“Whoa,” Paxton nearly fell out of his chair when the lamp started spewing a purple gas. His first thought was that he had somehow accidently released a hidden toxin from inside of it. But that didn’t make sense. He hadn’t knocked it around that much, and he definitely hadn’t opened it. His second thought was even less rational than the first: What if someone switched the price tag out and the lamp had cost more than twenty-five dollars and this purple vapor was the resulting curse from not paying enough for it when he left the shop? He shook his head. Ridiculous. Curses didn’t exist… But if it wasn’t a curse, then what was this strange gas?

Suddenly, the purple vapor began to take shape. Paxton gaped in bewilderment as it turned into… a girl. He closed his mouth and shook his head. This was crazy. He had to be dreaming. Genies didn’t exist; they were just mythical beings from fairytales and old movies. There was no way he could have stumbled across one in real life. He pinched the back of his hand and winced. Nope, this wasn’t a dream. There really was a legless belly dancer in his bedroom.

[color=fff79a][b]“Greetings,”[/b][/color] the girl bowed to him. [color=fff79a][b]“I am Mirajane, Genie of this lamp. And you, young boy, are my—”[/b][/color] She suddenly broke into a fit of coughing. Paxton’s eyes widened in disbelief as she summoned a glass of water from out of nowhere and drank it down. [color=fff79a][b]“Bleh... Well, that was fun. Alright, kid, let’s try again. I am Mirajane, and you are now my master. So, long story short, you get three wishes. What do you want?”[/b][/color]

Three wishes? It was just like the storybooks Paxton had read as a child. He wondered if he could wish for more wishes, but wasn’t there a rule against that or something? Were there any other rules he needed to know about? He hadn’t heard of other rules in the books and movies, but maybe genies were different in real life. Man, he never expected that he would ever think about questions like these. It was all still so surreal.

Paxton blinked, realizing that the genie girl was still waiting for him to respond, “Uh, hi.” There he went again, springing those lady-killing one-liners. He cleared his throat, “So… you’re a genie.” [i]Way to go, Captain Obvious[/i]. His mind reeled as he searched in vain for something to say. Would it be better to ask for something small as a warm-up wish? But he only had three wishes, so that would just waste one of them. He could usually make a list of all the things he would change about his life. Why was it so hard to think of those same things when he could actually do something about them?

“Um…” Paxton said, stalling for time. “This is probably a stupid question, but can I wish for more wishes?”