Genies Meanies and Magic Rings Read online

  Contents

  Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Abu Keer and Abu Seer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Aladdin and The Magic Lamp

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Afterword

  To Race Andrade and to Travis Robinson —S. M.

  For Isabel and Carmen —T. P.

  Ali Baba

  and The

  Forty Thieves

  Chapter 1

  A very long time ago, in a town in Persia, there lived two brothers whose names were Kassim and Ali Baba.

  When their father died, he left them hardly any money. Kassim married a rich wife and became a famous merchant. But Ali Baba married a poor girl. He earned his living by cutting firewood in the forest and selling it at the bazaar. Every morning he would lead his three donkeys to the forest, and every afternoon he would lead them back to town, piled high with wood. It was a modest living, but he and his wife were happy with very little.

  One day, as Ali Baba was cutting wood at the edge of a thicket, with his donkeys grazing nearby, he heard the sound of galloping horses. A large cloud of dust was approaching fast. He hid his donkeys and climbed up a tree, just to be safe. From high up, he saw a troop of horsemen, armed with swords and spears, charging toward him. They looked ferocious, and he was ice-cold with fear. He counted. There were forty of them.

  They galloped up to the tree Ali Baba was hiding in, jumped down from their horses, unfastened their saddlebags, heavy with gold and silver, and carried them to a large rock at the bottom of the hill. It was obvious that they had just robbed a rich caravan.

  After all the thieves had dropped off their saddlebags, a tall, muscular man who seemed to be their captain walked to the rock and shouted, “Open, Sesame!”

  Immediately there was an empty space in the rock, as if a hidden door had swung open. Ali Baba watched in astonishment as the thieves entered and the rock closed behind them. In a few minutes they walked out, with empty saddlebags. Again the rock closed behind them. Then the forty thieves leaped up onto their horses and galloped off in a cloud of dust.

  After a long while, when Ali Baba thought it was safe, he climbed down from the tree and walked over to the rock. He moved his hands over every inch of its surface. It was hard and jagged, like an ordinary rock, with no trace of a door. Then he stepped back and shouted, “Open, Sesame!” The rock opened. He walked in, and it closed behind him.

  The cave wasn’t dank and dismal, as he’d expected. It was actually quite well lit, from an opening in the top of the rock. As he looked around he could see a treasure so vast that it made him catch his breath. Gold and silver coins were heaped in huge piles, from floor to ceiling, and sacks bursting with precious stones, gold ingots in ten-foot-tall stacks, sculpted lamps and bowls made of solid gold, diamond necklaces, bracelets of emeralds and rubies, bales of the richest silks and brocades, and priceless carpets were piled high in every corner of the cave. Ali Baba stared and stared. A shiver of awe ran through his body.

  As his astonishment gave way to thought, he realized that this cave must have been a thieves’ storeroom for generation after generation. All the gold and jewels piled up around him must have been stolen or robbed, and many of the owners had probably been murdered in the process. Ali Baba felt afraid, but excited, too. As long as I’m here, he thought, and God has led me to discover this place of crime, I might as well take some of the treasure home with me. It doesn’t seem wrong. After all, there’s no way to find out who are the rightful owners and give it back to them.

  So he took six large bags of gold coins, slung them over his shoulder one at a time, since each one was very heavy, and carried them out of the cave. He loaded them onto his donkeys and covered the bags with wood, so that no one would suspect what he was carrying. Then he waited in the forest until dusk.

  Chapter 2

  When Ali Baba arrived home that night, he unloaded the donkeys, carried the six large bags of gold, one by one, into his house, and emptied the bags onto the floor. His wife stared, bewildered, at the immense pile of gold.

  “Where did this come from?” was all she could say at first. Then she began to cry. “I would rather be poor,” she sobbed, “than have you steal even a penny.”

  “Don’t be upset,” Ali Baba said. “I haven’t done anything wrong. God guided my footsteps in the forest this morning, and that’s how I discovered this treasure.” Then he told her about his adventure.

  When she heard his explanation, she breathed a long sigh of relief. “Thank God!” she said, and she began to cry again, her face bright with joy. After a while, she stopped crying and kneeled in front of the huge pile of gold coins that Ali Baba had poured out of the bags. She wanted to figure out how many coins there were.

  “No, no, sweetheart, don’t even try to count them,” Ali Baba said. “It would take days. Let’s just dig a large hole in the kitchen floor and bury them. If we leave them here, all the neighbors will be suspicious, and we’re sure to get into trouble.”

  But his wife wanted to know exactly how rich they had become. “Maybe there are too many gold coins to count,” she said. “But at least I can weigh them. I’m going to borrow a scale from your brother. And while you’re digging the hole, I’ll weigh the coins.”

  She walked over to Kassim’s house and asked his wife to lend her a scale.

