A Whole New World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,1
however.
“Aladdin!” his mother said sharply. “You wicked boy! I’m so sorry, good sir. Tomorrow Aladdin will run errands for you all day. Whatever you want. He will fetch you water.”
Aladdin started to protest, but a look from his mother silenced him. Duban and Morgiana laughed at him.
“And you two should, as well,” she added.
“You’re not my mother,” Morgiana said insolently. “You can’t tell me what to do. No one can.”
“It’s unfortunate you don’t have a mother like this poor woman,” Akram said sternly. “You will wind up with your head on a spike before you’re sixteen, girl.”
Morgiana stuck out her tongue at him.
“Come on,” Duban said, a little nervous. “Let’s get out of here.”
The two scampered off into the night. Aladdin looked after them dolefully, abandoned by his friends to punishments they all deserved.
“You would do well to avoid their company, I think,” Akram said thoughtfully. “But all three of you are lucky it was I who caught you, and not another. There are some vendors who would demand your hand in payment for the fruit you stole.”
“Here, let me wrap up your goods to take back with you,” Aladdin’s mother said, taking the fruit from her son and looking around for a suitable cloth to hold it.
“That’s all right,” Akram said uncomfortably. His eyes darted around the tiny, dark hovel. “I have already packed up for the day. And a hardworking woman who is so…alone shouldn’t be punished for the sins of another. Consider it a gift.”
Aladdin’s mother’s eyes flashed.
“I do not need your charity. My husband will return any day now,” she said. “Cassim will have made his fortune and will take us to a place more fitting for his family. I’m just ashamed of what he has to come back to in the meantime.”
“Of course, of course,” Akram said soothingly. “I…eagerly await seeing him again. He loved my cashews.”
Aladdin’s mother basked in the glow of someone else’s memory of her husband, as secondhand as it was.
Aladdin slumped. Akram’s hand returned to his shoulder, but instead of the hard pinch of an angry captor, it gave the nervous pat of someone who felt sorry for the boy.
This only made Aladdin feel worse.
“Here now, is everything all right?”
A market guard, one of the younger ones, strode out of the night. He held a cudgel in his hand and had a serious look in his eye. “I heard there was a disturbance at your tent, Akram.”
“It is nothing, Rasoul,” the merchant said, just as soothingly as he had talked to Aladdin’s mother. “A misunderstanding. It is all sorted now. Thank you for your concern.”
The guard, whose only sin seemed to be indulging in a little too much pastry, did not press the matter as other guards might have. He saw the quietly determined woman, the dejected-looking Aladdin, the poverty of the house.
“All right, then. Akram, I will walk you back to your tent. This is not a safe place for respectable people like yourself to be at night.”
“A thousand thanks, Rasoul.” Akram gave Aladdin’s mother a bow. “Peace be upon you.”
“And to you,” she said, nodding her head. “And…thank you.”
When the merchant and the guard left, she closed the door wearily and ran a hand through her son’s hair.
“Aladdin, what are we to do with you?”
“What?” he demanded, no longer slumped but grinning like a thief and jumping up and down with excitement. “Everything worked out! And look! We have a feast tonight!”
He excitedly pulled more figs and dates out of his pockets and put them in a chipped bowl. And then, from the sash that held up his pants, he pulled fresh almonds and smoked pistachios…and from somewhere under his scrap of a shirt, cashews.
“Aladdin!” His mother admonished him, but she was trying not to chuckle.
“I did it for you, Mom. You deserve a treat. You never get anything for yourself.”
“Oh, Aladdin, I don’t need anything. Except you,” she said, taking him in her arms and holding him tightly against her.
“Mom,” Aladdin whispered into her robes. “I’ve seen you give me the biggest part of whatever we have to eat. It’s not fair. I just want to take care of you.”
“There are a lot of things that aren’t fair, Aladdin.”
She drew back from him, still holding his hands, and looked into his eyes.
“That’s just the way life is—which is why it’s so important for Street Rats to take care of each other. That’s a good instinct you have. You should always look out for your friends and your family.