Ali Baba was such a poor man
that he had only one shoe for his two
feet. Even the mice in his house were
hungry.
One day, his wife said, "We have no
food in the house. No rice. No potatoes.
Go and collect leaves in the forest so
that I can make a soup."
Ali was a lazy man. He looked for
leaves for about ten minutes and then
he climbed a tree to sleep. He was
afraid of wolves. When he woke up,
he was surprised to see forty thieves
on forty horses. They stopped in front
of a big rock.
"Open Sesame!" shouted the leader.
A door on the rock opened. The thieves
carried sacks full of gold into the cave.
When they had finished, the leader
shouted.
"Close Sesame!" and the door
closed. As soon as the thieves had
disappeared Ali Baba jumped down
from the tree, said, "Open Sesame" and
went into the cave.
There were shelves all around the
walls. The shelves were full of sacks.
And the sacks were full of gold. Ali
took a sack home with him.
Unfortunately, one of the thieves
saw Ali's footprints on the sand. He
followed them to Ali's home. He took
out his knife and made a cross on the
door.
"Now I shall know which house it
is," he said.
He rode off to get the other thieves.
But Ali had seen the thief.
He and his wife took brooms and
swept away the footprints. Then he
made crosses on every door at the
street. When the forty thieves arrived
they had their knives between their
teeth. But they couldn't fi nd either Ali
– or the gold. And Ali and his wife lived
happily ever after.
Taken from Addison–Wesley Kids 4, 1990
