The problem was he couldn’t be sure whether whatever had caused changes in Deedee and the room intended good or ill. Certainly Deedee was enjoying her vacation from adulthood as a baby, but if she was forced to be an infant forever it would be a curse rather than a blessing. He had to get to the bottom of what was causing the transformations and discover how to change her back. Ron thought about the lamp and remembered what he had been thinking when he had heard Deedee’s cries. He had wished that they had already purchased a nursery for Deedee. If they had bought one, Ron was sure it would have looked like the nursery that had mysteriously appeared in place of the furniture he had bought. He was sure that Deedee would have liked the crib he had bought, but it wasn’t exactly what she had wanted. This crib was perfect. The room looked like Deedee’s description of her dream nursery. Every piece that she had wanted was in the room. It looked like she had picked each piece out herself and positioned it in the same way that she had described to him. Ron realized that the lamp was the key to the problem. Apparently if the lamp was rubbed with Deedee’s cleaning paste it granted wishes, either spoken or unspoken. He had to find out if his hypothesis was true. Ron had a simple experiment in mind that would tell him what he needed to know. He went back to the kitchen and sat down at the table in front of the lamp. Then took the rag and dipped it into the brine-vinegar mixture and began to rub the lamp all over with the rag as he said, “I wish for an explanation of what’s happened to Deedee. Tell me lamp, are you magic?”

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