Pip Bartlett's Guide to Unicorn Training

by Jackson Pearce

  The Blankbirds were clearly more focused on food than on a Unicorn show scandal. The male Blankbird continued to flicker through images, while the female commented on how delicious all the food had been—

  “Wait! Go back!” I yelled. Tomas heard me and climbed over a lower bleacher to join me. It didn’t take him long to sort out what was happening. The male Blankbird went back to a shot of a box of gummy bears lying sideways on the ground. The ground around them was littered in lavender—

  It was the Unicorn hall!

  “Can you get closer?” Tomas asked the Blankbird. I translated so the Blankbird could understand.

  “Let’s see—Oh! I have a flyover shot!” The Blankbird changed the image to a shot from overhead. The box of gummy bears was a speck on the floor of the Unicorn hall. The backs of the Unicorns were glossy and bright, their horns little circles from this angle.

  “This is too early. Duchess still has her tail,” Tomas pointed to Duchess’s swishy, thick, silvery tail. The Blankbird continued to show us shots as he flew down to the box of gummy bears. When Duchess went out of view entirely, she still had her tail.

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I thought maybe you’d have a shot of the tail cutter.”

  “We were really just very excited about the gummy bears,” the female Blankbird said apologetically, fluffing her feathers so that the image went blurry. When she settled, I noticed something—

  A person!

  Well, a shadow. In the very last image, in the far left corner, just before the Blankbirds landed on the gummy bears, there was a shadow. I pointed and yelped for the Blankbirds to stay still so I could get a good look. It was definitely a person, and he was definitely dressed all in black, just like the man I’d caught a glimpse of that night. This had to be him!

  “It’s awfully blurry,” Tomas said warily.

  “And he’s not even facing the camera—I mean, the Blankbird,” I added.

  “But at least now you know it’s a man with a bald spot,” Tomas said, trying to help.

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  Tomas pointed to the center of the female Blankbird’s chest. “Right there. That’s a bald spot, right?”

  I narrowed my eyes—I’d thought it was just a trick of the light! But no, Tomas was right. Just in the center of the man’s head, a pale patch of skin curved so that it looked a little like a heart.

  A heart!

  My eyes went wide. I looked at the Blankbirds, then Tomas, then back to the image.

  No! I thought. It couldn’t be!

  “Pip! What’s going on?” Tomas asked.

  “I know someone who has a bald spot just like that—in the shape of a heart!” I said, whispering with panic.

  “Who?”

  I turned and pointed hard at the judges’ booth. “Prince Temujin!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen! We’re ready to announce the winner of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Triple Trident!” The announcer’s voice sprang up over the loudspeaker, the papers he held crumpling as he arranged them with his microphone.

  Tomas and I jerked our heads over to look at the judges’ table. The judges, including Prince Temujin and his toupee, had returned to the table with their results.

  “We’ve got to tell Aunt Emma before the judges leave,” I told Tomas urgently. “That the Blankbirds can prove it was the prince. Because that bald spot there—”

  I spun around to show him again … but the Blankbirds I’d just been talking with were gone! With a groan, I searched the immediate area for them. There were two Blankbirds near the trash can, and another two near the churro stall, and another two in the rafters. It was impossible to tell which ones I’d just spoken with! There went my proof!

  “Tomas, come on!”

  He didn’t know my plan, but he followed me without question. I might not have been able to show Aunt Emma the Blankbirds, but I could at least tell the police who to investigate. They had the Wimpelings, after all, and they’d certainly be able to match the scent from Duchess’s stall to Prince Temujin.

  Tomas and I trundled down the steps. It was impossible to go quietly. Not only was everyone else sitting, but they were also all quiet. The banging of our steps down the bleachers sounded like metal explosions. People stared—the judges stared.

  Without meaning to, my eyes locked on Prince Temujin’s.

  I saw him swallow.

  And I was certain he knew why I was racing down the bleachers. Or at least, he knew something was up.

  “In second place, the winner of the silver trident … Morgana’s Green with Envy!” the announcer said. The crowd cheered, and a tall green Unicorn with a wispy white tail pranced forward. The judges—including Prince Temujin—helped lower a wreath of sunflowers around the Unicorn’s neck while the handler lifted a silver Trident high above his head.

  “Where are the police officers?” I asked Tomas. We were on ground level now, and I suddenly didn’t see uniforms anywhere.

  “And in third place, the winner of the bronze trident … Callaloo’s Multicolored Lies the Head That Wears the Crown!” the announcer said. The crowd went wild.

  “Whoa!” Tomas and I both said at the same time, realizing what had just happened.

