Well, apparently Crocker and Vicky's appearance was appreciated by my readers. It seemed to cause some laughs. There's something rather fun about having those two in the story. But a few more familiar faces are about to show up. I hope you like them and they are portrayed correctly. Mostly, however, I hope you enjoy the chapter.
By the time he decided it was time to head back to Dimmsdale, the entire population and landscape of Canada was in a rather pathetic state. Every frustration, every annoying obstacle that kept seeming to get in the way of his vengeance, had been thoroughly vented against the entire country. If Turner actually watched the news beyond occasionally viewing his own chaotic influence on the world, he might wonder about the strange occurrences that were now plaguing Canada. But Norm doubted the self-centered boy would care and there was certainly something about causing extreme molting to all Canadian geese that helped improve his mood.
The slight reduction in his frustration was promptly undone, however. Amanda's room was empty of all life. The absence of the lava lamp from the night stand, or even from the house, proved better than anything else that she wasn't home. It took less than a second to guess that she was with Turner. School was out at this hour and her parents definitely wouldn't take her anywhere. She had to be with the bucked-tooth loser. The idea was certainly causing some conflicting emotion. While it was rather nice to have the kid having some friends, it was completely infuriating that she ended up with him.
Before he could brood any longer about the difficulties concerning his desire for revenge, the genie noticed that the lamp was approaching. He could sense it drawing near, which meant the girl carrying the lava lamp was arriving home. Regardless of his previous annoyance, that the tiny fact produced a slight smile from the cynical individual.
The girl, once she finally entered her room, looked rather tired. She was slumped over and barely dragging her feet. As soon as she spotted Norm, however, she abruptly looked guilty.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you wait. Timmy invited me to his house and I didn't know you'd be here," Amanda explained hurriedly. It was as if she didn't think she had the right to do anything, to be happy, or have fun with a friend. The genie had no doubts that, if her parents actually noticed her absence, she would be equally apologetic and uneasy. "If I did, I would have tried to let you know. I didn't mean to make you waste your time waiting or anything."
"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm not your father. You don't have to check in with me if you want to hang out with someone," he commented with forced casualness. "Besides, I haven't been here too long." Watching the child tiredly slide her backpack off and pull out the lava lamp with stiff movements, the magical creature asked, "Rough day?"
"Timmy had a babysitter and she had us do some cleaning," Amanda explained. "It took a little longer to scrub the floor than I expected." Her eyes dropped to the floor, "She's apparently a little clumsy. Vicky kept spilling stuff or knocking them over."
Amanda was making excuses. The babysitter was causing problems on purpose. The brunette child knew it, but she didn't want to say it. She didn't think it was important that Vicky was purposefully causing her suffering and she was making excuses just as she would for her parents' neglect. Norm briefly wondered if adding the babysitter to his revenge list would be a good idea, but ultimately decided to wait before including this particular human until he actually saw her with his own eyes.
"Anything else interesting happen?" Norm asked, watching her set the lava lamp on the night stand and pick up her teddy bear from the bed.
She shrugged, "Maybe. I met Mr. Crocker and he's kind of odd."
"That's… one way to put it."
"But, between what he said and what you said and some other stuff that happened…," remarked the girl, trailing off a little. "Um, I don't know if you know or not, but I was wondering… Norm, does Timmy have fairy godparents?"
The genie blinked in surprise. He knew the girl was bright, but Turner was supposed to be at least semi-competent at concealing his fairies. It took Amanda about a day to notice. If she hadn't made her wish, the boy would be in serious trouble and his godparents would be gone. Of course, if she discovered Turner's secret so easily, it was quite possible that she might eventually realize that the genie was also keeping secrets from her. He needed to be very careful.
Knowing that she would want an answer, Norm nodded, "Yeah, he has fairies. When I last dealt with him, he had two of them. But now, I think there might be three."
"I was right."
"Yeah, you figured it out in one day something that no one in this town except that crackpot Crocker even suspected. When kids are smarter than the adults, you know there's something wrong with the species," he stated.
