The Magical Reality of Nadia

by Bassem Youssef

  She leaned down to grab another pencil from her backpack, moving her necklace out of the way as it swung forward, and called out to her father. “Hey, Baba, could you help me with this last math problem?”

  “Sure,” Baba called, “just as soon as I finish loading the dishwasher.”

  Nadia sat back up and pulled her notebook closer … and saw that little man again!

  “Yo!” he said, nodding his chin at her. “What’s up?”

  “Aaaaaaahhhhh!” Nadia screamed, and slammed the notebook shut, knocking over her water glass.

  Baba came rushing in, a dish towel thrown over his shoulder and a look of pure panic on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Um … nothing,” said Nadia, clutching the notebook to her chest. “I knocked over my water, that’s all.” Her dad used the dish towel to mop it up.

  “No use screaming over spilled water,” he said.

  Nadia gave him a weak grin. Her dad knew the American idiom was “no use crying over spilled milk,” but he liked to purposely bungle up idioms to make her laugh. It helped him practice his English, too.

  “Do you still need help with your math problem?” he asked once the table was dry.

  “No,” said Nadia so forcefully her father flinched. “I mean, I figured it out already. I mean, I think I’ll go upstairs.” She grabbed her notebook and pencil. “Good night, Baba.”

  Her mind raced as she rocketed up the stairs. This was not a dream. This was really happening. There was a little animated man haunting her math notebook!

  Unless she was losing it. That was still definitely a possibility.

  Nadia threw the math notebook onto her desk. She was going to get to the bottom of this. She flipped open the cover and …

  … it was just her math homework.

  “Ugh! Stupid math!” she said. She grabbed the notebook and flung it against the bookcase. The bobbleheads started bobbing madly. Einstein seemed to be doing it in an almost judgmental way.

  “Sorry,” Nadia said to him, softening. “Math’s not stupid, but … maybe I am? I mean, come on—a little animated man! It’s ridiculous, right?!”

  Logic. Details. Facts. These were Nadia’s specialties. There was no way to reasonably explain an animated man talking to her from the pages of a notebook.

  “But I know I saw him,” Nadia said stubbornly. “And heard him.”

  By habit, her hand went to her throat and the amulet.

  “Wait!” she said. “The amulet … the first time the little man appeared, he said he was inside it!” Maybe she had somehow summoned him with her necklace?

  She tightened her grip on the hippo.

  Still no little man.

  The bobbleheads were mostly still now, but Jane Austen was slowly bobbing.

  “Do you have any words of wisdom, Jane?” Nadia asked. “Because I’m— Wait! He also said something about a word, didn’t he? There must be a magic word!”

  Her hand still on the necklace, Nadia recalled some words that had been spoken aloud when he appeared before. “Baba!” she said. “Math!”

  Nothing.

  “Homework?”

  Still nothing.

  She tried again. “Dishwasher?”

  Nadia let out a giant sigh. Maybe she really was imagining things. “I need some help,” she muttered.

  At once, Nadia’s necklace tingled and glowed. And before her amazed eyes, the little man she had seen before appeared in her notebook again.

  “Blustering beetles!” the little man said, shaking his fist at Nadia. “Are you going to slam this thing shut again? Give me a little warning this time, will ya? I’ll take cover under one of these math problems or something.” He pointed to the problem Nadia had tried to solve and erased several times. “Huh! Look at that! Thousands of years later and fractions are still giving students conniptions!” He laughed.

  Nadia’s legs were shaking. She sat down in her desk chair and put the notebook in front of her. The little man was now doing knee bends and lunges while gazing around at Nadia’s room.

  “So this is America?” he asked. “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed. Where are the purple mountain majesties? The amber waves of grain?” He suddenly stood up tall and broke into song. “Oh, beauuuuuuuuutiful for spaaaaaacious …”

  Nadia swallowed. Should she talk back to him? It wasn’t any weirder than talking to her bobbleheads, right? Maybe it would stop him from singing—he sounded like her neighbor’s elderly cat.

  “Um, well,” Nadia said, cutting him off. “This is my bedroom, which technically is in America, yes. But … um … who are you?”

