I know more than one kid who is begging their parents to get them a pet, but their parents, especially their mother, say that they will be the ones stuck taking care of it. Pets are a lot of responsibility. I used to beg my parents for a dog. But I will not any more. And I will never, ever ask for a unicorn. I have one, and it’s a lot of work. I’ve almost died twice, and that was just this past month! You see, I found a unicorn in the woods. I really liked her, and for a while there, she was like my secret pet, that no one knew about. But then it all changed the day we were seen. You see, people thought the unicorn was a horse. Everyone was told to keep an eye out for her, and report to some sort of horse rescue if they saw her. The unicorn knew she was wanted, and so the day we were spotted, she bolted off with me on her back into the Land of Mythology and Beliefs, her own land. But people wanted her there, too, because she has magical powers. Here is a quick review of our life together so far. My unicorn pal was accidentally called out of Greek Mythology (my fault), befriended me (my fault on that one, too), bolted into her own land (not my fault), got kidnapped with me on a ship (thanks to me, as you have probably guessed), almost gotten wrecked with man-eating bird-women, almost falling off the edge of the world, then escaped the mouth of a sea serpent by the fraction of a hair, and finally living to tell the tale. To sum it all up, a lot has happened! And it is not over yet.
The last thing I remember was running across a bridge that was to take me from the Land of Mythology and Beliefs to my world. Now I am running through some woods. Trees and bushes and shrubs are all around me. I can hear hoofbeats beside me. It’s the unicorn. Her name is The Unicorn. She’s a unicorn. I don’t think The Unicorn’s mother was very creative with names. I stop running. The Unicorn does, too. “I must hurry home,” I tell her. “I have no idea how much time has passed since the time I left here. My family will be worried.”
The Unicorns shakes her head. She uses her unicorn horn to scratch a message to me in the grass and dirt. This is what it says. “Don’t worry, Miniature Girl. No one will be upset. Unless you tell them of our adventures. If you don’t say a word about your trip to my world, your folks will never know.”
“Why not?” I ask her. “Is time different in our two worlds?”
The Unicorn nods again. “Our worlds have different times,” she writes. “One minute in your world equals several days in my world.”
“But when you go back, what will happen? Will your herd of unicorns forget who you are?” I ask worriedly.
“Unicorns never forget,” The Unicorn writes solemnly.
“And is that a good thing?”
“Depends on what they remember. I’m not so good at unicorn relationships. But I do fine with girls like you.” She sort of smiles at me.
“I’m probably better with unicorns than people,” I tell her.
She smiles. “If you need to go home for the night, that’s all right. But be back here at five sharp in the morning. We will have a very busy day. If I am going to get back to my world, and you get everything back to normal in your world, we must work quickly.”
“But I have schoolwork!” I protest. Not that I’m a great fan of schoolwork, or anything. But I know it will be noticed if I don’t do my work. “And when you get back to your land, you will be stranded on the bridge between our two worlds, with that terrible sea serpent. You would never live to tell the tale!”
“First of all, you can catch up on work after I’m gone. And don’t worry, Miniature Girl. Pegasus, the flying horse, will take me home. Pegasus likes unicorns. Now get going! We can’t just stand here yacking until five-o’-clock tomorrow morning. Now get going!”
I hurry home and arrive just in time for dinner. As soon as dinner is done, I hop into bed. But I cannot sleep. I turn on my bedroom light and look at the sheep pictures on the walls of my bedroom. I try counting them. It doesn’t help. I realize something is bugging me. I think hard. That’s it! I should pack a bag with food for my day with The Unicorn tomorrow. Can’t traipse around in the woods on an empty stomach.
I hop out of bed and fill my backpack. I will take my compass of course, and my rain jacket. I check to see if my flashlight is already inside my pack. It is. Those few possesions don’t take up much space. I fill the rest of the pack with food and knives. I suppose you could eat a meal without a knife, but I like to always have one on hand. I place my bulging backpack at the bottom of my bed, and lay back down again.