  “Of course,” said Kassim’s wife. But she smelled a rat. After all, why would Ali Baba need a scale? He was so poor that he earned only a day’s supply of wheat at a time. What kind of grain could he possibly have that needed to be weighed? So she rubbed a little fat onto the bottom of the wooden scale and hoped that some grain would stick to it.

  Ali Baba’s wife walked back home and weighed the gold. The pile was so large that this took her many hours. When she returned the scale to Kassim’s wife the next day, she was exhausted, and she didn’t notice that one small coin had stuck to the fat at the bottom.

  “Aha!” said Kassim’s wife as she spied the gold coin. “So that’s what they’ve been weighing! They must have so much gold that they can’t even count it!” She felt sick with envy.

  She sent a slave to her husband’s shop, with the message to come home right away. When Kassim came home, she screamed out the story. “I’ll just shrivel up and die if they’re richer than we are. Find out how much gold they have and how they got it. There must be something we can do!”

  Kassim, too, felt sick with envy. He hurried to Ali Baba’s house and stormed in.

  “So! You’re as poor as a mouse, are you?” he said. “You liar! What about this, hmm?” And he took out the gold coin. “You’re filthy rich! You have so much gold that you can’t even count the coins! Now tell me how you got it, or I’ll go straight to the police!”

  Ali Baba told Kassim the whole story—how he had seen the thieves, entered the cave, and taken a tiny part of the treasure. “But please, please,” he said at the end, “keep it a secret, or who knows what trouble we’ll get into.”

  As he hurried home, Kassim felt as if his brain were on fire. Why should my fool of a brother have all the luck? he thought. I’ll go with ten donkeys and find the treasure and take it all for myself!

  His wife felt the same way. “That’s the least we can do!” she said. “We deserve it more than anyone else. We’ll be the richest people in town!”

  Chapter 3

  Early the next morning Kassim took his ten donkeys, each carrying two enormous boxes, and crept out of town. He hurried through the forest and soon came to the rock that Ali Baba had described. “Here it is!” he said to himself, as he rubbed his hands with glee. He could almost smell the gold. After tethering the donkeys to some nearby trees, he stood in front of the rock and shouted, “Open, Sesame!” and the rock opened wide, exactly as Ali Baba had told him it would. He walked in, and the rock closed behind him.

  Inside the cave Kassim could hardly believe the size of the thieves’ fabulous treasure. It was beyond his wildest dreams. He tried to guess how many trips it would take him, with his ten donkeys, to carry it all back home. But this turned out to be too much to figure out, so he gave up and went to work. He took twenty of the largest bags of jewels and dragged them to the entrance. Then he stood and shouted, “Open, Timothy!”

  The rock didn’t open.

  Wait a minute, he said to himself. Ali Baba told me to repeat the same password as when I was outside the cave. Why isn’t the rock opening? He scratched his head and thought for a moment. Maybe I got the word a little wrong. It’s the name of a plant. I know that. And it
has three syllables. Okay. Now I remember. And he shouted, “Open, Sassafras!”

  The rock still didn’t open.

  He was getting scared now. He shouted, “Open, Tarragon!”

  Still no movement.

  He shouted, “Open, Tamarind!”

  Nothing.

  By now he realized, with horror, that he had completely forgotten the magic words. Desperately he shouted, “Open, Samasar! Open, Sarasit! Open, Tamasee! Open, Semasoo!”

  As Kassim was shouting, the forty thieves galloped up to the cave.

  They jumped down from their horses, and when they saw the ten donkeys, they drew their blades. Their captain pointed to the rock and said the magic words. The rock opened, and there was Kassim, trembling with terror.

  The captain walked up to him and calmly lifted his razorsharp sword, then brought it down through Kassim’s skull and body as easily as a hot knife slices through a stick of butter. Then the thieves cut his body into four pieces and hung it up just inside the cave as a warning to other intruders.

  Chapter 4

  When evening came and Kassim still hadn’t returned home, his wife began to worry. In a few hours she was frantic. She ran to Ali Baba’s house and begged him to go look for his brother. Ali Baba took his three donkeys and left.

  It was sunrise by the time he arrived at the cave. He said the magic words, the rock opened, and he walked in. As soon as he saw Kassim’s body he knew what had happened. A wave of nausea and grief welled up inside him. But he had to act quickly. He put the pieces of the body into two empty bags and loaded these onto one donkey. Then he dragged out four more bags of gold, loaded them onto the other donkeys, and covered them with wood.

  When he arrived home, he left the two donkeys with the gold at home and led the other one to his brother’s house. He knocked at the door. It was opened by Marjanah, the brightest of his brother’s slaves.

  “I really need your help, Marjanah,” he said. “Your master is dead; he was hacked apart by thieves. We’ve got to keep this a secret. We’ve got to bury him so that no one suspects what has happened.”

