by Samira Ahmed
I stand up. My legs shake, but it’s not like I have any choice. We have to try something. Hamza takes my offered hand, and I pull him up next to me. I jab the yellow-green dev. “Hey. Hey, you.”
He doesn’t turn. He’s still staring down at the landscape. Hamza and I exchange a confused look, then peek over the side of the cauldron. We’re not over land anymore. We’re flying over a choppy bright blue sea.
Hamza pokes the dev in his double-wide arm. “Hey, snot-nosed spot face, where are you taking us?” My brother wipes his runny nose with the back of his hand as a smile starts to emerge on his face. The world is falling apart, our friends are dead or lost, but leave it to Hamza to find something to make him smile.
“Yeah, bug breath,” I goad. “We demand to know what—”
The dev snarls. Oops. Maybe insults weren’t the best tactic. He turns and looks at us and then clears his throat; it’s deep and phlegmy and gurgly. Gross.
Hamza draws his hands up to his face. “Don’t even think about hocking a loogie at us, dude. We’re small but scrappy. We’re so scrappy. The scrappiest… we’re Scrappy-Doos!”
“Yeah! And… and… I do not abide spit!” I yell, channeling my mom.
The dev snorts and… smiles? I think. “There are reports that you human children are odd little creatures.” He speaks like he has marbles in his mouth, which kind of counteracts the terror of his snarl. “I’m not going to eat you. I don’t deign to eat humans. Blech. I’m not a rakshasa. Although to ignorant humans like you, I suppose you think we all look alike.” He folds his arms over his broad chest and scowls at us like somehow we’ve wronged him.
“Hey, don’t turn this around on us. We’re not the bad guys here. You kidnapped us, remember?” I say.
“I saved you from certain death,” he harrumphs.
“So what do you plan on doing with us?” Hamza asks.
“Deliver you to Ifrit and collect the bounty on your heads.”
“What?!” I yell. “You saved us from certain death only to deliver us to… certain death?”
“Nothing is certain.” He shrugs.
“You’re a bounty hunter.” Hamza nods like he’s all wise. “Then you must have a code. It should be against your code to kill us. We’re innocent children who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Hamza tries to make puppy eyes at the dev. “You should be saving us. This is the way.”
“Hamz, he’s not the Mandalorian.”
“Worth a shot,” Hamza says with a half grin. “Bounty hunter, we will pay you twice what Ifrit promised you if you let us go.”
I don’t bother to remind Hamza that we don’t have any money that would work in Qaf. Or that we really don’t know if they even use money. Seems more likely that they would have a barter system. It’s not like we’ve seen any stores. Anyway, Hamza trying to cosplay us out of this situation might buy me a couple of minutes to figure out a plan.
My friend Simrit had an escape room birthday party last year. It was different from this moment, because obviously no chance of death, plus we had chocolate cake after. I don’t see cake happening in this scenario. But to escape, we were instructed to be logical, smart, one step ahead of our opponents. Have a plan.
Putting together an escape plan:
1. Assess the situation.
Cons: We are in a black cauldron hundreds (?) of feet above a churning sea. The cauldron is shoulder-high for us, but only about knee-high to the dev who has kidnapped us. Pro: The dev shows no interest in eating us.
2. Search the room (cauldron) thoroughly.
It’s round, and there are no corners and no exits or door. Open top; easy chance of falling to our deaths. (Is death by falling better or worse than death by Ifrit?)
3. Locate any and all items that could be used as weapons.
Our actual weapons are here literally between the dev’s giant, hairy feet. Can I grab my sword and stab him before he stomps me?
4. Work as a team.
Hamza is doing a baby Yoda impression and arguing with the dev about the bounty hunter code, which actually only existed a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Maybe it’s preventing the dev from doing anything bad to us. Yay, team?
5. Be quick; be calm.
I’m neither quick nor calm. Is it possible to fake both? (Note to self: Can “fake it till you make it” work in life-or-death situations?)
Did I mention my team did not win the escape room?
