Princess Jasmine And The Genie

by Tim Strugnell,

lime juice and soda

One hot summery day Princess Jasmine and Terrible Tim were playing football in Terrible Tim’s back garden. Princess Jasmine as usual was showing all her tricks and scoring lots of goals. After a while she kicked the ball just wide of the goal and it ran under the hedge.Terrible Tim as always rushed after it and crawled under the hedge to pick it out. Princess Jasmine heard a shout as Terrible Tim came back out covered in dirt with the football and what looked like a rusty old oil lamp. 

The two of them inspected the find. Princess Jasmine held it in her hand and gently rubbed some of the rust and dirt off it. As she did this the children began to notice a trickle of steam coming out of the spout, then suddenly there was an enormous whoooooosh and a huge cloud of smoke appeared and gradually the form of a young boy of about 16 appeared. He was dressed all in purple with a purple kind of head dress. The children stood in amazement at a total loss for words. 

Eventually Princess Jasmine plucked up courage to speak, “Who, who, who, who are you?” she stuttered still hanging onto the lamp.

“I’m the genie of the lamp, my name’s Gene!” said the boy, “I’ve been waiting so long for someone to find me and now I need your help!”

“We’d love to help you!” the children shouted with enthusiasm. 

“Right then, I’ll just get my magic carpet out,” and a  multi coloured carpet appeared from nowhere to the children’s amazement. “Sit down and I’ll tell you where we’re going. They sat down on the carpet which felt really soft. “Now I’ve had a message from Africa to say that the King of the Jungle, the Lion, is in terrible pain with a huge thorn in his paw. Nobody can get it out, and we need a real life princess to do it!”

Terrible Tim looked at Princess Jasmine and she immediately said, “Yes I’ll do it!”

“Ok, then hold tight and we’ll be back here before anybody misses you.”

He pulled back a bit of the carpet to show a control panel and the carpet slowly rose from the ground. They flew over Auntie Kirsty’s house and could see her playing in the garden with Stanley and Reggie. If they had looked up in the air they would have seen the magic carpet flying overhead. They also flew over Granny’s house and she was sitting in the garden with Teddy and Kedi, relaxing in the sunshine.

They carried on getting higher and higher, faster and faster. They had a fantastic view of the main sights of London including, the London Eye, Big Ben and the Gherkin. Now they were flying so fast they flew past a jet plane with the pilot looking at them in disbelief!

They carried on, over the English Channel, over France, they could just see the Eiffel Tower as a tiny spike they were so high. Then they crossed mountains, more sea, then what seemed like endless desert until they reached the jungle in Central Africa. Only then did the carpet begin to slow down and gently drop towards the ground. Jasmine noticed a large clearing come into view and in it there were lots of chimpanzees running around, jumping up and down, and waving at the children. When they finally touched down they were surrounded by the excited chimps. One of them, obviously the leader, made some strange noises and Gene replied with similar noises.

“What’s going on?” said Princess Jasmine, always curious to know what was happening.

“The lion is on a bit of a walk through the jungle. He is in great pain and as he is a king he will only let a princess touch him, so that’s you Princess Jasmine. Will you help?”

“Of course I will, it will be my pleasure and my duty to help the king of the jungle!”

So without further delay they started their trek through the jungle. They saw and heard lots of different animals that they had never seen in the wild before, but they ignored the children and the chimps as if they knew where they were going. After a while they could make out a sound which was like a cross between a roar and a cry which got louder as they got closer. Finally they reached a small shady clearing by a stream and they saw a huge lion lying down clearly in a great deal of pain.

The others all sat down quietly while Princess Jasmine and Gene cautiously walked over to the lion.

Jasmine was very brave and stroked the lion’s huge mane. “Don’t be frightened your majesty, my name is Princess Jasmine and I’ve come to help heal you,” she whispered gently in his ear.

The lion looked at Princess Jasmine with his huge dark eyes and to her amazement started to purr. It was much louder than Kedi’s purr at home!

Princess Jasmine looked at the enormous paw and could see immediately what the problem was. There was a very large thorn sticking out of it and it was very red and swollen. She gently held the paw with one hand and with the other she took hold of the thorn. It was stuck in very tightly but she carefully moved it from side to side gradually loosening it until finally out it came. It was the biggest thorn she had ever seen, about ten centimetres long. She put it carefully into a pocket. Gene put his hands inside his clothes and magically pulled out a bottle of water, some ointment and a bandage. 

Princess Jasmine carefully washed the wound and then put some cream and a bandage on the huge paw. The lion almost looked as if he was smiling and continued to purr. Princess Jasmine put her arms round him and gave him an enormous hug and said a tearful goodbye. 

She and Gene moved slowly back to Terrible Tim and returned to the clearing with the chimps. They all said goodbye and the chimps waved farewell as the carpet slowly rose into the sky until they were tiny specks. 

The journey back seemed almost quicker than on the way out. It seemed no time at all before they were back over Colchester and it looked as if Granny and Auntie Kirsty had hardly moved!

As they landed in Terrible Tim’s back garden, they all hopped off the carpet and  tthanked Gene for their amazing adventure. They heard Terrible Tim’s mum shouting from the kitchen asking if they wanted a drink and they went running up to tell her what had happened. She laughed and told them they had fantastic imaginations. They dragged her down to the bottom of the garden but there was no sign of Gene, the carpet or the lamp. They all laughed and guessed they’d had a fantastic dream.

Later that afternoon when Princess Jasmine returned home she went up to her room to think about her day. As she sat down she put her hand in her pocket, and she found .................................. the largest thorn she had ever seen. Maybe it hadn’t been a dream after all!