Lexie pulled out a pile of red backpacks from a sliding panel in the floor of the Training Centre Bottle.

‘These are your tweenie genie kits,’ she explained, handing them out. ‘They’re packed with useful stuff.’

Each bag had the tweenie’s name on the back in gold lettering. Poppy noticed that the boy’s bag had ‘Jake’ written on it. She quickly looked away and busied herself with her own backpack. The less she knew about that irritating boy the better!

The first thing she pulled out of her bag was a silver bangle, like the ones Lexie wore. She slipped it on straight away.

Lexie nodded. ‘That’s right. You must all wear your tweenie bangle at all times. And yes,’ she said, turning to the boy, ‘that means you too, Jake.’

Poppy saw Jake scowl as he slipped the bangle on.

‘You should all have one of these in your backpacks,’ Lexie continued, holding up a book with a hard purple cover and a silver pen clipped on the side. ‘It’s a genie jotter. Use it to take notes. And when you need them, important lessons will appear in it, too.’

Poppy opened hers up and stroked the creamy, blank pages admiringly. It’s like a diary, she thought.

‘Mine won’t open,’ called the other girl, whose bag had ‘Hazel’ written on it.

‘Of course not,’ said Lexie. ‘Stage One tweenies always need the key to open the diaries. The bangle is actually the key, so press it against the cover to open the diary.’

‘Um, Lexie?’ said Poppy nervously. ‘Mine opened without the key.’

Lexie frowned. ‘That’s impossible! Show me.’

So Poppy closed the diary and then opened it again, feeling a little silly. Then Lexie gave Poppy the same strange, intense look that she’d given her when the Location Lamp words zoomed to her hand. It was like she was searching her face for something.

Poppy flushed. ‘Am I in trouble?’ she asked nervously.

‘No,’ said Lexie quietly. ‘But in future, please use the key, OK?’

‘OK,’ muttered Poppy. It felt dumb using a key when the diary opened up perfectly well by itself. But she could tell there was no point arguing.

Hazel shot her a look of sympathy, and Rose whispered kindly, ‘It’s not your fault, you didn’t know.’

Then Jake leant over. ‘Teeny Weeny broke the jotter! Teeny Weeny broke the jotter!’ he sang softly.

Some things just didn’t deserve a reply, so Poppy ignored him. Then she unclipped the silver pen and wrote her name on the first page. She couldn’t help smiling. How good it looked!

‘Are there any questions?’ asked Lexie.

The tweenies all looked at each other and then shot up their hands. Of course there were!

Hazel went first. ‘Why did we get chosen to be genies?’ she asked.

‘You didn’t get chosen,’ said Lexie. ‘You are genies because you all have the Genie Gene. The Genie Gene is very rare. So when you’re born with it, we watch you until you’re ready to join the Genie Realm. Your genie powers don’t actually start working until you’re twelve so we don’t bother telling you about your real identity until then.’

‘Does that mean our families aren’t genies?’ asked Poppy.

Lexie nodded. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Although sometimes there is more than one genie in a family. That’s very rare, though.’

‘Are we the only tweenie genies?’ asked Rose.

‘Oh, no,’ said Lexie. ‘There are other groups of tweenies being taught by other trainers right now. But we like to teach you in small groups to start with. You’ll meet up with other tweenies in the later stages of your training.’

‘How long does training go for?’ Jake asked.

‘You have just started Stage One,’ explained Lexie. ‘It’s like a crash course in genie stuff, just to get you on the right track. Stage One goes for three nights. You’ll come here every evening, study all night and return to your normie families each morning.’

‘So, when exactly do we sleep?’ asked Jake, sounding puzzled.

‘There won’t be any time for sleep,’ said Lexie firmly. ‘But don’t worry. You’ll get nap breaks.’

Lexie paced around the room. ‘During the next three days, you will learn about our rules and customs. You’ll learn how to act, and how to look, and hopefully how to feel like a genie. Then, at the end of the week there will be an examination.’

‘What kind of examination?’ asked Jake.

‘The first part is a written exam,’ explained Lexie. Then she held up a thick book with a red cover and gold-edged pages. ‘This is our Genie History and Culture textbook. You’ll need to know it back-to-front for the exam.’

