" Why should I do this?"Ali Baba groaned as he used the stick in his hand to stir a small cloud of dust.
" Stop it," Zarqa demanded, coughing and flapping her hand as if to try to keep the sand from her face. " Erasing them means repeating them!" She pointed an accusing finger at him and the boy sighed but did as he was told.
Using the long stick at hand he traced the same pattern on the sand time and again, he was practicing writing letters. " I still don't get the use of this?" He complained again.
" So you can learn how to read and write," she replied.
Another thing she had taken upon herself was to teach Ali Baba. The boy refused crossly to be put through that much, wasn't it for Sindbad who made sure he had no escape route.
" And what use would that prove?" He tried to argue for the hundredth time.
" So next time we need help deciphering a riddle, you can afford it," Zarqa pointed.
