Pip Bartlett's Guide to Unicorn Training

by Jackson Pearce

  “I’ll tell you if you start to smell,” Tomas said helpfully. “You don’t, yet.”

  We both turned to watch a tall man leading a Giant Sallifourth by us. Its enormous nose dragged on the ground as it walked, and it made a snuffling noise in my direction. It swept its nose the other direction and vacuumed up a candy wrapper with a little coughing, snotty sound. It swept its nose the other way and suctioned up a broken potato chip. It looked pleased.

  “Wow,” said Tomas, in a voice that suggested that he really meant Yuck.

  “Everyone likes chips,” I said again. “Aunt Emma, can Tomas and I go look around now?”

  “Yes! Go! Go—oh, hey! You should go say hi to Mr. Henshaw at some point,” Aunt Emma said.

  “Mr. Henshaw?” I echoed. I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised that he was here. He was a client at the clinic—his nervous Unicorn, Regent Maximus, was a frequent patient. I supposed if he owned a Unicorn, it made sense that he’d be interested in watching the biggest Unicorn show in the state. I didn’t really know what I’d say to him without Regent Maximus around, though. Maybe just my usual nervous wave. “I guess I can ask how Regent Maximus is doing,” I told Aunt Emma.

  “You can see for yourself,” she said. “The Unicorn is here.”

  “What?” Tomas and I asked at the same time.

  Aunt Emma frowned up at both of us, as if our reaction confused her. “He’s entered in the Trident, of course.”

  “Regent Maximus?” Tomas asked, shocked.

  “Of course!” Aunt Emma laughed a little. “Regent Maximus is a show Unicorn! What did you expect?”

  Tomas and I looked at each other.

  We certainly hadn’t expected this.

  Tomas and I knew Regent Maximus.

  Even though Regent Maximus was a show Unicorn, I didn’t really think that Regent Maximus was a Unicorn for showing. Jeffrey Higgleston, the author of the Guide to Magical Creatures, was an enormous Unicorn fancier, and the Guide dedicated a very long section to Unicorn types. At the beginning of the section, Higgleston described “the ideal Unicorn and how to spot him.”

  That was not what Regent Maximus looked like.

  Shortly after I came to Cloverton, Regent Maximus’s stable had burned down in an unfortunate Fuzzle incident, so he’d come to stay at the clinic. Tomas and I had tried to teach him to be less fearful, and I guess we’d made a little progress. Enough, it seemed, to convince Mr. Henshaw that his Unicorn might be able to make it through the Triple Trident.

  I was not so convinced.

  If Jeffrey Higgleston had created a Guide page for Regent Maximus, it would have looked quite different.

  “I can’t believe Mr. Henshaw thinks Regent Maximus can do this,” Tomas muttered as we walked through the arena, studying the map to find our way to the Unicorn area.

  “Me ne—” I started. “Tomas, your hair!”

  The first of Tomas’s allergic reactions was apparently hitting him. His normally floppy black hair was slowly beginning to go super-light and floaty at the ends. Reaching a hand up, he patted it with a sigh.

  “Hadgebadgers,” he said grimly.

  I eyed his head. It looked like a dandelion in full seed. “Do you need to take something for it? Will it kill you?”

  “It could be worse,” he replied. “Beebugs make my hair fall out.”

  Tomas did his best to dampen his hair with his mist bottle and slime it down with his hand. It only made it more impressive when his hair stood back up again, because now it looked like his head was covered with black plastic flames.

  “Um?” I said.

  “I’m good,” he insisted.

  I watched the last of his hair stand up and decided not to say anything more. If he was good, he was good.

  We walked on. The booths were full of cool things for magical creatures—Giant Salamander collars, All-Weather Coats for winged mammals, spray glitter, and Unicorn hair tint. After the booths, there were dozens of rings with fancy little white fences that only came up to our waists. Competitions for some of the smaller magical creatures had already begun inside some of them.

  I stopped to watch.

  “What are those?” Tomas asked. His eyebrows were standing up now too, which I hadn’t even known was possible.

  “Patched LavaPets, I think?” I said. They looked like rocks, but when their handlers gave a command, little legs appeared from beneath them. A judge watched with crossed arms from the middle of the ring.