  “Ah … now we’re getting somewhere,” said the man. He did a fancy little bow. “The name is Titi. I am an ancient Egyptian teacher who ticked off the wrong royal magician, hence being confined to that amulet for all eternity.” He pointed to her necklace, then dramatically grabbed his heart. “Great Giza is THAT what I’ve been living in all these centuries? A stinky hippopotamus?”

  Nadia glanced down at her necklace. “I mean, I guess?” she said. “But I thought hippos were considered sacred in ancient Egypt—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Titi said. “But, boy, do they stink!” He sniffed his armpits self-consciously, then looked desperately to Nadia. “Do I smell? I don’t smell, Nadia, do I? Oh, where is some frankincense when you need it?”

  Nadia leaned in to sniff the page but then paused, her eyes wide. “How do you know my name?!”

  Titi shrugged. “I’ve been hanging around your neck for a few weeks now. I know a lot about you.”

  Nadia’s mouth fell open. That sounded kind of creepy.

  “Oh, close your mouth,” he said. “You look like Hatmehit’s hat! Hatmehit was an ancient Egyptian fish goddess,” he explained.

  Nadia snapped her mouth shut. “I know that.” (Fun fact: Hatmehit’s “hat” was a catfish.) “So you know a lot about me. But back to you. You were in the hippo … but now you’re not in the hippo. You’re here. In my math notebook.”

  “Righto,” Titi said. “I was in the hippo.” He looked at the amulet again. “Actually, I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that I was in the back half of the hippo. That blasted royal magician couldn’t even banish me to a whole hippo …” His voice trailed off, a faraway look on his face.

  Nadia snapped her fingers. “Um … yeah. We’ve established you were in the hippo. How did you get out of the hippo?”

  “Oh!” Titi said. “Yes. Apparently, I needed someone to get their hands on the amulet and say the magic word—”

  “So there is a magic word!” Nadia said. “What is it?!”

  Titi shrugged. “Don’t you know? You’re the one who said it.”

  Nadia shook her head.

  “Huh,” Titi said. “We’ll have to work on that. But I guess I just needed the right person to hold the necklace and say the word, and apparently that person is you.” He looked her up and down. “I guess you’ll do.”

  “Well!” Nadia said, frowning. “If that’s how you’re going to treat me …” She reached forward to close the notebook.

  “No, no, no, just kidding!” Titi said. “I’m so happy to be free! You have no idea how awful it was being stuck in that necklace. I’ve been there for thousands of years. It was terrible! Did I happen to mention I’ve been in there for thousands of years? Quite possibly confined to the butt area?”

  “You certainly did,” said Nadia. She took the notebook and sat down on the floor, grabbing a pillow to get comfy. She was starting to feel she might be there awhile.

  “I’ll give you a tiny idea of how horrible it was in there,” Titi said. “Have you ever been in the car with your parents and you get caught in terrible traffic with no end in sight and your phone dies and you don’t have a charger and your parents are listening to the oldies station passionately singing along to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and people in other cars are staring at you and you want to disappear and think to yourself, Well, at least things can’t get any worse, and then you s
uddenly realize that you really have to pee?”

  Nadia scowled at him. “Have you been spying on me?”

  “That’s beside the point!” he said. “You thought that situation was the worst thing ever, but my situation was a million, billion, trillion times worse than that.”

  “Okay, I get it,” said Nadia. “But it couldn’t have all been bad. I bet you’ve seen some pretty cool things over the years.”

  “Heard,” Titi said, pointing to his ear. “I couldn’t see anything while trapped in that … corpulent creature. But I could hear everything that was going on around whoever was wearing it.”

  “Gotcha,” Nadia said. “So who had the amulet before me? And before that? Ooh! Have you ever hung around the neck of someone famous?”

  “Oh yes,” Titi said. “Have you heard of Justin Bieber?”

  “You hung around Justin Bieber’s neck?!” Nadia squealed.

  “No,” Titi said, “thank goodness. Can’t stand him. Kids don’t still listen to him, do they?”

  “Not really,” Nadia said. “He got old and weird.”

