Pip Bartlett's Guide to Unicorn Training

by Jackson Pearce

  I did know that story! Everyone did!

  “Oh!” I said.

  At the same time, Tomas sank into a deep bow.

  “Your Majesty,” he said respectfully, as tubes and tubes of lip balm rolled out of his shirt pocket and onto the floor.

  My face was quite red. I said quickly, my words stumbling over one another, “I’m sorry about your scarf, sir. I didn’t know it was yours. I mean, I knew it was yours, but I didn’t know you were a prince. I thought it was just an ordinary-person scarf—”

  “It’s all right, it’s all right. Though it is printed with the flag of my country, so if I could get it back …” Prince Temujin trailed off, his gaze flitting over Regent Maximus. The Unicorn was sucking on the long end of the scarf, his lips quivering as they smacked against the fabric. Drool dripped down the fabric and onto the floor in front of Regent Maximus’s hooves. “You know what? I can get another one. Perhaps that one will continue to calm your Unicorn down.”

  Mr. Henshaw’s voice was terse. “Thank you. Sorry about the mayhem. Maybe I can find you a replacement scarf before the Trident is over.”

  The prince touched his neck as if it missed the scarf. “That is very kind of you, but I doubt that would be possible. My country is a very tiny one, and I believe you would be hard-pressed to find the flag outside of its borders. I would, however, like to talk to you about … oh, but perhaps I should not keep your Unicorn standing out here like this. He has had a very trying day, I’m sure.”

  “We can take him to his stall, Mr. Henshaw,” I offered, eager to escape the conversation. Mr. Henshaw was still upset, even if the prince didn’t seem to be, and his annoyance at the situation was making me feel more anxious than I had even during the Unicorn chase itself.

  “Are you sure?” Mr. Henshaw asked. “I really don’t know …”

  “Yes,” I said with more certainty than I felt. “We’ll be fine now that he’s blindfolded.”

  “Just come looking for us if you hear screams,” Tomas said in a hollow voice.

  “I’ll catch up in a moment,” Mr. Henshaw said. He seemed relieved to have Regent Maximus taken out of his hands.

  The walk back to the stalls was uneventful anyway. I hadn’t yet learned how to make Regent Maximus ignore all the sights and sounds around him, but for the moment, it worked pretty well to just remove his ability to see or hear them. I kept up a steady stream of chatter to Regent Maximus to drown out the sounds of the building, and Tomas walked in front of us with his arms spread wide to clear all of the people from the aisle in front of us. A few of the other animal handlers recognized us as we headed back to the Unicorn section. Tomas held a finger to his lips to ask for quiet, and they made silent fist pumps of victory or made “okay” signs.

  It should have felt nice, this silent recognition, but instead, I found that I was getting angrier at Regent Maximus. We had come further than this! Tomas and I had done so much for him! I kept seeing that image of him lunging out of the trailer toward me.

  I got madder.

  Finally, we came to Regent Maximus’s assigned stall at the very end of the Unicorn section. I waited until Tomas had securely closed the door behind us to remove the prince’s scarf from Regent Maximus’s eyes. Immediately, the Unicorn staggered forward to press his face to the bars of the stall. He stared all around the Unicorn area.

  I crossed my arms, glaring at him, waiting for him to turn back to me. He finally did, bits of straw from the Llamador ring matted in his forelock.

  He caught my expression.

  “Ahhh! Angry eyes—” he squealed.

  “No!” I cut him off. “No more yelling! No running! No hiding! Regent Maximus, you could’ve hurt somebody. You could’ve hurt me or Tomas!”

  “I would’ve been fine,” Tomas interrupted. “I have my brother’s football pads on underneath my shirt.”

  “That doesn’t matter!” I said. I didn’t want to be mean to Regent Maximus, but I held on to the image of him barreling toward me to keep my voice sounding stern. “We worked on this, Regent Maximus! We would never hurt you on purpose! You’re much bigger than both of us!”

  “I’m so sorry, Pip,” Regent Maximus said in a sort of whisper. He sank down so low that I wasn’t sure how he was doing it. It was like he had no bones in his legs.

  I took a deep breath. “I know you’re scared. But maybe next time be scared in one place instead of running all over the arena.”