  It was so exciting. I leaned over the fence to get a better look—

  “Regent Maximus,” Tomas reminded me.

  We headed on. We passed Miniature Silky Griffins with their flowing coats, Llamadors with curly spotted fur and long necks, and finally a whole pen of Hugpuggles discussing how to take over the funnel-cake stand.

  I could tell that we were getting closer to the Unicorn area as the fences got taller. The creatures behind them were getting taller too. Standard Griffins, Pegasi, Bricksnouts, and, of course, Unicorns. Light streamed in over glistening manes and swishing tails as the Unicorns sauntered out of trailers and into the arena holding their silk-wrapped horns up high. One tossed its mane in my direction, pleased with how pretty it knew it was. I rolled my eyes. Unicorns are such show-offs.

  Tomas and I craned our necks, trying to get a glimpse of Regent Maximus. It turned out that we shouldn’t have been looking. We should have been listening.

  A shout rang out above the hum of the show. Nearby Unicorns flicked their ears this way and that as their handlers turned to see where the commotion was coming from.

  Then:

  CRASH!

  “My!” said one of the Unicorns closest to us. (It sounded like a surprised whinny to everyone else.)

  BANG!

  “What!” said another Unicorn. (A noisy snort.)

  Finally, the high reedy voice of an animal cried out, “The walls are closing in! The trailer is shrinking! Help! Save me! I PERISH AS A TUNA IN A CAN!”

  I sighed.

  That was definitely Regent Maximus.

  The handlers in the ring tried to quiet their own Unicorns, thinking they were noisy because they were frightened. They were not scared, though; they were gossiping. The other humans heard only whinnying and screeching, but I heard:

  “How embarrassing!”

  “Why even come if you’re going to act like such a filly?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—I’ve had four fillies and not one of them has acted like him.”

  “I hear he was supposed to be famous, you know. Excellent bloodlines.”

  “Just proves it’s not all about family. Star quality is a gift, not a birthright.”

  Feeling bad for Regent Maximus, I hissed to the closest Unicorn, “Don’t pretend that you’ve never been scared!”

  The Unicorn blinked its long lashes at me in shock, but I didn’t have time to see if it had taken my words to heart. Regent Maximus was shrieking from the distance, “No! No, don’t come in here! The oxygen is getting low! HOLD YOUR BREATH!”

  “We should go see what we can do,” I told Tomas.

  “Should we?” Tomas asked.

  “He won’t understand anyone else!” I replied.

  “Fine, fine, fine,” Tomas said. “I brought first-aid cream.”

  We darted through people and animals until we recognized Mr. Henshaw’s truck and trailer. Voices came from inside it. Hooves rapped urgently on its floor. Lavender bedding puffed out the tiny windows in hazy purple dusty clouds.

  Tomas hiccuped, and a big turquoise-colored bubble came out of his mouth—he was allergic to Unicorns, and I guessed there were too many here for his medication to totally fix it.

  The clattering of hooves grew even more frantic. Then the trailer door swung open with a monumental clank. There was Regent Maximus. His body was pure white. His mane and tail were every color of the rainbow. His horn gleamed like the inside of an oyster shell. The skin inside his nostrils was a deep, pure purple.

  He was
the glowing portrait of Jeffrey Higgleston’s Ideal Unicorn.

  Except for his eyeballs, which were bulging with terror.

  “Regent Maximus!” I called.

  “I HEAR DEATH CALLING MY NAME!” Regent Maximus screamed. He reared up, nearly punching his horn through the trailer roof. Tomas leaped behind a hay bale.

  I held my hands up, trying to catch Regent Maximus’s attention, but he wasn’t really looking at anything for long. He was tossing his head back and forth, blinking rapidly, when his mane got caught in his eyelashes. And he kept half rearing.

  “Whoa! Get down!” Mr. Henshaw shouted over and over. It didn’t do anything to calm Regent Maximus down, but I didn’t blame Mr. Henshaw—Regent Maximus was terrifying when he was like this. His gaze landed on Tomas, where he was still huddled by the hay bale. Tomas’s hair stood up in furious black spikes, his eyebrows bristled strangely above his eyes, and an assortment of red and purple bubbles popped from his mouth. His blue backpack made a hunch of his back.

