The genie smiled with satisfaction as he received his command. It had been a long time since he had been let out of his lamp and given the chance to unleash his powers. The wish had been a simple one, unambiguously worded with no room for misinterpretation, deliberate or otherwise. It would be carried out exactly as had been intended.
"What are you looking at me like that for?" James asked a little nervously as he noticed the magical spirit's sudden smirk and change of demeanour.
"Somebody has made a wish. I am about to make it happen" the genie answered.
"What? A wish about me? What was it?" James asked, panicking at how real this all seemed.
"You will find out soon enough" the spirit chuckled.
"Wait, no you can't.."
The attempted protest was interrupted as the genie waved his arms and a large cloud of glittering smoke appeared where James was sitting which completely obscured him from view for a while. When the sparkles and smoke faded they revealed a plump little toad that was now sat in his place. The wish had been pretty straightforward and the genie had delivered exactly as promised. James was now a common toad, with dark green dry and warty skin, copper coloured eyes with a horizontal pupils and a broad, squat body. He had been dramatically reduced to just under ten centimetres in size to suit his new form since male toads were actually smaller in size than their female equivalents. Though James retained all of his human intelligence, memories and personality he was confined by all of the same limitations as a regular toad, including the need to eat appropriately for an amphibian and keep himself cool and his skin moist as much as possible. As far as anyone could tell he was now just a regular toad. In fact even other toads wouldn't be able to tell anything was amiss about the new member of their species. The wish had been granted exactly as stated.
"I'm sorry, it's nothing personal. I'm bound to carry out the commands I'm given" the genie told the toad bluntly "Which means you are stuck like that until someone wishes you back to normal. Of course, people could also make all kinds of other wishes for you instead. Sometimes having this kind of power over someone can be rather tempting after all!"
James made a croaking sound, the only noise he could communicate right now, and hoped Becky would be able to fix this mess as soon as possible.