Shad Hadid and the Alchemists of Alexandria Read online

  “You’re the baker!” I said.

  My breath got quicker and quicker until I was hyperventilating. This was just a dream, right? People can’t change the size of their bellies. I’d been trying to make mine bigger for years.

  The baker snickered, lifting the cat into his arms. “What has gotten you so wound up, boy? I simply used a decanter that undid my Illusion Alchemy.”

  “You used a what? De-cant-or?” I didn’t understand. “A . . . alchemy?”

  I’d read stories about magic and fairies. Alchemy kind of fell into that category—the one for, you know, stories. Maybe he’d read one too many of those. I couldn’t think of any other explanation for what was going on.

  “Ah, now I see how you were able to walk right through,” he said, bending to pick up a palm-sized metal block. Beside it lay a broken line of string. “My Walling Charm fell off the alley entrance. By the elements, just wait until I get my hands on those squirrels. . . .”

  The alley around me blurred while he held the strange block in his hands. When I leaned closer to see what made it so special, the baker raised it high up above my head.

  “I’ll fix this later,” he said, pocketing the cube. “Now tell me what you know of alchemy.”

  “Alchemy?” I asked. “You mean the stink bomb?”

  “By the elements, of course that’s what I mean. Only, alchemists call it an Odor Charm rather than a stink bomb, and you got the key ingredients wrong. Count yourself lucky the alchemy still worked.” He picked up my Persian Punisher lunch box, and when I reached for it, he drew it back. “Tell me, what is your name?”

  I puffed my chest and said, “My name is Roger McLardface.”

  “McLardface?”

  He narrowed his eyes but held out his hand for me to shake. His cat made a noise that sounded like a growl. Hesitantly, I reached out and he gripped my fingers tight. Even after a couple shakes, he didn’t let go.

  Then, before I could jerk free, he threw another powder from one of his pouches into my face. I swallowed some and breathed in the rest through my nose.

  “I warned you I would use my Truth Dust, didn’t I?” he said, letting go of my hand. “Now, what is your real name?”

  “It’s Shad,” I said, coughing and sneezing. “Shad Hadid.”

  “And I am Kahem,” he said, handing me back my lunch box once I’d stopped coughing. “That Truth Dust scrambles your brain cells so you can tell no lies. It shall last for the next thirty minutes.”

  I took a step back toward the alley. Truth Dust, shape-shifting, necromancers, secret gardens . . . talk about creepy.

  “Where did you get Truth Dust?” I asked, my throat as dry as the Sahara Desert. “That stuff tastes like burnt falafel.”

  A cloud passed overhead as the baker took a step closer, the alley darkening around us. “Anything is possible for an alchemist,” he said. “I am one of the last in the world. And young Shad, you are an alchemist too.”

  Chapter 3

  I couldn’t believe what Kahem was saying. Apparently, I had this strange ability, one that allowed me to take random ingredients like dirt and turn them into amazing things.

  “So, you’re saying alchemists can do magic,” I said. “And that I am one of them because I made a stink bomb?”

  Kahem sighed. “Not magic, alchemy. Listen, I will be gone on private business for a day or two, but if you were to come by this Saturday . . . well, I may have time to explain in more detail.”

  I didn’t know if that old majnoon had expected me to believe his nonsense, but I was eleven. I wasn’t born yesterday.

  The “necromancer” was likely some kind of projection, a trick to scare normal people like me out of our lunch money. And his transformation from an old man . . . well, anyone can do that with a bit of makeup, right? I wasn’t about to trust a person I hardly knew after all that had just happened.

  “Hey, I think you dropped some of that Truth Debris,” I said, pointing behind Kahem.

  “Truth Dust,” he said, shaking his head and turning around. “The first thing I will teach you is—”

  I ran around the orange trees and through the bakery’s back door. Once in the kitchen, I squeezed between the two assistants as they angrily shouted at me.

  While I had so many questions, none of them were as important as getting home and checking on Teta. I hurried through Portland, arriving back in my neighborhood before the sun started to set. The other middle schoolers who walked home were gone now. The sidewalk was about as empty as it got . . .