"So, I probably shouldn't let Timmy know that I know about his godparents," Amanda commented slowly. "If it is supposed to be a secret, he'd be upset about someone find out."
"That would be an understatement, kid," confirmed Norm. "And you'd probably have to explain about your wish since the boy would go into panic mode over the idea of losing his fairies. Since we need to avoid mentioning me to Turner, the best idea would likely be for you not to mention the wand-waving freaks."
She nodded, "Okay."
After a few moments of silence, the genie decided to turn the conversation to a new topic. He refused to let his entire life revolve around that bucked-tooth idiot. Turner wasn't worth it.
"Hey, ever wonder why I live in a lava lamp when all the genies in the book I loaned you has them living in oil lamps and bottles?" he asked casually.
The girl, obviously recognizing that an interesting story was on was my the way, sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him eagerly, "Because you're special and awesome?"
"Well, that goes without saying, but that's not why." He crossed his arms and smirked, "There's a guy at your school, a teacher, named Mr. Birkenbake. That guy was my master in the seventies. I was living in an old oil lamp that he found in the attic of his new house. First thing he wished for was for the lamp to be something more 'far-out and groovy' than the old relic I was living in. Since lava lamps were fairly popular at the time and I wanted an excuse to redecorate anyway, that's what I went with."
"But in all the stories, isn't the third wish supposed to undo everything?" Amanda asked. "Why didn't your lamp go back to normal?"
"Well, there was an event involving disco that evening," he explained, neglecting to mention that said event was the result of the second wish being horribly twisted. "The guy wished to not remember that entire day for his third wish rather than the usual one that we never met. Thus, he ends up with a lava lamp and no memory of where he got it." But everyone else still remembered and teased him about the disco contest. Again, Norm left that detail out of the story. "I was stuck there until the man decided to have a garage sale thirty years later. At least he kept the lamp in the living room for quite a while, so I could watch television some."
"You were stuck in there all that time?" asked the child, sounding upset about the idea.
"Kid, I'm over fifty thousand years old. Three decades isn't all that much in comparison," he commented, hoping she wouldn't get too worked up about the idea. He wasn't happy about the whole situation, but he would rather act like he didn't care than trying to deal with too much empathy from the child tonight. "There have been centuries between masters at times. It makes you appreciate being out of the lamp, but thirty years aren't as big a deal for genies as it is for humans."
Amanda nodded thoughtfully, her eyes beginning to droop tiredly. The girl was quite likely going to fall asleep soon. He snapped his fingers, producing a grilled cheese sandwich with a gong. She took a bite of the impromptu dinner as the genie pondered over a few vague plans he'd been considering lately in regards to his revenge.
"Thank you, Norm," she mumbled
"I was too tired to order a pizza anyway," he replied quickly, gonging up his own sandwich.
Normally, the members of these two groups would have nothing to do with each other. Their ultimate goals were practically opposites. But recently, they had been more willing to deal with each other. They might unite temporarily in order to gain control of power source of magic, namely the infant fairy, but this was more organized rather than a spur of the moment partnership. They had come to the conclusion that neither of their plans would ever come to fruition because of a single obstacle that both groups shared. That single problem was what currently united them.
Timothy Turner. The bucked-tooth, pink-hatted child who kept unraveling the plans of his enemies, even though his opponents were both smarter and older than him. It was infuriating and they refused to allow this trend to continue. While it would have been nice to turn the boy to their side, to use his cleverness and adaptability for spreading chaos across the globe, he was slowly accepting that his counterpart's godchild would never be his. The boy would always be an obstacle. This was why the two species were now sitting at a long table in the dark castle.
"I would like to thank you all for coming," remarked a blue-skinned individual in a cultured British accent. He adjusted his monocle carefully before giving a rather confident smile, "I am quite certain that, by uniting the greatest minds of both pixies and anti-fairies, we shall be able to devise an appropriate method to remove Turner from being an obstacle in the future."
