Chapter Nineteen: Aladdin's Journal

My whole life, I've always had to stay one jump ahead.

One jump ahead of my teachers, because from the beginning, they've all hated teaching me. Don't tell me every student gets the same treatment, because they don't. Teachers are always trying to catch me cutting corners and cheating, as though I'm ever gonna be obvious about it. (Good luck with that, assholes.)

One jump ahead of my classmates, because all they care about is fitting in with the trends and the status quo, so if you stand out in any way, get ready for the rumors. The whispering. The disapproving stares. Girls like Jasmine Ghali who look at you like you're gonna be lurking in dark alleys, just waiting for them to pass by so you can snatch their purse or worse. On the streets, I can't trust police any more than I can trust the common criminal scumbags…of which I guess I'm one too.

Even my so-called friends and family. They always need me to do something for them. Something that's usually dangerous. I've never been able to just do what I want to do, or have a normal childhood without constantly having to risk capture and incarceration. As a kid, I never knew if this would be the night the police would come knocking on the door to take my dad away because he had violated his parole again. Heard of the three strike rule? I think he committed about twenty. I guess that meant he was a good foul ball hitter in life, a life that he was always clinging to, staying just barely ahead of the axe as it was about to come down on his neck.

Eventually, though, he couldn't jump out of the way fast enough. Eventually, it caught up to him. Chop. Now he's locked up for three lifetimes, and I'm stuck here as the heir apparent wondering if I've inherited all of his bad traits. Stuck here wondering if I can stay one jump ahead as the sky falls down around me…if I can avoid it longer than he did.

I don't have a choice. If I don't keep that one step ahead of the world that wants nothing more than to see me fail, I go down just like he did, and I never amount to anything. Never get out of this town. Never move on beyond this dead-end life of crime and non-achievement. Never get out there and meet other people, maybe find the girl who's right for me because we connect on something deeper than a physical level, and not just because we come from the same hood. Never go out into the world and prove to all of the doubters, all the people who have ever turned their noses down at me, that I'm more than what I appear to be. That deep down, below all the crap that my environment has forced me to adapt to, there's something really strong and unique separating me from the rest.

I know I have more to offer than what this life has relegated me to.

But every day I wake up and I know that nothing has changed, that nothing's gonna ever change unless I suddenly grow a backbone and tell Clopin that I want out of all this. This life, this pressure, these risks, the guilt of being exactly what everybody assumes that I am. A scumbag. A loser. A nobody. And who knows how Clopin will respond to that? He might be my uncle, but I don't know what he'd do if he thought I was trying to abandon our "family."

It's funny how quickly friends can become enemies out on these streets.

So I always gotta stay one jump ahead.

But I'm getting tired of it.

And it really sucks because it's only the beginning of the school year and I'm already feeling like I'm not gonna be able to make it through. I'm way more stressed out than anybody my age should have to be, and none of it even has to do with any academic crap. I had to give up worrying about my grades years ago. Nobody in my family ever went to college, so they've never encouraged me to try and work for that route. It's a nice dream, though. Going away from home to learn about life and knowledge in a place where nobody has to know who you are in the outside world, or where you're from. Somewhere you can be free to develop into whatever you want to be.

Freedom is beautiful.

But that's not my reality.

I already had a lot on my plate and then all this shit happened today in Ethics class with Frollo and the new guy Shane. And suddenly, all because of Esmeralda's bleeding heart or the lady boner she probably has for him, shit went down and now I've found myself and the rest of my Outcast crew caught up in the middle of it.

Obviously, this is the last thing we need.

Don't get me wrong. Shane seems like a pretty good guy. At least, I liked him at first. He's different than most of the rest of the clowns that go to our school. I can't really peg exactly why, but he is. He reminds me of our crew, those of us who don't automatically listen to people in authority just because they have a badge or a title. At the very least, I thought he might be good for buying a few dime-bags here and there throughout the coming year. I don't know about that now.

