The Most Popular Kid in Stone Town

Malik ran through the twisting alleys, hopping over stone benches and sidestepping fruit carts. If this were a foreign movie, Malik thought, he would be James Bond and a souped-up convertible would be right behind him, plowing through the fruit carts like they were nothing.

This wasn’t a movie, though. And Malik wasn’t some super-cool spy.

He was just a sad, lonely twelve-year-old, the only kid on the whole island of Zanzibar without a single friend. And right now, he needed to hide.

Fast.

The boys were getting closer. Soon, they’d catch him. Soon, they’d grab him and beat him into pulp.

Malik quickly rounded the corner, pushed through a pair of sunburnt tourists, and skidded to a halt in the middle of an empty alley.

Stone Town was basically all alleys, an elaborate network of crumbling, white buildings organized into a labyrinth. He’d lived here his whole life, and he still got lost sometimes.

Like right now.

He had never seen this alley before in his life. The storefronts weren’t too spectacular: the same elaborately carved wooden doors, the same off-white walls, but none of the signs looked at all familiar to him.

“Where am I?” he whispered to himself.

The good news was that the boys had probably lost him, so he wouldn’t be getting beaten up today. At least not right now. The bad news was, he was alone and helpless.

“You’re in the right place,” a voice answered from behind him.

Malik spun around to see an old man standing in front of a souvenir shop. He wore tie-dyed fabric that hung loosely down his thin frame. His eyebrows were bushy-gray, and his bald head glistened in the sun.

“Running from bullies again?” the old man asked.

“How did you…?”

“I was young once,” the man answered. “A long, long time ago. I know what it’s like to feel lonely, to know that the only attention you’ll get all day is a swift jab to the head because you said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

Malik wiped his eyes. He wasn’t crying, but he sure felt like he wanted to. “All I did was ask those older kids if I could play football with them. They just…”

“You’re in the right place,” the man said again. “I can help you.”

“How?”

Instead of answering, the man disappeared into his dark store. Malik waited in the empty alley for a long time (though probably just minutes) before the man returned with a single conch shell in his hands.

“A shell?” Malik asked. “You want to sell me a shell?”

“Who sells shells?” the man answered, smirking at his mini-tongue-twister. “It’s a present.”

“Great,” Malik muttered. He had the tendency to sound rude sometimes, which probably didn’t help him in the friend department. “Everyone loves shells. I’ll probably be the coolest kid in school.”

Sarcasm wasn’t really a part of the culture in Zanzibar. Malik wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it from. His parents certainly didn’t understand his jokes. Perhaps the humor came from the American films he watched on an almost daily basis.

“You’d be surprised,” the man said, and grandly placed the shell into Malik’s hands. “It makes a beautiful noise if you just blow into it.”

“Cool,” Malik said. “Perhaps I’ll join a band.”

The old man looked at him for a long, wordless moment before backing into the darkness of his shop. Instantly, he was gone.

“Uh, thanks?” Malik said, but he got no response.

Now that he was once again alone in the alley, Malik felt a weird shiver pass over his body. It wasn’t a cold day — it was dry season, after all — but he felt strangely cold. Not on his skin, but somehow inside. Like his bones were cold.

Malik left the alley, took a few more random turns, and found himself on a familiar path that led around the Hall of Wonders. He was close to the waterfront now, perhaps the most touristy stretch of the island.

As he walked through the bustling fish market, men loudly haggling and shouting over his head, he stared at the shell in his hands. Honestly, it looked kind of pretty. It was pale pink with tiny streaks of white and blue. It looked like wallpaper from one of the more expensive hotels over in Paje or Nungwi. Not like he’d ever actually been inside one, of course.

Perhaps he could blow into it.

Malik was surprised by the sudden urge. He’d never blown into a shell before. Never even thought about it. Why did he suddenly want to now?

Still, he raised it to his lips and blasted a long, loud call into the air. Instantly, the haggling around him stopped. All the men arguing over fish prices… All the tourists oohing and ahhing at the views… All the squawking sea gulls… Everything got very, very quiet.

Malik looked around, half expecting the crowd to have somehow disappeared or been frozen in time. He was wrong on both accounts.