"Without him, we would have taken over Fairy World already," a dull monotone announced. Dressed in grey, he was the only one on his side of the table who wasn't completely identical. Rather than black-hair and shades, he wore normal glasses and the little hair visible was white. Mostly, though, he appeared to be bald beneath the hat on his pointy head. His visual difference to his companions was a sign of his authority. Without a sign of emotion, the pixie explained, "We have charts to confirm that his presence has drastically reduced our productivity. I can have Sanderson show you if you would like."
"That won't be necessary, HP," the anti-fairy responded. He wasn't particularly fond of his new allies, but he could still display a certain level of civility since the head pixie shared the same common goal of Turner's demise. Of course, he also tended to demonstrate proper manners and protocol even with his enemies. After all, just because you wish to spread mischief and chaos all over the world is no reason why one should act completely uncivilized. "We know that he is a problem. We know that, as long as he's around, neither of our goals will come to fruition. The only question is how we shall rectify this situation."
He gazed down his side of the table, waiting to see how the bat-winged, blue-skinned, bad-luck-causing creatures would respond. The pixies were a thoroughly unimaginative lot with HP having the most initiative. If there was going to be a new idea put forth, it would come from the anti-fairies.
"We could get a giant elephant and have it step on him," a voice piped up.
He smacked his hand against his face. That was the type of answer he would expect from his moronic fairy counterpart, Cosmo. Because he was as brilliant as his opposite was stupid, the anti-fairy could truly appreciate the sheer inanity of the suggestion. He needed smarter followers.
A monotone pixie commented, "Most of Turner's advantages in our encounters are his access to magic through his fairy godparents and god-brother and his knowledge of magic and magical creatures. Both of these advantages are temporary. Would it not be more logical to simply wait until the child loses his access to magic and his memories? Without those two traits, he will be unable to interfere in our plans. In fact, he would be oblivious to our existence."
"But the point isn't to simply have the child forget. We must defeat the boy, just as he has beaten us in the past," explained Anti-Cosmo. "Out-waiting him will simply remove all satisfaction. We must strike out against him and exploit any weakness he might possess, but he also must be able to remember who is causing his downfall. To call it a true victory, Turner must know that he has lost."
His wife suggested quickly, "We could always send him a note if he doesn't know."
The brilliant anti-fairy resisted the urge to roll his eyes in exasperation of Anti-Wanda's words. As idiotic she might act or sound, he truly did love her. On the rare occasion where he contemplated the strangeness of their partnership, he couldn't help drawing comparisons to their fairy counterparts. Just how far did the reflective nature of fairies and anti-fairies go? The conundrum was nearly as perplexing as the entire question about whether the egg came before the chicken or vice versa. Was he and his wife married simply because Cosmo and Wanda were? Or were the fairies together because Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were? He never truly examined the different relationships of magical creatures, so he didn't know if all anti-fairies had the same partners as their fairy counterpart. Perhaps it was merely a coincidence that he loved Anti-Wanda as much as Wanda loved her husband. Perhaps both relationships worked because of the similar group dynamics produced by involving an idiot and a smarter individual who loved them regardless. In the end, it didn't truly matter. His wife may not be the brightest, but he still cared about her dearly.
"We either need a way to reduce his access to magic or to increase our own," summarized one of the pixies that had been identified as Sanderson. How HP could tell the difference between the identical beings, he would never know. "By changing the margin between our capabilities and his, we shall increase the likelihood of our success."
"Like when we tried to steal that cute baby fairy," reminded Anti-Wanda, for once providing a comment that was actually relevant to the conversation.
"Exactly, dearest," the anti-fairy remarked. "The infant was a large source of unshaped magical potential. It would have been nice to possess, but he's been influenced by his parents and young Timothy by now. So that particular avenue is no longer viable, but we are at least on the right track."
"Should there not be an anti-fairy to match him?" asked HP. "Could we not use him against Turner?"
Anti-Cosmo glared at the pixie, "No. He's proven to be less than willing to work with others and only focuses on his own, narrow goals."