I mean, I like that he didn't back down to Frollo, who I probably hate more than anybody else at Disney High other than that dirty snake of a guidance counselor Mr. Jafar. There are two guys I really hope get hit by a bus one day soon.

Still, there's something that makes me uneasy about Shane. Something is off about him, this thing I can't really put my finger on. Where did he come from? Who was he before he got here? He talks funny sometimes, like he knows stuff that we don't, but then at other times he seems like the most clueless guy at school. Almost like a foreign exchange student except for that he sounds completely American. I dunno. It just doesn't sit right with me.

But now because he got himself mixed up with Mr. Triton's perfect daughters, the administrators seem to be gunning for him. I feel for the guy, because I know what that's like, but part of me wants to say, "Tough shit, bro. Better you than me." I can't afford to have that kind of heat on me and my various operations, but now he's spending the night at the Court of Miracles, and we still don't know shit about him. There are people on the street I've met who have tried to get invited into our fortress for years (I call it a fortress because really, that's what it is when you think about it), and this random dude pops up out of nowhere and suddenly we're putting him up for the night and taking care of him like he's one of us?

That's just asking for trouble, in my opinion.

I'll admit it…I wanted him to succeed in the fucked up task he was forced to do because Frollo's an evil piece of shit, and anybody who can stand up and stick it to a guy like that is okay in my book. And he somehow actually seemed to be making some progress when he got blasted with that crazy pepper spray by Gaston (another asshole who I hope will go chase his ball into traffic one day), but then Frollo decided he was getting too close to succeeding, so he told Gaston to hit him with the stuff a third time. I knew Shane was toast at that point, and part of me wanted to do something, but it was just too damn risky. I have to think about more than just myself, you know? I have to be smart, smarter than my dad ever was, which bit him in the end.

And then, of course, that wonderful cousin of mine decided she couldn't bear to watch such a horrible thing happen, even though we've seen plenty worse on the streets, because that's just how she is. She was like that when Quasimodo was getting beat up and bullied our freshman year, and she's still like that now whenever she thinks someone's not getting a fair shake. She's a real sucker for underdogs (maybe literally, I sometimes suspect, but I shouldn't talk about my cousin that way), so I shouldn't have been surprised that she ran to go take the canister from Gaston.

This is where it went bad. Shane managed to get the bag from Belle Delacroix and Meg and I went over to help him get to the nurse's office. (Any chance I can get to ditch class, I'll take, especially when it's that one.) Then Frollo got pissed at us and I'm not really sure how things escalated so much, but Esmeralda pointed the canister at his face and shit got real.

Thank Disney she didn't spray him with it, but threatening a teacher? And of all teachers, Frollo? That's like a death wish for all of us, which is exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to being smart and not taking stupid risks. When this guy was a judge, it always seemed like defendants in his courts got sentenced to extremely harsh penalties. I don't think anybody in the whole province has ever sentenced more people to death during their time as judge, and most of those guys work as judges until they die. And in all of Disney City, what district do you think Frollo seemed to focus on the most? Where do you think most of the poor bastards unlucky enough to wind up in his court hailed from?

Neverland, of course.

Which brings us to the other interesting tidbit I've found myself thinking about a lot the last two days. Who do you think was the judge who ultimately sentenced my father to a lifetime imprisonment that he could never parole out of? The one guy to finally ensure that Cassim Ababwa would never again walk the streets, nor ever again see his wife or only son without a partition separating them for the rest of his miserable days?

Do I even have to say it?

The thing about that is, I can't even fully blame Frollo anymore. Yeah, the sentence was overly harsh, because he's a corrupt son of a bitch, but my dad knew what he was risking every night that he went out and worked for the people he worked for. People who rejoice in crime even though this country, and especially our province, strike down with a so-called righteous fury on any of the riff-raff living on the outskirts of society. They can't allow us to be a blight on this safe and happy world Walt Disney tried to create in his wake. They don't want to afford us opportunities to escape from the holes we wallow in, but for those of us who get desperate enough to turn to crime, well there's a magical 6 by 8 cell waiting for you, my friend, and for your kids when they follow in your footsteps.