  Regent Maximus stared at the backpack. He was terrified of many things. Especially the color blue.

  The backpack pushed him over the edge.

  “TURTLE! BUBBLING DEATH-TURTLE!” Regent Maximus screamed. “I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!”

  Mr. Henshaw snatched for his halter, but Regent Maximus jostled him into the trailer wall.

  “FORGIVE ME! SAVE YOURSELVES!” howled Regent Maximus. He sprang.

  Suddenly, I found the ideal Unicorn charging straight toward me.

  Tomas yanked me out of the Unicorn’s path.

  Just in time too, because Regent Maximus didn’t even pause. He charged right over the spot I had just been standing in, dust billowing up under his hooves. He wheeled to a halt in front of a display of fancy bridles, eyes rolling as he desperately searched for a new path. He sprinted off again.

  I didn’t know how to stop him. I only knew I had to try.

  I took off after him. Tomas was on my heels, surprisingly fast given his enormous backpack and how many bottles of contact lens solution he’d crammed in the pockets of his cargo shorts. In front of us, people were shouting and pulling children and show animals out of Regent Maximus’s way. He leaped nobly over boxes of Biddle Biddle food and smashed right through cages full of furry Snakelegs. Behind us, voices lifted—more and more people were joining us, eager to either stop the runaway Unicorn or see how the chase ended.

  It felt weirdly backward. Before I’d come to Cloverton, I’d been involved in a Unicorn stampede—okay, I’d caused a Unicorn stampede—and it had felt a lot like this. Only this time, the people far outnumbered the Unicorns.

  “Nooooooooooooooooooo,” howled Regent Maximus as he soared over a pair of old women sitting in portable chairs. It was hard to tell what he was saying no to.

  And it was hard to tell how long he’d keep running.

  As we pursued him, other animals joined in. But only briefly. Curly-Coated Manticores and TriColored Llamadors broke free from their handlers and trotted, minced, and galloped with us on the other side of the competition fences, pulling up short when they reached the opposite side of the pen. We had a constantly rotating selection of animals lumbering or floating beside us.

  At the front of the building, Regent Maximus was faced with the choice of bursting through the glass doors to the parking area or turning around.

  For a moment, I was really worried he was going to choose the glass doors.

  And for another moment, I hoped that the chase was over.

  But instead, he spun, his hooves making sparks on the concrete entrance floor. He crashed into the Llamador pen, sending fence bits flying.

  “Pointy horse!” the Llamadors screamed.

  “Furry Unicorns!” Regent Maximus cried. Instead of crashing through the other side of the tall Llamador pen, he leaped over the six-foot-high fence. I had to admit, he looked elegant, soaring through the air with his rainbow-colored mane and tail waving behind him.

  The elegance vanished when he landed, because he knocked right into a man holding a red Slurpee. The drink leaped out of the cup and splattered on Regent Maximus’s chest like a spray-paint butterfly.

  “I’M HIT!” screamed Regent Maximus.

  The adults in pursuit took the opportunity to split into two groups on either side of him, hoping to cut him off no matter which direction he turned to next. The only problem with that plan was that on one side was a ring full of Green-Tipped Pixtons, all trotting with their beaks held high, shells rocking back and forth as they moved. And on the other was a long line of Miss Triple Trident Tiara contestants in giant fluffy dresses.

  “Turtle-monsters,” Regent Maximus whimpered, looking at the Pixtons. He swung his head toward the beauty queens. “Dresses!”

  He wasn’t going to take on either of these threats. His only option was to charge between the obstacles, back toward me.

  And we’d already figured out that I wasn’t enough to stop him.

  I looked around. Think, Pip, think!

  Regent Maximus charged. No more time to think!

  Right next to me was a man dressed in a very nice suit with alligator-green shoes and a wide striped scarf wrapped around his neck. He looked confused by all the ruckus.

  “Excuse me, sir, but it’s an emergency!” I said.

  Jumping up, I yanked the scarf off him. I did it so suddenly that he pinwheeled his arms and fell backward into a display of Pegasus leg wraps, but I didn’t have time to apologize—Regent Maximus was almost upon me.

  I tossed one end of the scarf to Tomas, who understood what I was thinking. We’d done this before, sort of.

