I

"I wonder if she's still in circulation…." Norm the genie wondered. He was lounging on the couch in his lava lamp, starting at the wall. He had started thinking about a female genie he had met years ago when he was younger. He had liked her. She got on his nerves, though, only because she was so much like him.

Norm couldn't remember her name. He tried to remember but it just wouldn't come to him. "Where did you disappear to?"

Remy Buxaplenty was sitting under a tree during lunch at Dimmsdale Elementary, waiting for the day to end. He was bored. Bored and extremely lonely. He had no friends. Not even his parents seemed to want to be around him.

"I wish I had at least one friend…" Remy sighed, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them.

He watched as Timmy Turner, a boy Remy didn't like fore some reason, played kickball with his friends. He glared at the other boy. "Stupid Turner… Stupid Turner's friends… Why can't I have friends?" Remy whined.

The bell rang to single the end of lunch. Remy stood and brushed himself off. He leaned against the tree and waited for Turner and his friends to disappear into the building. Remy groaned in sadness; he was very lonely. He hardly had any attention. He was rich, sure, but he still had no friends. At the moment, Remy wouldn't have minded the kind of friends that only liked him for his money. He just wanted anything remotely close to a friend. And it seemed that a friend was the only thing his money couldn't get him.

Remy gave a relieved sigh as the bell rang to end the school day. He collected his books and shoved them into his backpack. Remy stood and slung his bag over his shoulder and walked out of the classroom, pausing to momentarily glare at Turner.

Oblivious to the glare, Timmy ran over his best friends, Chester and AJ, and walked out of the building with them.

The blond sighed again and walked outside, ignoring the small army of butlers that followed him. He turned and told them he wanted to be alone and that he would walk home. Being obedient only because they were paid to be, the butlers nodded and backed away from their young employer.

Remy hung his head as he trudged along the sidewalk. He heard a clamor of people and looked up to see a yard sale ahead. Curious, Remy walked over to the sale to look around.

There was a lot of junk for sale; old video tapes, movie posters, feather dusters, and other useless household items on eventually throws in a box that gets shoved in the attic or basement, whichever happens to be closest to where the box is packed.

Remy spotted a lonely looking lava lamp and an old music amp sitting off to the side. He smiled at the items sadly. "I know how you feel. Everyone is interested in everything else but you…" He walked over to the woman in charge of the yard sale and asked how much the amp and lamp was. Remy noticed that the woman seemed genuinely perplexed by the presence of the items, almost as if she had never seen them before. She shrugged and said that he could have them for nothing, as she didn't know who they belonged to or where they came from.

Remy happily placed the lamp in his bag, picked up the amp and headed home.

******************

"Mother! Father! I'm home!" Remy called, knowing he wouldn't get a response. He sighed. "Why do I even bother?" He muttered sadly and sulked up to his room, hugging the amp.

Despite being rich, Remy had a fairly ordinary room. It was plain, with white walls, a TV, a few dressers, a closet, and a bed. He walked over to the desk by his bed, put the amp on the floor and pulled out the lamp, setting it on the desk. Remy then noticed how dirty the items were.

"Well, I should clean you up at least," he said with a smile. Remy turned and walked into his bathroom, which, annoyingly enough, was far more extravagant than his bedroom, and grabbed a towel. He came back out, sat in the desk chair, and began cleaning the lamp.

The lamp shuddered. Or, at least, Remy thought it shuddered. Lamps don't shudder. Do they? Shrugging, Remy ignored it and continued cleaning. The lamp shook again. Remy jumped up and backed away from it. "Okay, I know it moved. But, that's insane! Lamps can't move!"

Suddenly, a cloud of teal blue smoke poured out of the lamp and a figure spiraled out. It was a man. He looked to be in his 20s, and he had tan skin, black hair, and somehow seemed familiar to Remy. "Okay, who woke me up?" The man growled in annoyance. He looked at Remy and face-palmed. "Another kid?" He groaned.

Remy fell backwards and hit the amp with a THUD. "Oww…" He muttered, rubbing his head, trying to sit up. His shoulder rubbed against the amp and it started pulsing, as if it were playing music. Remy quickly backed away from this item as well, and he ended up bumping into the strange man, who seemed just as surprised.

"What the?" The man murmured.

Before he could say anything else, a puff of reddish pink smoke flowed out of the amp and took the shape of a curvy, pink-skinned woman. She looked at Remy and smiled.

"I am Funk! I'm a magical genie and for releasing me for my prison, you get three, rule-free wishes!" She said, conjuring a sign that had her name.

"Hey, hey, hey!" The man said, floating over to the woman named Funk. "I was here first, pinky. I get to grant this kid his wishes." He lightly shoved the woman out of his way. "Okay, kid, let's try this again… I am Norm! I'm a magical genie and for releasing me, you get three, rule-free wishes!" He said, snapping his fingers and creating a sign similar to Funk's, only it said 'NORM'.

Funk crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Since when is it a rule that someone can't have two genies? And, even if there was such a rule, when have genies ever followed the rules?"

Norm frowned and glared at Funk. "Yeah, yeah. Big deal. The pipsqueak freed me first, so I got first dibs."

Remy was very confused. Genies? Genies weren't real. At least, they weren't supposed to be… "So, you can grant any wish I want?"

Funk pushed Norm out of the way and grinned at Remy. "Sure can, little man. So, what's your name?" She asked good-naturedly.

"Remy. My name is Remy."

"That's a good name."

"Thank you."

Norm grabbed Funk's shoulder and made her face him. He looked her over and gaped. "It's you! That damn female who cheated me out of a bet!"

Funk stared at Norm. "Oh, that was you?" She asked, feigning innocence. She pulled away from Norm and turned back to Remy. "So, what do you wish for?"

Remy looked down, feeling silly. "Umm… Could you two, uh… You see, I'm always alone and I was wondering… Could you just stay around and umm… Pretend to be my… Uh… My parents?"