They listened for the sound of voices, but heard only snorting noises, and the occasional loud bang, as if something was crashing against the log walls.
“They’re in there, Lewis,” she whispered. She’d never felt so certain of anything in her life. The air surged with expectation. They were in there, and they were waiting for her and Lewis to let them out.
She was about to go further when Lewis grabbed her jacket. “Stop there, Rhona. That fence is electrified. We’ll need to try and crawl underneath it.”
She looked again at the fence. It seemed so flimsy. But if it was electrified, getting the unicorns out was going to be impossible. They couldn’t crawl underneath and it looked far too high to jump.
Cautiously, desperately afraid in case her puffy jacket should come in contact with the wire, she rolled under it and Lewis followed, slithering snake-like.
“There must be an entrance round the other side,” whispered Lewis. “We need to find it.”
The logs had been driven into the ground edge to edge, but there were narrow gaps here and there. Rhona peered through one of the slits, her curiosity to see unicorns overcoming her fear.
It was like watching a flickering black-and-white movie. Inside the stockade, everything was monochrome, a moving blend of greys, white and jet-black. She gulped and stepped back a little, overwhelmed by the impression of constant movement, of sharp horns, large beasts turning this way and that, too close for comfort, eyes rolling, lips curling in fear. Up close, the unicorns’ pent-up rage and terror was disturbing.
There was nothing cute about the unicorns in that stockade, no rainbow manes, glittery eyelashes or plaited tails. She could sense their hope of release, flickering like light through the bars. All these unicorns wished for was their freedom, to go home to their enchanted forest, and to live in peace.
Lewis’s shout made her jump.
“The doors are here! They’re barred, and padlocked. I don’t think we’ll—”
She continued round, following the sound of his voice, until he spoke again, in a very different tone.
“Oh, hi there! You couldn’t tell me how to get to the toilets, could you? I’ve managed to get totally lost!”
Rhona froze, her back pressed against the stockade, wishing she could merge with its wooden walls. Behind her, the unicorns had gone still, as if they were listening too.
Ailsa’s voice cut through the silence. “So lost that you crawled under an electric fence?”
“You’re kidding! Is the fence electrified? I had no idea. Wow, wasn’t it lucky that I didn’t electrocute myself?”
“Members of the public are strictly prohibited from entering this area of the estate. You’ve walked for miles out of your way. Can’t you read signs, you stupid brat?”
“I can read perfectly well, thanks, but I’m desperate for a pee and I’d be really grateful if you’d tell me the way to the toilets.”
There was another long silence, broken only by one of the unicorns breathing down its long nose close to Rhona’s ear. Even through the bars of the stockade she could feel its power, its wild magic, and it made her shiver.
When Ailsa spoke again, her voice dripped icicles. “I know who you are. You’re not fooling anyone. Where’s your wee fat friend? Is she sneaking around too? You’re both trespassing, and around here, trespassers get shot.”
Rhona scowled.
Fat! Cheeky so-and-so. That polite act with Mr Deacon was pure fakery.
A massive bang split the still air.
For a terrible moment Rhona thought Lewis had been killed, but then she saw him rolling under the fence, haring across the grass towards the cover of the trees. She ran for the fence too, scrambling under, her breath coming in panicky bursts. As she raced into the woodland and crashed through the undergrowth, her heart banging against her ribs, she could hear the trapped unicorns bellowing, their hooves clattering against the walls of the stockade.
15
Lewis
Lewis’s heart was pounding against his ribs.
Ailsa would have pulled the trigger. I was about to die…
Rhona caught up with him and they hurried together in grim, determined silence, focused on escape. The thickness of the undergrowth made running hard work.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the wood, Lewis’s lungs were bursting. When they neared the big house they slowed to a jog, which they kept up until they were out of the main gates of Langcroft and back on the moorland road.
Even then they walked fast, though Rhona’s cheeks were crimson blotches, her breathing ragged. They strode until she bent double, clutching her side.
“I’ve got a gowpin’ stitch. I need to stop.”
