Daisy and the Trouble With Unicorns

by Kes Gray

  That’s the trouble with birthday balloons. Sometimes the strings can be really hard to reach. Especially if you’re lying on your back.

  “How do they get balloons to stay up in the air like that?” I gasped, pushing Gabby off my chest so that I could actually breathe. “When I have balloons at home they don’t float up into the air. My balloons at home just stay on the floor. Unless I’m playing with them.”

  “Helium,” said Gabby.

  “WHATium??” I asked.

  “It’s like a really light type of air,” said Gabby. “My dad has a helium gas canister in the garage. He used it to blow up all of my party balloons.”

  “Do you reckon if instead of having pizza bites and sausage rolls and chicken drumsticks for your birthday tea we’d had helium instead, we’d all float up to the ceiling too?” I chuckled.

  “Probably!” giggled Gabby. “We’d all have to have strings tied to us to stop us floating away!”

  “Imagine if the window opened by mistake and we all floated up into the sky!” I said.

  “To the moon!” giggled Gabby.

  “To the stars!” I chuckled.

  “To the universe and beyond!” Gabby grinned.

  “I’d love that,” sighed Gabby.

  “Me too,” I smiled. “As long as we could float back down again afterwards.”

  Reaching the balloon string with our fingers was totally impossible without sitting up on the bed. If our fingers had been about thirty centimetres longer we’d have been able to grab the string easily. Or if the string had been thirty centimetres longer instead.

  But it wasn’t.

  So we sat up and reached it instead.

  The trouble with finally reaching the balloon is, even when we had hold of the actual balloon there still wasn’t very much we could do with it.

  We couldn’t play football with it, we couldn’t play basketball with it, we couldn’t even play “catch” with it, because every time we let go of the balloon it just floated up to the ceiling.

  “Shall we have another look at the unicorns?” I said.

  “OK,” said Gabby.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Jack Beechwhistle says unicorns are a cross between a horse and a rhinoceros,” I said, as Gabby pulled the unicorns out from under her bed.

  “Barry Morely doesn’t,” said Gabby, getting up off her knees and laying the unicorns down on her duvet. “Barry says unicorns are mythical magical beasts.”

  “What’s a mythical magical beast?” I asked.

  “It’s a make-believe animal that’s magical but not real,” said Gabby, “like a dragon or a fairy.”

  “A fairy isn’t an animal!” I laughed. “Or a beast! Fairies wear dresses!”

  “OK, like a dragon or a heffalump,” said Gabby. “Which unicorn do you want to look at?”

  “The one with the silver hair,” I said. “It will match my silver necklace.”

  “OK,” said Gabby, dropping it into my lap. “I’ll look at the blue-haired one.”

  The unicorn with silver hair did look a bit make-believe. Not only did it have silver hair and a sparkly horn, it had fluffy white hooves, a purple smile and stars on its tummy.

  Gabby’s unicorn looked just as made up too. Not only did it have silver hair and a sparkly horn, it had fluffy blue hooves, a green smile, really long silver eyelashes and rosy red cheeks.

  Both unicorns were really soft and cuddly and strokey though.

  “There is no way that unicorns are made from bits of rhinoceros,” I said. “Rhinoceroses are far too hard and grey and dangerous to be anything to do with unicorns, plus rhinoceros horns aren’t in the slightest bit sparkly.”

  “I think Jack Beechwhistle has more rhinoceros in him than a unicorn does,” smiled Gabby.

  “I think Jack Beechwhistle is mostly rhinoceros,” I chuckled.

  “I wonder why it is that unicorns haven’t got wings?” said Gabby, holding her unicorn up in the air and then swooping it around like an aeroplane. “I mean, they seem to have everything else. If unicorns had wings they could fly everywhere instead of walk.”

  “My unicorn doesn’t need wings to fly,” I giggled. “Look, he uses this balloon!”

  Gabby watched me grab the balloon from the ceiling and then clapped her hands as I took my unicorn and the balloon for a pretend ride around her bedroom.

  “Look!” I giggled. “I’m not a unicorn, I’m a BALLOONICORN! See!”