  Scrambling up onto two wobbly booth tables, we held the scarf high over our heads, right at Unicorn eye level.

  When he saw the silky obstacle, Regent Maximus tried to stop, but it was no use. He was going too fast, and the floor was concrete here. He slid face-first into the scarf. The ends pulled from our hands, but the fabric fluttered around his ears, kept in place by his horn. It covered his eyes entirely.

  With matching triumphant grins, Tomas and I leaped off the tables.

  The Unicorn took a few more panicked steps, knees shaking. Then he slowed, slowed, slowed. Finally, he simply stood with his knees knocking together. He was making little blubbering noises with his lips.

  “Regent Maximus! It’s Pip!”

  “Phhhbbbbtpip? PhhhbbbtPip?” He blew slobbery, nervous bubbles out of his nose as he dropped his head down by mine.

  “Don’t run, okay?” I said.

  “Is it still blue out there?” Regent Maximus asked, voice trembling.

  “Kind of,” I said, because I couldn’t bring myself to lie. “But you’re safe.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Mr. Henshaw gasped. He had finally reached us, huffing and puffing. He stepped out of the group of other grown-ups, looking out of place. He was dressed fancily, like for a business meeting, while the others wore shirts that read things like STARLIGHT CATTERY and FIZZLETON UNICORN TRAINING. It seemed like we’d picked up someone from each and every ring or stall we’d dashed past or through or over.

  “Quick thinking, kiddo!” a bearded man said.

  “Glad we caught him,” a woman agreed.

  “I’ve got a lead rope, if you need it to walk him back!” someone in the back called.

  The only person who wasn’t smiling was Mr. Henshaw, who looked both humiliated and frustrated. He kept shaking his head, as if Regent Maximus was a question and he didn’t want to answer.

  “Are you all right, Pip?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered, even though I knew it didn’t look like it. Tomas was applying a Band-Aid to a minuscule scratch I’d gotten somewhere in the midst of it all.

  When I tried to brush him off, Tomas slapped my hand away. “You don’t want it to get infected! Flesh-eating bacteria has been experiencing a resurgence in Georgia.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mr. Henshaw said. “I feel terrible that this happened. I tried blindfolding him, but it
didn’t work like that for me! He just panicked more! I just don’t know how to handle him, Pip.”

  “Well, Regent Maximus and I have a little history,” I said kindly. I didn’t want him to feel bad—it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t talk to magical creatures, after all.

  Mr. Henshaw blinked at the scarf as if just noticing it. “Where did that come from?”

  “Oh … um …” I turned around toward the man I’d stolen it from. He was only now clambering out of the Pegasus leg wraps. Little sticky bits of the wrap tape were fixed to his clothes, and his hair seemed out of place. Actually, it was out of place—he had a fake hairpiece covering up a sizable heart-shaped bald spot on the back of his head.

  I pointed. “That guy. The one with the wig.”

  “It’s actually called a toupee—wait.” Mr. Henshaw’s eyes narrowed, then went wide. “That man gave you the scarf?”

  He sounded so dismayed that I stammered. “Well … sort of. I had to think fast.”

  “Oh dear,” Mr. Henshaw said as the scarf-man started toward us. “This can only make things worse!”

  “Why? What’s wrong? Who is he?” Tomas asked in a whisper.

  Mr. Henshaw didn’t have a chance to answer, because the scarf-man was upon us. His jaw was square and firm. His toupee was glistening and bushy. His clothing, even under the bits of leg wraps, was expensive-looking. He was Jeffrey Higgleston’s Ideal Man.

  Except for his piercing and narrowed green eyes, fixed right on us.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Excuse me, miss. I’m Prince Temujin, and I believe that Unicorn”—the man paused to point toward Regent Maximus—“is wearing my scarf.”

  “Prince?” I echoed, eyes wide. I’d never met a real prince, but I thought they had crowns. Or white suits. Or—I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think they just appeared in the middle of Unicorn shows in places where girls could accidentally shove them into Pegasus-leg-wrapping booths. It didn’t seem very royal.

  “Pip,” Mr. Henshaw said quite awkwardly, “Prince Temujin is here to judge the Unicorn competition. His great-great-great-great-grandmother was the first princess to tame a Unicorn. You know the story, I’m sure.”