the market, Aladdin finally collapsed against an old broken water trough.
“Oh, wow, did you see his face?” he said, cracking up. “Boy, was he mad. He must feel so stupid now. He bought everything! Until you completely ruined it, Abu.”
Abu seemed to sense he was being criticized. He jumped off Aladdin’s shoulder and chattered sulkily.
The girl was bent over, hand to her side, panting. After her breaths had slowed to mere wheezes, she pressed the palms of her hands together and closed her eyes. Then she did a series of stretches that were graceful and seemed well practiced.
“Sorry,” Aladdin said. “Guess you’re not used to running much, huh?”
“Yes, you should be completely sorry for saving me from having my hand cut off. And no, I’m not used to running from people. I do race with Rajah, my”—she paused, as if thinking of an appropriate word—“dog.”
She was being purposefully vague. Not that it took a genius to figure out that she had probably spent her whole life in the women’s quarters of some mansion or estate.
“Where are we, anyway?” she asked, changing the subject and looking around.
They were resting in the wide intersection between three broken-down buildings with no particular purpose. There was no one in sight, and the desert breeze blew mournfully through the few dry grasses and weeds that tried to grow in edges of the hard-packed roads.
The only other noise was from a fight somewhere nearby, shouting punctuated by terrible, wet-sounding blows.
Aladdin suddenly realized what this must be like for the girl. Alone with a stranger, in the middle of nowhere, no idea how to get back to wherever she was from. If he had been the wrong sort of person—the more dangerous kind of Street Rat—that was exactly the kind of place he would have taken her before divesting her of all her valuables. A place no one would hear her scream.
“Well, I could tell you, but it probably won’t mean much,” he said, trying to sound friendly. He stood up and whirled his hands as he talked, a perfect tour guide. “We have officially entered the quaint, residential section of the poorest part of Agrabah. A lot of these streets don’t even have names. We just call them ‘the eastern way by Hakim’s,’ or ‘the stinky alley near the rat catcher.’ The closest major landmark is the old Ottoman mosque, over there…hasn’t been used in centuries, except by pigeons and the homeless when sandstorms come in off the desert.”
The girl was frowning. Not angrily, more like she was desperately trying to understand something. Something Aladdin was saying—so very simply—was eluding her.
“Uh, where’d I lose you?” Aladdin asked. “Was it ‘pigeon,’ or ‘sandstorm’? Or ‘stinky’?”
“Actually, it was ‘homeless,’” the girl said slowly. “People…live in the old mosque?”
“Not all the time. It’s a little creepy. Some say it’s haunted. Hey, speaking of homes, is there someplace I can take you?”
It was the right thing to do, of course. Save the pretty girl, take the pretty girl home. Refuse the reward. All right, maybe take the reward. If there was a reward. Wasn’t there usually a reward? Probably in reality they would take one look at him, grab the girl, and order him off at the point of a pointy scimitar.
He hoped she lived really far away so it would take a long time to get her home.
Like in an oasis, out in the desert. That would be perfect.
He was pleasantly surprised when she shook her head. “Show me your home. I want to see where you live.”
Aladdin found himself blushing, a very unusual condition for him. He tossed his dark hair so she couldn’t see. “Oh, you don’t want to see that. It’s nothing special.”
It was, in fact, really nothing at all if by home one generally meant four walls, a roof, and some sort of door.
“Come on!” the girl begged, having recovered her breath—and her enthusiasm. “I threw myself down in camel dung while playing along with you. Do you think I care what your house looks like?”
Aladdin realized he was grinning.
“All right, but remember, you asked for it!”
He took a quick look around, evaluating the best route. Then he led her around to the back of one of the ancient, crumbling houses and began to scurry up a rickety old ladder.
“Um…” she asked skeptically, wincing with each rung she stepped on as if she feared the whole thing would break. “What are we doing?”
Aladdin hopped onto a balcony and offered his hand. She pretended it wasn’t