A Whole New World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,14

black night by workers who were then murdered and buried under the very stone steps they helped lay—to preserve the secrets of the palace dungeons.

There was only one door that led in: it was windowless and triple-barred. Beyond it were a dozen skeletons still shackled to the wall, left there even after they had decomposed like a forgotten detail in a fairy tale. Scurrying around these were rats that had never seen the light of the sun and probably had something to do with the creation of the skeletons.

Aladdin had only been there for a few hours and hadn’t quite let the obvious finality of the place get to him yet. He was still shocked by the events that had led up to his being there.

“The princess,” he muttered to himself for the fortieth time. “I can’t believe she was the princess. I must have sounded so stupid to her.”

But…maybe…just maybe…she liked him? A little?

And for a moment, in the chilly, foul-smelling dungeon where he was chained, Aladdin let himself dream of the life he would have if he was a prince. Then they could be together. He would have the girl of his dreams and they would all live happily ever after.

Of course, the fact that she was a princess was the reason he was in a dungeon.

It was obvious: his imprisonment had nothing to do with the bread he had stolen. Somehow Jafar had seen them, had known a Street Rat was coming close to desecrating the royal daughter…leading her into a life of poverty, crime, and villainy…and had stopped it.

“Aww, she was worth it, though,” Aladdin sighed, thinking about her eyes, remembering the soft warmth of her hand. For a moment he had touched greatness.

The tiny echoes of chittering interrupted his thoughts.

“Abu?” he asked incredulously, looking up.

Very faintly he could see a tiny shadow of a monkey as it hopped from beam to beam, from stone to stone while he made his way down to the bottom, where Aladdin was.

“Down here!” Aladdin called excitedly.

Abu dropped onto his shoulder. The boy petted him as best he could by rubbing his head into Abu’s furry belly. “Hey, boy, am I glad to see you! Turn around!”

After enjoying a few more moments of their cuddly reunion, Abu did as directed. Using his teeth, Aladdin carefully extracted a needle he had pinned into Abu’s little vest for an occasion such as this. The little monkey wasn’t just a distraction while Aladdin swiped things; the two had many, many other routines they had worked out over the years for getting out of—and into—trouble.

Aladdin turned his head and strained his neck as far as he could, working the needle into the keyhole of his right-hand manacle with his teeth and lips. It was a simple, crude lock; obviously if you were thrown to the bottom of the deepest dungeon in the palace, extreme measures weren’t needed to keep you there.

Which was rapidly bringing Aladdin to the next part of his problem. Once his right hand was free, he easily undid his left…but where was he going to go from there?

Abu chittered angrily. Monkeys obviously did not like being underground or in dungeons. It sounded like he was saying he had done his part; now it was his human friend’s turn to figure out the rest. Fast.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re going. Let’s get away from the palace as fast as we can. I’ll never see her again…” he said wistfully, more concerned with that than their immediate escape. He thought about how she had looked standing on the rooftop, pole in her hand, the wind blowing tendrils of her hair out of her eyes. “She can only marry a prince. I’m a fool.”

“You’re only a fool if you give up, boy.”

Aladdin spun around.

There was nothing but shadows and rats. But the voice was creaky and weak—human, not ghostly. One of the other prisoners must still have had a little life left in him.

“Who are you?” Aladdin called out to the shadows. “Show yourself!”

There was the rattle of chains and the light scuffling sound of something bony and hard against the floor. An ancient man hobbled out of the dark. He seemed barely to have the strength to stand, much less move. There were no manacles binding him. There was a light left in his eyes—a crazy one.

Aladdin found himself a little afraid of the strange specter.

“I’m merely a lowly prisoner like yourself,” the old man continued, revealing that he still had most of his teeth—but