Damn it. I get so conflicted thinking about my dad. Sometimes I think it's all his fault, and that he should have done more to try and get us out of here. But the older I get, the more I see how difficult it is to escape from a life that digs its claws into your spine and never releases. My dad may have been a scumbag, at least according to the black-and-white ideals our country stands for, but you can't deny that he was at least a family man. He didn't want to turn his back on me, my mom, or her brother Clopin, who he was best friends with coming up out here until he fell for my mom. I think that was weird for them but Clopin says that when he thought about it, there was nobody he trusted more to take care of his sister. It's too bad their youngest sister Paquette was never really able to find anyone to settle down with. She was a wild one, they say, a trait Esmeralda may have inherited.

Neither of us may have our parents in our lives anymore but it's crazy how much we're starting to resemble them. Makes me wonder if there's such thing as free will, or if our fates are all written in the stars…that nothing we do, no matter how hard we try, will allow us to escape the same kind of violent and tragic ends that claimed our parents.

All because of where we come from. All because we're poor.

I don't know why I'm writing this right now. I think it's because I'm scared that I'm getting pulled into a situation that I'm not going to be able to jump away from. I don't have any kids, or any kind of legacy to pass on, so I guess I want to write things down so that a few scraps of paper will prove that I ever lived at all.

Just a distraction until somebody like Frollo puts the noose around my neck too.

Today, Fagin came back from Madame Medusa's Pawn Shop not having really made much of anything, which isn't a surprise, but he really needs to start contributing soon or there's gonna be problems. We shouldn't really be expecting much of him because he's the kind of guy who's always gonna be small-time no matter what, that's just his mentality, but I know Clopin wants him to step up on his side projects because we have Sykes breathing down our necks.

Sykes.

I had to go see him tonight. About that special operation he's got me running at school, the one that makes me nervous. I really shouldn't even be writing this but it's because I don't trust Sykes for shit, and I want someone to be able to find this and know who's responsible if it all goes south.

Someone who can know that I was more than just the crimes I'll inevitably get convicted for. That I was somebody who wished for more.

I've known for a while now that a lot of the work we do is for Sykes. My father worked for him too, which gives you a clue of just how not excited I am to be another one of his pawns. He's a powerful man, a dangerous guy who likes operating out of the shadows, but I know he's not the top dog. He runs a shipping agency out of the harbor, but he's no more a simple shipyard agent than I am a mere high school student. Sykes has got serious mob ties, along with his own underworld enterprise that I think we're a major part of, but I suspect even he answers to someone.

Everybody answers to someone, it seems. And if you ever try to get to the bottom of things, you'll find yourself tangled up in a web of lies and violence that it's hard to escape from. It's not good for your health to question the pecking order, so I do what Clopin tells me to do, and a lot of the time, Clopin gets his orders from Sykes.

I know Clopin doesn't like him. But we couldn't run the Court of Miracles like we do without the flexibility Sykes gives us. He owns the whole property after all.

But he doesn't want to be associated with the Court, so he almost never comes down to it in person, which doesn't bother me too much. Except for the fact that every time I have to go to the docks, I end up wondering if I'm gonna end the night wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the river.

This was one of those nights.

While most of the crew at home was obliviously doing their own thing or distracted with our new guest, I had to prepare for my meeting with Sykes. I'm glad Clopin came with me, but it tells you something that he always packs a gun on these nights. It's the only gun any of us have in the whole Court but even that's enough to get any of us twenty-five years minimum in the provincial penitentiary if we're caught with it, what with the crazy-strict gun laws this country has.

I can't even imagine there was a time when ordinary citizens were allowed to own guns, but it used to be in the Constitution, or so my history teachers have told us. Of course, I was never alive for the Second Amendment, but I imagine it would make Neverland an even wilder place than it is. The Pirates are bad enough now when they mostly use clubs, knives, and swords. Whenever they get their grubby hands on a gun, it's bad news for everyone. That's pretty much the only time the police bother about any of us, though, is when shots are fired. That gets them all down here investigating. Not to save any lives. They just don't like anyone else having access to firearms.