She flung herself down on the damp grass, exhausted. For a couple of minutes, she lay, breathing hard, and then got back on her feet. “OK, sorted. What happened back there? I thought you were a goner!”
“Ailsa pointed the gun at me. Maybe she was just trying to scare me, but I really thought she was going to shoot. Then one of unicorns went nuts. It made this trumpeting noise, like an elephant, and its hooves crashed against the walls, so hard one of the logs split and came down on Ailsa’s arm. She fell and I ran for it. I don’t know if she got hurt.”
“Wow. You owe your life to a unicorn. That’s pretty amazing.”
Lewis nodded, and then felt guilt creep over him. “I’m really sorry I ran off and didn’t check you were following me. I kind of assumed…”
“You did the right thing. I was hardly going to wait around for Ailsa to start shooting, was I? I don’t need you to be flamin’ Prince Charming, Lewis. I’m no’ Cinder-ruddy-ella.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “It’s no’ right, Lewis. We can’t let that girl get away with it. We have to do something. We have to get the unicorns away from her!”
He nodded. Fear squirmed, an eel in his chest. He looked down at the nasty scratch on the back of his hand. He was lucky that the scratch was his only injury. But despite his fear, he agreed with Rhona. Ailsa couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. They had to try and rescue the unicorns. But how?
“Look, there’s the bus!” shouted Rhona, pointing ahead. It was rumbling towards the Outdoor Centre. “They’re all back from the gorge walk. We’d better run.”
Rhona and Lewis reached the car park as the rest of the group were jumping down from the bus, chattering excitedly about their day out. They mingled with the others, and Mr Deacon barely noticed their arrival because Miss James was telling him all about Derek’s disastrous attempt to climb up the side of the gorge. She looked shattered, and Lewis had a feeling this might be the last time she volunteered to go on a residential trip.
“First thing I knew of it was when I heard this massive splash,” she said, sounding close to tears. “He was lucky he wasn’t swept downstream to his death. How I’d have explained that to his mother, I don’t know!”
“I don’t suppose ‘It served him right’ would have been good enough for his doting parent, but it would have been accurate,” sighed Mr Deacon.
Derek poured muddy water from his wellies onto the gravel.
Dinner was delicious: lasagne and chips, followed by caramel shortcake and custard. The fantastic food was almost enough to make Lewis reconsider his dislike of residential trips. Hardly anyone spoke during the meal. They all seemed shattered after the gorge walk, and Ellie Morris nearly fell asleep in her bowl of custard. It was so oddly quiet that even a whispered conversation with Rhona was out of the question. Lewis shovelled food into his mouth and tried to come up with a plan, but he seemed to be right out of ideas.
Face facts, he thought miserably. You can’t do this. You made a promise to the unicorn you aren’t going to be able to keep.
For an hour after dinner, the pupils read or played board games in the common room. Lewis, unable to focus on either his book or his worries, watched Derek and Tariq play a noisy game of Jenga. Then Scott wheeled out the karaoke machine and Mr Deacon began murdering ‘My Way’ and a mi
llion other songs from the olden days. Lewis sat beside Rhona on a couch and kept glancing out of the windows, looking for inspiration in the starlit sky. But it wasn’t forthcoming.
“I can’t listen to any more of this mince,” muttered Derek, who was sitting opposite, throwing Maltesers in the air and catching them in his mouth. He leapt up, wrestled the mike from Mr Deacon and sang a surprisingly tuneful rendition of ‘Caledonia’, but he’d scarcely finished when Mr Deacon grabbed the microphone back.
“I almost forgot to say! I’ve got terrific news for you all!” he bawled. “I’ve managed to wangle an invite to the Langcroft Estate tomorrow for some team-building activities! Isn’t that fantastic?”
He beamed, clearly very impressed with himself, but the reaction was rather muted. Everyone else seemed too exhausted to relish the prospect of team-building activities in the morning. But Lewis felt a current of excitement shoot up his spine, and when he looked at Rhona she was sitting up straighter, a massive grin spreading across her face.
“I can’t believe I’d forgotten,” she whispered. “We’re going back to Langcroft in the morning. We’ve got another chance!”