Twenty minutes later, I am still not asleep. Something is still bugging me. It’s something about The Unicorn and me, something really important, just I can’t remember it. It really drives me nuts when that happens, because I know I won’t be getting any sleep until I figure out what it is. I stare at the ceiling for three-and-a-half minutes. No helpful thoughts come to me. I groan out loud, and climb out of bed once again. This time I log onto my computer, and something makes me think 0f the horse care website I foundso long ago. I stare at the screen for thirty-nine minutes. It’s an odd sort of stare. I’m staring directly at the computer screen, not at anything on the computer, like a horse picture or something. I know it’s strange, but it helps me think. My brain takes little pictures here and there of odd little unimportant things – unimportant at the time, anyways. Some of the pictures my brain takes are because I am scared. My mind scrolls through some of the most previous images. The most recent one is of the sea serpent I met in the Land of Mythology and Beliefs, the first time I saw him, with his bloodthirsty, beady black eyes, and his scaly head, his long, thin body. The next picture is of the sea serpent splintering the ship I was on. But I was some-what safely perched on the end of a bridge, so I got to watch it all. The next image is of endless ocean. I flip through the images one by one, studying each seperately. It surprises me to see that one of the older images is of the newspaper, the front cover. This image is so clear that I can even read the words. It’s about The Unicorn, warning citizens not to try to catch this “strange creature” by themselves, without the help of the local horse rescue, Heather’s Horse Haven (HHH). The newspaper reported that one person who had seen The Unicorn had said that she was fat. But she isn’t! That was certainly strange. Another image is of the computer screen, when I first began looking at the horse care website. I can see the place where you could submit your own horse questions, or read other people’s. Suddenly a thought occurs to me. What if the person who had seen us in the woods asked a question about The Unicorn on the horse care sight that I could view? That might give The Unicorn and I at least a clue on what the person had seen of us.
Turns out, the person did submit a question about The Unicorn and I. I read it quickly. This is what it says:
In my town, Tankerville, I have heard that there is a wild horse on the loose. I saw him in the woods with a little girl. The horse is Wanted by the peace officer of this town. What should I do? How can I catch that horse?
The question was not signed. The response to the question was lame. I did not even bother reading the second half of it.
When I return to bed, I fall asleep immediately.
The next morning I awake to an odd sound. Plink. Plink. Plink. It sounds like the sound is coming from my wall, near the window. Plink. Plink. I hop out of bed and push aside the window curtain. The Unicorn is outside, flicking pebbles at the window. I grab my bathrobe, and hold it in front of the window, using it as a white flag, waving it back and forth until the plinking stops, because I just don’t feel like sticking my head out the window and yelling, “Cease fire!“. I grab my backpack off the floor, and sneak out the back door. The Unicorn is not in sight. I hike into the woods a short ways, and sit down on a tree stump. I have found out that the best way to catch a unicorn is to let it come to you. In no time, a white shape comes crashing through the woods toward me. Her face shows annoyance. Yes, unicorns do have facial expressions, and right now she is frowning at me, and shaking her head. She is saying, “You’re late, missy!”
I laugh. I cannot help it. Ever since our first conversation in the Land of Mythology and Beliefs, I have been able to understand her body language better. I suppose words really do make a huge difference. “Where to first?” I ask her.
“Breakfast first,” she writes.
For those of you who like to learn new codes, this is what she wrote. You can learn how to write and read the code in The Unicorn Puzzle, part two, The Writing of The Unicorn.
♦2 ♣6 ♦5 ♦1 ♥5 ♦6 ♦1 ♠1 ♠2
♦6 ♥3 ♣6 ♠1 ♠2
I pull a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my backpack and take a bite. The Unicorn snuffles at it, then shakes her head, as if she’s trying to get a fly out of her forelock. I can tell she doesn’t like the smell. So, note to self, pbj sandwiches and unicorns do not mix. While I eat, The Unicorn explains why she dragged me all the way out here at five in the morning. “It all starts with my history,” she writes. “All the herds of unicorns that roam about the land where I came from know about and have thought about your world. They have wondered if life would be better here. But no unicorn has ever been able before to get into this world, because they have not been directly called. I belong to a herd of unicorns in the Land of Mythology and Beliefs. I too have wondered. I knew I was going to have a foal soon. I wanted to see if that little foal would do better here. So when I was called and invited into this land, I did not wait until the foal was born. It was a chance that no other unicorn had ever had. So I took the risk.”