The fact that I'm writing this right now is proof that I survived another trip to the docks, but I can already tell I'm not gonna get much sleep tonight.

So here's how it all went:

Clopin and I leave in his car at around 9 or 9:30. We have to pass through Pirate territory, but we can see a group of them going after some stupid, most likely drunk girls who should have known better than to be out alone at night, so the Pirates leave us alone. Another sad thing in which I wish I could intervene and prevent, but I'll probably never be the hero I sometimes dream I could be.

Street rats can't be heroes. Heroes always end up being guys like Hercules.

Which conveniently brings me to the job Sykes has me working.

Clopin and I go into his shipping warehouse, ride the old elevator down to the bottom level and make that long walk into his office.

Sykes is sitting in his office, smoking a cigar with his feet up. In front of his desk are his twin Dobermans Roscoe and DeSoto, two very mean and scary animals. I know for a fact that he's used them to maul multiple people who got on his bad side, and every time I'm around them, I can see the cruel hunger in their eyes.

As for Sykes, I've never seen him not wearing a slick-looking suit and a tie with his curly gray hair greased and his shoes polished. He likes to look like he's not a common thug like the rest of us because he puts up the front that he's a respectable, legitimate businessman, but it's not hard to see what a load of crap that is.

Just look at him and you see that he's built for violence. Sykes is huge. Granted, he's about 50 and only a little taller than average, but he's almost inhumanly wide. His neck is like a tree trunk and his hands seem bigger than my head. His fingers are like Vienna sausages. I think he used to be a power lifter in his younger days who's let himself go a little bit in recent years (he's got a pretty big gut on him), but he's still barrel chested and very strong.

"Take a seat, gentlemen," he says in that raspy smoker's voice of his.

So we sit. The two dogs look up at me and growl softly.

"Easy, boys," says Sykes. "Please, forgive Roscoe and DeSoto. They have short memories. Unlike me. Just shows how long it's been since you've been to visit us, Al. They don't hardly recognize you anymore."

He's quiet, like he's waiting for me to say anything, but what is there for me to say? 'I missed you, Sykes. Please tell me what more dangerous jobs you can give me so that I can take the blame for one of your operations and go down like my dad did?'

"How's your father?" Sykes asks me after I don't respond.

Even though he always asks that, for some reason this time it really grinds my gears. Sykes has never visited my dad once in all the years he's been locked up after taking the fall for a shipment of drugs that Sykes was having imported. He can't be seen in conjunction with convicted felons. Because he's an 'upstanding citizen.'

I'll admit, I don't visit my dad very much either but it's because I can't help but be angry at him for abandoning us. He could have ratted out Sykes in exchange for a lighter sentence, and maybe he'd still be with me. It wouldn't have changed Mom getting sick but I know she had too much of a broken heart to fight it much at the end. She knew her husband was locked away forever. She just gave in. I guess I wasn't enough for her to try and live for.

But if Dad was around, maybe that would have been enough for her to somehow get better.

No point in crying over what's gone and lost, though. Have to focus. Have to be smart.

And stay one jump ahead.

Deep down, below all the bitterness and resentment I've cultivated over the years, I know that my dad didn't rat Sykes out in exchange for leniency because that would mean the death of me, Mom, and probably Clopin and the rest of our broken family. (Of course, Mom was already sick by then anyway, which was why Dad was working so much more often, and on riskier and riskier jobs. Hospital bills don't pay for themselves, especially when you're too poor to afford health insurance.)

So, obviously, I don't run up and try to strangle Sykes after he asks about my father, not that I could have even fit my hands around his fat neck if I tried.

Instead, I say, "He's still in prison, an hour away, where he'll be every day until he dies. In case you forgot."

Sykes actually nods like he sympathizes with his plight, but I know there's not a sympathetic bone in his whole body.

"A damn shame," he says. "Your father was good man…a good father and a loyal soldier. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, and what not to say…a trait I sincerely hope he passed onto you…"

In Sykes speech, that's a warning that I better not give him any more lip or I may find myself swimming with the fishes, or whatever clichéd phrase two-bit gangsters like him still use.