I’d tuned Hamza out while trying to hatch a brilliant plan or, more truthfully, while I hoped something would come to me like a flash of lightning. He’s still going on and on, but the spotty neon dev seems distracted. He keeps glancing, leaning over the side of the cauldron with a worried look on his face, a little puke green around his neck. Could he be scared of…?
I might be formulating the dumbest idea ever, but in the absence of all other ideas, the dumbest one wins out. I pull the lilac elastic hair tie from my wrist and twist it around my hand into ammo for a finger gun. My pulse pounds, and my hands sweat. I hope the hair tie doesn’t slip. Need one more second. I pause, and the next time the dev glances over the side of the cauldron, I shoot my hair tie, arcing it high over his head. He sees it out of the corner of his eye and turns his back to us and leans over the cauldron, watching as my hair tie floats down to the sea. This is our chance. I get into a before-a-race crouch, and Hamza immediately gets what I’m trying to do. Sibling telepathy for the win! I count to three with my fingers, and then we hurl our bodies against the wall right next to the dev’s knees.
“Hey! What are you—”
The cauldron tilts, and the dev’s feet start to slip out from under him—he’s top-heavy, so we need… a… big… PUSH! Hamza and I each grab a leg, and with the dev’s center of gravity already leaning over the side, we yank them up, flipping him over the side.
Oh. My. God.
The dumbest plan in the universe worked. My sneaky rubber band battles with Hamza paid off!
The cauldron tilts back now that most of the weight is gone, and as we glance over, we see the chartreuse dev trying to claw his way, hopelessly, against the air. “I can’t swiiiiiimmmmm.” His voice fades as he falls until we hear a splash.
I peek over the edge of the cauldron and see the dev actually doing a halfway decent doggy paddle toward a sandbar. Not an Olympian, but he’ll make it. (Note to self: Do they have sports here? What would Qaf Olympics look like?)
Hamza high-fives me. “I love it when a plan comes together!”
“How was that a plan?” I ask. “The only reason I did that was because I had no actual plan.”
“No plan was the best plan.”
“That makes zero sense. Who told you that?”
“Uhh, you did.”
“What? I never… Oh! I didn’t say no plan is the best plan. I said the simplest plan is the best plan. Occam’s razor. Basically, don’t overthink things. The best solution is usually the easiest.”
“Exactly. That’s what I said.”
“Aaargh. That’s not what…” The cauldron jerks, then bumps. Hamza turns to me with a worried look on his face. “It’s only turbulence,” I say. “Turbulence in the air is like a boat going over a wave.” I try to sound calm. Remember when I mentioned that whole denial thing? This cauldron might be made of antigravity matter, but it still needs an engine to fly. And we threw our one-dev engine over the side. So this is not so much turbulence as an emergency landing!
Another jerk.
Still crouching low, I grab the sides of the cauldron. Hamza does the same. I inch over till I’m opposite him, hoping our weight will balance it out. But we hit a row of invisible speed bumps, then start plummeting and—
AAAAAHHHHHHH!
We’re falling fast, and the force is making my teeth rattle and my cheeks wiggle.
“We’re going to crash!” Hamza yells as palm trees come into view. “Brace for impact!”
CHAPTER 15
The Jinnternet Is Loading, You’ll Have to
Wait
I WRAP MY ARMS AROUND MY HEAD, TORNADO DRILL–style, and screw my eyes shut. Don’t know if we’re still over water or have drifted over land. Not sure what would be better. I don’t think there are any of those airplane emergency water-landing slides attached to this thing.
“We’re going to diiiiiiiie!” Hamza bellows.
We land with a gentle thud.
Neither of us move.
“Was that it?” he asks. “It wasn’t nearly as life-passing-before-my-eyes as I thought a crash would be. I barely had a chance to think about dinner.”
“Thanks for bringing the drama, though.” I rise slowly and do a 360-degree turn in the cauldron to check out where we are. Which apparently is the most perfect beach ever. Tall palm trees wave lightly in the breeze, and sparkling blue-green water laps onto the shore. I grab my sword, bow, and quiver and begin to jump over the side of the cauldron; the move feels cool and almost superhero-ish—until the toe of my right sneaker catches on the rim of the pot and I face-plant in fine white sand. The sand is as soft as flour. Still doesn’t feel great up my nose, though.
