Chapter Four

(Hey, y'all!

Life good?

Yes? No? "Ehh"?

Well, whatever your answer is, then I quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

Enjoy the story and life as it goes!

-imaginarytoon1

A man may die,

Nations may rise or fall,

But an idea lives on.

-John F. Kennedy (November 22, 2013: 50th Anniversary of JFK's assassination)

Destiny is not a matter of chance;

But a matter of choice.

It is not a thing to be waited for,

It is a thing to be achieved.

-William Jennings Bryan

Beatrice:

After Tommy and I rubbed the lamp, we waited for the genie to come out. A few seconds passed and nothing happened.

"Is something supposed to happen?" I asked.

As if on cue, the lamp began to shake. It was shaking like there was an earthquake going on and it was shaking so hard that the lid slipped off the top and fell on my desk.

Then, the shaking stopped.

"That was it?" Tommy asked.

All of the sudden, something is shot out of the lamp and landed on my bed. It was another fortune cookie. Seriously, if I see another fortune cookie, I am going—

Then, three more fortune cookies flew out of the lamp and they landed on my bed. I hope that today WON'T be the day when more unexplainable things begin to happen or when more things fall from the sky.

"What is going on here?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know but this is really bizarre." I replied.

"What's bizarre?" A voice asked and I jumped in surprise.

Mom was standing in the middle of the doorway of my room with her hair sticking up in all directions and while chewing on Dubble Bubble gum (I can tell by the smell.).

Knowing that Mom won't take the fortune cookies and the lamp too seriously, I said,

"It's bizarre that…um…I have to put 'wear glasses' on my daily routine. You know, I never wore glasses until yesterday and it's bizarre because glasses weren't a part of my life for seventeen years. So…yeah."

Mom…filed her nails (she was wearing a robe and in one of her pockets, she has a giant box of bubble gum and a nail file) and blew a huge bubble. It popped and gum was sticking on to her chapped lips.

"Where did you get those fortune cookies?" She asked.

"Uh, uh, uh…" I began to say.

"Never mind and you're smart enough to know that you can't eat fortune cookies for breakfast."

Hey, I'm not stupid! I thought.

"And Beatrice, get ready and organized for school after breakfast." Mom said.

"Mom, I already did that yesterday. I'm ready to go."

"All right, then. I'll be out all day and I won't be back until a little after eleven."

"Where are you going?" Tommy asked when Mom was about to leave.

She gave him a look of irritation and said, "Out of town."

Then, Mom left the room.

"Do you think that Mom would've believed us if we told her about fortune cookies flying out of a magic lamp?" Tommy asked.

"I don't think so. She certainly won't believe that we have the lamp from Aladdin." I replied.

"Yeah, that's true."

"But what are we waiting for right now? Let's see what the fortune cookies have to say."

"You open two and I'll open two."

Tommy and I grabbed the fortune cookies and opened them. From my first cookie, my fortune said:

"Decisions lead you to inevitable consequences or rewards."

My second fortune said:

"Cooperation and friendships stop evil."

"What do your fortunes say, Tommy?" I asked.

"'Face your consequences' and 'The heart and the brain are your weapons in life'." He replied. "The first one sounds kind of cliché."

"I know, right?"

"What did your fortunes say?"

"'Decisions lead you to inevitable consequences or rewards' and 'Cooperation and friendships stop evil'. These are something that you don't hear every day."

Tommy turns to my piano and picks up the other fortunes. He reads every one of them with worry.

"'Don't omit your loyalty. That's how leaders and heroes are born'; 'Love is like a disease. You never know when you'll catch it', 'Exhume lost or forgotten memories. Relive them,' 'Getting together with old friends brings new adventures,' and my fortune that I found this morning said, 'There is a great destiny for you in the future'. Do you think that all of these fortunes are connected to our dream from last night?"

Then, the lamp leaps off the desk and begins to float in mid-air. Smoke begins to slither out of the spout and the lamp begins to twitch. Not only smoke as coming out but fireworks were shooting out of the spout.

I jumped and grabbed the lamp to keep it from bumping into the walls and I heard the sound of thunder.

"What's going on?!" Tommy exclaimed.

"I DON'T KNOW!" I replied.

Then, a thick, foggy, blue cloud slithered out of the spout and I heard someone scream. I realized that it was Genie. The cloud slowly began to disappear and I looked up as I heard Genie exclaim,

"OY! NINETEEN YEEEEEEARS would give you such a KRICK IN THE NECK!"