So I shut up, which pleases Sykes. He goes on to say, "I promised Cassim I'd take care of his family, of course, because we go so far back, which reminds me. How are you kids doing on back-to-school clothes, huh? You all go to a good school, a much better one than I ever went to. We need you lookin' sharp, make your old man proud."

I don't want any of Sykes' handouts, but I know that I'm not the only one who can stand to benefit from some extra money being sent our way. Esmeralda and Meg would definitely appreciate getting the change to go buy some more outfits, and Mowgli especially could use some new duds. He's growing more and more every day, it seems, and all his clothes are always ripped and dirty because he's still like a little kid playing in the streets all the time. I swear, there's not a single stray animal he met that he didn't try to bring home to the Court. He's like Fagin that way.

"We haven't been back to school shopping for clothes," I say. "Money's been kinda tight, but we could definitely use some more clothes, especially Mowgli."

"We're doing okay for ourselves," says Clopin, who, as Mowgli's father, has a little more pride than me when it comes to this topic. But he hardly pays attention to Mowgli, so I don't feel bad for speaking up in the best interest of his son.

"Now, now, Clopin," says Sykes, "you can't be afraid to take a little charity now and then. If Uncle Sykes wants to give the kiddies some shopping money, you shouldn't deprive him of that little joy."

"Of course not, Sykes," responds my uncle. "We appreciate everything you give us."

"I know you do," says Sykes, pulling open one of his drawers and then tossing me a couple stacks of bills. I don't count them, but I know there's a lot there. "Which is why I like to do it. Go take everyone to get some new clothes, Al. Maybe put the young one in a suit. He's old enough now. The little monkey always runs around looking homeless, no offense, Cloppy, old boy."

I know this is deeply offensive to Clopin, but he's smart enough to bite his tongue.

"Thank you, Sykes," I mutter, pocketing the cash and hating myself for doing it.

"Always happy to be Santa Claus for you kids," says Sykes. "But now that I've done something for you, we need to talk about what you're doing for me."

With Sykes, it always ends up being about what you can do for him.

"The Hercules boy," says Sykes. "He made some big strides last year. I know a lot of that is thanks to you, ain't it, Al?"

"Actually, it's thanks to you," I say. "I just sold him what you told me to sell him. I think we hit him at the perfect time. He was right in the middle of a natural growth spurt, and that paired with the juice turned him into a tank."

Sykes stares at me. "I appreciate you trying to give credit where credit's due, but really, you should take the bow for this one. Really, everything doesn't have to find its back to old Uncle Sykes, does it? I've taught you better than that."

"No, sir," I say, hating the stupid little games he plays. Of course I didn't tell Hercules where I got the steroids from. I'm not suicidal, and even if I was, I wouldn't want my loved ones to have to pay for my stupidity when Sykes inevitably came after them. "It was my idea…I just get my inspiration from you, not that I would ever admit that to anyone else."

"Always good to be little selfish," Sykes says, nodding. "A few white lies never hurt nobody." He even throws a little wink in for good measure, which makes me want to barf. But I don't.

"What is it that you brought us over here for?" Clopin asks. He's just as anxious as I am to get out of there, and he's known Sykes for twice as long as I have.

"That's a great question," says Sykes, standing up with all of his formidable girth. He walks over to a cabinet and opens it. Inside is a whole multitude of things that would get us all locked up until the apocalypse, but he retrieves a little square zipped up bag. It looks like it's the type of insulated material that keeps things inside cold if you need it to.

He walks over to me and then drops the little black cube into my lap.

"This is what we want to work the Hercules kid up to."

"The season's about to start," I say. "Their first game's on Friday."

"Yes, this I know," says Sykes in a bored voice.

Thinking he doesn't understand what I'm saying, I continue, "Herc just finished a cycle a couple weeks ago. So he's not gonna need another dosage for, like, another six months or something. The season will be long over by then."