“But where’s your unicorn foal?” I interrupt her. “Don’t you need to take care of her?”
“I’m not finished.” The Unicorn scowls at me for a moment before continuing. “I foaled (gave birth to) my foal here.” She sighs before going on. “But I lost him.”
“When?” I ask her.
“The day I tried to cross the street. It didn’t go so well. I whinnied to him to run, so he bolted. I don’t know where he’s gotten off to. I cannot leave him behind here to fend for himself. Please try to help me.”
“I will try,” I tell her. “So, basically, here is a review of what you just said. You thought the grass would be greener over here in my world, but you found out the hard way that it isn’t. Your foal ran off, and now you cannot find him. You want to go back to your land with your foal, and you need my help.”
The Unicorn nods.
I grin. “Where should we begin?”
The Unicorn is clueless.
So am I.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look at the news,” I say slowly.
“What noose?” The Unicorn exclaims. At least, that’s what I think she’s trying to communicate. The Unicorn exclaims things by writing in our secret code so fast and so messy that I can barely read what she writes.
“Not noose, news,” I explain. “You know, the current events that are taking place, will take place, and have taken place.”
The Unicorn does not look delighted at this news (not noose). She sighs. “You are just confusing me more.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Unicorns,” I mutter just loudly enough for The Unicorn to hear it.
Twenty minutes later we have not gotten much farther.
“Last night,” I tell The Unicorn, “I was looking at the news.” I pause a moment to see if The Unicorn is listening. She is. Her ears are pricked somewhat forward..
“And…”
“And,” I continue, now satisfied, “I found out more about what the man in the woods saw of us.”
Now I have The Unicorn’s full attention.
“From what I read, I conclude that the person who saw us is as clueless about catching runaway horses and unicorns as I was when I first met you.”
I can see her eyebrows raise – if she has eyebrows, of course.
“Also, I believe – ”
The Unicorn interrupts me with an annoyed snort. “Beliefs, conclusions, etc.. Why can’t you just tell me the plain facts without any of your personal beliefs?”
I sigh, but I tell her what I read. When I am finished, The Unicorn sighs. Then her eyes light up.
“Mini Girl, where did you get that information?”
“A horse care site. There was a link to it on the website for Heather’s Horse Haven. It’s a horse rescue.”
The Unicorn exclaims something. I have no idea what she wrote, but she sure is excited about something!
“Where is the horse rescue?” Her writing is barely readable.
“I – uh – there was a map.” I say it like it’s a question, but it’s really not.
“Where?”
“Online, on the website.”
“Where can we get that map printed out? Can we at least see it?”
“Well,” I begin slowly, and as a plan forms in my head, I begin to speed up, “I might be able to get online on the library computer, and I might even be able to print the map out on their printer!”
The Unicorn sighs. “How many?”
“How many what?”
“Years as an indentured servant/slave for the map to be printed out? It’s got to cost something!”
“Hmmm… You have a point.”
“But,” continues The Unicorn, “twenty pounds of food from your backpack might do the trick.”
“But I need that food!” I protest. “Girl does not live on bread alone!”
The Unicorn rolls her eyes at me. “You will be fine. Besides, you’re only a few yards from civilization. You could go door to door, begging for food, if you really needed it. Go over to the library. Get the map, even if you have to put the cost on your credit card.”
“I don’t even have a credit card.”
The Unicorn continues as if she hadn’t heard me. “I will be waiting here for you to return, counting off the minutes using blades of grass. One blade of grass,” chomp chomp, “two blades of grass,” chomp chomp, “three blades of grass…”
I leave her chomping away, and head toward the library.
The library in our town is the third smallest library in the entire world. It only has one room. In that room is a desk, on which is a phone, one of the old kinds that you have to spin to dial. It is truly an accomplishment if you can get that thing to work. On that desk is also a computer and a stack of paper, and two pencils. All of those things are open to the public. There is a printer in the corner. The walls are quite well visible, even though the shelves for all the library books are on it. There are about seventy books in our little library system, and half of them are always checked out. The library is open between five-o’-clock a.m. and nine p.m.. Four people in the town I live in take turns throughout the day being the librarian. Right now Mrs. FootKnee is the librarian.