To say his son, Foop, was a disappointment would be an understatement. He'd had such high hopes for the square-shaped infant. They even gave him a name to make him unique among his kind, rather than simply calling him Anti-Poof. Aspirations of destruction and mayhem created as a united family had fluttered through Anti-Cosmo's mind like a demented bat. But, even if the young anti-fairy was as eloquent with his words as his father and clearly had the right attitude for chaos, Foop did not wish to work with his family towards a common goal. In fact, he demonstrated swiftly that he had not even the most basic type of loyalty to his species or his family. He would do whatever was required, even working against those closest to him, in order to fulfill his vendetta against Poof. If he'd been anyone besides Anti-Cosmo's son, the young anti-fairy would have suffered greatly for his behavior. But the intelligent individual still had at least some parental connection to square infant. Perhaps he would mature and become more receptive to working with his family as he aged. For now, however, Foop was more likely to be more trouble than help if they tried to get him involved.
"If we cannot increase our capability for magic, then can we restrict the boy'?" asked Sanderson. "Some loophole or special circumstance we might use against him?"
"Perhaps," Anti-Cosmo muttered thoughtfully. An idea began to creep around the back of his head, like some dark predator grinning in the night. He knew quite a bit about fairies and their vulnerabilities. Anti-fairies did share at least some of them. But there was at least one specific action that the species performed that might offer a narrow window of opportunity they could use. "Perhaps there is a way… But we shall have to wait until the time arrives. It will be a period where Turner and his fairies are at their most vulnerable. He won't be able to wish his way out of trouble."
"When will this opportunity occur? HP asked, his monotone voice gaining just a hint of interest.
"Soon enough, my business associates. Our little problem will be taken care of before the end of the year. He'll be left helpless and without any magic. And, best of all, we don't have to do a thing except wait for those fools to willingly cause this vulnerability," remarked the anti-fairy, grinning rather cruelly at the idea skulking about his head. "It is an event that happens every year and leaves them powerless for a full day."
After knowing the girl about a week, Timmy was willing to admit that Amanda wasn't too bad. She was younger than him and she certainly was quiet, but she was certainly different than most girls. She wasn't as overwhelming and clingy as Tootie, but she was also wasn't as unapproachable and practically unobtainable as Trixie. Perhaps AJ's assessment was correct and she was simply too young to truly be considered a "girl." Regardless, even after her encounter with Vicky, she hadn't been discouraged from wanting to spend some time with him and Timmy didn't actually mind her hanging around.
The weekend was quickly approaching and the brunette boy had already determined that his usual friends wouldn't be available to hang out with. Furthermore, examining a long list of more magical activities had failed to spark his interest. Wish burnout was a rare occurrence, but it was bound to happen every now and then considering the sheer number of magic-related events he took part in. Timmy knew from experience that he'd be back to wishing for mind-blowing experiences in a couple of days, but for time being he was eager for more mundane pastimes.
"All right, where is she?" he muttered, scanning the crowd of weekend-eager students.
The watch-disguised Cosmo suggested, "Maybe she's avoiding you."
"No way," the boy responded quietly. "Amanda wouldn't do that."
"Why not? Every other girl, besides Tootie, tries to avoid you," his godfather reminded. "Maybe she finally figured out she's supposed to do that too. It might even be a rule. There could be a whole rule book for girls and that could be one of them."
Wanda, disguised as the notebook in the boy's hand, glared at her husband, "Cosmo, you're an idiot."
"What?" the watch-disguised fairy asked, genuinely confused by his wife's response.
Spotting a familiar teal bow, Timmy called, "Amanda. Wait up."
The girl froze at his voice and turned towards him. There was a small smile on her face, even if it was still a little bit hesitant. It was as if she always expected the worst. Or at least, she didn't expect to be happy for very long.
"Hi, Timmy," she greeted once he neared the girl. She shifted her grip on her backpack strap. "Is everything all right?"
"Yeah, I was just wondering if you want to do something this afternoon," the boy explained.
Amanda blinked in surprise, "You want to do something with me? Like what?"
Timmy shrugged, "I don't know. When I dragged you to my house, it didn't really work out according to plan."
