The Magical Reality of Nadia

by Bassem Youssef

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  About the Artist

  Copyright

  “Hello! Hello out there!” The teacher was scared. He was somewhere dark and very, very cramped. What was happening?

  A minute ago, he had been standing in the shadow of the Great Pyramid, the strong Egyptian sun glinting off its golden top. In the distance he could see papyrus boats floating down the Nile River and the twin statues of Osiris towering over the temple gate. He was making a joke about his old buddy-turned-bully, the royal magician. Everyone had been laughing (as they should have been. It was a very funny joke).

  But the magician had not taken it well.

  “I have had enough of your insolence!” the magician had said, tearing an amulet from around his neck and thrusting it out toward the teacher. “I shall condemn you to the dark for all eternity!”

  “Dramatic much?” the teacher had teased. He was bent over, he was laughing so hard. The crowd joined in.

  An elderly bystander grabbed the magician’s arm. “No!” he shouted. “There must be an escape. The pharaoh will insist!”

  “I don’t care!” bellowed the magician. “I want this fool gone forever!”

  The crowd gasped at the magician’s insolence. And the next thing the teacher knew, there was a great wind and a loud sucking noise. Then everything turned black.

  “Help! Help!” he had screamed. But it seemed no one could hear him.

  He could hear them, though. The teacher stopped yelling and strained to listen.

  “Royal magician, I am sorry to do this,” said a voice. “But you leave me no choice—”

  The teacher couldn’t hear the next part over the crowd. He pressed his ear up against the wall of … wherever it was he was. The voice was still speaking. The teacher caught bits of it.

  “… a way to break the spell … says the word …”

  But the crowd was too noisy and the teacher couldn’t hear much else. At least not until the terrified scream. That was loud and clear. Some poor other soul seemed to be suffering a fate similar to his.

  Unless that was his own screaming. Was he screaming again? He checked. Nope. Not him.

  Then, silence.

  The teacher put his head in his hands. What could be worse than being imprisoned for all eternity?

  Well, maybe being imprisoned for all eternity with the jingle for Scarabs R Us stuck in my head, he thought. That song was super annoying.

  The teacher sighed.

  He was going to miss his students.

  And now that jingle was going to be stuck in his head. For all eternity.

  Nadia did a slow spin in front of her bedroom mirror. The gold glitter on her brand-new Eye of Horus T-shirt sparkled in the afternoon sun.

  “What do you think, Amelia?” she said. “Does this outfit say ‘I’m a serious student’ and also ‘I appreciate and understand the importance of fashion’?”

  She turned to her bookcase, where her bobbleheads were lined up, and found the Amelia Earhart one. She had always admired Amelia’s style. Nadia bopped Amelia on the head and Amelia began nodding. Or bobbing. Same thing, really.

  “It’s official, then!” Nadia said, smiling. “Outfit for the first day of sixth grade—check!” Then she added a fun fact for … well, fun. “Did you know that the very first shopping mall was in ancient Rome?”

  While spending the summer with her seriously stylish cousins during her family’s annual trip to the motherland, aka Egypt, Nadia had realized that her fashion game needed a serious overhaul. Throwing on a “My Parents Went to a TED Talk and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt” shirt and a pair of leggings just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

  So Nadia tackled fashion the way she did most everything else—with plenty of research. She scoured fashion magazines, blogs, Instagram accounts, and YouTube videos. She read up on classic Egyptian patterns and designs, too, because if she was going to do a style upgrade, she figured it might as well show off how much she loved her culture’s history. Then she and her older cousin Shani went on an amazing shopping spree at the biggest mall in all of Cairo.

  And in the middle of learning the difference between midi skirts and maxi skirts, mid-rise jeans and boyfriend jeans, Nadia picked up a lot of fashion facts. Not that she was partial to fashion facts—she loved all facts.