“Good morning, Mrs. FootKnee,” I say cheerfully as I walk over to the desk. There are no chairs, which encourages people to spend as little time as possible hoarding the desk.
“Good mornin’ to you, too,” Mrs. FootKnee says, without even bothering to look up from the stack of books she is sorting. It isn’t really that hard to sort the books at our library. We don’t use the Dewey Decimal System like other libraries. All we do is sort books into non-fiction and fiction piles, and put them on the shelves.
I turn on the computer and go straight to the horse rescue website. I print the map without even bothering to ask permission. When you want to print something out at our library, you can just print it without even having to tell anyone. Then you put the money for whatever you printed out in the charity box by the door, along with a donation, sometimes. The rich lady in our town bought the printer for us, and supplies the ink. She just wants us to put stuff in the charity box. I take the map to the rescue from the printer, and drop my entire bag in the charity box, just for good measure. No one can accuse me of not paying now!
I’m almost all the way out the door when Mrs. FootKnee calls me back. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she says to me.
I have no idea what I am forgetting, so I just shrug. “What did I forget, Mrs. FootKnee?”
“You have an overdue item, dearie.” She fakes a frown at me. But I know she’s happy. The fines for overdue items are expensive, and the librarian that collects the money gets to keep it. It’s supposed to be like their pay for running the library and going to the “trouble” to fine you.
I sigh. “How much?”
“Three dollars a day for an overdue item.” She grins at me. “Your book has been overdue for two weeks now, exactly fourteen days. Do the math, dearie.”
I don’t even bother doing the math. I just know off the top of my head that it’s a lot.
“And,” continues Mrs. FootKnee, “it says in the rule book that one cannot use the phone, the printer, or the computer if you have an overdue item. If you try to use them before you pay your fines, you are to be charged extra.”
I know the first part is true, I have a copy of the rule book at home, which had cost me twenty-five bucks. But I’m not sure if the second part is true. “And where does the money go that the library collects? The extra charge for breaking the rules and using the printer and everything, I mean.”
“To me, of course.” Mrs. FoorKnee smiles sweetly in my direction.
“I will pay all those fees when I have the money with me.”
And with that I stomp out of the library. Made-up rules! It just makes me angry. Why can’t all the money for fees go toward paying for new library books? Why can’t the librarians’ work just be volunteer work? But at least I have the map.
The Unicorn is grazing when I get back to the woods.
“What took you so long?” she scolds me.
I sigh. “The librarian there couldn’t have been any more helpful,” I say sarcastically. “But hey, I got the map!”
“Good. Do you know how to read maps?”
Wow. I was so focused on getting the map that I didn’t even think about asking Mrs. FootKnee about how to read maps. But, of course, the most important thing was getting out of the library in one piece, and that in itself was a hard enough task to accomplish. “Do you know how to read maps?” I ask The Unicorn hopefully.
She doesn’t even bother writing out her answer in code. She just shakes her head “no“.
Oh boy. We’re really in trouble if neither one of us can read maps.
“Do you know anyone who would help you read the map?” The Unicorn suggests.
I shake my head. “I don’t know who I could ask.”
“What if you asked the owner of the hardware store?”
“I don’t even know her!” I protest. “She might want to capture us, like what happened in your land. I don’t know if anyone would feed me then, you being the most valuable one of us two.”
The Unicorn sighs heavily. “It’s worth the risk. Besides, I’m not coming into the hardware store with you. Can you meet me back here?”
I sigh, too. “Sure. I guess so. What can we lose – or rather what can I lose – besides my head?” I say sarcastically, and hurry back into town.
I enter the hardware store. It smells of oil – oily oil.
The lady at the front desk greets me like she has never had anyone in her shop for ages. Actually, considering the small number of items up for sale in her tiny store, I wouldn’t be surprised if she really hasn’t had anyone in her shop for ages.
“Welcome, welcome!” she cries as if she has been finally found after being stranded on an island for two weeks.