  Gabby saw all right! She saw so much she nearly fell off the bed laughing.

  “A BALLOONICORN called HUGHNICORN!” she laughed, springing to her feet, putting the blue-haired unicorn back on the bed, and then helping me to properly tie the balloon string around my unicorn’s tail.

  “A BALLOONICORN called HUGHNICORN who’s married to a unicorn called PRUNICORN!” I giggled.

  Gabby’s eyes widened really wide. So did her smile and then so did her arms.

  “I’m going to get another balloon!” she said, giving me a huge hug and then racing back downstairs to grab a balloon from the dining room.

  She was back in a flash, which meant in about thirty seconds flat we had one BALLOONICORN called HUGHNICORN and another BALLOONICORN called PRUNICORN to play with!

  And we didn’t stop there either!

  “Let’s pretend Hughnicorn and Prunicorn have just got married!” said Gabby.

  “Let’s pretend they’re on their honeymoon!” I said. “Then they’ll be …”

  “Hughnicorn and Prunicorn the BALLOONICORNHONEYMOONICORNS!!” we both said together!

  How hilarious is that!!!

  It’s a good job Gabby’s new house has an upstairs toilet AND a downstairs toilet, because if there had only been one place for us to run to, one of us would definitely have wet ourselves!

  “Where shall we fly Hughnicorn and Prunicorn on their honeymoon?” I said, as soon as we got back to Gabby’s bedroom.

  “My mum and dad’s bedroom first,” said Gabby, “then the spare room, then the bathroom and then back to the top of the stairs!”

  That’s the trouble with BALLOONICORNHONEYMOONICORNS, they really like to travel!

  We flew them over a mountain range made of pillows!

  We took them on a funfair ride made from an exercise bike!

  We floated them past a giant waterfall made out of the bath tap!

  And when we got to the top of the stairs, we landed to check the knots in our strings.

  “Imagine how exciting it would be if we could float them around without holding them in our hands!” I said, putting Hughnicorn down on the carpet at the top of the stairs and letting go of the string.

  “You’re right,” said Gabby, standing Prunicorn next to Hughnicorn and letting go of her string too.

  “I wonder how many balloons it would take for them to float up into the air by themselves?” I said.

  “LET’S FIND OUT!” said Gabby, grabbing Prunicorn and sliding down the stairs on her bottom.

  “WAIT FOR ME!” I giggled, grabbing Hughnicorn and holding on to the bannister instead.

  That’s the trouble with stairs. If they’re not your stairs you need to be careful. Especially if you’ve got a Hughnicorn to take care of, too!

  CHAPTER 9

  Everyone looked really surprised when Gabby and me burst back into the dining room with unicorns tied to birthday balloons.

  “WE NEED MORE BALLOONS!” shouted Gabby, jumping up and down all around the table and grabbing as many strings as she could grab. “WE NEED ALL THE BALLOONS!”

  “What do you need balloons for?” asked her mum.

  “FOR HUGHNICORN AND PRUNICORN TO FLOAT WITH!” explained Gabby. “Hughnicorn and Prunicorn are the best!”

  When Nana Pru heard that we’d called the unicorns Hughnicorn and Prunicorn she got really excited too!

  “Hughnicorn AND Prunicorn?!” she gasped. “DID YOU HEAR THAT, HUGH? THEY’VE NAMED THE UNICORNS AFTER US!!!”

  Everyone heard it and everyone thought they were brilliant
names for our unicorns too!

  “Sorry, can’t stop!” puffed Gabby, pushing me out of the dining room and racing back up the stairs. “We’ve got an experiment to do!”

  The trouble with experiments is sometimes you need to be a scientist to do them.

  Gabby and me didn’t, though. All Gabby and me needed was Hughnicorn, Prunicorn and loads of helium balloons.

  This is how you do a BALLOONICORN experiment at home.

  STEP 1: Get the smallest and lightest unicorn you can find. (Otherwise the experiment will take ages. And you’ll run out of balloons and helium!)

