A long time ago a kingdom full of magic and mysteries existed. It was the great kingdom Persia. This kingdom was ruled by Sultan Christopher Kirkpatrick. He had a great palace in the capital Abraha.

The sultan’s wife died right after she gave birth to their son Joshua.

The sultan tried everything to give Joshua the love he needed, but something was always missing. After 17 years it was the assignment of Prince Joshua to find a Princess and to increase the Persian kingdom. But no matter where he was and which Princess he visited, he didn’t find the right bride. Joshua kept a secret. He didn’t like girls. He liked guys. But he couldn’t tell his father. He was too afraid to get into prison or even got beheaded.

Joshua always felt alone, because except for visiting Princesses, he wasn’t allowed to leave the palace. He was kind of trapped there. His only friend was his tiger Autumn. She was always there for him and listened to his problems. But even his only friend couldn’t solve the problem he had.

The Grand Vizier of the sultan, Lance Bass, had other plans. He pretended to be a loyal subordinate of the sultan, but actually he tried to find a way to get sultan himself. He had a parot, which accompanied him all the time called Michael. Together they had so many plans, but all of them would fail, because Joshua was still there. He couldn’t be sultan as long as Joshua existed.

Secretly Lance always thought Joshua was more than just a beautiful guy. He wanted him to be the Prince next to him as the sultan, but that wasn’t possible without getting beheaded.

There was only one loophole. There existed a magic lamp, where a Genie lived in. This Genie could fulfill three of your biggest wishes. But the lamp was hidden. It was hidden in a cave. Not a habitual cave. It was the cave of wonder. He send so many of his subordinates into it, but every time someone tried to enter the cave of wonder, it collapsed and a deep voice growled ‘Find the rough diamond’. Lance tried to find out what the cave meant, but it was almost impossible.

Weren’t he a sorcerer. Lance thought, when he needs to find a rough diamond, he has to start his search with an unhidden one. He wheedled the sultan with his hypnotically power to give him his diamond. With the diamond and a magic hourglass he could see what the cave meant, when he was talking of a rough diamond. It wasn’t a gemstone. It was a man, who was more then you could see at a first glance. A young boy called Justin.

***

Jimmy screamed at the other soldiers: “Get him!”. Justin and his only friend, a monkey called Trace, were running away from the royal soldiers. Justin had stolen a loaf and tried to escape.

Justin never had much in his life. When he was young, his mother died and his father went away. He was all alone and lived on the street. The only chance for him to get through the years was to steal his food. But the sentence for thieves was a chipped hand.

Justin never understood how unfair this world could be. He had to steal to survive and others, like the sultan, were rich and their biggest worry was what they should wear this day.

Justin didn’t watch out where he was running and blundered directly into Jimmy. “Got you.” Jimmy said with a satisfied grin on his face. He wanted to wipe out his sword, when Trace jumped on his head and the hat slipped into his face.

“Maybe next time” Justin said and ran away.

The other soldiers came to Jimmy to help him. Together they got his head out of the hat and were looking at him for some other orders. “Catch this street rat!” Jimmy screamed. Directly all soldiers started to follow Justin again.

Justin ran through an open door and was in the middle of many beautiful girls. They were looking at him confused, but when they saw the loaf they just rolled their eyes. Justin went to one of them, looking with his puppy eyes and asked in the cutest way the girls ever heard: “Would you hide me?” The girls were giggling and agreed.

Quickly they grab some clothes and foulards and dressed Justin up. Finally they hide his face behind a foulard and a wig. Also dressed as a girl he stood in the corner, when Jimmy entered the room.

Justin looked on the floor, hoping Jimmy wouldn’t recognize that it’s Justin standing there. Angrily he watched out for Justin. “Listen girls, I am searching for a guy, dressed in a purple vest and patched-up pants. Did you saw him?”

The girls all shook their head. When Jimmy was looking at all of them he saw Justin standing in the corner. Slowly he went into his direction. “Are you all sure, you didn’t see him?” He asked Justin now. Justin cleared his throat and assumed his voice as high as he could. “I didn’t see this guy.”

Warily Jimmy looked at Justin. “Are you sure?” Justin nodded.

“Ok… if you ladies see him, just call for us. I wish you a nice day.” Then Jimmy left. Relieved Justin let himself fall on the ground. “Thank you ladies. You saved me.”

The girls started to giggle. “You own us something”

Justin winked at them and ripped off the girl clothes from his body. “Thank you beautiful girls. I’m sure we’ll see us again.”

“Yeah, when you need to get hidden, you little thief.” Another one of the girls chuckled.

“Hey, I just take what I need to survive!” Justin protested and was about to go, when the chaperon of the girls came back. “I got what I wanted from the market. Would you girls help me to unpack every… Who is that?” Justin nervously tried to hide the loaf behind his back. When the chaperon saw the loaf and the monkey, who was hidden in the girl’s clothes, too, she screamed: “Thief!”