"This is different than that junk," he says impatiently. "All that crap was just to work him up to this right here."

I don't unzip the bag, but I look at it and ask, "What is it?"

"It also is a 'performance enhancer,' you could say."

"How does it work?"

"Same way as the other stuff. But it'll feel much better. And it's very unique, so he doesn't have to worry about random drug testing picking it up. It's much too sophisticated for high school testing equipment to trace."

"And what, it'll make him even stronger than he already is?"

"Not just that," answers Sykes. "It'll give him a change in attitude. It'll make him ferocious, unstoppable, resistant to pain. Complete the transformation to the apex predator he should already be."

"So it's like a concentrated dosage of roid rage?" I ask, skeptical.

Sykes looks irritated. "It's a unique concentration of custom developed performance and strength enhancers. It has major and immediate effects. He will appreciate them."

"Why do we care so much about making him so strong anyway?" I ask. "Are you betting on the games or something? Because he's already bigger, faster, and stronger than pretty much everyone else. We're favored to go undefeated, but I'm sure you already know that."

Clopin shoots me a warning glance, but it's too late. Sykes is already looming over me like a very angry bull, steam practically snorting out of his nostrils and everything.

"Why is not a concern of yours!" he snarls at me. "The only questions you should be asking are 'How do I get him to take it, and how soon?'"

"Okay," I say. "What are the answers?"

"Get him to take a vial a week," he says, "until he runs out. He doesn't need any more than that."

"What about the first question?"

"I don't care how you convince him to do it," Sykes says. "But you need to convince him. It's very important that he does. We have a lot riding on this, all of us."

I have no idea what he means by that, or why he cares so much about Herc, who was only an average athlete at our school up to last year, when I started selling to him at Sykes' encouragement. But it seems like he's maintained an investment in Herc's performance all the time since then. It's not even like we've made all that much money off of the steroids. Under Sykes' orders, I sold them to Herc at an under market value price, and I'm not supposed to expand our customer base by telling or selling to anybody else on the team. Herc has kept his mouth zipped too, as far as I know. And like I already said, he doesn't even have any idea who Sykes is.

"It might be difficult getting Herc to take this stuff," I say. "His confidence is already through the roof. I think he's gonna feel like he doesn't even need it."

"He needs it."

"But how do I convince him of that? He's already a star player."

"You're buddies with him now, aren't you? He'll listen to you."

"I don't know," I say. "I don't think he really likes me much, to be honest. I think he's ashamed of buying the steroids from me. From everything I've gathered, I feel like he'd rather see how he does without any PED's. But he got on a cycle through all of spring and the summer. I just don't know how I'll convince him to take something else so soon after. I mean, it can't be very healthy."

Sykes slams his huge fist on his table, causing both of his dogs to look up sharply. Clopin and I both cringe at the noise even though we're long used to Sykes' violent outbursts.

"We are not concerned about his health!" he yells at me. "I don't give a flying fuck how you convince him, but you better figure it out! Use one of the girls for shit's sake, have your cousin or your little girlfriend suck his shrunken cock if that's what it takes!" Then he gets in my face and hisses, "But make no mistake about it, Al, you better get him to do it. Or else I am going to have a very, very big problem. And when I have a problem, you all have a problem. You, your family, your whole fucking building of rejects." His eyes never straying from mine, he adds, "You got that, Clopin?"

"We understand," Clopin says. "Al will get him to take the stuff. Don't worry."

"Good," Sykes says, still glaring at me. "I expect you to keep me updated on your progress. None of this no showing up around here for months at a time bullshit. This is an extremely important operation, and I will not let anyone screw it up. Do we have an understanding?"

I can barely look at him in the eye because of my hatred, but I manage to say, "We have an understanding."

Sykes relaxes and goes back to his chair with his cigar, reclining back again.

"Good," he says. "That's what I like to hear. I always know I can depend on you, Al, just like your old man. You both know how to follow orders, no matter where they lead you. Right up to the end."

It feels like a long car ride home.