  STEP 2: Tie the string of a helium balloon to your unicorn. (Gabby and I had already done that bit; Gabby had chosen PRUNICORN’s neck to tie her string to. I had chosen HUGHNICORN’s tail.)

  STEP 3: Put your unicorn down on the carpet and let the helium balloon float up as high as it will go.

  STEP 4: If your unicorn stays on the carpet add another string and balloon.

  STEP 5: If your unicorn’s feet still stay on the carpet add some more strings and some more balloons.

  If your unicorn’s feet STILL

  STEP 6: stay on the carpet add even more strings and even more balloons.

  (That’s the trouble with

  BALLOONICORN experiments.

  Unicorns can be a lot heavier than you think.)

  STEP 7: Keep tying strings and balloons to your unicorn until its feet actually start to lift off the floor.

  (If you tie your strings to your unicorn’s neck the front hooves of your unicorn will lift up first. If you tie your strings to your unicorn’s tail the back hooves of your unicorn will lift up first.)

  STEP 8: Keep tying more strings and balloons to your unicorn until its whole feet lift right off the floor!

  STEP 9: Then just keep adding more strings and balloons depending on how high you want them to go!

  It took me and Gabby ten balloons each to get our first hooves to lift off the floor.

  It took us thirteen balloons each to get Hughnicorn and Prunicorn to lift right up off the carpet.

  By sixteen balloons they were floating right up to our T-shirts! All by themselves, on their own, without us even holding them or touching them! IT WAS BRILLIANT!

  After we’d done about two thousand fist bumps, Gabby said that Hughnicorn and Prunicorn were the best birthday presents she’d ever had!

  “Let’s take them outside!” I said. “They can spend the second part of their honeymoon in the garden having the best ballooning adventure EVER!”

  Don’t worry, I know what you’re thinking. We didn’t let them fly away!

  Once we had managed to squeeze our balloons through the kitchen door, the back door and into Gabby’s back garden, there was loads of room to play BALLOONICORNS!

  “Fly, Prunicorn, fly!” said Gabby, letting go of Prunicorn and giving her a nudge in the direction of the flowerbeds and the pond.

  “Float, Hughnicorn, float!” I said, carrying Hughnicorn into the middle of the lawn to see which way the wind would take him. (If it ever decided to blow.)

  “They need to stay together,” said Gabby, grabbing Prunicorn and pulling her balloon strings over to where I was standing. “They’re on honeymoon together, remember.”

  Hughnicorn and Prunicorn had an even better honeymoon once they got together in the middle of the lawn.

  They floated over an Atlantic Ocean made of fish pond … some Sahara desert made of sand pit … and even a Great Wall of China made out of flowerpots.

  The grown-ups even came out to watch!

  “What a clever idea!” said Nana Pru, poking Prunicorn in the side with one of her long blue fingernails and then stepping back to watch her float through the air. “I’m so pleased you love my present!”

  “Have you shown Nana and Grandad your new bike?!” shouted Gabby’s dad from the back doorstep.

  “Can you do it?” Gabby shouted back. “We’re flying to New York!”

  “Take me with you to Barbados, please!” said Grandad Hugh, forgetting that he wasn’t actually a unicorn or a balloonicorn.

  After we’d floated Hughnicorn and Prunicorn past three New York skyscrapers made out of wheelie bins, we decided to let them float wherever they wanted to for a little while. Apart from near the rose beds.

  That’s the trouble with rose bushes. Too many prickles!

  “SMILE!!” said Gabby’s mum, filming some of Hughnicorn and Prunicorn’s balloon adventures on her phone.

  Gabby and me couldn’t stop smiling! We smiled from one end of the garden to the other, then back into the house, twice round the lounge, back up the stairs to her bedroom, three times round the front garden and twice round the garage! We even took Hughnicorn and Prunicorn on to the pavement outside Gabby’s house and past all of her neighbours’ houses too!

  “I hope if I get married I go on a honeymoon that’s as brilliant fun as this!” said Gabby.

  “Me too!” I said. “As long as I fly to Disney World as well.”

  “Definitely!” said Gabby. “We can go for a fly with Dumbo!”

  “That looks like fun, Gabby!” said the lady who lives next door.