The crowd was still there, but they were now all staring at him. Even the sea gulls seemed mesmerized by his presence.

“Uh, jambo?” Malik said to the motionless gawkers.

As soon as he greeted them, they all started to converge toward him. They shouted his name. “Malik! Oh my God! Malik! It’s you!”

Every single one of them acted like he was some massive celebrity, like that time John Legend had visited the island to film some music video. With one blow of that sea shell, he had gone from friendless loser to the most popular kid on the whole island.

The crowd completely surrounded him, reaching their hands out, touching his hand.

“We love you!” someone shouted.

“You’re so handsome!” another said.

“It’s him!” one older woman screeched. “It’s really him!”

Another stranger tore off a piece of his sleeve. “Look, everyone! He gave me some of his shirt!”

“Well,” Malik said, “‘gave’ is a strong word.”

He didn’t think that anyone had heard his sarcastic remark over the grunting and fawning, but when the entire crowd burst into uncontrollable laughter, he knew he’d been wrong. No matter how loud things got, they would force themselves to hear everything he said. They had to. He was their…

Their king.

On one hand, Malik couldn’t believe it. This whole display was ridiculous. On the other hand, though, Malik knew exactly what was happening. He’d seen this story dozens of times on American movies and TV shows. A kid with a problem finds a mysterious shopkeeper who gives him a magical object that fixes his problem, but things get wild and the kid has to go back to the shopkeeper to reverse it. It’s a tale as old as time (or, at least, as old as The Twilight Zone).

Several tourists started rubbing his head, as if the contact would give them good luck.

One teen girl started taking his photo, though the shots probably weren’t that great, considering the clusters of people all around him.

Malik could barely breathe, not just because of the limited space, but because of the adoration itself. He couldn’t process these feelings.

When an elderly man (at least 90, but probably more) gave him a surprise bear hug, Malik pushed him away and shouted for everyone to calm down.

They did.

“Good,” he told them. “Now, give me a second.”

And with that, he cut through the crowd and ran back into the twisting alleys. He needed to get back to that old man.

He made a left, then a right, then two more lefts… and he found his way back to the mysterious shop. The door was closed now, and the area had no signs that anyone had been there for a long, long time.

Malik pounded on the door.

No answer.

He pounded again. And again. And again and again.

Finally, the door creaked open and the old man peered his head out of the darkness. “Back so soon?” he said. “I assume that your sudden popularity is not what you…”

Malik held up one finger to shut him up. “Let me stop you right there,” he said. “I know you probably expected me to come running back here to beg for a way to reverse this magic.”

The old man’s superior, little smile disappeared. “Well, yes. I…”

Malik shook his head. “Not gonna happen. See, most kids would freaked out when random people start worshiping them. But not me, sir. You don’t know how lonely I felt, how terrible it was. Nothing was as bad as that. So, if I have to deal with a lack of personal space and some torn shirt sleeves, then oh well.”

The old man looked flabbergasted. “Then… then why did you run back here?”

“To tell you thanks, of course!” Malik said.

Malik had no idea how long this old man was hiding away in his alley, offering mystical objects to anyone who stumbled near. He didn’t even know if there were other objects inside, like love potions or monkey’s paws, or if he just had a bunch of shells waiting for all the friendless people in the world.

Of course, it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that he’d gotten his wish, and he was never going to give it up.

“Well,” the old man tried, “if you ever change your mind, just blow three times into the…”

Malik dropped the shell onto the ground, shattering it into hundreds of tiny pieces. “Oops,” he said. “What a terrible accident!”

The old man shook his head. “You really should tone down some of that sarcasm,” he said.

“Why?” Malik countered. “My fans love it.”

And with that, the roaring crowd of Malik-fanatics finally reached the alley and rushed toward them.

The old man raced back into his shop and locked the door behind him.

And when the crowd reached Malik — hundreds of them now — they raised him up on their shoulders like some cartoon lion. “Ma-lik! Ma-lik!” they chanted.

Malik spread his arms wide, finally happy with the world. “My people,” he exclaimed. “There are three boys who wanted to hurt me. They’re still somewhere in town. Let’s all find them and…”

His voice trailed off. He figured his adoring fans would know what to do next.