Chapter 8: Aaliyah's First Wish

Back in Agrabah, the Sultana and Jamal are confronting Jasira about Aaliyah.

"Jasira, this is an outrage! If it weren't for all your years of royal service you have done for me and my family... From now on, you are to discuss sentencing of prisoners with me, before you would go through the deed!" The Sultana said sternly.

"I assure you, Your Highness, it won't happen again." Jasira promised as she bowed.

"Jamal... Jasira." Sultana said, as she brought the two together. "Now, let's put this whole messy business behind us."

"My most abject and humblest apologies to you as well, Prince." Jasira said, as she grabbed Jamal's hand.

Jamal glared at her, while pulling his hand away. "At least some good will come out of my being forced to find a wife, when I am in charge I will have power to get rid. Of. You!"

The Sultana seems oblivious to her son's threat to Jasira. "That's nice. All settled, then. Now, Jamal, getting back to this bride business... Jamal!"

Jamal already walked out of the throne room, the Sultana follows him.

Jasira's smile vanished from her face into a fierce snarl. "If I only gotten that lamp!"

"'I will have the power to get rid. Of. You.'" said Desdemona in Jamal's voice, before quickly switching back to her own. "Ugh! To think, we gotta keep kissing up to that chump and her chump son for the rest of our lives...!"

"No Desdemona, only until he finds a chump wife." Jasira goes out on the balcony. Below her, Jamal and the Sultana are arguing. "He'll have me exiled, or worse- beheaded!" Jasira said. She and Desdemona both held their throats and cringed at the thought.

Then Desdemona's eyes widened, as she just formed an idea. "Oh. Wait a minute, Jasira! What if you were the chump wife?" she said.

"What?!" Jasira glares at her parrot.

"Okay, just hear me out here." Desdemona said. "You marry the prince, all right? And then, you become queen!"

Jasira smiled slightly at the thought. "Oh... Marry the boor... I become the queen." She then walked to the throne and sat on it. "The idea has merits."

"Yes, merit! Yes! And then we serve Mom-in-law and the big guy an arsenic laced coffee." Desdemona then acts as if she was choking and falls from Jasira's snake staff, and dropped to the floor. Then she burst out laughing. Jasira laughs with her.

"I love the way your foul little mind works." Jasira said.

The two laugh out loud in the throne room as they finally have a new plan to seize power.

Meanwhile, Carpet flies Aaliyah, Aba and Genie in a little oasis in the middle of the desert.

"Thank you for choosing Magic Carpet for all your travel needs. Don't stand until the rug has come to a complete stop." Genie, dressed as a tour guide, spoke as Aaliyah and Aba got off Carpet. "Well, thank you, good-bye. Good-bye, now. Thank you. Good-bye." Then the blue girl change back into her original outfit with a smug look on her face. "We-e-ell! How about that, Ms. Doubty Mustafa?"

"Oh you certainly showed me." Aaliyah smirked. "Now about my three wishes?"

"Three? You're down by ONE, girl!" Genie reminded, shoving her forefinger into Aaliyah's face.

"Uh-uh! I never actually wished to get out of the cave. You did that on your own."

Genie was about to retort, but got nothing, as she realized Aaliyah was right. Then she turns into a sheep. "Oh do I feel sheepsih? All right, you ba-a-ad girl, but no more freebies." She then change back to normal.

"We got a deal. So... is this magic," Aaliyah asked, holding the lamp up, "or are you magic?"

"Kind of a package deal." Genie said as she conjured up a hammock for her to relax on. And also makes an apple appear out of thin air. "So, what are you gonna wish?"

"Oh, I haven't thought of that."

"Hmm, you really aren't that person." Genie takes a bite on the apple.

Aaliyah put a finger to her chin in thought, with Carpet mimicking her gesture. "Let's see. I got three wishes. I want them to be good." She then turn to Genie. "What about you? What would you wish for?"

Genie's eyes widen at that question. "Me?" She makes her half-eaten apple disappear. "No one's ever asked me that before. Well, in my case... Ah, forget it."

"What?"

"No, forget it."

"Come on, tell me."

"Freedom." Genie replied.

Aaliyah looked down at the lamp. "You're a prisoner?" she asked.

"It's all part-and-parcel of the whole genie gig." Genie said. Then she suddenly shot into the air and grew larger and redder, and in a loud booming voice, she yelled. "PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS..." She then disappear back into the lamp. Aaliyah looked in it and saw Genie crammed inside. "itty bitty living space." she finished in a squeaky voice.

"Oh, Genie, that's terrible."

Genie then appear back out of the lamp. "But, oh... to be free. Not have to go. Poof! Can I help you? Poof! What would you like? Poof! Welcome to the lamp, may I take your order?" Briefly dressed like a drive-in diner waitress wearing roller skates. "To be my own master, such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world!" She then scoffs. "Who am I kidding? Let's get real here. It's got gonna happen. Genie, wake up and smell the hummus."

"Why not? Can't you wish yourself free?"

"Only my master can wish me free. And the last time that happened was, like," she conjured up a floating calendar, "the fourth of Never-ary." She points to said "month" with the fourth day circled in red.

Aaliyah then smiled. "Then I'll do it! I'll set you free."

Genie rolls her eyes. "Uh-huh, yeah, sure." She then turns her head into Pinocchio's and grew a long nose, believing Aaliyah is lying.

