Home Again

Arabian Nights 1: How Bazaar

Mom pet my shoulder with a kind smile on her face.

"You're doing so well, Alice," she told me. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks." I replied awkwardly, not sure how to absorb the compliment.

"Your dad would've been proud of you, too." Mom added sadly. My lip twitched. "Despite what he did... he loved you, Alice. He wanted to protect you."

"I know," I sighed. "I know very well." I looked at the backyard behind me. It's not very exciting. It's just grass with a few dirt patches. A vine is crawling up the neighbour's fence. That's pretty much all, really. I wondered if the backyard could change. Like I did. Maybe it just needed some pzazz. Maybe that was why I was chosen to be the prophesied hero. Because I needed some pzazz.

"Mom," I spoke up. "We should put some flowers or something in the backyard. It would make it a lot more interesting."

"That's a good idea," Mom replied, grinning at me. "I'll go and Google something. We can find some nice flowers to put in the backyard." She smirked. "And some seats too. For you and your friend Marcus."

"Yeah," I said, observing the grass. There was so much of it. And it grew so quickly. "I'd like that."

Fierce Fox and I landed in a hot, sandy, Arabian-style desert. There was a large, marble, gleaming tower behind us, decorated with paint. Large walls of white rock were there too. Sand was blowing in the light breeze and the sun was bearing down. We were in a bazaar on Arabian Nights Island. And there was a little problem.

"Arabian nights," I sung, quoting Aladdin. Fierce Fox gave me a look. "It's a movie quote." But her look wasn't very intense. Then it all hit me: PoptropiCon Island. The way she left me for that fashion show, the thing I told her not to attend. Then she got herself caught. I sighed. "Well, I suppose I got a taste of my own medicine. Now I know how that feels." I wasn't angry. Mostly surprised. And curious. "Why did you attend that fashion show, anyway?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Fierce Fox answered, almost sounding embarrassed. "What do we do first?"

I bit my lip. "Well, we have to go to the caves to find the forty thieves. Who are they? The answer is in the name: they're forty thieves. We have to find and stop them. There's a lot more story to it, but I won't explain it right now. For now, we have to go to the caves." I shrugged. "Their hideout isn't there, but there is something important there."

So Fierce Fox and I raced along the desert sand, passing huge, sand-brick buildings. They have lots of windows with cloth roofs, full of sand. Beside them is a circular, silver platform. This silver platform is where the thieves steal things. Why people would put their stuff on this platform, I don't know. Poptropica logic.

Anyway, Fierce Fox and I passed that area, coming to the caves. The main part is past rocky walls with holes. Some parts of the rock have quicksand. Fierce Fox and I climbed over the top, our feet brushing more sand. This island has quite a lot of sand. And brown rocks. Fierce Fox and I entered the main cave, which is, well, a cave. It's dark, made out of brown rocks, and has sandy ledges. There are things leftover from others who visited the caves, such as tents.

"This way." I told the quiet Fierce Fox, shoving a box against a sandy ledge. "There's a bunch of boxes we need to push to reach places." Fierce Fox nodded and followed me up that same ledge. She followed me down to another ledge, helped me push another box onto the floor, then leaped down. We pushed the third box to another ledge (just Poptropica things) and leaped over that.

More boxes and a broken ladder later, we reached the end of the caves. We found a skeleton with a turban, holding a bag of salt - which looked more like white crystals. I picked up the bag.