Now I'm back in my room, trying to make myself sleepy by writing about my troubles, knowing that even if I manage to fool my body into falling asleep, I have to wake up early to go deal with the stupid Frollo situation in the morning, all while trying to figure out how I'm going to approach Herc and convince him to buy some more mysterious vials to inject his body with. That is, if I'm not expelled for what happened yesterday, a little something that you can bet I neglected to tell Sykes about.

It's weird, though. He always seems to know what's been going on at Disney High School. I don't know how he does. Clopin hardly knows anything, and he's the legal guardian for me, Esmeralda, and Mowgli, as well as an unofficial guardian for Meg, Quasi, and Tarzan. But Sykes always seems to have an inside track on the latest developments.

So I don't know what to expect for the immediate future. I hope I'm not expelled, but if I am, maybe that will get me off the hook. Knowing Sykes, it probably won't.

Meg, of course, is asleep. She says that she worries about me and all that, but she's usually asleep by the time I get back from these meetings with Sykes, if she's even back at our apartment. I have no idea what she wants in life. I know how much she resents her loser of a mom, but I can never get an inkling of what she's hoping for out of her future. I don't know how much she includes me in her plans, and to be honest, I'm not sure how much I include her in mine.

I just know I want to get out of here, at any cost. I think Jim and Quasi are the same way, although Quasi might be too scared to ever do anything about it. Ever since he started playing sports, none of us get to see enough of Tarzan to know what he's ever thinking, and I think Mowgli is too young to worry too much about such things. At least I hope he is. I don't want him to grow up like me, with the same bullshit and pressures.

It's a shitty life, no question, but amazingly, my best friend and my cousin don't even want out of it.

For some reason I'll never understand, Peter loves it in the Neverland District. He positively adores it. He loves the unpredictability and the chaos, the freedom he thinks it allows him, the little gang of followers he's been expanding the past few years. I think he thinks of himself as some symbol of anarchy, almost like a junior Rob Hoodlum. Sometimes, I really think he wants to be here until he dies.

As for Esmeralda, she doesn't like a lot of the bad things here, but I feel like she'd rather stay and work for the changes that will never come rather than run away from it all like I want to. I don't have any love for this city, especially not the neighborhood I've had to grow up in, because of all the things it's taken from me.

This whole city is a prison, as far as I'm concerned.

I wish that I could just jump one last time. Or better yet, fly. Peter's always talking about flying away from 'grown-up problems' (I guess always being high will make you feel like that's exactly what you're doing), but that's one abstract thing he talks about that I wish I could do literally.

Just grab my friends and family and leave everything behind. Leave Sykes and Frollo and the Pirates and police and drugs and poverty and girls who won't give you a chance and everything. Just fly away until we reached some perfect place where we'd all have the same chances to succeed and accomplish our dreams.

But such places don't exist.

So tomorrow, if I don't get kicked out of school for good this time, I'll talk to Herc.

And I'll figure out how to potentially ruin his life just so I can cling onto mine for a little while longer.

{So that was Aladdin's first entry, and through it, we've learned a lot about some of the major characters' intersecting histories. I hope you guys liked it and were able to keep up, and don't worry, we will soon be visiting the perspectives of Meg, Esmeralda, Frollo, and others.

I'm glad you guys enjoyed the previous chapter, especially the way it seemed to end (FINALLY some action!)…buuut unfortunately list-wise we can't count our chickens before they hatch. The next chapter picks right up where that one left off, and we'll have to see if Shane actually seals the deal with Esmeralda or not…I'm just gonna say, cross your fingers because it's not a slam dunk yet. ;)

Also, I want to acknowledge that I have officially hit 100 reviews, a mark I never actually thought I would reach, being a dude writing about Disney characters for an audience that I assume is primarily female haha. I may not have a huge amount of readers compared to some other stories, but the readers I do have are very loyal and I really do appreciate all of you, both boys and girls (and anything/everything in between.) As long as you keep giving me feedback and saying you want to read more, I will try my best to keep giving it to you. So thanks!

Next chapter should be up soon. Make sure to let me know what you think!}