life went on in the old dark house, with the dragon lying upstairs in his sickbed, and the two girls waiting on him and trying to find enough food in the swamp to keep all three of them alive.
after the fiasco with the genie, alexa wanted to continue trying to guess the magic word which would make the genie do their bidding.
and to keep tearing pages out of the three books and burning them to summon the genie as they tried words.
but zucky wanted to keep the three books to write her novel in. this led to disagreements.
let us join the two sisters in the “drawing room” as another day is drawing to a close outside.
“why don’t we use two of the books to burn the pages,” alexa asked, “and you can write your novel in the third?”
“it might be a long novel. haven’t you ever heard of a three volume novel? all novels used to be three volumes. “
“we will compromise. we will use one book, and you can keep two. that’s a good compromise. compromise is the basis of civilization.”
“we are not in civilization. we are in an old falling down house on the edge of a swamp.”
as if in response to zucky’s statement, the wind outside began whistling a little louder.
“and besides,” zucky continued. “you won’t be able to guess the word in a million years - especially as he did not even say it was a word in the dictionary. if you just make combinations of sounds, of any length, there are infinite combinations - more than there are atoms in the universe, or demons in the 99 circles of hell.”
“i don’t believe it,” alexa told her. “there has to be a way. and besides, i don’t even believe in atoms or in the universe.”
“if you want to get out of here, maybe you should look elsewhere, try a new approach.”
“such as?”
“you could try poisoning our friend upstairs. ever think of that?”
“what! you can’t poison a dragon! everybody knows that! if you try to poison a dragon the world will disappear!”
“you think so? how do you know? maybe that is just what they want you to think.”
alexa just stared at zucky, too astonished to answer.
“has anyone ever tried to poison a dragon?” zucky went on. “how do they know the world will disappear? if anyone ever tried it, the world wouldn’t be here, would it? and if nobody ever tried it, how do they know? so we might as well take a chance.”
“oh, no, miss, that will not do at all,” alexa responded. “it’s easy for you to say, let’s take a chance, let’s let the world disappear, because you are just an ugly little nobody that will never go anywhere or do anything or that nobody will ever care about anyway! but i am the most beautiful girl in the world, and if i ever get out of here i will be queen or empress of all i survey - or at least a princess.”
zucky shrugged. “suit yourself. it was just a suggestion. and i am not giving you the books again. so do you want to give me the deck of cards so i can still start my novel?”
“oh, all right, here!” alexa took the deck of cards out of her apron and slapped them on the drawing room table in front of zucky. “write your stupid book, no one is ever going to want to read it anyway!”
zucky picked up the cards and smiled sweetly at alexa. “you never know. thank you for the cards. i said i would play gin rummy with you. do you want to play now or later?”
“later. let’s make the soup, and eat first.”
“all right.”
they got up and headed for the stairs to the kitchen.
outside the wind stopped whistling, and began to howl.
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