The woman sadly turned to leave. She had long black hair pulled back into a braid that was streaked with gray. Her robes hung on her loosely. Aladdin couldn’t help noticing how much she looked like his mother. A scrawny girl—child or grandchild—tagged behind her.
“Yeah. Definitely melon,” he muttered to himself. He picked up Abu and pointed him toward the stall. “You’re up, little buddy.”
It didn’t take much to encourage the monkey to go toward the giant piles of dark green fruit.
Aladdin leapt up to the balcony above and dropped lightly onto the beam that supported the melon tent. He leaned over and listened carefully. The moment he heard the merchant screaming and chasing Abu around, he stretched down like a sinuous snake and scooped up the closest ripe melon.
Once safely back out of sight, he whistled a short call that could have been mistaken for the song of a dove.
Instantly, the monkey’s chittering ceased.
“Yes, be off, you thief!” Aladdin heard the merchant snarl.
A moment later Abu popped up on the beam next to Aladdin. They both squatted in comically similar positions, while Aladdin broke the melon on a pointy piece of wood and served it up.
“This makes it all worthwhile. This is the life,” Aladdin said, relishing his first big, juicy bite.
He rested comfortably, eating his dinner, feeling the sun warm his skin and muscles. The morning’s bruises were already fading from his arms and legs. The crowds were just beginning to throng the marketplace as the last heat of the day began to wane. Colorful tents and awnings clung to every structure as far as the eye could see, like newly hatched butterflies sunning their wings. The late orange light made the white arches, towers, and balconies gleam like ancient gold.
Locals—men in tunics and turbans and vests and pants, women in long colorful robes, sometimes silk, sometimes cotton, sometimes with matching headscarves, sometimes not—inspected the produce and goods with keen eyes. Among them wandered foreigners, strange-eyed men in dark galabia and women with equally dark makeup. Occasionally there was the flash of gold around a wrist, the spark of bright green gems on a neck.
Aladdin sighed in contentment. Could there truly be any more marvelous place in the world than the bustling, cosmopolitan Agrabah?
But in the shadows stood gaunt old men, mostly naked, waiting to be summoned to clean up the camel dung or other offal. Hoping for a tip. This is how they would spend the last years of their lives. After a lifetime of taking care of their families, wasn’t it their turn to be taken care of? To drink tea and play chess and smoke hookahs and enjoy their grandchildren?
“Come on, Abu, let’s—”
And then he stopped.
Aladdin felt a shift in the market crowd’s mood. People were turning their heads and watching a girl as she walked through. She wore a tan robe and headscarf, the clothes of a local…but didn’t feel like a market regular. She moved slowly and gazed at everything with a child’s wonder. Her eyes were large and clear, her hair as black as midnight. She had a warm smile on her pretty lips and was obviously murmuring hellos and excuse mes to people who really didn’t care or want to talk. She walked with the grace of a cloud in the wind, like her body weighed nothing at all, and held her head high with easy dignity. Easy.
Aladdin felt his heart contract. He had never seen her—or anyone like her—before.
When the girl adjusted her scarf, she revealed an intricate diadem in her hair that had a ridiculously sized emerald in it.
Ah, a rich girl, out for a day of shopping in the market without her servants. Living dangerously, playing hooky.
And then, of course, Aladdin saw the other people watching her.
Feral eyes and shifty grins. His stomach sank. He only stole food for himself and Abu. And for the occasional hungry child. Other Street Rats were not so discriminating. The way she was walking around, not paying attention, she would be relieved of all her jewelry and worldly goods before she reached the other end of the square. Why, if Duban and Morgiana were here, they would have pickpocketed or tricked her out of her things in less time than it took to eat a melon.
Unless they were distracted by her dazzling almond-shaped eyes…
A Street Rat “accidentally” got in her path. Aladdin knew this one: he was small for his age, slender and slight, with a large head and equally large eyes. He always passed for a child years younger than he was, and he was making himself look very, very young and very, very hungry right then. And somehow he wound up right in front of the girl.
Aladdin couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it was obvious from the pitying look on her face what the tone was. She was a perfect mark.
Abu chattered at him. If the human wasn’t going to finish his melon like a smart person, the monkey would very much like to eat it.
“Shhh!” Aladdin ordered.
What happened next was nothing he—or any Street Rat—could possibly have foreseen.
The beautiful girl took an apple from the closest stall and gave it to the boy.
And then walked away.
The Street Rat looked at the apple and her retreating backside, confused.
The fruit merchant grabbed her and demanded his money.
She shrugged and shook her head as if he was insane.
The Street Rat—and everyone else—watched her like she was insane. Which she must have been. She had just planned to take that apple? And give it away? Without paying for it?
The merchant also stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he grabbed her and threw her against the stall. A crowd gathered to watch. Some men mumbled and protested into their own scarves, but no one moved to help her. The merchant pulled out an extremely sharp khanjar and raised it above her wrist.
By the time she started shrieking, Aladdin was already in the air and halfway to the stall.
“Nobody steals from my cart!” the merchant bellowed. The point of his blade gleamed red in the afternoon light.
“No!” the girl screamed.
The knife descended quickly, whistling in the air.
The crowd gasped.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Aladdin said, suddenly between the merchant and the girl.
Before anyone had a chance to even register this newcomer’s presence, he gently pushed the man’s arm away with one hand and grabbed the girl with his other.
“A thousand blessings to you for finding my sister.”
“What?” the man asked, confused. “You know this girl?”
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Aladdin said, admonishing the girl and waggling a finger in her face.
The girl was more than a little confused herself.
“What are you…?” she began to ask.
“Sssht!” Aladdin mouthed. “Just play along!”
“Explain yourself! She was stealing from my cart!” the merchant yelled.
“My apologies, good sir. My sister…sometimes causes trouble. She wandered off from home again,” Aladdin said sorrowfully. He tapped the side of his head. “Sadly, she is a little crazy.”
The girl seemed furious at those words. Aladdin gave her a desperate look.
Finally she got it.
She nodded her head slightly.
“She said she knew the sultan,” the merchant spat. He made a big show of letting his eyes travel up and down Aladdin. With her large golden earrings, perfect health, and glowing skin, the girl seemed like someone who might know the sultan. And Aladdin, with his threadbare pants, was definitely not.