"You can say that again," chuckled Cosmo before his wife shushed him urgently.
For a second, the boy was afraid that the brunette girl had heard the green-haired fairy. Her eyes briefly flickered towards his wrist, but she gave no further reaction. Apparently she either missed the voice after all or she simply dismissed the notion of talking inanimate objects.
Continuing, Timmy remarked, "So, since my house was the ultimate Vicky-style nightmare last time, we could try your house. What do you think?"
"You… you want to… My house?" whispered Amanda.
"Yes," he confirmed, wondering about the weird mixture of expressions that were currently on her face. She looked at least a little excited about the idea, but mostly she seemed shocked and nervous by his suggestion. "Is that going to be a problem?"
Amanda hesitated, her eyes dropping down to the ground and she as biting her bottom lip. For a moment, Timmy was certain she would reject his idea. If she did, he would have happily offered to let her pick the location. Eventually, the girl looked up and nodded.
"If you really want to come over… I guess it would be okay. I mean, I don't mind and if you want to do that…"
"Great," interrupted the boy. "Then we better get on the bus."
The pink-hatted individual grabbed her arm and yanked the girl towards the nearly-full vehicle. He heard a certain purple sticker on the pink notebook give an excited giggle at the idea of going somewhere new, but Amanda didn't seem to react to Poof anymore than she did to Cosmo.
The girl really didn't know how to react as she led Timmy into her house. It was thrilling and certainly wonderful that he wanted to come over. That had to prove that he was enjoying her friendship, right? It was his idea to come over. On the surface, it should be a good thing.
But doubt still loomed in her mind. What if he didn't have a good time? Vicky had kept them too busy that day for any real fun, but Amanda had seen an impressive collection of toys, board games, video games, and other fun activities in the boy's room. Her own meager supply of belongings couldn't compare. Not that she didn't appreciate what she did have. Most of them were from Grandma or occasionally second-hand stores when her parents were kind enough to spend their hard-earned money on her. She didn't deserve to have such things anyway, but Timmy would probably think that the small collection was evidence that she wasn't worthy of anything, including his friendship. If he didn't have fun with her, he might never want to see her again. Considering how long it took to gain a friend in the first place, Amanda was afraid of losing him and yet she also accepted the likelihood of that occurring.
"Wow, everything is so… white and… shiny," he commented slowly, glancing around the living room. "And really, really clean."
Amanda nodded nervously, "My parents like it. It's supposed to be professional and nice-looking."
"Cool," remarked the boy quickly. "What do you want to do? Do you have any games or something fun to do? If you have a ball, I can still try teaching you how to play Timmyball. Or we could try something else. But not dolls. I draw the line at playing with dolls."
"My room is in there," she pointed. "If you want to wait in there, I'll be right back and we can figure out something. If you want."
Timmy shrugged and headed straight towards the door she'd indicated. Her friend currently distracted, she scurried towards the bathroom while digging into her backpack. The second problem with having he boy at her house was that it could result in Timmy and Norm bumping into each other. The genie tended to pop in without warning. She needed to warn him just in case.
Grinning at a rather attractive blue-haired genie, Norm wondered if he would be lucky this time. Last time he tried getting close to this particular female, Crystal, was back before the Black Plague. Unfortunately, she'd been called away by her master due to some type of "bear wish" emergency before he managed to do more than suggest they go somewhere more isolated. This time, Norm was hoping they would be able to finish their dinner and maybe even head back to her bottle before Crystal got called away again.
Leaning back slightly in his chair, he tried to enjoy the nice table and dinner that was currently floating near the Great Wall of China. She was a very pretty genie, the meal was delicious, and he could tell from the flirty glances that she was directing towards him that she was also hoping her master didn't interrupt them for quite some time.
"Enjoying yourself?" he asked. "I want to make sure that you have… fun, after all."
She smiled slightly, "Yes, the view is especially spectacular.
"Even humans can create something rather impressive if you give them enough time. Or if they're especially lucky."