  “I beliebe it,” Titi said. “Anyway, I hung around the neck of the fourth-century equivalent of the Biebs. Let me tell you, he was hip, he played the lute like nobody’s business, and he wore a funky turban that drove the girls crazy. But the sultan—he totally hated the kid’s voice. So he did the ancient version of the YouTube dislike button.” Titi dragged his finger across his throat.

  “Harsh,” said Nadia.

  “Tell me about it,” said Titi. “And after that, I got lost in the sewers of Cairo for a couple hundred years. Which is maybe why I’m partial to grunge music now?”

  Nadia groaned. Apparently even ancient Egyptian teachers told dad jokes.

  “Okay,” Nadia said. “So you were stuck in the amulet for a long time. But now you’re free.”

  “Free enough,” Titi said. “But I seem to be only two-dimensional.” He spread his arms out. “And it looks like I can only appear on paper. Lame.”

  “I wonder why that is,” said Nadia.

  Titi thought for a minute. “Maybe because I was a teacher? I was in charge of training the new scribes to read, write, and do math. We used a lot of papyrus, which was the ancient Egyptian version of—”

  “Paper, I know,” said Nadia. “That makes sense, then.” She burst into laughter. None of this made any sense at all!

  “So, what’s next?” she asked. “Do you ever get to become a real boy?”

  “Ha ha ha,” said Titi sarcastically.

  “You know what I mean,” said Nadia. “You’re a cartoon. Will you ever be a human again?” She thought for a moment. “Ooh! Do you have powers? What kind?”

  Titi crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and thought hard. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he finally said. “But I am getting this feeling like something has to happen seven times for me to be free. Seven was a very important number in ancient Egypt, you know.”

  “I know,” Nadia said. (Fun fact: The number seven symbolized completion in ancient Egyptian mythology.) “Maybe it’s wishes—you know, like in Aladdin.”

  Titi grew very serious. “Are you comparing me to a fictional character from a fairy tale? How insulting!”

  Nadia looked down at the animated character in her notebook. “I mean, you have to admit there are some similarities.”

  Titi jumped over to the margin. “Okay, okay, I see your point. But still, clearly seven wishes are way better than the three that Aladdin got. Should we try it? Wish for something.” He waved his hands dramatically.

  Nadia felt put on the spot. “Oh, um … I wish for …” Her eyes fell on her alarm clock. “My clock to turn into chocolate,” she said.

  “Wow,” Titi said. “I can see that you are a girl who thinks BIG. But your wish is my command. Well, maybe it is. We’ll see. Here goes!” He closed his eyes. He scrunched up his face. He waggled his fingers. “Um … hickory dickory dock, make chocolate out of this clock!”

  They both stared at the alarm clock. It ticked on, unchanged.

  “I guess it’s not wishes,” Titi said. “Whatever! Just being out of that amulet is enough for now! Oh, sweet freedom!” He jumped up and did two handsprings … and then ran out of room on the page. He bounced off the spiral edge and landed with a thud next to the last math problem.

  “Huh. Apparently, I can only appear on this paper,” Titi said, rubbing his head where he’d bumped it. “I don’t remember math being this hard.”

  “Well,” Nadia said, “that math problem is hard. Hey! You’re a teacher. Can you help me solve it?”

  “Could I?!” Titi said, a big grin on his face. He jumped up and did a spin. “Oh, to have a student again! To impart wisdom on a young mind!”

  Nadia rolled her eyes and let out a sigh, which turned into a yawn. No wonder she usually avoided magic; this was exhausting.

  Five minutes later, the problem was solved.

  “I knew you could do it!” Titi said. He jumped up and began doing handsprings again.

  “Watch out!” Nadia said as he neared the spiral, but to her surprise, it didn’t stop him this time. He flipped right off the edge of the page … and onto a worksheet sticking out of her backpack. He struck a pose reminiscent of an Olympic gymnast.

  “And Titi nails the landing!” he cheered. Then he realized where he was, and his eyes went wide. “Well, build me a pyramid and call me Khufu!” he shouted.

  “How did you do that?!” Nadia asked.

