“Not until you’re eighteen,” Travis said, shaking his head.

 
I think we both stood there thinking about things for a minute or so, not talking.

Finally, Travis said, “I’m sure you know things you don’t know that you know.”

“Huh?” I said, possibly proving him wrong.

“When I asked how many wishes I get you said as many as I want as long as I have the lamp. That’s a lot, that’s a lot of power. Good grief! But how did you know that?”

“I dunno? I knew it because you told me to tell you the answer.”

He blinked. “You have to do whatever I tell you to do?”

I squirmed a bit and closed one eye and nodded. “If I can…, master.”

He grinned. “See you started calling me that and I didn’t tell you to do so. I wouldn’t have. So why did you?”

“I’m not sure…. I can’t…. I’m supposed to respect you and your wishes, even if you don’t make an actual wish? I guess?”

“But why call me master?”

“So… So you’d know that I belong to you.” I paused. “Master.”

He blinked. “Uh, don’t call me that when anyone else is around.”

I nodded and smiled at him.

“Hoo boy,” he said. “What am I going to do with you, Jonny?”

“Keep me?” I said. “Let me make you happy?” It occurred to me that this was the kind of thing Jeannie in the TV show said to her master. Maybe it was a documentary?

“Not until you’re eighteen,” Travis said, shaking his head.

“I can make you happy, now!” I protested, even though that was a very squirmy thought.

“Jonny, I—.” He looked confused. “This is so weird. You’re Jonny, and you’re not Jonny, and it’s making my head hurt.”

I went right over to him. “If you can sit down, master, I’ll rub your neck.” I could reach his neck with him standing—he wasn’t that much taller than me, but I wouldn’t be able to do an excellent job of massage without being above him. I had it all planned out and looked around for a good spot for him to sit down—maybe one of the stacks of sturdier looking boxes? I took his hand and tugged in that direction.

“Not—not right now.” He disentangled himself, putting a hand on his forehead and pushing his hair back. He looked exasperated.

I just wanted to help him! I started to say something but he motioned me to be quiet for a bit, so I did. I almost hummed but didn’t—happy to be helpful by being quiet.

After a bit, he looked up at me and said, “I’m trying to work out a wish here. I know I have to be careful with wishes. Tell me what you think of this wording. Now this isn’t a wish until I say it is, but what I intend to wish is that you have the feelings about me that you had before we came into this house and that you looked like you did then, including wearing the same clothes, and that you were as smart now as you were then.”

“I think it’s a wonderful wish, master!” I said, beaming at him. He was going to make a wish, and I could grant it for him!

He rolled his eyes. “Useless. Jonny, you’re the brains of this outfit, or you were until you fell into that lamp!”

I felt my lower lip tremble. Travis was upset with me, and I wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t he going to make a wish?

“Okay, I’m gonna do it,” he said. “Jonny, I wish that you have the feelings about me now that you had before we came into this house and that you look like you did then, including wearing the same clothes, and that you are as smart now as you were then.” He said it all in a rush.

I crossed my arms across my chest, giggled, nodded and blinked. The transformation took no time at all, and I almost came unglued when I realized what I had been doing and saying. “Travis! Oh, ick! Travis! Ick!”

He laughed. “There’s my Jonny!”

“Oh, don’t say it like that!” I protested. Because it was still true and I knew it—I belonged to Travis. Only now, I had enough sense not to be sure it was a good idea.

He waved a hand. “I’m just glad you don’t look like a sultan’s dream anymore!” He looked me over carefully. “You do look like the old Jonny now. Are you a boy again?”

“Uh, no,” I said. I didn’t have to check, I knew. “I’m still a girl, even if I look like me.” I sighed. “I’m not sure if you can change me back to a boy.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” he said.

I nodded. Understatement.

“We need lots of questions answered,” he noted, glancing at the mirror. “Is that thing really broken?”

“I don’t know?” I admitted. I tried to get a look at myself in the reflection it still provided, even if it no longer answered questions, but it really wasn’t big enough to get a full body view.

Travis appeared to be considering things, and I didn’t want to interrupt him. I thought about that for a bit, myself. If his wish made me feel about him how I had before I became a genie, why wasn’t I willing to interrupt him? I mean, I used to do that all the time. I puzzled over that quite a bit but couldn’t quite resolve what the problem might be.

I became aware that Travis was staring at me again, I looked up at him and smiled. A bit shaky, but a real smile.

“If I can order you to answer questions, can I be sure your answers will be true or are you just gonna tell me stuff your genie magic thinks I want to hear?” he asked.

Wow. That got pretty deep for Travis. Well, I had always said it wasn’t that he wasn’t smart, he was just lazy about thinking things through. “Uh,” I said. “I guess, you have to try?”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Jonny, I wish that if I ask a question, that you will answer me truthfully as best you can.”

I blinked, feeling the magic pulse through me. I didn’t feel the need to make a bigger gesture since the wish only affected my own behavior. Weird.

“Okay. Ready?”

“I’m always ready for you, master,” I said. Oop! Jeez!

He laughed. “All right, let’s try something. What’s wrong with the mirror?”

I glanced at the object and considered. “You only get a limited time or number of questions for each invocation,” I said, wondering how in the world I knew that. But I did.

“Invocation?” he said.

His voice made that a question, too, so I answered. “When you said a little poem starting, ‘Mirror, mirror,’ you invoked the magic on the mirror. Uh, just like when you say, ‘Jonny, I wish,’ to me, you invoke my magic.”

“Damn. Is that all it was?”

“Yes, master,” I said.

He looked at the mirror. “But if you can answer questions, too, what do we need the mirror for?”

I thought about that for a moment. “There might be questions I don’t know the answer to. The mirror could double check, I guess.”

Travis did some more thinking, and his brow wrinkled up so much it looked painful. I found myself wanting to help him somehow. This was not how I would have felt about him before. I’d have been more likely to make fun of him, wouldn’t I? So that wish hadn’t really worked either. I sighed.

What had the mirror said, something about my essential nature can’t be changed even with a wish? Hoo, boy.

Suddenly, Travis spoke. “Mirror, mirror, on the table, answer me if you’re able, is there any way that we can restore Jonny to being the boy he was before?”

I clapped my hands and laughed because it was really a clever little rhyme and I didn’t know Travis had it in him.

“No,” said the mirror, his face reappearing in the reflection. “Only a new master or the Great Djinn could change Jonny’s nature now.”

“Damn,” said Travis. “Do I want to know about how to give Jonny a new master or contact the Great Djinn?”

“I cannot accurately answer a question about your own desires, but from what I know of your situation, neither would offer you a satisfactory solution to what you perceive as a problem,” said the mirror in its primmest voice. “Sorry, master.”

“Double damn,” said Travis. “I’m sorry Jonny, I guess you’re stuck as a girl.”

I sighed. Somehow, I had already known that. “That means I’m stuck as a genie, too. Your genie,” I said. It seemed less bad when I said it that way.

“Mmm, yeah,” he admitted.

“So, I’m your girl…whether I’m eighteen or not,” I pointed out.