“Oh, uh, hello?” I reply nervously.
“I am so glad you came!”
“Um, you are?” Has this lady gone mad, or is she just really super excited about seeing another human being? I have no idea.
“I have been waiting for you for centuries!”
Okay, she really has gone mad. But even so, can’t she tell that I haven’t even been alive for two decades? No wonder she has been waiting for me for so long! Poor lady.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need help reading a map.”
Her face falls. “Just a map?” she asks me, as if she hopes she didn’t hear right the first time.
I nod. “It’s really important.”
“All right.”
I hand her the map. “I need to know how to get to the horse rescue. It’s marked on the map with a big “x“,” I explain.
“Oh, okay.” She turns the map around in her hands. “Which way us up? I mean north,” she quickly corrects herself.
“North? I don’t know! That’s what I need help with.”
She looks at me as if I am the crazy one now. “What do they teach you in those schools?”
“Well,” I tell her, “I can read any map of say, Kansas. But I don’t know what to do with Google maps. They’re just plain confusing. All you can see is trees. On that map they don’t even have the roads marked, and there isn’t a compass rose.”
“Oh,” she says. “Sorry, kid, but I’m not the one to help you with this.”
If she’s been waiting for me for centuries, she should at least know my name! I sigh. Now I am back to where I started when I first came into the store.
I hurry back into the woods to see what The Unicorn has been up to in my absence. As I hurry down the main road that weaves all around town, I spot a truck, towing a horse trailer. On the side of the truck are three letter, all capitals – “HHH“. Above the letters is an upside-down horseshoe with an “H” in middle. And that truck is heading toward the woods.
I hurry ahead of them, running all the way. I must warn The Unicorn. She is grazing on the plentiful, lush grass in a clearing. We need to get as far away from this clearing as possible, and it would be very good if we can get out of these woods unnoticed.
“We must go away!” I cry. “We cannot stay here!”
The Unicorn shoves me urgently with her nose. I mount, and we bolt off together. No one can catch us now – I hope, anyways.
The Unicorn slows her pace only when we are far away from the woods. “What do we do now?” She is breathing hard.
I take a deep breath. “I must go back. It is our only hope of finding out where the rescue is.”
The Unicorn nods her head.
I hurry back toward the woods.
The first thing I see is the truck with the trailer. Four people are having a group talk. “Where is the rescue?” I ask them boldly.
A dark-haired woman answers me – at least I think she has dark hair. It looks reddish-brown to me in the bright sunlight. She smiles. “HHH is about fifteen miles down the road. Just follow the road until you get there. The barn is a bright red, three stories high. Can’t miss it.”
I nod. “Thanks.” I turn to leave.
“Oh, have you seen a white horse around here lately?” she calls to me.
“Sorry, ma’m. Ain’t not never seen no white horse. Good day!” I hurry away to meet The Unicorn.
The Unicorn raises her head long before I can clearly see her. It’s probably because she can smell me. The wind is blowing against my back.
“Any good results?” she asks me, and tilts her head to the side in a funny, little way.
I grin. “The rescue is down the road a bit of ways.”
The Unicorn glances behind me. “We must get to the rescue before they do.”
It seems that it only takes seconds before we arrive at the rescue. The Unicorn is going to wait for me on the side of the road while I go check out the place and find where The Unicorn’s foal is. Then I must come back and report. We will go and get the foal, then they both will leave my world forever.
The first thing I see as I walk up the lane is a big, red house. A fenced-in pasture circles the house. There are about a dozen horses in the pasture. The door of the house is propped open. It is as big as a barn door. As I walk up to the house, I see an enormous old horse coming out of the house. Hmmm. That’s odd. Or is the house really a barn in disguise?
A young woman comes out of the building to greet me. “Hello.” She smiles, and extends her hand.
I shake it.
“Would you like any help?”
“Oh, yes, please. I have a foal that ran away from me about four months ago. Have you seen him? Is he here?”
“Do you have a photograph of this missing foal, do you know what color he is, does he have any markings?”
“I – can you just tell me if you have any foals around here?”
