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Emily said, frowning. “I’d like to call you by your name.”
    The genie’s brow furrowed and his eyes took on a faraway look as he considered the matter. “It’s been many years since I’ve thought about what I was once called,” he said softly. “And several thousand years since anyone has called me by my birth name. I find it hard to remember what it was. Miss Mignon, why don’t you call me Jack? It’s more or less how I’ve grown to think of myself.”
    “Jack,” she said, nodding, as she thought of how the name suited him. “You had a birth name? Were you once a man?”
    “I was. Many thousands of years ago I was born to a flesh and blood woman and grew to be a young man.” His eyes dimmed as if he were brought back to that time. “I was punished for an act of recklessness and transformed into what you see now, but yes, at one time I was a man like any other. A young and foolish one.”
    “The way you look now, is that how you looked when you were still a young man?”
    “I believe so,” Jack said. “That is the image that I carry. But I can’t say for sure.”
    “Let me get my questions,” Emily said, deep in thought as she hurried to her desk. The genie had just contradicted everything that she had read earlier that day, but then again, could she believe him? The engraving on the bottom of the lamp warned her against it. It saddened her to think that he could’ve once been a young man before being imprisoned in the form of a genie. If that were true, then it would have to be a lonely existence for him missing his former life and all those who were once part of it. But as tragic as the idea of that was, it also gladdened her to think that at one time there had been a human spark within him, and that the genie wasn’t simply a spirit of some sort taking a man’s form. But that was only if she could trust him, which she still wasn’t convinced that she could.
    Emily dug her list of questions out of her desk drawer. She squinted hard at the paper since she didn’t have her reading glasses on, and read him the first one which was how he knew about Winston Churchill. When she looked up at him from her sheets of paper, she saw that Jack was grinning.
    “Did I say something funny?” she asked, confused.
    “Oh no, Miss Mignon, not at all. I was simply smiling over how pinched and serious your expression was when you asked me about Churchill. I found it quite endearing.”
    Emily blushed. “If I was squinting, it was only because I don’t have my reading glasses on.”
    “Why don’t I read these for you then.” In a blink of an eye, the papers were no longer being held by Emily but by the genie. “Regarding your question about Winston Churchill, is there a reason I shouldn’t know about him?” he asked.
    “Yes, there’s a very good reason. At least I believe so.” Emily retrieved the antique chest from where she had hidden it in her closet. She removed the false bottom showing the hidden compartment. “This is where I found your lamp,” she said. “The newspaper that was used for packing was from October third, 1890. I’m assuming that was when your last owner hid the lamp.”
    “Hmm. A good assumption,” Jack said. “And pretty much true. It would’ve been around that date when I finished granting my previous master his final wish.”
    “And you haven’t been out of your lamp since I summoned you two days ago?”
    “Correct.”
    “Then how did you know about Churchill?”
    Jack laughed softly to himself over that. “Miss Mignon,” he said, “you would’ve made an excellent prosecutor. But the fact that I haven’t been able to enter this world since 1890 doesn’t mean I can’t bring objects into my own world. Look at Winston as an example. Or the clothing I’m wearing, which I think you’ll agree is contemporary and certainly not dating to the 1890s. I have an extensive reading library, an equally extensive video and DVD collection, as well as Internet access, so my