Abdullah from Castle in the Air is the protagonist of this story. In the story, Abdullah is the son of a carpet merchant in Zanzib. He lives a terrible Harry Potter kind of life, with his father's second wife's relatives harassing him at every turn. Nothing he can do is right and he's always in trouble for things he did not do. In order to survive his terrible home life he fantasizes about various aspects of his pretend life. Then they begin to come true when another merchant gives him a carpet....a magic carpet. The merchant was a djinn in disguise.