  Nadia turned to the mirror once again. Her necklace had gotten tangled in the outfit-trying-on process, and she untwisted the chain. She hadn’t taken the necklace off since she got it several weeks ago at a bazaar in Egypt. She had been wandering through the aisles when an antique, hippopotamus-shaped amulet caught her eye. (A fun fact had popped up in her brain then: Ancient Egyptians wore hippo amulets to ward off evil.)

  Nadia had held the amulet up to take a closer look. “Bekam?” she asked the seller, fully expecting the tourist price. But her Arabic must have been pretty good, because the price was reasonable. Nadia handed over the money and fastened the chain around her neck. It felt right to be wearing it. Was it because it reminded her of her faraway family? Her roots in Egypt? Or maybe just because the hippo was totally adorable? She wasn’t sure.

  Nadia’s phone beeped.

  R u ready to meet up for ?

  Ya, she texted back. C u in 10 mins?

  It was her best friend, Adam. It was their yearly tradition to go out for a treat at Ice Scream to celebrate the last day of freedom before school started.

  Yup. Don’t forget my silverneir!

  Silverneer.

  Silvoneer.

  The present you brought me from Egypt.

  Nadia laughed. Adam had many talents, but spelling was definitely not one of them. He was so far off that even autocorrect couldn’t help him. But she could.

  Haha, yeah, I’ll bring your SOUVENIR

  The Egyptian comic book Nadia had brought for him was sitting on her desk, next to a neat pile of brand-new school supplies. Adam was a comic book freak, and she knew he would go crazy for the Egyptian superheroes. (Fun fact: The first Arab comic ever was published in Egypt in 1923. It was called The Boys, or Al-Awlad.)

  Nadia quickly changed back into her shorts and T-shirt, then stuck the comic book in the waistband of her shorts. She dug in her backpack for her wallet.

  “See you later, bobble buds,” she said, giving Amelia one last bop. Then she headed downstairs.

  * * *

  Adam was peering into the ice cream display case when Nadia arrived at Ice Scream. She opened the door slowly so the bell wouldn’t jangle, then snuck up behind her friend.

  “Hurry up and decide, I haven’t got all day,” she said in a gruff voice.

  Adam spun around with a frown on his face, then laughed when he saw who it was.

  “Nadia!” he said. He gave her a big hug.

  “I missed you, bestie,” she said, hugging him back. But something felt weird. Nadia realized she was looking down at the top of Adam’s curly red head, a view she had never seen before. She knew she had grown over the summer. Adam apparently had not. By the way he stood up taller when they pulled away, Nadia guessed that he had noticed, too.

  “So, um, how was Egypt?” Adam asked. He seemed eager to move on.


  “It was …” Nadia started to say. The trip had been great, as it always was. But this time, something had felt a little different, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She tried again. “I mean, I …”

  “Well, London was awesome!” Adam said, perking up again. “Actually, the flight over was terrible. Puke city except for me. They ran out of barf bags! I got extra chocolate chip cookies because no one but me could eat!”

  The teenage girl behind the counter looked fairly nauseated herself. “Uh … can I help you?”

  Nadia ordered first. “I’ll take a hot fudge sundae with avocado ice cream, blueberry ripple, and, um, rocky road.” (Fun fact: Rocky road ice cream got its name because it was created during the Great Depression.)

  When it was his turn, Adam stared into the case, deep in thought. “I’ll take a banana split with vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry,” he finally said.

  Nadia hid her smile. Her best friend had ordered the same exact thing for five years running.

  Adam continued where he’d left off as they sat down at a table. “So the guy sitting next to me must have gone through ten barf bags himself. Even one of the flight attendants got sick. It was intense.”

  “So what did you do once you got off the Upchuck Express?” Nadia asked, ready to change the subject.

  “Oh, we stayed at this great old hotel in the center of London and we did all sorts of cool stuff, like the Tower of London. Went to a soccer match, too. That was Charlie’s idea.”

