Read an Excerpt

Double Trouble

Random House

Chapter One

Chapter One
Anything Can Happen in Cocoa Beach!


If you find this note, it means you are SNOOPING! Jake, if you know what's good for you, put this down
RIGHT NOW! I mean it! I'm not kidding!!!

Wait a minute. What's wrong with me? I don't need to worry. My pesky little brother would never believe,
not even for one second, what's been going on around here. Amazing, incredible, totally unbelievable
things.

I have a genie living in my room!

Actually, she's inside an old Lava lamp Gran got me at the flea market. Little Genie was trapped inside for
forty years-until I rubbed it and became her lord and master. (Hee hee!) Now I get to make real wishes.
But it's not as easy as it sounds. Wishes can cause

BIG problems.

And so can Little Genie!

(Even though she's cute.)

Chapter Two

Oola, Moola, Poola


"I must be dreaming," Ali Miller murmured, sitting up in bed. She rubbed her eyes and stared at her desk.
Her pink furry pencil case was wiggling about as if it was alive! Suddenly, the zipper opened and a tiny
head with a long blond ponytail popped out.

"Oh, Genie!" Ali said. "What are you doing?"

Little Genie grinned. "I thought this would make a really cool jacket," she said, stroking the fur. "What do
you think?"

Ali laughed. Having her very own genie around was definitely the most exciting thing that had ever
happened to her.

"I think my pencil case would look great as a jacket, too," Ali said. "But I need it for school today."

Little Genie wriggled out of the pencil case. Her ponytail drooped. She was wearing sparkly purple
pajamas and matching slippers. "I'd better put all your stuff back, then," she said with a sigh. Ali's pencils,
pens, erasers, and ruler were lying on the desk in a topsy-turvy heap.

"I'll help you," Ali offered, climbing out of bed. She pulled back the curtains. Sunshine streamed into the
room. "Isn't it nice out?" She yawned. "I wish I didn't have to go to school!" She looked hopefully over at
Genie.

Little Genie held out her arm. On her wrist she wore a tiny gold watch shaped like an hourglass and filled
with sparkling pink sand. "Remember what I told you," she reminded Ali. "Your second set of wishes won't
start until the sand begins moving through the hourglass."

Ali nodded. She was really looking forward to her next three wishes, which would last for as long as the
sand took to run from one half of the hourglass to the other. The hourglass ran on genie time, which
didn't seem to follow any rules.

Ali never knew how long her wishes would last, but she still couldn't wait. This time she was determined
to wish for something she really, really wanted.

"Why don't you want to go to school?" asked Little Genie, heaving a ruler into the pencil case. "You sound
like me. I didn't like going to Genie School either."

Ali grinned at her small friend. Little Genie had told her that she'd got into such big trouble mixing up
spells that the genie teachers had expelled her. Genie had had to stay in her Lava lamp and study magic
until her eleventh owner came along-who was Ali!

Genie's magic skills still weren't very reliable. Ali shook her head as she remembered her first wishes.
Genie had brought a tiny purple tiger to life from a chocolate advertisement in one of Ali's magazines. The
tiger had been very sweet, but keeping him hidden from Ali's mom had been a nightmare. Not to mention
the ten thousand bars of chocolate that had appeared when Ali wished for her favorite treat!

"So what's happening today?" Little Genie asked, perching on Ali's strawberry-scented eraser.

Ali made a face. "A science test and drama class." Science was pretty fun. But she hated tests. And she
wasn't so sure about drama. Some of the things the teacher wanted them to do were kind of dorky.

"Science and drama," Little Genie repeated longingly. "In Genie School we had to do things like blinking
exercises and ponytail swinging." She frowned. "Not to mention classes like Spells for Beginners and Math
for Modern Genies."

Ali twirled a pencil between her fingers. "Science is pretty cool. We do experiments and mix up chemicals
in test tubes. But not today." Today she'd be trying to think of the answers to questions that were really
hard.

"That sounds like Advanced Potions class!" Little Genie exclaimed. "My teacher, Miss Cauldron, didn't like
me very much. She sent me back to Spells for Beginners."

"Why?" Ali asked.

"I almost singed her eyebrows off with my exploding peanut butter," Genie confessed sheepishly.
"Anyway, what's drama?"

Ali shrugged. It was kind of hard to explain. "We do things like pretend to be trees." She started waving
her arms about to show Little Genie what she meant and knocked the rest of the pens off the desk with
her flailing hands.

"Oops!" Ali bent to pick them up.

"Drama sounds great!" Genie said eagerly, peering down at Ali from on top of the desk. "In
Transformation we actually had to turn ourselves into trees, which always seemed silly. Especially when
another genie named Lampella couldn't turn herself back. Although it did make our classroom a bit more
interesting." Genie smiled. "Just pretending to be one sounds lots more fun."

Lampella? Ali shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Well, if school's going to be such a drag, it's a shame you can't just stay home," Little Genie said. She sat
on the edge of Ali's desk, swinging her legs and looking thoughtful. "Hmmm."

Suddenly, the bedroom door opened. Quick as lightning, Little Genie dived into the open pencil case,
zipping it up behind her.

"Ali?" Her mom came into the room, looking puzzled. "Who on earth were you talking to?"

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Excerpted from Double Trouble by Miranda Jones Excerpted by permission.
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