“Fuck” Justin cursed and jumped out of the window. Right in this moment Jimmy came back and saw Justin escaping. He screamed: “The street rat is in the back yard! Catch him!”

Trace jumped on Justin’s shoulder and started to make noises, when he saw the soldiers behind Justin.

Desperately Justin searched for a stash or an escape route. Then he saw a man with a flute. He was playing on it and a rope came out of a box. It was moving like a snake and stretched to the sky. Justin grabbed the rope and hang on the ending of it. Together with the rope Justin rose up and looked down at Jimmy. Madly Jimmy ripped off the flute out of the man’s hand. Directly the rope began to fall, but before Justin fell to the ground, too, he could jump to a near window. With all his strength he tried to enter the room and with the help of Trace he managed it.

But Jimmy didn’t give up. “This time I get the dreg!”, he thought. He kicked in the front door and entered the house without asking. The residents looked shocked at Jimmy. “It’s an emergency, I’m sorry.”, Jimmy mumbled and ran upstairs.

At the end of the stairs Justin stared in shock at Jimmy. He tried to escape through the window in the ground-floor, but now Jimmy blocked his way. Justin turned fast around and climbed out of the window. Trace jumped on the flat roof, as all buildings in the city of wonder had such a flat roof.

Justin was with his upper body already on it, when Jimmy grabbed Justin’s leg and tried to pull him down. Justin clamped at a little rope, which was going to be used, to climb on the roof to fix flaws and holes.

Jimmy pulled greater at Justin’s leg. Justin knew he couldn’t hold him a long time like this and he also heard the other soldiers coming up. When they arrived and could help Jimmy, he was going to be caught and he could live his life without his hands in the prison of the palace.

For a minute Justin was thinking about, because there he got food and a home. Before Justin could give up, Trace climbed over Justin’s leg on Jimmy’s arm and bite into it. Jimmy was crying out of pain and released Justin’s leg. Trace jumped back and Justin could climb completely on the roof, with Trace on his shoulder again.

“What would I do without you?” Trace made some noises to tell Justin something like ‘What are you waiting for? When you don’t start to move, they will catch us both’. You are right Justin said and jumped from this to the other roof. It was a distance of 2,5 meters, but Justin was accustomed to jump over roofs and he could jump more than 4 meters far.

What would he do without Trace? That was a question Justin asked himself pretty often. When he was fifteen, the Chinese zoo was in town. Trace was part of it. But the animals were treaten like shit. Justin couldn’t look away and at the night, he released all animals.

Trace was one of them. His circus act was to juggle balls and to ride horses. Justin always knew this monkey has to be smart. When Justin released Trace, this one jumped on his shoulder and since then he didn’t hover over him.

Surely Trace couldn’t speak, but Justin was sure, Trace understood everything he told him. And from time to time Justin understood the noises and Trace’s body language so good, he could nearly talk to him. That was the reason, why Justin started to talk with Trace, like he was a real human.

“He is jumping over the roves!” Jimmy screamed. Even when Justin was already three roves away, he could hear him without any problems. Jimmy had a real loud voice. He sent the other soldiers to the house at the end. They should climb on that roof and Jimmy would follow Justin the same way, Justin escaped.

Justin watched the others running to the last house of the row and Trace warned him at the same time that Jimmy was still behind them. “What shall we do? Fuck, what shall we do?” Justin started to panic.

Trace looked down from the roof and saw that some clotheslines were stretched between the houses. Trace jumped down and made his way over the lines. Shocked Justin watched down. When he saw, what Trace was doing he smiled and said: “Sometimes you are a real genius!” Then he jumped down, too. He let himself fall from one line to the next until he arrived the ground. Trace jumped back on Justin’s shoulder and both were winking at the soldiers, which were standing on the roof watching them.

“This time you escaped! But we will catch you one day! This is a promise!” Jimmy screamed down at Justin. Quickly Justin ran away, before the soldiers could come down.

He went directly to his own ‘apartment’, if you could call it like this. It was a ruin of the uppermost apartment. A part of the roof already collapsed and one of the walls was gone too. Justin barely hide the holes with tapestries and moved the boulders into a corner. The rest of the apartment was naked, except for some carpets and pillows, he has stolen from the market too. Some of them looked already completely ragged.

Trace jumped directly on his pillow and started to sleep.

“Yeah, get some rest my friend. This was a hard day.”

Justin pulled out the loaf out of his pants pocket. It almost moldered completely. Justin rolled his eyes and sight. “Better than nothing” he mumbled and sat down at the pillow next to the open wall. From this side he could directly look at the palace. The sunset let the palace shine in all his colors. Dreamily Justin starred at it.

“Someday we will live at this palace and never have to fight for our survival.” Then he started to eat the crumbs and left some for Trace.