  “I can be scared in one place,” Regent Maximus said, nodding so hard he cracked his horn on the stall door and scurried away in surprise. “How about here?” he called from the corner of the stall.

  “This is a safe place, not a place to be scared,” I said. “It’s supposed to be where you come to relax.” I translated what he’d said for Tomas, because Tomas could hear only snorts and tiny whinnies.

  Tomas considered. “What if we made it more like his stall at Mr. Henshaw’s? Does he have anything there that makes him feel safe? Like a Noogie?”

  “A what?” I asked.

  Tomas blushed. “A Noogie? It’s my blanket—never mind—”

  “Oh!” I said. “I have something like that too! A stuffed Bog Wallow!”

  Tomas looked relieved. I would’ve never made fun of him for his Noogie, but I bet his older brothers had. I put my hand on Regent Maximus’s sticky shoulder. “Would you like us to get you a stuffed animal? Or a blanket?”

  “Unicorns can die by ingesting blankets,” Regent Maximus said fearfully.

  “What would make you feel less afraid in here? Maybe some music?”

  Regent Maximus sucked on his lips for a moment. “Maybe? Except not the sort with a lot of notes. Or the loud sort. Or the sort with singing.”

  That was how we wound up hunting down an old radio and tuning it to a station called Classical Chill. Both Tomas and Regent Maximus were pleased. And it was kind of a fun task, figuring out how to make the stall feel safer. While I drew a picture of me and Tomas and Regent Maximus together to hang on the wall, Tomas fastened a rolled blanket to the edge of the water bucket so that Regent Maximus wouldn’t bump his head on the hard plastic. As I taped up the picture and put the radio out of Regent Maximus’s reach, Tomas did a top-to-bottom safety inspection of the stall to put Regent Maximus’s worries to rest. He made a long list of safety hazards, then started pulling supplies out of his first-aid kit.

  “Tell him I’m going to start by taping down all the splinters,” Tomas said.

  I relayed the Tomas’s words to Regent Maximus, then pointed to my drawing of him. “Look, Regent Maximus!”

  I’d drawn Regent Maximus bigger and braver and prouder than he really was. It seemed like it’d be good for the Unicorn’s self-confidence.

  Regent Maximus pressed his face as close to the drawing as he could get while still being able to see it. I could see the whites all around his eyes and for a moment I thought that I’d somehow drawn something that pushed him over into terror.

  But then he stamped his foot in a delighted way and said, “Oh! Good, yes. Good.”

  I began to scrub the Slurpee off his chest with a rag as Tomas went around and around us, laying big stripes of gauze all over the wall. “Is there anything else, Regent Maximus?”

  “Can you stay here with me?” Regent Maximus asked.

  “I don’t think Aunt Emma would let me sleep in a stall,” I said, which might not have been true. Aunt Emma herself slept in the stalls sometimes, like when a mother Griffin was about to have a litter, or that time an old Pegasus needed medicine every hour on the dot. It just didn’t seem like a very good idea, to get Regent Maximus used to me staying with him. What would he do on the nights when I couldn’t?

  “How about instead, I leave my jacket here with you. It’ll smell like me,” I suggested.

  “All done here, Pip!” Tomas said. “Unless you think we can get an air purifier?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be as easy to find as a spare radio,” I said. I admired our handiwork. I wished t
hat there was a section in Jeffrey Higgleston’s guide about this—surely Regent Maximus couldn’t be the only terrified Unicorn in existence. It would’ve been nice to have a little guidance. I made a note to begin keeping track of everything that helped Regent Maximus; I’d add it to my guide at the end of the show. Assuming we made it that far.

  “Pip? Is that you?” a voice asked.

  I frowned up at the rafters, expecting to see a Nectarbird or a Fancy Winged Squirrel.

  Tomas caught my gaze. “Nope. I understood that too. It’s a human.”

  “It is you!”