  . . . until I turned a street corner and skidded to a stop right behind Sarah Decker. She knelt on the ground with a can of tuna in one hand, back facing me, and she was talking to someone.

  “Meow!” screamed a cat, which darted into a tight crack behind one of the apartments.

  “You scared her away,” said Sarah with a snarl. She stood up, towering over me like the shadow from earlier. “I knew you’d be easy to ambush if I just stuck around. You might be the most brainless kid in our class.”

  None of her friends were with her, and it was obvious why. She smelled like a skunk farted on another skunk. I was surprised that the stray cat could stand it.

  “Well, I’m actually the second. The first would be Peter Gamble,” I said.

  Wait. That wasn’t what I’d meant to say. Trying again, I shouted, “I could probably be an average student, even if I am a few leaves short of a fig tree when it comes to pre-algebra. Cut me a break. I have a lot going on!”

  Oh no . . . it was the Truth Dust. That stuff was real. How could I insult Sarah with the truth?

  She looked as confused as I was, but still angry. She made a fist with her hand and pounded it into her other palm. “Now it’s time for payback.”

  I tried to say sorry, but what came out instead was, “Hey, look, you’re about two steps from watching me pee in my pants, but if anyone deserves payback, it’s you. You were the one chasing me, and you are the school bully. People are only nice to you because they’re scared of you!”

  Sarah stopped coming toward me and tilted her head. “Everyone at school likes me because I’m popular,” she said. “What would you know? You’re so irrelevant, you’re basically a ghost. No one wants to be your friend.”

  “I’d rather have no friends than fake friends,” I said, wishing the Truth Dust would stop making me say silly things. “And it’s your fault we aren’t friends anymore, remember? Your parents told you to stop hanging out with me, which was totally rude!”

  “Why are you bringing that up?” she asked. “Aren’t you scared of what I’ll do?”

  I shrugged. “After my mama met my stepfather, she left my baba and made me move into her new husband’s fancy house. Only, my stepsiblings didn’t like sharing. They put bugs in my pillow and hid my underwear. It lasted for two years until my stepfather, who was always away for work, came home one day and blamed me for coloring in the white spaces of his favorite painting. He demanded I leave, despite Mama’s protests, and Baba happily took me back. Both of us, along with my grandparents, moved to America then. Mama hasn’t answered a single one of my calls since. So, not to be rude, but my stepfamily is way higher than you on the bully scale.”

  Sarah hesitated and her lip quivered like she was going to cry. “This is so weird. Why are you telling me this?”

  I wanted to say that she was the weird one, and that even the trash in her backpack smelled better than she did right then. What came out of me was a series of guilty admissions. “It’s this Truth Dust. And I’m sorry about putting the trash in your backpack, and for starting that rumor about you eating mustard straight from the packet. It’s just . . . sometimes I get scared, and I cope by fighting fire with fire.”

  I didn’t even know I felt some of the things I was saying until I said them. I was pretty sure that I’d lost my marbles, every single one of them. Maybe Sarah would knock them back into place with her fist. Or she would squeeze me into Shad juice and serve me to her friends at lunch.
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  Instead, she rolled her eyes before saying, “Ugh, this is so not cool, dude. Just get out of my way.”

  She knocked me aside with her shoulder and ran down the sidewalk. I nervously turned and watched her disappear around the corner. The air still smelled like all the rotten things in the world mushed into a perfume. If only Jiduh were alive to smell how good a job I did.

  It suddenly dawned on me how lucky I was that our grade’s most terrible bully just let me walk away without even a noogie.

  But I didn’t have time to dwell on that or the effects of the Truth Dirt—or debris, or whatever it was called. Without wasting another second, I hurried down the sidewalk. Teta had some explaining to do.

  I arrived home with my hair sticking to my face in sweaty clumps.

  It was 4:30 p.m., an hour past when I usually got back. Thankfully, Teta was asleep and I slipped into the shower without her noticing. If she’d been awake, I doubted that I could’ve given an answer for why I was so late without sounding like a complete majnoon.