"Their little rock wall thing wasn't the view I was talking about," Crystal corrected coyly. "I was talking more about the company." She took another bit of the rice on her plate before continuing, "I'm so happy that you decided to look me up, Norm. I'm just sorry our last date was interrupted so rudely."
Shrugging slightly, he reminded, "It couldn't be helped. But we're alone now." He leaned forward a little and peered over his shades at her, "Perhaps we should enjoy ourselves before something happens to disrupt out plans again."
"I think I would like that," Crystal responded.
Considering the kind of luck he'd been experiencing lately, he should have known that something would happen. In fact, the genie had been half-expecting the date to end prematurely since the start. There was a reason that stable couples, let alone married couples, were a rather rare phenomenon for his species. When a date could be interrupted any second by a greedy and impatient master and the second try might not be for centuries, forming any type of relationship was a challenge. That was why there weren't really any families or genie kids wandering around. Only freed genies tended to be able to make that sort of attempt. On the other hand, it did make it easier to have a more casual outlook to dating that Norm preferred since none of the girls expected him to stick around anyway.
Still, it was truly annoying whenever he couldn't get very far with whichever lovely genie before something interrupted. For a moment, he was certain that Crystal had been summoned back by her master yet again. Then, Norm realized that he was no longer floating above the Great Wall of China. Instead, he was in a very bright, very white bathroom and Amanda was staring at him uneasily with the lava lamp in her grip. The genie realized that she must have rubbed the lamp to bring him. She never did that; the girl never did anything that could be considered an inconvience to him and the fact she'd summoned him indicated that something rather serious was going on. That fact started setting off alarm bells in his head.
"Everything okay, kid?" he asked in a carefully controlled and calm tone, though perhaps a little more quickly than needed.
"Yes, sort of," she mumbled slowly.
"Then what's going on? Why are we meeting here? Wanted to show off the fancy towels?"
"No," the girl shook her head. "I wanted to warn you. Timmy wanted to come over to my house today. I didn't want you to accidentally run into him if you showed up in the room later."
Norm blinked, all thoughts of Crystal and the interrupted date evaporating. Timmy, and undoubtedly his fairies, was in the house. It would have been far too easy for the exact scenario Amanda was describing, the genie simply appearing in front of the boy because he was not expecting his presence, to have occurred. If things hadn't gone as planned with the date, he'd have likely popped in to check on the girl and everything would have gone downhill from there. Of course, she didn't know what the full implications of such an event would be, but the warning had ensured that the disaster was prevented. But it also showed how difficult keeping everything separate truly was becoming. If a single mistake or change of pace occurred, everything could unravel. But he didn't intend to let that happen. He could make it work.
Quietly, he commented, "Thank you for telling me. That could have turned out to be a rather… uncomfortable encounter." Trying to adopt a slight smile to reassure the child, he remarked, "I'll get out of here then. Try to stay out of trouble, kid."
Already sliding the lava lamp out of sight into her backpack, she mumbled, "I will."
Not wanting to risk being detected by remaining any longer, the genie snapped his fingers and vanished with a soft gong. Perhaps he could salvage the rest of the date. Surely he could manage to be lucky enough to actually have Crystal still be there waiting.
Well, things certainly have a way of becoming more complicated as time goes on. Timmy might not know anything important yet and Amanda is trying to keep things secret because she thinks it is best for everyone, but Norm is in a rather precarious position. His current master and enemy are spending time together and now the boy's at her house. How long can he keep in control? And what will happen when (not if) something happens to upset that shaky balance of his desire for vengeance and his intention to keep Amanda ignorant of his past? Secrets tend to be exposed eventually.
And Norm isn't the only enemy of Timmy's who plans to target him in the near future. Pixies and anti-fairies are rather troublesome entities. And dangerous one if you get in their way. Overall, the future promises to be rather exciting for all involved.
Don't expect Crystal to have a large role either. She's a little like Tanda. She's a character who served a role, but she is in no way a major character.
Remember, I love feedback. Reviews are always terrific motivation. I like hearing what you think. Thanks.