  This time it was clear that the voice was coming from right outside the stall: a girl my age, with tidy red hair pulled into a bun. Unlike me, she had no ink smudges on her fingers or grime on her cheeks or hay stuck in her hair. She wore a neat white shirt with an embroidered logo that read EVERSUN UNICORN FARMS, and had little Unicorn-shaped earrings in her ears.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Because I knew this girl. And she knew me. Marisol Barrera was in my class back home in Atlanta, which meant she had been there for the Unicorn Incident—the stampede I’d caused at my school. And more important, her parents owned EverSun Unicorns. So not only had she been there for the Unicorn Incident … but it had been her family’s Unicorns in the stampede.

  I thought I’d been able to avoid Unicorn trouble—but Unicorn trouble had found me again!

  I was so filled with worry at the sight of Marisol that I couldn’t think of what to say. I just stood there making my fingers into fists and then stretching them out straight and then making them back into fists again. I knew I was fidgeting, but I couldn’t make myself stop. How could I? I hadn’t talked to her since the Unicorn stampede, and I knew she was going to say something terrible to me about it. And I would deserve it.

  Marisol opened her mouth.

  I waited for her to shout.

  But instead she said, sunnily, “I knew it was you! I knew you were in Cloverton this summer, but I didn’t know you’d be here!”

  I hadn’t expected her to smile, but she was smiling. She waved at Regent Maximus, who looked at her in a confused, slightly horrified way.

  Tomas, meanwhile, nudged me with his shoulder and gave me a meaningful look. When I didn’t do anything, he nudged me even harder. This meant Say something, Pip.

  I finally found my voice. “What—oh! Right. Marisol, this is my friend Tomas. He lives really close to my aunt’s clinic.”

  Marisol nodded enthusiastically. “My parents told me about your aunt! She’s a vet for magical creatures, right? That must be fun.”

  I squirmed a little inside, imagining being the topic of conversation in the Barrera household. I opened my mouth, but all that came out was “Er.”

  Marisol bounced a little closer to the stall—she sort of moved like an excited Unicorn, now that I thought about it, which was not at all how she walked back at school. She hooked her hands on the bars of the stall, face delighted, even though Regent Maximus still looked pretty disordered. “Is this your Unicorn? Or is he yours, Tomas?”

  “I can’t have pets,” Tomas said. “I have allergies.” As if to demonstrate his point, a very small turquoise bubble floated out of his right nostril. He’d taken some allergy pills, so it wasn’t as dramatic as his earlier bubbles, but it was still a little awkward. We all three—four, really, because Regent Maximus watched it too—stared as it floated upward and popped on the ceiling.

  I explained, “Neither. We’re just helping out. Regent Maximus gets a little nervous.”

  Marisol stretched her hand through the bars toward Regent Maximus, as if he might possibly come over for a pet. He stared at her hand as if it were a viper. She didn’t seem upset that he didn’t want to approach, though. She said, “Lots of Unicorns get nervous before shows. Have you thought about adding some honeysuckle to his bedding? It might help calm him down even more.”

  “I’d never read about that,” I said. “Does it really work?”

  “Oh, yeah, loads! My parents figured it out by accident a couple of years ago!”

  “That’s cool. I’ll see if we—”

  But before I could finish my sentence, Marisol exclaimed, “EverSun has some you can use! I’ll get it!”

  She dashed down the aisle. I heard a bit of a scuffle, and then, just as Tomas and I exchanged a wide-eyed look, she reappeared, dragging a bale of honeysuckle.

  “Open the door!” she exclaimed.

  “I, uh—” I said. I opened the door, careful to be certain that Regent Maximus wasn’t intending on galloping into the aisle, and Marisol shoved the bale inside.

  Marisol began to pluck out big handfuls of honeysuckle. “Just spread it around—it doesn’t matter if it’s messy!”

  Together, we kicked the honeysuckle around the stall while Tomas lurked outside with a hand over his nose, just in case he turned out to be allergic to honeysuckle too.

  At first, Regent Maximus flinched with every flying handful of honeysuckle. But then …

  “Oh! I smell like joy! I smell like happiness!” Regent Maximus said dreamily as he rolled on his back. “The happiness is all over me! My skin is happiness!”

  “He likes it,” I said.

  “I can tell!” Marisol said, laughing a little.

  “Thanks,” I said, surprised. “For letting us use EverSun’s honeysuckle. You did that so fast. I didn’t have time to say before.”

  She looked a little apologetic. “Sorry, Mom says I can be a little pushy. I just don’t like to see Unicorns feeling terrible, if I can help it.”