  Hi, Teta, sorry, I had to find a way around our school’s biggest bully, a humongous shadow monster, but also the baker . . . yeah, that one. He can change how poofy his hair is, and he gave me Truth Dust that helped me deal with the bully. Oh, and the baker has a pet that can shape-shift from a salamander to a cat.

  That probably would’ve given her a heart attack. At seventy-eight, she spends her days in her bed, sleeping, or on the couch watching Arabic soap operas.

  After a quick shower, I tiptoed across our apartment to her room. She breathed through tubes in her nose that helped get the oxygen into her body. To keep warm, she’d buried herself under a mountain of sheets. Back in Lebanon, we never had heat, but we had closets full of sheets. I guess Teta hadn’t gotten the memo that things were different in America.

  Leaning in, I whispered, “I failed another science lab today. They wanted us to dissect these frogs, but I felt bad for mine, so I gave it a proper burial in the baseball field. That earned me a one-way ticket to the principal’s office.”

  She heard none of that, of course. I just felt less guilty about messing up if I told her, even if she was sleeping. And now that I’d gotten the confession out of the way, it was time for Shad the boring student to become Shad the totally butt-kicking chef. I carefully shut her bedroom door on my way out.

  Calling my kitchen a disaster would have been an understatement. In the sink, I faced a stack of dishes that would probably come down on me like a Jenga puzzle if I wasn’t careful. Beneath my feet, each step I took made a crunching sound from all the crumbs. The fridge had even been left open. I’d need to see if anything spoiled while I was at school. The first two were probably my fault for slacking on chores, but the third was definitely Teta. She’d grab the milk to make Turkish coffee and almost always forget to shut the fridge.

  I sighed and got to cleaning. Teta couldn’t do much around the apartment. Cleaning and cooking always fell on me, and after all that, there was still homework. Well, sometimes I ignored the homework part.

  Messy or not, this was still my happy place. Rosemary, basil, and the other herbs with their unique scents, the shelves and shelves of spoons, scales, pots, and pans. The Sultan of Slam had his muscles, and I had my wooden spatula. No Arab chef can work without one. And when I closed my eyes, I saw myself as a chef, puffy white hat and all.

  I bent to open one of the bottom cabinets. The one with all my stuff—wooden spoons, rollers, and other baking supplies.

  The doctors said Teta couldn’t have sugar, so I kept my baking to myself. Saving up the leftover change from the grocery money she gave me, I bought utensils and ingredients, everything I needed to satisfy my sweet tooth.

  I laid out a bag of rice, crushed pistachios, rose water, and sugar, then yanked a carton of coconut milk from the fridge. Picturing the rice pudding the ingredients would make, I licked my lips while I set the rice to boil in a small pot. As it finished cooking, I pictured the measurements in my head, not relying on any tools or recipes, trying to feel what seemed right as I eased in the milk, sugar, and rose water. Baba had once told me that true Arabic cooking relied on the imagination. And while steam rose from the pot, the pudding thickened. A scent of rosy sweetness filled the kitchen.

  “Heaven,” I whispered, enjoying that smell for a few minutes until the pudding was ready. “Now for the final step . . .”

  I poured the thick pudding into a container before adding a coat of ground pistachios along the surface. If only Baba could see me now. Mama too. She used to love when I watched her baking. Sighing, I considered the pudding. All that was left was to let the mixture cool.

  With my baking done for the day, I eased my rice pudding in the fridge, shoving it into a compartment too far back for Teta to reach.

  That would make a tasty dessert for later, but now the time had come for part two of my chores for the night—preparing dinner.

  Chapter 4

  Teta’s shuffling footsteps came as I finished making a large bowl of tabbouleh: one cup of onions, one cup of tomatoes, and two cups of parsley, all mixed with freshly squeezed lemon juice.

  “You’ve been sleeping for a long time,” I said, taking her arm and helping her into the kitchen. “Are your headaches better?”

  I helped her into a chair at the kitchen table, which was shaped in a semicircle against the wall and faced the only window in the kitchen. The sun had set by the time I’d finished preparing our meal, which was perfect because every night since we’d moved in, we’d eaten dinner in front of the twinkling stars. Being on the second floor meant we couldn’t see the cars passing below, only hear them as they rumbled through our busy street.

