Free Zacktastic by Courtney Sheinmel Page A

didn’t tell me that being a genie would feel so much like being a servant. I wonder what I did to deserve this. Why is this happening to me? Why did I have to be born with a genie bite? Why did my bottle have to end up in the hands of the worst kid in the world? (If he gets to call me the worst genie, then I get to call him the worst kid. And you know what? Even ifI haven’t met all the other kids in the world to form that conclusion, I think I’m probably pretty close to the mark.) Why did he have to rub it and summon me on my very first day on the job?
    Why do bad things always happen to me?
    My limbs feel suddenly heavier. Not that Trey cares. “I’m waiting,” he says.
    I let out the world’s biggest sigh and pull open the door. Trey goes inside and I scoot in after him. At least this building is safer than an open field. Plus, I don’t know my way around Millings Academy. Which means I have a better chance of finding that bottle with Trey than without him.
    I’m stuck with him, which may be the most depressing thing of all.
    I wish I could turn back into the kid I was just this morning. Sure, I didn’t have many friends to invite to my birthday party or a pile of presents to show for it. But, boy, do I miss being in my old, boring life.
    We’ve stepped into a room that’s so big, I think you could probably fit my entire house inside it. It’s way fancier than my house—fancier than any house I’ve ever been in. It’s fancy enough to be a hotel lobby, or maybe the lobby of a museum. The windows have deep-rose-colored drapes tied back with matching rope tassels. The bottoms of the drapes brush the floor, which is black-and-white checkerboard marble. Gold chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The ceiling itself is like looking up at the sky. Really—it’s sky blue with clouds that seem to pop off like they were painted in 3-D. The walls are painted maroon, a shade darker than the drapes, and on the far wall there’s a huge oil painting of a stern-faced old man. It’s framed in the same dark gold color as the chandeliers. I step closer to it and see the matching gold plaque under the painting: P . H . TWENDEL .
    â€œThat’s my grandfather,” Trey tells me. “He commissioned this building for MillingsAcademy.”
    â€œI don’t know what ‘commissioned’ means,” I admit.
    â€œWhat do you know?” Trey says with an eye roll. It’s the kind of question I know I’m not meant to answer. “It means he paid for it to be built.”
    Holy smokes, how rich would you have to be to build a building like this?
    â€œI’m sure he wouldn’t want a useless newbie genie staring at his portrait,” Trey says. “Come on.”
    I follow him out of the room and down a long hallway. It’s carpeted, and it feels good under my bare feet, extra soft and extra thick. It’s definitely the softest, thickest carpeting I’ve ever walked on. Back at home, the carpet is kind of old and worn thin. And at my school, we don’t have carpet at all. The floors are plain old scratched-up linoleum, and—
    BRRRIIIINNNNGGGG!!!! goes the world’s loudest bell.
    Is the hallway on fire? Is the building on fire?Those lobby drapes looked awfully flammable.
    â€œQuick, in here,” Trey says, pushing open a door. There’s a sign on it that says, “Under Construction: No Entry.”
    In the background, there’s a stampede of footsteps.
    My heart is pounding at least as hard. “Nearly three thousand people have died in construction-site accidents in the last twenty-five years,” I say in a rush. “We don’t even have hard hats.”
    Trey doesn’t say another word. He just grabs my arm and pulls me in with him.
    On the other side of the door there’s . . .
    A bathroom.
    A really fancy one, of course. The floor is made of sparkly tiles. There are three wooden stall