The Genie Bear

It was a warm sunny day and Sandra was sitting on the beach enjoying herself, digging a deep hole in the sand with a spade when, suddenly, the end of her spade struck against something hard.

Using her fingers, Sandra dug deeper until, finally, she saw what the object was.

It was an old glass bottle and, grabbing hold of it, she pulled it out of the hole and examined it.

“I wonder what could be in it”, she thought, tugging at the cork in the neck of the bottle.

But the cork wouldn’t come out. It was stuck tight.

She rubbed away the sand that was covering the bottle to see if it had a label.

Suddenly, the cork shot upwards out of the neck of the bottle, whizzing right up towards the white fluffy clouds that were drifting overhead and then, to Sandra’s amazement, she saw a thick white mist pour out of the bottle and the white mist started to take shape and become solid until, standing in front of her was a smiling teddy bear genie with brown fur just like an ordinary teddy bear but wearing a red, gold trimmed waistcoat with a purple turban on his head.

“You summoned the Genie Bear”, he said, “And so now your every wish is my command”.

“Oh wow”, said the little girl, “You mean anything that I wish for, you’ll give me?”.

“Precisely”, said the Genie Bear.

Sandra stroked her chin in thought,

“Hmm?”, she said, “Well I wouldn’t mind a nice ice cream cone”.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and then, in the next instant, Sandra saw that the bottle in her hand had turned into an ice cream cone.

“Mmm”, said Sandra, eating her cone, “Yes this is very nice”.

But then, while Sandra was enjoying her ice cream and looking up at the clouds, that looked just like ice cream, floating overhead, she thought of another wish.

“Oh, I really wish I could fly”, she said.

“Very well”, said the Genie bear and, lifting up Sandra in his arms, he flew up high into the sky.

“Oh Wow”, said Sandra as they raced through the air, faster and faster and then, bursting through the clouds, Sandra saw the dazzling golden sun.

“Would you like to go higher”, asked the Genie bear, “I could take you up to the stars?”.

“Oh yes, yes please”, said Sandy.

So the Genie turned himself into a space rocket and, riding upon the rocket, Sandra shot high up into outer space, far above the Earth and, all around her, she saw the twinkling stars of the milky way.

“I wonder why it’s called the Milky Way”, asked Sandra.

“Oh that’s because the stars are little drops of milk and the moon is made of cheese”, said the Genie bear and, reaching out and grabbing hold of one of the stars with his paw, he gave it to Sandra to drink and, to her amazement, it really was milk.

But then another wish popped into Sandra’s head, she thought she would like to go swimming in the sea.

And the Genie, knowing what she wanted, even without her asking for it, suddenly flew back down out of space, turning himself into a dolphin and then Sandra rode across the ocean waves on the Dolphins back.

“Would you like to go deeper?”, asked the Dolphin, blowing a big, gushing fountain of water out of his blow hole and making Sandra giggle as the water sprayed over her face, “Under the sea?”.

“Oh yes, yes please”,  said Sandra.

Suddenly, the dolphin plunged deep below the surface of the water and then, to Sandra’s amazement, she realized, blowing a long stream of bubbles from her mouth, that she could breath underwater.

Then the genie bear opened up a big oyster shell that looked just like an enormous mouth and, inside, was a crown of glittering pearls that he placed upon her head.

“It belongs to the Queen of the mermaids”, said the Genie, “But you can have it if you want”.

Just then however, out of an old cave nearby, Sandra saw the Queen of Mermaids emerge surrounded by fish tailed mer-soldiers with long tridents and she looked angry.

“How dare you take my crown”, she said.

And she ordered her mer-soldiers to arrest them.

Fortunately, just at that moment, the Genie bear turned into an octopus with boxing gloves upon each of its long arms and knocked out each of the Mermaid queens soldiers one by one before tying their fish tales together.

Then, taking hold of Sandra again, the Genie bear carried her back up to the surface.

But then, yawning, Sandra said.

“Oh, I’m feeling quite tired from all that flying and swimming and diving. I really wish I was warm and cosy, tucked up in bed”.

“As you wish”, said the Genie bear.

And then, simply by blinking both his eyes, the Genie bear transported Sandra back home to her bedroom and laid her down upon her bed before pulling its covers over her.

“Oh thank you”, said Sandra, sleepily.

“You are welcome”, said the Genie bear, bowing, “Have you any more wishes for me?”.

“Oh just one”, she said, “I could really do with a teddy bear to cuddle”.

“Oh, well that’s the easiest wish of all to grant”, said the Genie bear and then, taking off his waist coat and turban, he became an ordinary teddy bear and, drifting off to sleep, Sandra hugged him tight.