"Twenty-three, twenty-four," counted Aladdin.
He felt for the next step with his foot.
"Twenty-five." The stairway was dark.
"I must be careful," he said softly to himself.
"Thirty." Soon Aladdin saw something below in the darkness.
"A light," he said as he slowly stepped down. "Forty-two."
The light was getting brighter.
"Forty-eight, forty-nine." He was almost there!
"Fifty!" Aladdin slipped through a narrow doorway and looked around.
"It's the golden chamber!" he cried.
And there stood the four golden jars, just as Magrib had said.
"Don't touch anything," Aladdin reminded himself.
Just then a light wind tickled his face.
"What's that?" he wondered.
A stronger wind sent the end of his sash toward a golden jar.
"Hey!" said Aladdin, pulling his sash back.
"I wonder if there's a spirit in here," he whispered.
Then Aladdin's cap blew off.
"Stop!" he called to no one as he jumped to catch it.
He slid across the floor and almost hit a golden jar.
Aladdin gulped. "That was close!"
Holding his cap, he ran to a large door just ahead of him.
"My name is Aladdin!" he shouted.
"I command you to open!"
The door swung open, and Aladdin stepped into a beautiful garden.
The air smelled like sweet flowers and ripe fruit.
He looked up.
"Oranges!" he said.
"Lemons and limes!
Pears and plums!"
Aladdin was getting hungry.
He wished he could eat one of the plums.
Then his face lit up.
"Uncle said I can pick all the fruit I want when I have the lamp," he thought.
The garden path was right under his feet.
"One, two, three," he said, counting his steps as he walked between the trees.
Exactly one hundred steps later, Aladdin arrived at the ladder.
He looked up.
The top was hidden high in the treetops.
Slowly, Aladdin climbed.
When he got to the top, the hole in the wall was in shadow.
But Aladdin could see the lamp hanging from a chain.
He reached in, took it, and held it in his hands.
"It's just a dirty, old brass lamp," he said, shaking his head.
"I don't want to mess up my jacket."
So Aladdin wrapped the lamp in his sash and tucked it in his back pocket.
Then he climbed back down the ladder.
"Now," he said, "I'll get something to eat."
But when Aladdin stepped to the ground, he couldn't believe what he saw.
The oranges, lemons, and limes were gone.
The pears and plums were gone too.
Instead, the fruit trees were covered with sparkling jewels.
"The fruit has turned to glass!" said Aladdin.
He picked a bright-red jewel off a tree.
"I can't eat this," he said with a shrug.
"But it's pretty.
I'll pick the glass fruit and take it to Mother."
Aladdin was young, and he had always been poor.
He didn't know these were precious gems—emeralds, diamonds, and rubies.
They weren't glass at all.
He began stuffing the jewels into the pockets of his jacket and pants until they bulged.
"Now, I must return to my uncle," he told himself.
He hurried through the golden chamber and started up the steps toward Magrib.
Aladdin's load was so heavy that he could barely climb the stone stairway.
And when he had almost reached the top, he could not get up the last step, which was taller than the others.
"Uncle," he called out. "I'm back! Help me!"