  Then he told the bad news to Kassim’s wife. “It’s a terrible tragedy, dear sister,” he said. “But it is God’s will. We will come live with you, if that makes it easier to bear. God has given us more wealth than we can possibly use; we’ll be glad to share it all with you. But no one must discover our secret.”

  The next morning Marjanah went to the druggist’s shop. “I need your strongest medicine,” she said.

  “Who’s sick?” the druggist asked.

  “My master,” said Marjanah. “He woke up this morning paralyzed. He can’t even talk. It’s awful.”

  The druggist gave her an herb that was used only for the most serious illnesses.

  In the afternoon Marjanah returned to the druggist’s shop with tears in her eyes. “He’s even worse,” she said. “Isn’t there anything stronger you can give him?”

  The druggist thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “But are you sure he’s worse?”

  “Oh, much worse,” Marjanah said. “He’s barely breathing. His skin is almost blue.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” the druggist said. “Here. Give him this. It’s only for patients on the brink of death.”

  “Thank you,” Marjanah said, sniffling. “But I’m afraid it’s too late.”

  Word of Kassim’s illness had spread from the druggist to all the neighbors. That evening no one was surprised to hear, coming from Kassim’s house, the shrieks and sobs of Marjanah, Kassim’s wife, and Ali Baba’s wife.

  The next morning Marjanah went to the shop of Mustafa, an old tailor in another part of town where nobody knew her.

  “I have a job for you,” she said. “It’s for a very important person who wishes it to be done in secret. Bring your needles and thread along. I’m supposed to blindfold you and take you to his house.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mustafa said. “This job sounds too fishy. I won’t have anything to do with it.”

  “He is a very important person,” Marjanah said, slipping a gold coin into the tailor’s hand.

  “Hmm,” said Mustafa. “Perhaps it isn’t all that fishy.”

  Marjanah gave him another gold coin.

  “In fact, it doesn’t seem fishy at all,” Mustafa said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” said Marjanah. “I assure you that you’ll be well rewarded for your trouble.”

  After leading Mustafa through the streets to Ali Baba’s house, she took off the blindfold and showed him the four pieces of Kassim’s body. Then she gave him another gold coin and said, “Sew these together. If you finish in an hour, I’ll give you more gold.”

  The old man worked quickly, and before long he had sewn the parts together so neatly that the stitches were practically invisible. Marjanah put the blindfold on him again, led him back to his shop, and swore him to secrecy.

  Then she hurried home and made all the preparations for Kassim’s funeral. He was buried, and no one ever suspected what had really happened.

  During the next few days Ali Baba and his wife moved to Kassim’s house, taking their few possessions with them. At night Ali Baba moved the bags of gold and hid them in a corner of Kassim’s cellar. Kassim’s oldest son was put in charge of his father’s shop.

  Chapter 5

  When the forty thieves returned to their cave, they were shocked to find that someone had taken Kassim’s body. They also noticed that several bags of gold were missing.

  “Men,” said the captain, “this is serious. Not only does someone know the magic words, but he has had the nerve to steal our warning, right from under our noses. If things continue like this, we’ll lose our whole treasure. This thief must be found and punished—quickly!”

  He stood silent for a few moments. Suddenly he had an idea. “You!” he shouted to one of the thieves. “Go into town and spy for us. Ask around. The first thing we need to know is the name of that fellow we chopped up.”

  Before sunrise the next morning the spy walked into town. The first shop he saw happened to be Mustafa the tailor’s.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully.

  “Morning,” Mustafa said.

  “Looks like it’ll be a fine day,” he continued.

  “Yes, it does,” Mustafa said.

  “You start work awfully early, don’t you?” the spy said. “You must have wonderful eyesight to see so well before it’s even light out.”

  “God be praised, I do,” said Mustafa. “I can still thread a needle the first time I try. Why, just yesterday I sewed together a mutilated corpse in a dark cellar. I didn’t even have a candle.” Then, remembering his vow of secrecy, he said, “Oops!”

  “What’s wrong?” the spy said.

  “I wasn’t supposed to say that,” Mustafa said. “I was sworn to secrecy.”

  “But you haven’t really told me a thing,” the spy said. “Anyway, I’m very impressed. And to show that you can trust me, here’s a gold coin for you. By the way, whose body was it?”

  “I have no idea,” Mustafa said, pocketing the gold coin. “I was blindfolded and led to a house by a girl. Then, after I sewed up the corpse, she blindfolded me again and brought me back.”

  “I am quite curious about this house,” said the spy, slipping another gold coin into the tailor’s hand. “I’d very much appreciate it if you could take me there. Why don’t we do this: I’ll blindfold you, and you can lead me along the route you took yesterday. There’s more gold waiting for you if you succeed.”

  Blindfolded, Mustafa held on to the spy’s sleeve and groped his way to Ali Baba’s house.