  We all watched Regent Maximus roll around, grunting happily. He had honeysuckle stuck to the Slurpee left on his chest, making him look like he was growing mold, but he didn’t seem to care. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him so relaxed. I definitely had a new fact to write into the Guide to Magical Creatures when I got home. I took a deep breath, working up my nerve, and then I said, “I sort of thought you might still be mad at me.”

  Marisol blinked. “For what?”

  I confessed, “Because of the, uh, Unicorn Incident back at school.”

  “Oh, no,” Marisol said. “I knew you weren’t trying to hurt anybody. You just love animals and got carried away. I … I love them too, especially Unicorns. And my mom says I get carried away all the time!”

  We smiled cautiously at each other. Maybe Marisol and I had more in common than I thought. I asked, “Do you want to look around with Tomas and me? We were going to go see the Manticores.”

  “Oh … I can’t,” Marisol said.

  My heart dipped. I’d gone too far. Just because she wanted to help Regent Maximus and wasn’t angry at me for the stampede didn’t mean that she wanted to hang out with me. But then she said, “I was just headed back to the wash stalls because I promised to groom one of the EverSun Unicorns. Do you guys want to come with me?”

  Tomas and I both regarded Regent Maximus. The Unicorn was now curled in the honeysuckle like a puppy, munching happily on honeycomb, gazing at the picture I’d drawn him as if it were his favorite television program. He looked pretty comfortable, even if his stall looked a little bit ridiculous, what with the pictures and gauze and the curtain we’d fashioned out of a saddle blanket and bag clips.

  “Do you mind if we go?” I asked Regent Maximus. I said it in a casual way so that Marisol wouldn’t think I was strange. “Mr. Henshaw should be coming by at any minute.”

  “I have happiness stuck to the top of my mouth,” Regent Maximus replied through the honeycomb.

  That seemed to mean that he would be fine—at least for now.

  We let Marisol lead us down the aisle to the general large-animal section. She chattered enthusiastically as she walked, twice as loud as Tomas and I put together.

  “… I’m supposed to make sure Duchess is really in good shape, all groomed up, clean as she can be. We think she might place this year! First, second, or third. There’s a stallion named Forever Sunshine that we think will get first, and a
purple Unicorn we think will get second, but even third place at the Trident is a big deal. And we’ve been working with her for ages, she’s so steady. Look, there she is in the cross ties, all the way down there!”

  We’d entered a section of wash stalls, full of all sorts of large magical animals. Each concrete floor had a drain in the middle, and there were metal rings placed at various places along the wall to attach lead ropes to. Some of the stalls were empty, their floors still wet and sudsy, but most had some kind of creature in them.

  In the stall closest to us was a Two-Headed Greater Nackerbaum, both heads securely tied. A woman was spraying it down with a hose nozzle, and every time the water hit the Nackerbaum’s skin, the liquid hissed and immediately evaporated. I knew from Jeffrey Higgleston’s Guide to Magical Creatures that this was because of the Nackerbaum’s high internal temperature. What I didn’t know from the Guide was how loud the Nackerbaum could be. Every time the water splashed over it, both heads shook wildly, and it shrieked, “WATER!” It was hard to tell if the Nackerbaum was happy or sad about it.

  In the next stall was a squat Bricksnout. Its skin had turned completely solid, and the man washing it was using a pumice stone instead of a brush to wash it. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Tomas winced.

  In the stall after that was a pair of animals that I didn’t immediately recognize; they looked completely unfamiliar soaking wet. I realized after a moment that they had to be Llamadors, both beautifully tricolored, with long eyelashes. Their handler kept slapping their muzzles gently because they wouldn’t stop guzzling soapy water and then coughing up suds. It was amazing how different they looked with their fur soaked to their skin.

  Really, the Guide should have pictures of some magical creatures both wet and dry—because all of these creatures looked like entirely different species when soaked.

  Duchess, Marisol’s Unicorn charge, was in the second to last stall, standing patiently in cross ties—one lead attached to each side of her halter so that she couldn’t turn around inside the stall. She had just enough free space to curl her neck prettily and look into a bucket of water at her reflection. She was talking to it.