Hamza tumbles over the side. “Where are we?”
Brushing the sand off, I stand up and reach back into the cauldron to grab the rest of our stuff. I pull the jade tablet out of the backpack, hoping it’s working again. But it’s blank except for a spinning wheel in the center. Apparently the jinnternet is glitchy. Excellent.
“What’s it say?” asks Hamza. He’s sitting and drawing lines in the sand with a twig.
I show it to him and shake my head.
“They can make pots fly, but they can’t make their GPS, er, JPS, work?” He stands up and walks away, his head down.
I’m not sure what to say, but I hurry to catch up to him. He’s always been the one with twice the energy of normal humans. Seeing him so deflated scares me. “Hamz, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out,” I say, but there’s not a lot of confidence in my voice.
“Really? How?” He turns to face me. “We’re stuck on some island in a… a… parallel universe with a monster who has a bounty on our heads. And the icing on the cake is that we’re not even the ones who are supposed to be fighting him! There’s nothing special about us. We’re two confused, lost kids, not the Chosen Ones. And because of us—because of me!—Maqbool is dead!”
“Hey,” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t say that. He wouldn’t want you to think that. Someone will find us.” Fake it till you make it.
“How would you know? You’re just saying that. It’s like every time I fall from the climbing wall and Mom or Dad tries to cheer me up by saying, you’ll get it next time, kiddo. Like, how could they know that? I know adults say those things to try to encourage us, but sometimes they kinda feel like lies.”
I open my mouth to say something but snap it shut. He’s right. I have no idea what’s going to happen next or how we’ll get back home. But I’m also sort of irritated at him for being… so… ten years old, I guess? I rub my forehead. I know my mom would be disappointed in me for being annoyed with Hamza because of the whole big-sister and be-kind-to-your-fam thing, but UGGGHHHH.… I’m sick of always being the responsible, older sibling.
I take a deep breath. “Look, we need to figure out some way off this island. Make this pot fly again or—”
“How? You said yourself it doesn’t make sense, according to science. It has no boost, right?”
“Lift,” I sigh. “Razia told me it has antigravity matter in it, but it needs to work in tandem with a force. Jinn combustion is like the engine—the force that works in opposition to the weight of a plane and—”
“Aaaarghhh! It doesn’t matter! We’re stuck here. Don’t you get that? How can you be so calm? Maqbool was killed in front of us. Ummi and Papa are unconscious a bajillion miles away, or however far Chicago is, and you don’t even care!”
I ball my hands into fists at my side. I can feel my face getting hot with anger. “I care! But acting like a baby isn’t going to help us get out of here. We have to be rational.”
“Shut up! Having feelings doesn’t mean I’m a baby. It means I’m a normal person, not a robot. And how are we going to get out of this anyway? You think you’re going to defeat Ifrit and send him to the Realm of Nothingness or whatever with your wicked karate moves that can’t even take down a little kid?” Hamza scoffs.
My chest heaves up and down. I can barely hear myself think because of all the feelings that are screaming in my brain right now. I grit my teeth. “What would you know about thinking? You never think! You took the Box of the Moon out of the case and now we’re stuck here! It was all a ginormous accident that was your fault!”
Hamza, who had been rising on his toes, seems to deflate. “Whatever. I’m going on a walk. Don’t follow me.” He grabs his dagger, turns, and heads down the beach.
My first instinct is to run after him, to stop him from going, to tell him it’s too dangerous, that we don’t know what’s out there. But I don’t. I walk back toward the cauldron and sink into the sand, leaning against its curved side. I bring my knees into my chest and sob.
After about fifteen minutes, I dry my face—I’m guessing it’s about that long because the time on my phone is stuck on the time we left Chicago. Crying isn’t going to help us get out of this place even if it felt good to let it out. My throat is dry and raw, so I take a sip of water from the flask and wipe my lips. It’s hard to know how long it’s been since the dev kidnapped us. I need to find Hamza, and we need to assess the food situation and figure out how to get out of here.