  Over the summer, Adam’s mom had married her boyfriend, Charlie. Nadia had missed the wedding because she was in Egypt. She hadn’t spent too much time with Adam’s new stepdad, but she figured anyone who would take his stepson along on his honeymoon had to be pretty cool.

  “My favorite thing was Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station,” Adam continued.

  “What’s that?” Nadia asked.

  Adam laughed. “I keep forgetting you never read the Harry Potter books.”

  “You know magic’s not really my thing,” Nadia reminded him.

  “Right,” Adam said. “Well, we also went to London Bridge—”

  “Ooh!” Nadia said. “Did you know they used to display chopped-off heads on the original London Bridge?” She drew an imaginary line across her throat with her spoon.

  “Cool,” said Adam. He took a big bite of ice cream. “I actually made a little video of our trip. Do you want to see it?”

  “Sure,” Nadia said. Adam was really talented at tech stuff and his videos were usually awesome. They watched it on his phone while finishing their ice cream. But there was one thing missing, in Nadia’s opinion.

  “Did you see the queen?” Nadia asked. “She has two birthdays, you know. One’s her real birthday and the other is her official—”

  “Ah yes,” Adam said. He reached into his backpack. “We didn’t see Her Royal Highness in person, but …” He placed a Queen Elizabeth bobblehead, her arm raised in a stately wave, on the table.

  Nadia let out a little squeal. “It’s perfect! I’ll put her in between … Albert Einstein and Yoda,” she decided.

  “So what did you get me?” Adam asked eagerly.

  Nadia smiled and reached for the comic. But her grin faded—the comic wasn’t there. “I must have dropped it!” she said. “Hopefully at home.”

  Adam looked heartbroken. “Can you at least tell me what it is?”

  “Oh, um, I guess,” Nadia said. “It’s an Egyptian comic book.” Adam’s eyes lit up.

  On the way home, they retraced Nadia’s steps. No comic. When they reached her house, Nadia ran upstairs to search her room. Adam hung out in the living room, catching up with her mom.

  Nadia carefully placed Queen Elizabeth on the shelf between Einstein and Yoda. Now where was that comic?

  She sifted through the notebooks and folders on her desk. Nothing. She rummaged through the discarded outfits on the floor. Not there, either. She held her necklace as she stood back up—something she’d started doing whenever she was anxious—then tapped the queen’s crowned head.

  “Do you know where that comic book went?”

  The queen’s bobbing head indicated that she did.

  “Well then, maybe you could help me, Your Highness?”

  No answer. That was one un-fun fact about the bobbleheads. They never really answered back.

  Ugh. Nadia flopped down on the bed and closed her eyes. She felt a tingle in her throat. Weird—Adam was going to be disappointed, but was she seriously going to cry over a lost comic book?

  Wait. The tingle wasn’t in her throat. It was on her throat, on her skin. Her eyes popped open and she looked down. Her necklace was glowing.

  Nadia closed her eyes and, after a moment, opened them again. Still glowing.

  “Your Majesty,” she said slowly, not taking her eyes off the necklace. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Stinky crocodile spit!” said a voice.

  Nadia whipped around to the bobbleheads. Had the queen really just answered her? Maybe this was a special electronic, talking bobblehead? But queens didn’t usually talk about crocodile spit, did they? Nadia slowly approached the bookshelf.

  The voice rang out again. “It’s about time! I thought you’d never say the word. I’ve been trapped in that amulet FOREVER. Do you see how small that thing is? Not comfortable for a weekend, let alone thousands of years!”

  Now Nadia was sure it wasn’t the queen. She looked around wildly. “Wh-what … Who are you? Where are you?”

  “Over here, on the desk!”

  “On the desk?”

  “Yoo-hoo!” the voice said. “In your notebook!”

  Nadia went over to the desk, her heart beating hard. And there, on the college-ruled pages of what was to be her math notebook, a little animated man was jumping up and down, waving wildly at her.

  “Nadia?” Adam appeared in her doorway. “What’s taking so long? Did you find the comic yet?”