  “Room for one more?!” said a man who lived on the other side of the road. (He was joking. Our balloons would never have lifted him off the ground. Especially him AND his lawn mower.)

  Everyone in Gabby’s whole road loved our BALLOONICORNS. Even children who Gabby hadn’t met before came over to see what we were doing.

  By the time we went back indoors, Hughnicorn and Prunicorn were probably the most famous unicorns in the world. They were definitely the most famous unicorns in Gabby’s street.

  “I think they’re running out of gas!” frowned Gabby, tugging her balloon strings upwards and then watching Prunicorn sink nearer and nearer to the hallway carpet.

  Gabby was definitely right. The helium in our party balloons was definitely going down and down.

  “I’ll get some scissors and cut the strings,” said Gabby, carrying Hughnicorn and Prunicorn back to the kitchen as the doorbell rang and did its amazing three tunes, and her mum answered the front door.

  “DAISY! YOUR MUM’S HERE!” she called.

  “It can’t be seven o’clock already!” I gasped.

  But it was! My mum had actually come to collect me ALREADY! Time really does fly when you’re flying BALLOONICORNS!

  As soon as I saw my mum I ran to tell her that Gabby and me had been playing with our first ever unicorns EVER! PLUS Gabby’s nana had BLUE HAIR!

  But I didn’t get the chance.

  “WHERE’S MY SILVER NECKLACE?” gasped my mum the moment she saw me standing in the hallway.

  If I was smiling before, I wasn’t smiling now. Gabby and me had been playing BALLOONICORNS for so long I’d forgotten all about my silver necklace.

  “Only kidding,” chuckled Mum. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost it!”

  Honestly, when will parents ever learn that there are some things you just don’t make jokes about? Like actual solid silver guest of honour necklaces!!!!!!!

  CHAPTER 10

  “A piece each!” said Gabby’s mum, handing my mum two pieces of rainbow birthday cake wrapped up in serviettes.

  “Did you make it yourself?” asked my mum, lifting up a corner of the paper to see what flavour cake was inside.

  “I decorated it myself,” whispered Gabby’s mum, inviting my mum into the lounge to meet Nana Pru and Grandad Hugh.

  “A unicorn each!” smiled Gabby as soon as our mums were out of sight.

  The trouble with someone saying “a unicorn each” is no one had ever said “a unicorn each” to me before.

  Which meant for a moment I wasn’t quite sure if my ears were playing tricks.

  “You keep Hughnicorn and I’ll keep Prunicorn!” smiled Gabby, pressing Hughnicorn into my hands. “Then every time I come to your house to play or you come to mine, we can each bring our unicorns with us!”

  That’s right! Cross my heart and hope to
die, my ears weren’t playing tricks at all!

  “But Hughnicorn is one of your birthday presents!” I said, really hoping Gabby wouldn’t change her mind.

  “I know!” laughed Gabby. “Now he’s your Guest of Honour present instead!”

  The trouble with being given a guest of honour present is that had never happened to me before either!

  “But what will your mum and dad say?” I gulped, still a bit worried that Gabby might get into trouble for giving one of her presents away to me.

  “I’ve already asked them,” said Gabby. “They think it’s a brilliant idea!”

  “But what about your nana and grandad?” I asked.

  “I’ve already asked them too!” she laughed. “They like you almost as much as I do!”

  It was true! Can you believe it? I was actually, actually, actually going to be going home from Gabby’s birthday party with an actual present of my own!

  And a piece of cake!!

  “They can be best friends just like us!” I said. “Why don’t you bring Prunicorn round to my house tomorrow and we can play unicorns all day!”

  “I will!” laughed Gabby as my mum came back from the lounge wiping cake crumbs from her mouth.

  That’s the trouble with slices of rainbow birthday cake. Mums can’t resist them!

  I couldn’t resist Gabby’s doorbell either!!

  “SEE YOU TOMORROW MORNING!” I shouted.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Look what Gabby’s given me!” I said, skipping down the path with Hughnicorn under my arm. “He’s coming home with us to live with me in my bedroom!”