I consult the tablet again. It’s working! But all it shows is a tiny, round island—I’m assuming it’s this one—in an endless sea. ISLAND OF CONFUSION is the only label on the map. Does that mean it’s a confusing place? That it mixes you up? Does confusion mean something else here? Or that the mapmaker is really bad at naming stuff? Maybe it’s like Accident, Maryland, or Hell, Michigan, or Pee Pee, Ohio. Hahaha. That last one totally cracks me up. In fourth grade, my friend Dimple and I did a project for a geography unit where we mapped out all the places with strange names. Pee Pee is technically named for someone with the initials P. P., but we cracked ourselves up so much when we were presenting, even our teacher couldn’t help but laugh. Maybe that’s what this place is—a beautiful island with a weird name. I’m guessing that Pee Pee, Ohio, is not as pretty as this, though.
“How do we get—” I start to ask for the tablet’s help but am distracted by a loud cry. It’s a cross between a honk and a scream. A scronk? The scronking continues, and I get up, making sure my sword is at my side and my quiver is strapped to my back. The scronking doesn’t seem too far away, so I follow it. It leads me deeper into the island through some trees. I make sure to pay attention to the direction where I came from, and I slash Xs with my sword into some tree trunks along the way to mark my path. Hopefully, I’m not damaging the trees too badly, but I need to make sure I can get back to the cauldron and the beach.
I push some low palm fronds out of the way and jump back as a creature my size scronks repeatedly and loudly at me. I raise my sword and scramble back. Nothing should surprise me in this place, but I’m looking at a peacock with lion paws and the face of a dog. It’s covered in copper-colored feathers that glint in the sun. It’s like a Frankenstein’s monster of a bird, canine, and big cat. I feel a bit queasy looking at it. So. Not. Normal.
When it sees me back away, its scronking diminishes, and it dips its muzzle toward its right leg. And I see a deep gash near its paw. This animal—bird-dog? pea-lion?—is injured. Maybe that’s why it’s scronking so much.
“Easy,” I whisper, putting away my sword as I inch a bit closer. Maybe the healing water in the flask can help? I pull the flask in front of me. “I have this special water. Maybe it can heal your paw? Claw? Foot? It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”
The creature first steps back, trembling. Its round brown eyes look scared. I hold my free hand out so it can see I don’t have any weapons. The crea
ture makes a little yelping sound and then bows its head and wags its tongue a little. I’m taking this as a sign it won’t shred me with its lion claws.
I take another step closer. Then another. When I’m right next to it, I pour a little water on the gash. The creature… coos? Is it a baby? Big baby. Its shiny brown eyes watch as the gash heals. I look up at it and nod and smile. It licks my cheek with its tongue, leaving a trail of slobber across my face, which I try to wipe away inconspicuously. This thing might like me now, but I don’t want to insult it by acting like its spit is gross. (It totally is.)
It raises its nose to the sky, and above us, I see a similar creature circling as it descends. The pea-dog (note to self: this name doesn’t work, at all) flaps its beautiful wings and scronks, but it sounds joyful this time. Like when a kid sees its mom.
The mom. I guess it’s the mom, because her feathers are mostly one color like the baby, and usually female birds (does she qualify as a bird?) aren’t as colorful as the males. Which kind of feels very rude of Mother Nature. Anyway, the mom is as big as an elephant, with the same golden retriever face, peacock plume with coppery-bronze-colored feathers, and lion paws, and she lands right in front of us. I step away as she places her paw on top of her kid’s. My heart pinches. It’s such a parent thing to do, trying to make your kid feel better when they’re down. Can’t count the number of times Ummi or Papa did that for me—put their hand on my hand or on my shoulder. Like after the third time I failed my karate-advancement test. Or after I inadvertently wrecked my life cycle of a star project for the science fair and had to pull an all-nighter to build a new one. Not sure how they did it, but somehow by placing a hand on mine they didn’t only make me feel better, they made me feel like I could do it. Like it was a small mistake and not the end of the world. That’s the magic people have. The real magic. I wish I could feel that way now. I wish they were here. A lump wells in my throat. I choke back tears.
