Free A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic by Lisa Papademetriou

wanted to get some kohl for her eyes, and Wali liked any excuse to leave the house, so he asked if he could come along.
    So they all piled into the car, and Asif, the driver, pulledinto traffic. “I can’t find my seat belt,” Leila said, wondering if Rabeea was sitting on it. They were squashed into the backseat with Jamila Tai.
    â€œOh, I don’t think we have them in this car,” Jamila Tai said vaguely.
    Wali was in the front passenger seat, playing with the radio and bouncing happily.
    Leila’s parents were heavily into seat belts and life vests and bike helmets. Most of that stuff was required by law, anyway. But Leila had noticed that people in Pakistan didn’t seem as . . . safety conscious . . . as Americans. She was noticing it now, as Asif’s driving technique seemed to be to head straight for all oncoming cars at top speed until the last moment, and then swerve aside while honking furiously. Nobody else seemed to think that this technique needed improvement. Leila shut her eyes and focused on her breathing. It was something her mother liked to do when she was stressed out. When she inhaled, she smelled the smoke that lingered in her hair from that morning’s book disaster. Leila inhaled again, hoping that the book wouldn’t decide to follow her on the shopping trip. For some reason, this relaxationtechnique was not working.
    They pulled into a parking lot in front of what appeared to be a strip mall. But it wasn’t like an American strip mall; it was crammed with stores, each of which was overflowing with goods. An old man with one hand used his stump to bang on the car window. His black eyes pleaded as he said something in Urdu, the words muffled through the glass window. Leila shrank back a moment as a memory surfaced—she was a little girl, visiting her grandmother in Lahore. A despairing woman held a black-eyed baby up to the car window, and Leila had buried her face in her grandmother’s shawl and burst into tears. For years, Leila had remembered Lahore as a place where she was treated like a princess. She had forgotten what it was like to be out in the city.
    Leila reached for her purse, but Rabeea put her hand on Leila’s wrist. “They will all come over,” Rabeea told her. Her eyes were gentle, but her voice was firm. That was when Leila realized that people were milling around the cars—children selling flowers, old women, crippled, poor, desperate people.
    â€œSad.” It was the only word Leila could think of. Allother sentences had been squeezed from her—her throat was closed, her chest heaved with the weight of sadness so strong that it felt like fear.
    â€œYou can’t help them all,” Rabeea said. “Besides, a lot of them work for organized crime. The bosses take the money and let the people starve.”
    Leila wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make her feel better, but it didn’t. Instead, she felt as if she had been stabbed—unable to move with the shock. She was starting to wonder if Rabeea’s heart was made of granite.
    Jamila Tai stared straight ahead as Wali pointed to a vendor who stood with an enormous bouquet of gaudy balloons.
    Leila looked down at her lap. Breathe in, she told herself. Breathe out.
    Beyond the vendor was the market. Shop after shop—fashionable children’s clothes, glittering jewels, a bank, a carpet store with vibrant rugs. Asif wove through the parking lot and jerked to a stop. Lightly, he sprang from the driver’s seat and yanked open Leila’s door.
    â€œThanks,” Leila told him. “Shukria.”
    â€œYou are welcare.” He enunciated, smiling beneath hisblack mustache. Asif was a young guy, only in his twenties, and very handsome. Leila had seen him helping out with the kitchen work once or twice. He usually had earphones plugged into his ears, and would chat on the phone while arranging fruit on a platter. She wondered what his