  Nadia whirled around, completely speechless, then looked back at the little man on the page. Adam couldn’t see him from where he was standing. The little man stuck both thumbs into his ears and waggled his fingers at her.

  “I … I couldn’t find the comic,” she told Adam. Then, without thinking twice, she shut the notebook and shoved it into one of the desk drawers, next to her stash of Egyptian candy bars. “Sorry.”

  She stole a glance at her necklace in the mirror. It wasn’t glowing anymore.

  “Aw man, I really wanna see that comic,” Adam whined.

  Nadia frowned. Her friend sounded so disappointed. She grabbed a candy bar. “Here, take this in the meantime. Mandolin bars are totally delicious.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Adam said. He ripped open the wrapper and took a big bite.

  “As it turns out, you’re right,” he admitted. “But I’m still holding out for the comic.”

  “I’ll look for it tonight,” Nadia promised, practically pushing him out the door.

  She couldn’t tell Adam what she thought she had just seen. If it was real, Adam would totally freak out … and she could only handle one person losing it at a time. And if it wasn’t real, then she was imagining things. And she’d like to keep that to herself. For now, at least.

  * * *

  “Nadia, sah El nom ya habibti. Wake up, my love!” Nadia’s mom was shaking her gently. “You’ll be late for your first day of school.”

  Nadia bolted up and glanced at the clock. There was only half an hour until school started. With all the craziness last night, she must have forgotten to set her alarm!

  She thanked her mom as she jumped out of bed. “Shukran ya, Mama!”

  Nadia quickly got dressed. Just to be sure, she checked her necklace in the mirror. Not glowing.

  After Adam had left the night before, Nadia had dug her notebook out of the drawer and looked for the little man, but the page was blank. Honestly, she’d been a little relieved. Magic—if that’s what it was—didn’t mix very wel
l with facts. She decided she must have fallen asleep when she crashed on the bed and had a weird sugar-induced dream.

  “Luck me wish,” she said to the Yoda bobblehead. Then she grabbed her backpack.

  Downstairs, Nadia took her lunch bag and a cereal bar from her mom, gave her dad a quick kiss on the cheek, and dashed out the front door to meet up with Adam on the corner.

  “So who’s your homeroom teacher?” he asked as Nadia took a big bite of the cereal bar. The class assignments had been sent out via email the night before.

  “Ms. Arena,” said Nadia, but it came out like “Mmmms Aruhruh.”

  “Who?” said Adam.

  Nadia swallowed. “Sorry. Ms. Arena. You?”

  “Same!”

  “Awesome,” Nadia said, and they began walking. “Do you know if Vikram, Sarah, or Chloe are in the class, too?”

  “Vikram texted me he’s in Ms. Wahl’s class,” Adam said. “Not sure about Sarah or Chloe.”

  Nadia and Adam had met Sarah, Vikram, and Chloe the year before and had quickly discovered they had a lot in common. They all were quick-witted, interested in the world around them, and took school—but not necessarily themselves—very seriously. They became a tight little group, eating lunch together every day, joining the same clubs, and hanging out after school. Vikram had even come up with a nickname for them—the Nerd Patrol.

  As Nadia and Adam headed to school, they listed other students they hoped might be in their class. Andrew, Oona, and Abby. Maybe Olivia and Liam, though sometimes they could be annoying.

  They were just approaching the drop-off area when a minivan door slid open and out popped a girl with long black hair and glasses.

  “Sarah!” Nadia ran over and gave her a hug, then waved to Sarah’s mom. “Hey, Mrs. Choi!”

  “Nice outfit, Nadia!” Sarah said as they walked up to the front doors to the school. Sarah was a T-shirt-and-jeans kind of girl, but always appreciated other people’s style, too.

  “Thanks for noticing,” Nadia said. “Someone else didn’t.”

  “Notice what?” Adam said.

  Nadia and Sarah rolled their eyes.