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was given the chance to claim he was only defending himself from an attack. Her face turned bright red as Mitch’s obscene gesture fully registered.
    “Let’s go,” she told Winston as she tugged hard on his leash. “You don’t want to bite him. All that bile would make you sick.”
    Only the fear of her letting go of the leash kept Mitch from making any further nasty comments. It was a struggle, but Emily was able to pull Winston into her bedroom. After locking the door, Emily stood for a long moment breathing hard and seeing red. That was how mad she was. She was actually seeing red! A wet tongue began licking her hand, and Emily bent down and hugged Winston tightly while he licked her face. After a while the redness in her vision faded and she began breathing more normally again. She stood up and dried her face with her shirt sleeve, and with a mix of resolve and anger summoned the genie.

Chapter 5
     
    The genie appeared as he had the other day, although he wore a different shirt and tie. Winston bounded over to him and bumped up against his leg. The genie gave the dog a warm smile before turning a solemn expression to Emily.
    “You called for me, Miss Mignon?”
    “I get some wishes, don’t I?” Emily asked, still seething in anger over having to deal with a grotesque pig like Mitch in her own apartment.
    “Of course. Nine of them.”
    That surprised her. She had convinced herself after reading the Arabian Nights and other stories that she’d only be getting three wishes. Nine were a lot more than she had expected, but there was only one wish that she truly wanted, so the others would be a bonus. That would only be if she were willing to trust the genie enough to make any wishes at all.
    “That’s more wishes than I thought I’d get,” Emily said.
    “All of my masters have said that,” the genie said with a thin smile. “But you’ll be surprised at how quickly those nine wishes can go, and you can’t use one of the wishes to wish for additional ones. The natural law of genies that I operate under prevents that. And if you lose my lamp and later reclaim it, you don’t get nine more wishes, only the number of wishes that were previously remaining.”
    Emily nodded slowly as she digested that. “If I wished for you to turn Mitch into a pig, would you be able do that?”
    “Easily,” the genie said. “And if Mitch is that same oaf who insulted you out there, I’d also add gladly . Simply make the wish and it will be done.”
    Emily’s expression turned somber. She wasn’t serious about doing something like that, and only said it as a way to let out some of her anger. She shook her head. “I’d better not,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair to whoever ended up with pork chops from him. I’m sure it would give the poor person a bad case of trichinosis at the very least.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about that,” the genie said with the utmost seriousness “If the meat is cooked well enough it would be fine.” He reflected on the matter a brief moment and his disappointment in not being given the go ahead to turn Mitch into a pig showed in his eyes. “But I can see your point. Any meat a butcher got from him would be too fatty and gristly for anyone to enjoy. How about I turn him into a slug instead? That way you could crush him with your thumb.”
    Emily shook her head.
    “I see. We’ll leave him as a human variety of slug for now. Have you thought of what wishes you’d like?”
    “Yes. I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. Her eyes lowered from the genie’s. “I have some questions I’d like to ask you first. Would that be okay?”
    “Of course.”
    Emily took a step toward her desk to get the questions she had written up earlier, then turned back to the genie with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This has been very rude of me. I don’t even know your name.”
    “You may simply call me your humble and obedient servant.”
    “No, I don’t think so,”