“Um, hi.” Shireen said, taken slightly aback as she emerged from the light and sand that poured from her toy lamp.

“Hi? Is that any way to greet your Master?” Her Master, a man of some arrogance and pride, said

Shireen sighed, “Look, I was having a terrible day already. My alarm didn’t go off, my heel broke, I used the wrong file for my presentation, and then I got sucked into that thing! What do you want from me?"

“I want a proper greeting,” Shireen’s Master said, crossing his arms. It was close enough to a command that the new Genie sighed.

“Greetings, o Master of Mine, Wielder of my Toy Lamp, Controller of my Destiny, Lord of my Seas and Stars, what may I, a humble servant, do for you?” While her tone was cool, her arms crossed with annoyance, her Master didn’t seem to notice, or care.

“Can you grant me wishes? How many?”

“Really? You don’t even want to know my name, or…” Shireen began, but quickly read the look on her Master’s face, and changed course. “As Genie of the Toy Lamp, I am bound to grant you three toy wishes, be they in my power.”

“Ok. Let’s test something: I wish for a hundred wishes.”

Shireen rolled her eyes, “It doesn’t work like…” then she felt a wave of compulsion flow through her, gasping, she bowed, and said, “Very well, Master, I shall grant to you a hundred toy wishes.”

“Excellent. Then, I wish to be a king. Make it happen, Genie.”

Shireen scowled but whisked her hand like swatting a bug. Magic roiled off her at the behest of her Master. But even she was unprepared for what happened next.

Enveloped by the wish, he became a king draped in royal red cape, just as he had wished. But he wore a plastic crown, and he was plush with cute mitten hands, suddenly a few inches tall.

The Genie’s eyes went wide and she bent down to look at her shrunken toy master. He sputtered and panicked, looking up at her.

“Genie!” He demanded, “Why am I a toy!”

Shireen had been wondering why she kept saying ‘Toy Wishes’ and ‘Toy Lamp,’ and obliged her former Master with an explanation, “As a Toy Genie, I can only grant Toy Wishes.” She smiled at the little doll, “And, as it happens, only a mortal may be my Master. So no more wishes for you, Toy King.”

She rose with a smile on her face, before noticing her plastic toy lamp hovering in the air before her. “Wait, no!” She cried out, as the lamp enveloped her in a tempest of magic and sand, pulling her back into her plastic prison.

For the Toy Genie, Masters may come and go, but the Toy Lamp was forever.