Lewis grinned too. Ideas were whizzing around his brain like racing bikes on a circuit.
We can go back to the stockade… We can break down the doors… We can free the unicorns… But how?
Mr Deacon was still yelling into the microphone.
“Someone really ought to explain to him how microphones work,” Lewis groaned, but Rhona shushed him.
“It’s quiz time!” she yelled. “Derek, Ellie, get yourselves over here. You can be part of team Ginger Ninjas!”
Lewis sighed and took one of the quiz sheets from Max’s hand. How was he supposed to focus on the unicorns and do a stupid quiz?
But it turned out to be great fun, in a fiercely competitive sort of way. The article he’d read in the magazine was really useful during the ‘all about Scotland’ round, and he excelled during the art and literature round. Derek was brilliant at answering music and sport questions, and Ellie seemed to know everything about animals and science. Rhona didn’t answer many questions, but she wrote down the answers in her untidy scrawl and whooped enthusiastically every time their team won a point, much to Flora’s obvious annoyance. By the end of the final round, their team was neck and neck with Flora’s.
“Right, guys,” shouted Scott. “Tie-breaker question! A herd of cows… A flock of sheep… What do we call a group of unicorns?”
“That’s not fair,” whined Flora, throwing down her pencil. “Unicorns aren’t real animals!”
Lewis bit his lip, annoyed with himself for having no idea.
Derek nudged Ellie. “You’re the animal expert, Ell.”
Ellie shrugged helplessly. “Haven’t the foggiest.”
Rhona was sitting quietly for once, chewing the end of the pencil. Suddenly she scribbled on the quiz sheet, jumped up and threw herself across the room.
Scott held up their paper.
“Correct answer. A blessing of unicorns! The Ginger Ninjas win tonight’s quiz. Come and get your prize, guys!”
Flora glowered and muttered about cheating, while Derek punched the air, his face glowing with delight.
“Ya dancer! I’ve never won anything in my whole life! This is the best week ever!”
As they collected their box of chocolates, Lewis flung his arm round Rhona’s shoulder.
“That was amazing! How on earth did you know the answer to that one?” he asked.
Rhona laughed. “I was thinking about unicorns and the word ‘blessing’ popped into my brain. Weird, but like you said, good weird. We won! Class bit of teamwork, wasn’t it?”
“I bagsy the strawberry creams!” yelled Derek, holding the chocolate box up like a trophy. “We are the champions!”
When the time came for lights out, the excitement of winning the quiz was beginning to fizzle out, and as Lewis lay in the darkness, a sense of hopelessness settled over him like fog. Teamwork might have helped this evening, but even if he had a crack SAS team at his disposal, he knew he’d still be struggling to come up with a plan to rescue the unicorns.
16
Lewis
In the early morning Lewis was woken by Max, banging on the door.
“Time to get up, lads! Exciting day ahead!”
Exciting didn’t exactly cover it. Terrifying… dangerous… life-threatening…
In the harsh light of day it seemed as if he’d taken on too big a challenge. He pulled the duvet over his head.
Then he felt the duvet being tugged upwards, a blast of cold air. His roommate Kyle was standing by the bed, his face screwed up with anger. He shouted, right in Lewis’s face, “Get up, will you! We’ll lose points to the girls if your bed isn’t made.”
Kyle whipped Lewis’s pillow from under his head. Lewis grabbed it back, so fast the pillowcase fabric ripped. He tucked it back under his head. “Um, who cares about stupid points?”
“Come on! Be fair. Why do you have to be like this?” Kyle snatched at the duvet and pulled it right off the bed.
Angry now, Lewis tried to retrieve his covers, but Kyle called for reinforcements and his mates Ben and Tariq rushed over. Tariq grabbed the back of Lewis’s T-shirt and started to haul him from the bed while he wriggled and struggled. Ben and Kyle took a leg each, dragged him off the bed and plonked him down on the floor.
Kyle looked down at Lewis, his lip curled, trying to look tough. “We care, loser.”