  “I have no idea!” said Titi. “I mean, just five seconds ago I couldn’t leave the notebook page. It makes no sense. Unless …”

  “Unless what?” asked Nadia.

  “Unless it’s because I’m a teacher,” he said slowly. He smiled. “Suffering sphinxes! Of course! It’s my life’s work to help students solve problems.”

  Nadia nodded. “And you helped me solve that math problem …”

  “… so now I have more freedom. Now I can appear on any paper. That must mean I’m closer to being free! Waaaaahooooo!”

  Nadia stared as Titi began to bounce around the room. He popped up on the cover of a book on the floor.

  “Was this book any good?” he asked. “No, never mind. Don’t care.”

  He bounced to the kitten poster Nadia got from the book club in second grade that said HANG IN THERE, BABY.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” Titi said. Nadia giggled. Then he bounced over to a self-portrait Nadia had done in first grade.

  “Was this your abstract period?” he asked, pointing to her oversized head.

  “Very funny,” said Nadia. “I was six.” All Titi’s bouncing was making her dizzy. “Can you sit still for one minute?”

  Titi came to rest on a postcard pinned to Nadia’s bulletin board. “So if I help you find the solutions to seven problems—well, actually six now—I’ll be free!” He hopped back to her notebook. “Do you have any more math homework?” He rubbed his hands together with glee. “I could be free by bedtime!”

  “Hold up,” Nadia said, grabbing the notebook and putting it on her desk. “I’m not wasting my six solutions on math.”

  Titi’s face fell and Nadia suddenly felt bad.

  “But I promise,” she said, “I’ll help free you. I’m sure I can find six problems I need help solving.”

  She was in middle school, after all. Middle school was full of problems.

  Istill think we should do our project on American food,” Vikram said. “Hamburgers and hot dogs and apple pie, you know? Everyone loves that stuff.”

  “Nobody likes that idea but you,” Chloe said. “Who cares that much about hot dogs?”

  “Actually, hot dogs can be pretty interesting,” Nadia said. “Did you know that a competitive eater named Joey Chestnut ate seventy-four hot dogs in ten minutes during the 2018 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest—”

  “See, I told you!” said Vikram.

  “—but I agree that it’s not the best idea for this project,” Nadia concluded.

>   Vikram scowled. Sarah rolled her eyes and looked longingly over at the pool.

  “Maybe we should take a break?” she suggested. “Come back to this later?”

  “Sounds good to me!” Adam said, already hopping up.

  Nadia got up from the table. This meeting was not going as planned. They had to turn in an entry form with their idea during homeroom on Monday, and they weren’t any closer than when they started brainstorming an hour ago.

  Adam bounced on the end of the diving board. “Hey, Nadia!” he called. “Did you find my comic book yet? I want to show it to Jason!”

  “Not yet!” said Nadia. Ugh. Jason. While she had to admit that Jason could be funny, he was also starting to get on her nerves. His jokes made people laugh, but they could be a little hurtful, too.

  With a sigh she headed inside to look for the comic book. Again.

  “Hey, guys,” she said to her bobbleheads. She bopped Sherlock Holmes on the head.

  But Sherlock just stared back at her blankly. Nadia sighed. The bobbleheads weren’t going to be much company as she searched.

  But she did know someone who would be! And last night, she and Titi had finally figured out what the magic word was, after plenty of trial and error. She grabbed the hippo and said, “Help!”

  Titi appeared on the kitten poster. He jumped up, trying to reach the branch the kitten was hanging from. He was always eager to stretch and move after popping out of the amulet.

  Nadia asked something that had suddenly come to mind. “Hey, how come the magic word is in English? English didn’t even exist two thousand years ago.”

  “Good question,” Titi said. He scrunched up his face in concentration. A moment later, a light bulb appeared over his head on the kitten poster. “Maybe … Well, I—a man of scholarly disposition—learned English over the years by listening to people from inside the amulet. Maybe the hippo magic spell that put me in there somehow learned it, too?”

  Nadia pondered that, but thinking about magic made her brain hurt. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Why had she come up here anyway? Oh yeah. “Wanna help me look for the comic book I brought back for Adam?” she asked Titi.