Poppy gulped. When were they supposed to get time to read a book that big if they were at normie school all day and at genie school all night? She could tell from the other tweenies’ faces that she wasn’t the only one wondering.

But Lexie had already moved on. ‘The second part of the exam is more like a Ball,’ she continued. ‘It takes place in the Ballroom at the Genie Palace Bottle. That’s where you’ll be presented to the Genie Royal Family and will have to demonstrate everything you’ve learnt so far. If you pass both parts of the exam, you are allowed to go on to Stage Two of tweenie genie training. That’s when you go to one of the big genie schools with all the other Stage Two tweenies.’

‘And is that the end of the training?’ asked Poppy, feeling a little overwhelmed.

‘Not quite,’ said Lexie. ‘After that comes the most difficult part of all. Stage Three. I’m not even going to start talking about that right now, because it’ll scare you. But if you get through that – and believe me, that’s a big if – then you’ll be fully qualified.’

No-one said anything for a moment. Then Rose asked the exact question that Poppy had been thinking. ‘What happens if we don’t pass Stage One?’

Lexie’s voice was quiet but matter-of-fact. ‘You’ll be returned to your old life, with your memory wiped clear of all genie stuff.’

Poppy bit her lip. There was no way she wanted that to happen!

Then Hazel raised her hand. ‘So can we call our families and tell them where we are?’ She looked a little homesick.

‘Definitely not!’ Lexie said, looking shocked. ‘That would be breaking the first Genie Golden Law. You must not tell any normie that you are a genie.’

‘Oh,’ said Hazel, looking like she might cry.

Now it was Poppy’s turn to give Hazel a sympathetic look. How was she supposed to know that? thought Poppy. It’s not like it’s written down anywhere. But then Poppy glanced at her jotter and saw something very surprising. What had been a completely blank page a moment ago now had golden writing on it:

‘But won’t our families wonder where we’ve gone at night?’ said Hazel, her voice wobbling a bit.

‘Oh don’t worry about that,’ said Lexie. ‘It’s been taken care of. Your houses and schools have all been fitted with an Excuse Generator which starts working the moment you enter the Genie Realm. It will cover for you.’

‘When do we get our wands?’ asked Rose eagerly.

Lexie burst out laughing. ‘Genies don’t have wands. They use special moves to grant wishes. It’s like sign language. Except that every genie works out his or her own special combination of hand movements.’

‘That sounds like dancing,’ frowned Jake. ‘And I don’t dance.’

‘Well, if you want to be a genie, you’ll have to learn,’ replied Lexie. ‘But don’t worry. Even if you don’t like doing that part of your training, there are other parts I think you’ll definitely enjoy. Let me demonstrate.’

Then Lexie sat down cross-legged on the ground and closed her eyes. The tweenies watched her curiously. Was she meditating? Poppy was definitely not expecting what happened next …

Lexie began rising up into the air, until she was hovering a metre off the ground!

‘Are we really going to learn how to do that?’ asked Hazel excitedly as Lexie floated gracefully back down. Suddenly she didn’t look quite so homesick.

‘Well, you’ll have to, if you want to pass the test,’ said Lexie, grinning.

‘That is going to be so much fun!’ said Hazel. ‘As well as granting wishes, of course.’

‘Actually, granting wishes can be a bit of a pain,’ admitted Lexie. ‘One minute you’re relaxing in your bottle and then whoosh! Suddenly you’re plonked in front of some irritating normie who starts demanding all kinds of stupid stuff they don’t need. The best genies are the ones who get out of granting wishes as much as possible.’

I don’t believe that, Poppy thought. Granting wishes HAS to be fun!

‘And you’ll all need to memorise the second Golden Law,’ added Lexie.

Poppy looked down at her open genie jotter. More words had appeared:

Lexie clapped her hands, her bangles jangling like chimes. ‘That’ll do for now,’ she said. ‘Let’s go into town. To start feeling like genies, you need to start looking like genies. You lot need a complete style overhaul. Hair, clothes, the lot.’

‘You mean just the girls, right?’ asked Jake hopefully.

But Lexie shook her head. ‘Everyone,’ she said. ‘There’s no way you can learn to be a real genie in that dirty old football jumper, Jake.’

Poppy couldn’t help laughing at Jake’s horrified face. Well, she thought. At least Jake and I have ONE thing in common. We both hate make-overs!