“Yes, and that’s entirely up to you,” said Lewis, sitting up, trying to maintain his dignity. “But I’m not interested in your petty point-scoring. It’s totally lame.”
The three boys circled him. Kyle looked like he’d happily murder him, but Tariq just looked baffled.
“I don’t get it,” he said, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Why do you always want to ruin things for everyone? What the heck is wrong with you, Lewis?”
Lewis scrambled to his feet, held up his hands. “Um, overreaction here, guys?”
Kyle threw the pillow at him and it bounced off his head.
“Oi, that’s enough.”
They all spun round. Mr Deacon was standing in the doorway. Derek McIvor was behind him, shuffling anxiously from foot to foot. Lewis realised he’d been rescued by Derek the Dweeb.
“Look at the state of this place,” said Mr Deacon. “Put that bedding back. Lewis, get dressed.”
“That was always the plan,” grumbled Lewis. “I was just waiting for this lot to back off.”
“Right now, Lewis!”
Despite being chilled to the bone in his T-shirt and boxers, he took his time in getting dressed and wandered down to the breakfast room a good five minutes after everyone else. He didn’t want them to think they’d won. Rhona waved at him, gestured towards a chair. He sat down, still seething.
“You’d think group points were life and death, the way they carry on.”
Rhona shot him a look. “Have you been annoying the other lads again?” she sighed. “Why don’t you just play along, Lewis?”
“I prefer to do my own thing. What’s so wrong with that, eh?”
Rhona clicked her tongue. “It doesn’t hurt to think of other people sometimes.”
“Good news, kids!” Scott stood up, smiling his toothpaste-advert smile. “I’ve had a phone call from Alex McAllister at Langcroft, firming up our invitation. We’re going to take part in a raft-building challenge! Finish up your brekkie and go get on your gear!”
Lewis sighed. “It’ll be OK. Or at least, the stupid raft-building challenge will be hellish, but among the others we’ll be safe enough from Ailsa.”
As the minibus rumbled along the single-track road, he stared out of the window, still trying to come up with a plan. How could he get the unicorns out of the stockade and over an electric fence? It wasn’t possible.
He shuddered, reliving those terrifying seconds when he’d stood at the stockade, helpless, while Ailsa pointed a gun at
him. Despite what he’d said to Rhona, there was a real risk they’d see Ailsa McAllister at Langcroft. And despite Rhona’s attempts to hide herself yesterday, the chances were that Ailsa would recognise her. The white jacket and the ginger hair were fairly standout. And Ailsa would definitely recognise him, having met him twice already. They’d need to be very careful.
The minibus turned off the main road, through the pillared gateposts. It reached the huge sandstone mansion house, trundled downhill towards the ornamental lake and shuddered to a halt. They all piled out.
A tall, gangly young man strolled over and stood in front of the group. Lewis had never seen him before in his life, but he recognised the voice immediately.
“Hi, guys. I think most of you met me the other night, but for any who don’t know, I’m Alex McAllister. I’ve been asked to organise this morning’s activities. The plan is to get into four teams. First team to build a raft and successfully launch it gets the prize! Who’s in?”
Lewis nudged Rhona. “You were right. It’s him,” he whispered. “It’s the guy from the Land Rover. Ailsa’s brother.”
Rhona nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off Alex. He kept talking, oblivious to them. “After the raft building, we’ll warm up with hot chocolate and a picnic on the beach.” This information was greeted with a loud chorus of cheers. “My uncle, the Laird, might pop over to say hello at some point, so remember your manners, guys. Right, I’m going to hand over to your instructors, so they can organise the teams.”
Lewis didn’t even flinch when he found out he was in the same team as Flora. It just seemed inevitable. And the raft building was a disaster, as he’d known it would be.
The task was meant to be about teamwork and co-operation, but ended in a massive fight when their team’s totally rubbish raft upended and tipped Flora into the loch. She splashed out of the water, dragging a sodden rope behind her, face contorted with rage, hair in wet, snaky tendrils, like Medusa’s. Her gorgon eyes flashed with fury.
Guardians of the Wild Unicorns Page 7