  Teta groaned, bending slowly to adjust one of her slippers. She leaned back, holding her belly in her arms as she said, “Shaddo, Shaddo.” It was the nickname she’d used for me for as long as I could remember.

  Mixing the tabbouleh, I turned and looked over my shoulder. “What is it, Teta? The food’s ready, I’m going to bring you a plate.”

  “Habibi, when did you become my caretaker?” she asked. “Am I not supposed to be the one taking care of you?” Her accent was thick since she’d never fully learned English, but I liked that. Her voice reminded me of our old life in Lebanon.

  “Just focus on getting comfy,” I said, not mentioning that she hadn’t cooked in years. “Where’s your breathing machine?”

  She chuckled and placed her hand over mine. “Do not worry about that.”

  I did worry. Her fingers were shaking, her breath becoming heavy. If alchemy was real, I’d invent a charm to make Teta twenty years younger.

  She broke into a coughing fit, using her arms to cover her mouth. I handed her the half-filled brik and she lifted the drinking jug to her lips. Water flowed out from the spout and she gulped down every last drop. Even as the coughing stopped, it hurt knowing that she was sick and that, one day, she’d be gone just like Baba and Jiduh.

  Tears threatening my eyes, I brought the bowls full of tabbouleh and set them on the table. Teta’s shaky fingers picked up a knife sitting on the table and she used it to dig out the insides of a squash. Stuffing it with rice, she smiled up at me, hands working without her even paying attention.

  “Tell me, what is this I am making?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Duh, it’s kousa.”

  “Good. Good.” She set down a final stuffed squash, one of my favorite meals, and wiped her fingers with a cloth. “Now it is your turn. Make some stuffing and help your grandmother with her kousa. What am I missing?”

  I groaned. With our dinner waiting, she sure picked a weird time to prepare food, but the proper ingredients were laid out around the table. Rice, pepper, chopped onions . . .

  “You’re missing the ground beef,” I said. “That’s the most important ingredient!”

  Teta slowly lifted her shoulders. “Perhaps you should try something new?”

  Memories of Teta’s cooking lessons flooded my mind, times when
she accidentally left out ingredients or forgot the right measurements. It had taken me a few years to realize it was all on purpose. She had been trying to teach me to create new recipes for the same foods. To make my own measurements.

  And I was pretty darn good at it. For whatever reason, my brain connected the dots with food. Teta would clap or take me to the Arabic bakery each time I passed one of her tests, so I kept doing it. Even now, I could see the solution since we had no beef.

  “Pass me that can,” I said.

  Combining everything with one hand while accepting a can of chickpeas with the other, I smushed the new ingredients with the old. Everything fit nicely into the squash. Meanwhile, Teta’s wrinkly smile widened, stretching from ear to ear. Her smile was the reason I fell in love with food. Why I dreamed of being a baker.

  But as soon as I finished, glancing over at all the medicines organized at one end of the table, worry clouded my mind. My fear of one day losing Teta. She was the last living person on my baba’s side of the family, and Mama’s side had probably forgotten I even existed, the way she had.

  “My Shaddo,” Teta said, running a hand through my thick, curly hair. “I see the sadness in your eyes. You cannot feel this way, not when you make me so very proud.”

  “But why can’t Mama be proud of me too?” I asked, my lower lip trembling. “Do you think she’ll at least call on my birthday this year?”

  Teta’s expression hardened. Gray eyebrows furrowing, she shook her head. “We do not talk of your mama. I told you this, Shaddo. Not in this house.”

  “But why?”

  “Because she abandoned you,” she snapped. “That is that.”

  Listening to Teta, my heart sank. She was right. Mama had been there for the early years, so why’d she decide to leave? I still couldn’t understand what made her new family so special. More special than me.

  Teta nudged the spoon into my hand. As she began to eat, I replayed the events of the afternoon in my head. The memory still felt hazy, like one of those bad dreams after gorging on an entire chocolate cake. Alchemists weren’t real. Yet when I thought back to our family shop in Lebanon, I couldn’t remember any ordinary ingredients like the ones I used for cooking. I remembered Jiduh holding up a plastic bag full of strange purple-colored plants.