But Aaliyah pushed her nose back in, causing Genie's head to change back. "No, I mean it. After I make my first two wishes, I'll use my third wish to set you free. I promise."

"Well, here's hopin'..." Genie said, shaking Aaliyah's hand. "Let's make some magic!" She said, briefly turned into a stage magician. "So, what is it you want most?"

"Well... there is something. There's..." Aaliyah said, blushing a little. "this... boy..."

"Wrong!" Genie yelled, making a buzzer noise and a 'no heart' sign on her top. "I can't make anybody fall in love, remember?"

"Oh, we have a connection, and I'm sure he feels it too. He's smart, funny and just so-"

"Cute?"

"Magnificently handsome! He has this amazing face and such great hair, and these eyes I could just drown in and when he smiles it's like I'm in heaven!" Aaliyah gushed and sighs dreamily.

"Amie..." Genie grinned, while dressed like a French cancan dancer holding a cigarette holder. She then inhales and puffs out a heart-shaped smoke. "C'est l'amour."

Carpet and Aba were sitting on a table with a bottle of wine and a lit candle. Carpet raises its glass in a toast while a confused Aba stares at hers.

Aaliyah's smile then vanished. "But he's a prince. To even have a chance, I'd have to be..." her eyes lit up and she turned to Genie. "Say, can you make me a princess?"

"Well, there's a lot of gray areas in that. I can literally make you a princess." Genie magically conjures up a princess in the distance.

"I don't think so." Aaliyah said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, you'll be snuggling with that chick for the rest of your life. Not that I have anything against it. I mean, I'm open-minded."

"Hey, where's my palace?!" The lost princess shouted.

Genie suddenly turned into a 1950's housewife with a soft bob, cat-eye glasses and a frilly apron, looking up a pink cookbook titled Royal Recipes. "Let's see here..." she pulled out a clucking hen from the book wearing a crown resembling Queen Elizabeth II's, "Chicken à la queen? Nope." She dropped it back inside. "Alaskan king crab. Oww!" Sebastian pinched her finger and she flung him away. "I hate it when they do that." She flipped to another page. "Caesar salad." Suddenly a muscular arm with a Roman dagger came out of the book and prepared to stab Genie, who briefly dressed like a Roman empress. "AAAHH! Et tu, brute? No." She quickly closed the book, then open it up again and found the page she was looking for. "Aha, here it is. 'To make a princess.' Now be specific with your words. The deal is in the detail."

"Got it." Aaliyah said.

"But, wait a minute... if he already likes you, why change?"

"Like I said, he has to marry a princess."

"I just wanna go home!" The faraway princess whined.

"Here's a thing about wishes: the more you have, the more you want." Genie warned.

"That's not me." Aaliyah said.

"We'll see. So is that an official wish? Say the magic word."

"Genie, I wish you to make me into a princess!" Aaliyah declares with utmost confidence.

"Yeeeeaah!" Genie hollered, briefly turning into Whoopi Goldberg. "You got it!"

Genie is suddenly wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black pants, black shoes, and has a boyish short haircut and round glasses, resembling Hollywood costume designer Edith Head.

"First, that headscarf-and-vest top combo is much too 3rd Century..." Genie inspects Aaliyah's outfit. "These patches! What are we trying to say, beggar maid? No! Let's work with me here." She then takes some measures on Aailyah and check out every fabric she has in her workshop. "Hmm... I got it!"

Genie suddenly dressed like Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and zaps Aaliyah with a wand. "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!" In a spectacular flash of sparkling light, Aaliyah has on a white-colored Arabian princess outfit. "Ooooh! I like it. Muy real." Genie said, as Aaliyah checks herself out in a mirror. She likes what she sees. "Now, still needs something. What does it say to me? It says mode of transportation. Excuse me, little monkey!"

Aba did not like where this is going, but was sent over by Carpet.

Aaliyah suddenly finds herself on a stage, with Genie dressed like a 1960's game show hostess. "What better way to make your entrance on the streets of Agrabah than riding your very own brand-new camel!"

But Genie is not impressed. "Mmm. No, it's too obvious." She snaps her fingers and Aba turns into a white horse with a curly mane and tail. "Still not enough. Let's see what do you need?" She continues snapping her fingers and Aba gets turned into a donkey, an octopus, a duck, an ostrich, a turtle, Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, and back to a monkey again. "Yes! Esalalumbo, shimin Dumbo!"

Upon the word "Dumbo" being said, Aba was transformed into a full-grown, tuskless, and long-tailed Indian elephant. She was standing over Carpet as it happened, so it pulled itself from Aba's elephant foot.

"Talk about your trunk space, check this action out!" Genie said.

Aba looks at her reflection on a pond. Freaking out, she climbs up on a palm tree, but her weight sends it bend down in front of Aaliyah.

"Aba, you look great." Aaliyah said.

"She's got the outfit, she's got the elephant, but we're not through yet. Hang on to your shawl, girlfriend!" Genie said as she immediately got to work. "We're gonna make you a star!"

Author's Notes:

The only female equivalent for Arsenio Hall I could think of is Whoopi Goldberg.

I included the donkey as one of the quick random transformations. And if you look carefully and pause at the right moment, you can see Abu got turned into an octopus.