Genie was so big that he filled almost the room and he yelled so loud that he can make a pack of wolves run away without hesitation.

"Can you two hold on for just a second?" Genie asked as he pushed us away from him with his big hand.

As Genie was exclaiming 'WHOOOOOA-OH-OH', he takes his head off of his body and spins it around. After that, he puts his head back on his body and then, with a big smile on his face, he looked at me and Tommy.

"You must be the Birchwood twins." Genie said.

"Yes, sir. I'm Beatrice Birchwood and this is my brother, Thomas but everybody calls him 'Tommy'." I said.

"I do have one question for you, Genie." Tommy said as we sat down on my bed. "Beatrice and I rubbed the lamp together but you didn't come out. Why did you come out of the lamp a little bit later?"

"I was a little confused." Genie replied. "I know that when a person rubs the lamp, I immediately come right out. I guess I thought that I was placed in a bag full of stuff because you and Beatrice were rubbing the lamp at the same time."

"Okay, now that makes sense."

"But what about the four fortune cookies that you shot out of the lamp? What are those for?" I asked.

"Those were from Yen Sid. He wanted me to give them to you." Genie said. "Did you read the fortunes yet?"

"Yes, sir, along with the other five fortune cookies that were given to us. But Tommy and I don't know why we are receiving these fortune cookies and we also don't know if they make a connection to the dream that we shared last night."

"What dream?"

"Tommy and I were in a court room and there was a trial going on. Tommy was watching and I had to play the part of being a witness and a victim. The whole trial was about the Toon Patrol planning to make me and Tommy sleepwalk to Toon Town and torture us. I'm not sure if the Toon Patrol will go back to jail or pay a fine because I woke up before I knew the answer but right now, I'm scared that they'll try to invade my mind again."

"Now that you've mentioned it, Beatrice," Genie began, "I also came to tell you that Yen Sid has granted you and Tommy an amazing gift that very few people can get. You and Tommy have the ability to see, hear, and talk to Toons while wander around your lives and surroundings but no one else can see, hear, or talk to them. Yen Sid gave you that gift because he knows that something is about to go wrong and he doesn't want you to get hurt by anything."

"What's about to go wrong? What's going to happen?" Tommy asked.

"Most of the other Toons, including I, don't know what's going to happen but it's really bad. Yen Sid also granted me to be your protector or helper during times of trouble. I can even grant you two three wishes." Genie said to us.

"Three wishes for each of us?" I asked.

"Yes but I have these rules that you must follow."

I knew there was a catch. I thought.

Genie shrinks down to my height and he sits down on my right side of the bed.

"RULE NUMBER ONE!" Genie exclaimed. "I cannot kill anybody." He uses the throat slash hand gesture and comically, Genie's head is sliced off and in a raspy voice, he says, "So don't ask." Then, Genie puts his head back and exclaimed, "RULE NUMBER TWO!" He flutters his eyelashes. "I cannot make anybody fall in love with anybody else." His head transforms into a woman's lipstick-covered lips and kisses Tommy. "You little punim there." Genie pinches my cheeks and he falls back on my bed and closes his eyes. "RULE NUMBER THREE!" As he continues to talk, Genie transforms into a hideous, green, slimy zombie and talks in an igor-ish (I don't know how to describe it) voice. "I can't bring people back from the dead. It's not a PRETTY PICTURE. I DON'T LIKE DOING IT!"

"And if either Tommy, I, or both of us are on our third wish, we can't wish for more wishes. Is that right?" I asked.

Genie reverts back to his normal state and looks at me with a big smile.

"Yes, that's right." He replied. For a second, he pauses with his big smile but his jaw dropped to my floor. "Wait, how did you know about the wishing for more wishes rule?"
"Beatrice reads and watches too much and she knows a lot." Tommy said.

Then, Genie shrugged his shoulders and says, "It's been a pleasure, you two. I would like to stay a little longer but I have a lot of things to do right now. Just say the word and I'll be coming for you."

"Thanks for the advice and for the answers on the fortune cookies, Genie." Tommy said.

Then, Genie does a salute signal to me and Tommy and disappears into the lamp. For a good reason, I opened one of my desk drawers and I put the lamp inside of it. The last things that Tommy and I need are pickpockets or a guy who visits the pawnshop often just to get the money.

"So what should we do now?" Tommy asked.