“Sorry. Can’t give information out that freely. We must really have a discription of the horse. Many a person has tried to steal a horse from us like this.”
Just then I hear a truck rattling up the drive. I turn. It’s the truck that was over by the woods.
The woman that I saw earlier, the one who gave me directions to the rescue, hops out. The other workers follow.
“Anything?” the young woman who I’m talking with calls to them.
“No horse, no money from the town, nothing.” The lady who I’d seen earlier grins. “But I did get some good exercise! What’s up, Merry?”
Merry gestures to me. “This here cowgirl claims to have lost a foal, but she can’t even tell me what it looks like, or anything, Heather!”
I don’t like the way she says “claims“.
“I’m sorry if my daughter here has been a bit rude to you.” Heather gives my hand a good, firm shake. “It’s just that, the last time anyone came around here asking about a foal, they were here to steal it.”
I nod.
“But I can tell you right here and right now that there are no foals out here.”
I nod again.
“Would you like to come up to the house and write a paper up about your missing foal? That way we can notify you if any horse of your discription comes by this place.”
“Um, where is your house?”
“The house?” Heather looks at me as if I’m crazy not to know where the house is. “It’s right over there.” She points at the barn. “The first floor of the barn is used for the horses, the second floor is the hayloft, and the third floor is where me and my family lives. I have a son, Colt, and my daughter, Meridith, whom you have already met. My other kids have moved out of the house. All my kids are adopted.”
I follow her through the paddock and into the barn-house. There are two rows of horse stalls along the longest walls. Some contain horses, but most do not. A young boy is grooming a reddish-brown horse that I think would be called a chestnut.
“That’s Colt,” she explains.
We climb a ramp up to the hay loft.
“HHH is not only a horse rescue, it is also part of a theraputic riding program. No stairs in case of a wheelchair.” She smiles at me.
The difference between the third floor of the house and the second floor is enough to knock you off your feet. The second floor contains hay bales, and has red walls, but the third floor walls are painted yellow, and horse pictures hang all over the walls. Most pictures are signed “Heather”. We walk down a main hallway, with doors on either side of us. We pass about three doors before turning to go into a little room. It is very tiny, about the size of a bathroom, without a bath or shower. It is filled with filing cabinets.
Heather goes over to one of the cabinets and pulls on one of the drawer handles. It refuses to budge. Heather sighs. “Merry must have locked all the cabinets. Now where’s that key? I just had it a few minutes ago.” A few seconds later she reaches her hand into her right pants pocket. “Oh, here it is! How silly of me.”
She unlocks the drawer and pulls a folder from it. She hands the folder to me. It is bulging with papers. I do not have time to fill out all this! Much to my relief, Heather takes the folder from me and pulls out a piece of paper. “Here. Fill this out. Now where did I put my pens? I just had them a moment ago…” She reaches into her left pants pocket. “Oh, here they are! How silly of me.”
I take the form and the handful of pens she offers me, and wait for her to pull a clipboard from a back pants pocket. But she does not, so I just begin filling out the form. A few minutes later, I hand it back to Heather and make my escape.
The Unicorn is waiting impatiently for me. “Where have you been all this time? Did you find the foal?”
I sigh and shake my head. “There were no foals there. What do we do now?”
But even The Unicorn is clueless about our next step.
A car whizzes by us at about ten hundred miles per hour. Suddenly I get an idea. What if one of the workers has the foal? He would know how to care for the foal, I think. And he could get lots of money for the foal, because unicorn foals are scarcely ever seen around here. Or he could make people pay to see his unicorn. Or..
But I have no time for such random thoughts as these. We must follow that truck! I jump up onto The Unicorn’s back. “After him!” I command. The Unicorn bolts after the truck, as if our lives depend upon it.
The truck runs. The Unicorn runs. We do not stop until the truck stops in front of an apartment building. Behind it is woods. I slide down from The Unicorn’s back, and follow the worker who is heading around the apartment, away from the apartment door. Where is he going? He is heading straight into the woods. How could he hide a unicorn in the woods? The same way that I had? But The Unicorn had stayed in our woods out of free will. How is this man keeping the foal contained? Does he even have the foal? There are way too many unanswered questions.
