop. "What’s going on here?" He demanded.
The psychiatrist approached him and extended his hand. "Thank you for returning, Mr. Gordon. We have a little mystery here, which I hope that your son can help us solve."
"My son?" Roy returned wonder. "What’s he got to do with any of this?"
But Danny already knew the answer. "It’s the parchment, isn’t it?"
"Parchment?" Efrat said. "What parchment?"
"The one I tried to show you yesterday," replied Danny with more than a hint of reproach in his voice. "You heard from the university, right?"
The question was addressed to the ER doctor, who replied: "You could say that. And we found someone who claims that... this parchment belongs to him."
"What is this, are you trying to accuse my son of stealing?" Roy's anger arose again. "Is that why you asked us to come back? I…"
"No, no, God forbid," the psychiatrist intervened in a soothing tone, and turning directly to Danny, continued. "Maybe we haven’t made ourselves clear. Last night on the beach the police arrested someone who… claimed to be a Genie released from his bottle by a child."
"And what’s that got to do with my son?" Efrat intervened for the first time.
"The piece of parchment Danny found on the beach," explained the emergency room doctor. "The university says it may be very well be the real thing."
Danny's eyes lit up for the first time. "The real thing?"
"Yes. The man said that... He has until sunset to find you and grant you three wishes, otherwise he will become a mortal."
Danny was thoughtful for a moment. "But I didn’t take the bottle, I left it right where I found it..." Then he was struck by a sudden realization. "The parchment! He needs the parchment!"
At that moment the three officers came out of the cell, including officer Marinov, the who was realized the significance of the old watch the day before. He held the watch in his hand
"He disappeared off the face of the earth, but never took the watch," said officer Marinov, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "And if the watch keeps going backwards at the current rate, it will stop in about an hour…”
"This is the time we have left until sunset, right?" Danny asked, his voice and his eyes expressing his deep anxiety.
The two doctors looked at each other. Someone had to make a decision. Finally the psychiatrist cleared his throat. "Genie or not, we have a problem. A mental patient escaped from the security ward and we must find him." He turned to officer Marinov. "Can you get us a police escort?"
"Yeah, right away," The officer pulled out his radio and moved towards the exit. The two other officers hurried up after him.
"I will join you," said the emergency room doctor. "We'll take an ambulance, just in case. You will follow us in your car. Danny, do you think you can show us the exact spot where you found the bottle?"
"Yes," Danny replied without hesitation.
"So you will ride in the ambulance with us. Are you OK with that?"
Danny glanced pleadingly at his parents, who surprisingly enough, did not express any objection, and his eyes sparkled. "Absolutely!"
The convoy, led by the police car, followed by the ambulance with and with Roy and Efrat's family car bringing up the rear, came to a screeching halt as close as possible to the beach. The sun was setting, and the beach was almost deserted. From a distance they could see the Stranger sitting on the beach, facing the sea and staring into the horizon. Danny stepped off the ambulance, momentarily forgetting the pain in his leg and his limp, and ran to the spot within the pile of stones where he dumped the bottle. The bottle was still there. Danny picked up the bottle, inserted the piece of parchment back inside and hurried towards the Stranger. At the sight of Danny approaching with the bottle, the Stranger rose to his feet. He took the bottle from Danny's hands, looked into it, making sure that the piece of parchment was inside, and then a slow, large smile covered his face.
"I have never granted wishes to such a small mortal, but you know what to have to do now, right?" he said. "Choose wisely and carefully, because once you do, there’s no going back."
The seven adults who remained standing by the vehicles watched intently. They couldn’t hear what the Stranger and Danny were talking about. Somehow, none of them seriously believed that Danny was in any real danger, but the police officers grew nervous by the minute, and finally officer Marinov said: "Well, maybe we should arrest him anyway…"
"Yeah, this has been going on for far too long," Roy said curtly, and started walking toward the beach, but he barely took one step before the psychiatrist stopped him with a hand gesture.
"Not yet," he said. "Trust me. Trust your son. I promise you that no harm will come to him."
Meanwhile, the conversation was over. Danny and the Stranger parted with a handshake and Danny started walking back toward his parents, who welcomed him with loving embraces, greatly relieved.
"OK," said the psychiatrist to the officers, "I guess now you can arrest him…"
But when they turned their heads back towards the sea, the Stranger was no longer there.
Roy drove the car again on the way north, but this time the atmosphere was completely different. Roy hummed an unidentifiable tune, and Efrat’s face also expressed satisfaction. They chatted in a quiet and relaxed tone, probably about the events of the past few days. From time to time one of them sneaked a glance at the back seat, where Danny sat with his bandaged leg raised up, the Smartphone in his hands and the headphones over his ears. They took turns making sure with a quick glance that the boy is doing well, smiling and getting a smile back.
Finally, the parents could no longer help themselves. They exchanged glances of "Go on, ask him," "No, you ask," "No, you ask." Then Roy cleared his throat and said in the most normal, casual tone he could muster: "So, son, how are you doing? How’s the leg? Are you comfortable back there?"
"Everything's fine, Dad," Danny replied. "I'm just hungry, that's all."
"No problem, we're almost at Yotvata and we can stop..." Roy started to say, but Efrat gave her husband a slight but firm elbow nudge, and he knew he could not delay the question anymore. "Uh… How did it end up with that guy, the one who claimed to be a Genie?" He said finally.
Danny took the headphones off his ears and shrugged. "Nothing, he told me to make my three wishes, I did, and as soon as I turned around he was gone. You saw it, didn’t you?"
Efrat turned her head back. "What did you wish for?" She asked, unable to curb her curiosity.
"Oh, I’m not allowed to tell, it's one of his rules. If you tell, the wish will not come true."
"And… did your wishes come true?"
A mysterious smile came slowly over Danny’s face. "One of them came true, so I am quite sure that others will too. The Genie promised. He just didn’t say how long it will take…"