“Are you deaf or something?”
“On the contrary,” replied George affably. “All our products have new enhanced sensor capability uprated to provide for instantaneous spoken inputting. This feature alone—”
“Then do as you’re told and put me down!”
“Sorry.”
For a count of maybe three Jane was, literally, speechless; partly because she was so angry she couldn’t speak, partly because something small and airborne flew into her open mouth, and the momentum of the collision nearly knocked her over the side. She struggled to her knees again and thumped the carpet with her fist.
“What d’you mean, sorry? I told you—”
“You told me,” George interrupted, “that your wish was not my command, and that when I heard I shouldn’t obey. You got it?”
“But look, I didn’t mean…”
“Sorry. But you’re the sentient being, I’m only a computerised guidance system. Policy formulation’s down to you.” George paused, as if for effect. “You guys are supposed to be good at that.”
“But…”
“Further clarification,” George continued, as they missed one snow-capped peak by a few thousandths of an inch, “would, however, be appreciated. For example, when you say something, do you want me to ignore it completely or do the exact opposite?”
Jane blinked twice. “Do the opposite,” she said quickly. “Don’t put me down. Fly faster.”
“Thanks.”
The carpet flew on: same course, same momentum, Jane screamed and clouted it with the heel of her shoe.
“Just checking,” said George. “You told me to do the exact opposite, I’m programmed to disobey all orders, therefore I ignore you. That right?”
“No. Yes. Both.”
“Thank you.”
The carpet flew on.
Kiss sat bolt upright. He felt as if a truck had just ploughed into the back of his neck.
Someone was calling him — someone frightened, in danger, in need of protection. No prizes for guessing who.
Bloody woman!
Moon of his delight, entrancing vision of sublime loveliness who gave a purpose to his existence, yes; but bloody woman nevertheless. What, he asked himself bitterly as he searched for his left shoe, has she gone and done now? Locked herself out of her car? Forgotten which level of the multi-storey she’d parked on? Something, he felt sure, like that.
Without dawdling, but without unduly frantic haste either, he dressed and put on his curly-toed shoes. As if, he muttered, he didn’t have enough to do. Clean handkerchief. Where in buggery are the clean handkerchiefs?
Let there be clean handkerchiefs. Problem solved.
Not, he added, that we’ll be able to do that for much longer. Oh no. And who’ll come whizzing along across the tops of the clouds then whenever she’s at the station and wondering whether she’s left the gas on?
Pausing only to collect the milk off the doorstep, he somersaulted up into the sky, looped the loop and traipsed away through the empyrean.
Jane looked up.
On a scale of one to ten of Sensible Things To Do, that was maybe a Two; above putting your hand in a moving circular saw or enrolling in law school, but definitely below, say, investing in gilt-edged stock or leaving a burning oil refinery. She regretted it almost immediately.
Before the regret set in, however, making her stomach turn over like a well-tossed pancake and tightening her intestines into a small knot, she saw a broad, gently undulating expanse of sand. It might have been a beach somewhere, except that beaches tend to have blue edges, and this lot didn’t. In fact, it didn’t seem to have any edges whatsoever.
The desert.
Which desert, Jane neither knew nor cared. All that registered with her as relevant information was that she was probably a very long way from Haywards Heath.
“Help,” she said.
Said rather than screamed; she was, at heart, a reasonably practical person, and there was nobody who could help her as far as the eye could see. That was assuming that Justin, who was beginning to come round, wasn’t likely to be much use. On the basis of her experience of him so far, that seemed a pretty safe assumption.
Now then, she reassured herself, don’t let’s go all to pieces. Kiss’ll be along in a moment, he’ll switch this blasted thing off and we can all go home. My wish is his command, after all. And, she remembered, it was his bloody gadget that got her into this mess in the first place.
Having nothing better to do, she reflected for a while on that. Of all the stupid, careless things to do, she mused, leaving something like that lying about. She looked at the device, which was sitting smugly on the top edge of the carpet. Perfectly reasonable to assume that it was a book. It looked exactly like a book: pages, spine, covers, the works. What sort of an idiot leaves something like that lying around, just begging innocent passers-by to pick it up and leave it on carpets?
Not, she added quickly, that she didn’t worship the ground he stood on (or, to be accurate, more usually hovered about six inches over); but that was either here nor there. Being absolutely adorable and gorgeous is no excuse for rank carelessness. She’d have a word or two to say to him when he finally condescended to show up.
Yes, and where in blazes was he, anyway? Genies, she felt sure, were capable of moving from A to B at the speed of light; and here she had been, for what seemed like hours and hours, stuck on top of a fast-moving flying tapestry over a desert. She’d have expected prompter service from the electricity board.
“Grrng,” said Justin.
It was, as far as she could remember, the most sensible thing he’d said since she’d met him. She turned round, smiled, and said, “It’s all right.”
Justin blinked and lifted his head. “The shop,” he said. “Uncle.”
“Everything’s under control,” Jane said, as reassuringly as she could. “One of your carpets took off, with us on it, and I think we’re over a desert somewhere, but my genie’ll be along in a minute and he’ll take us home. So long as you don’t look down…”
Justin, of course, looked down.
“AAAAAAAAAGH!” he observed.
“Well, quite,” Jane said, “my sentiments exactly, but there’s no need to worry, honestly. You see, it’s a magic carpet.”
“A ma—”
“Or at least,” Jane amended, “it is now. I put a book on it, you see.” She turned up the smile a notch or so. “I expect we’ll all have a jolly good laugh about this as soon as we get back home again.”
“Your genie?”
“That’s right,” Jane replied. “No, don’t back away, you’ll fall off the edge.” The carpet wobbled vertiginously as Justin converted his shuffle backwards into a lunge forward. “There now, you just lie still and everything will be—”
“Put me down,” Justin said, with a degree of urgency in his voice. “Put me down put me down put me down!”
The carpet juddered slightly.
“Your wish is my command, O Master.”
Suddenly the world was at thirty degrees to itself, and Jane felt herself slide forward. The book, also; it flopped over and was just about to plummet over the side when Jane, stretching full length, managed to catch it. She wasn’t sure she understood any of this at all, but it seemed reasonable to assume that if the book fell off the carpet would lose its supernatural capacity and turn back into an ordinary domestic floor covering. And ordinary domestic floor coverings as a rule don’t fly.
“Ah,” said Jane. “You again.”
“Mistress.”
“Look, I know we got off on rather the wrong foot back there in the shop,” said Jane, “but I think it might be a good idea if we made friends and started again, don’t you? Before we fly into a cliff or something.”
“There are no cliffs on our projected route, Mistress.”
“Look… Look, forget about cliffs. Just don’t take any orders from him, all right? He’s not quite…”