We follow the man into the woods a long way. Finally he stops in a clearing. A woman with giant, puffy lips is sitting on a tree stump. Laying across her feet is a small, white thing that looks sort of like a cotton ball. A horn is sticking out of the “cotton ball’s” forehead. Yup. It’s a unicorn, there is no doubt about that. The woman has stolen the little unicorn’s heart. It loves her.
Puffy-lip Woman scowls at Unicorn Thief Man. “You are late.” It is a very declarative sentence. Maybe I should call her Bold Puffy-lip Woman instead of just plain Puffy-lip Woman.
Unicorn Thief glares at the cotton ball unicorn. “When can I start getting money for that beast?”
How dare he call The Unicorn’s foal a beast? I glare at him, hoping that he will feel the heat of my stare.
“You mean we get money,” Puffy-lip corrects him.
“Fine. Whatever.”
“Remember our deal?” Puffy-lip looks mad enough to throw a fit!
Unicorn Thief sighs. “Yeah.”
“Our deal was that if I took care of it, then you would organize the money-making events, and we would split the money.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Well, start planning!” Puffy-lip demands. “Right now!”
“Right now, or later right now?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, when we’re at the mall, searching for dull hats for you, you say,” Unicorn Thief clears his throat and speaks in a very high and whiny tone of voice, imitating her perfectly, “”We’re leaving right now, so hurry up.”. Then we stay at the mall for ten more hours before we are finally kicked out by the manager at closing time. When you speak to me at the mall, you mean to say “later right now“, not “right now“.”
“I have never done anything like that!” Puffy-lip’s eyes go from being round in surprise, to angry little slits. “Name one time I have ever done that to you.”
“Well,” says Unicorn Thief, now looking a bit scared, “th-there was that time last week. It was a Wednesday, I remember…” His voice trails off as Puffy-lip Woman jumps to her feet, knocking the little unicorn foal over onto its back.
The foal tries to push Puffy-lip back down. Puffy-lip grabs him by the horn and throws him to the ground.
“Cotton Ball!” I cry. Without stopping to think, I run across the clearing to the little white figure, lying on the ground, motionless. He stares back at Puffy-lip.
I can just imagine his thoughts. “Why did you do that?” he must be thinking. “What have I ever done to you? Do you not like me anymore?” I imagine little unicorn tears sliding down his cheek.
The Unicorn must have followed me across the clearing. She nuzzles her foal. It squirms and looks up at her. Then his eyes brighten up, and he scrambles to her feet, recognizing his mother. They nicker quietly to each other.
I look back at Puffy-lip and Unicorn Thief, but I do not see them. Oh no. This can mean only one thing – trouble. They are sneaking up behind The Unicorn and Cotton Ball. Unicorn Thief has a rope, and Puffy-lip is holding a net. “Quick!” I shout to the unicorns. “Run! The Unicorn, Cotton Ball, run for your lives!”
The Unicorn and Cotton Ball bolt, galloping at top speed across the clearing. Then they just disappear. And I know that they are gone forever, back to the place where they truly belong, back to the Land of Mythology and Beliefs. I am not sure, but as I stand here, I think I can hear a whinny coming from far beyond, a whinny saying, “Thank you, Miniature Girl! Thank you very much.”
I return home, and head straight up to my room. Beside the unicorn puzzle on the floor is something new. I lean down, and pick it up. It’s the missing puzzle piece, the one of a unicorn. But not just one unicorn – a unicorn and its foal. I smile, and put it into its proper place in the puzzle, to fill the empty space. Having a unicorn was not that bad at all, it was actually fun. I do not need to worry about them, they will be all right. Pegasus will take them home, The Unicorn told me herself once. But unicorns need to stay in their proper place – the Land of Mythology and Beliefs. And I need to stay here. But maybe someday, someday, we will visit each other, and see each other again. This is certainly not the end – it is just the beginning.
Read The Unicorn Puzzle, part one, Minny Had a Unicorn, and read The Unicorn, part two, The Writing of the Unicorn.
If you have enjoyed reading this story, you may also like to read Tilda’s Babyshower Blues, by Min Sullivan.