  Regent Maximus had won third place!

  I looked back into the arena. They were already announcing the first-place winner—Fortnight—which meant most of the applause and confetti and celebrating was for him, not Regent Maximus. But I didn’t care! The judges handed Mr. Henshaw a bronze trident. They tried to put a wreath of pink peonies around Regent Maximus’s neck, but he scrambled away (over the crowd, I heard him shout something about the potential for bee infestation).

  “He got third! He didn’t get last place!” I said, amazed. Then I shouted, “Way to go, Regent Maximus!” The Unicorn looked over at me; I gave him a big thumbs-up sign. I could barely see Mr. Henshaw’s face because the judge had handed him the peony wreath, but in between all the pink flower petals, I could see he was still blushing with happiness. A judge went to shake his hand—

  Prince Temujin!

  “Oh, right. Let’s go!” I said, shaking off the excitement. We could celebrate with Regent Maximus later! I still didn’t see police officers anywhere. I jogged into the ring toward the prince. Trouble was, the crowd was spilling down into the ring. Everyone wanted to congratulate the winners, and the way forward was a sea of elbows and knees and children and adults and Unicorns.

  “There! He’s right there!” I said, jumping up and down to point. As if on cue, Prince Temujin looked over his shoulder and saw me in the crowd. His eyes widened, and I saw him turn back to Mr. Henshaw.

  Even from here, I heard him. He was speaking in a quick, clipped voice. A guilty voice. A nervous voice. He was going to run for it. “Well, great show! Nice meeting you! I’ve got to be going. Yes, yes. I have a plane to catch! We’ll be in touch!”

  He began to wind his way through the crowd. I could tell he was trying to go fast but also look casual about it. I didn’t care about looking casual, but I did care about being fast. Too bad that with all the grown-ups and Unicorns and vendors and people that were bigger than me, I could barely move! I finally pushed through to the other side of the ring, just in time to see Prince Temujin break into a jog. He was weaving between Llamadors, running for the exit!

  But just when he was about to fly through the doors, the police officers finally walked in. They had their hands in their pockets and looked almost bored. They clearly didn’t mean to show up just then. Still, Prince Temujin was spooked. He took a sharp turn and hurried off to the left, toward the Glimmerbeast pens.

  Go go go! I chanted to myself as Tomas and I ran along behind him. The Glimmerbeast area was full of pens and paddocks and booths—it’d be so easy for him to lose us in there!

  “I’ve got an idea!” I heard Tomas shout behind me. I looked back at him; he was trying to explain the idea, but had to stop in order to puff on his inhaler as we ran.

  “Just do it! Whateve
r it is, do it!” I shouted back, because I had basically zero ideas at the moment. I ducked under a display of Pegasus saddles—Prince Temujin was a few hundred feet ahead. He was running now, so desperate to get away he didn’t even care that people were staring. I nearly crashed into a lady leading a Manticore—

  “Hey!” the lady said.

  “Hey!” the Manticore said, and blasted me with some steam.

  “Sorry! Excuse me, sorry!” I said, holding out my hands and charging on. Prince Temujin’s tuxedo tails were flapping behind him, but he was getting farther and farther ahead. He cut to the right, and we raced parallel to each other along the Glimmerbeast pens. There was an exit up ahead! Prince Temujin vaulted over a fence, losing his bow tie in the process. He was going to cross through the pen and get to the door!

  Wait—no. Someone was standing in front of it!

  Tomas was standing in front of it. He had his inhaler in one hand and shook it, the little metallic clink making it all the way to my ears. Prince Temujin slowed to a stop and put his hands on his knees in the middle of the pen, then glanced back at me. He was trapped—and he had to go through me or go through Tomas to get out. Sweat was running down his face, and his mouth was open, gasping for breath.

  “I know it was you, Prince Temujin! And even if you get out, I’m going to tell everyone!” I shouted.

  The prince laughed—well, he tried to laugh, but he was out of breath, so he mostly just wheezed. “Even if they believe you, Pip, I’ll be halfway home to Galatolia by then.”

  He turned and sprinted straight at Tomas.

  I held my breath. Tomas squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into fists at his sides, like rather than fighting Prince Temujin, he was just going to transform into a brick wall.

  “Move, Tomas!” I shouted, because as much as I wanted Prince Temujin to be stopped, I didn’t want to see my best friend get smushed.

  Tomas didn’t move.

  He whistled.

  I didn’t know Tomas knew how to whistle, for starters, so I was pretty impressed. But when I realized what he was whistling for, I was really impressed.

  The prince—who was just a few seconds from knocking Tomas to the ground and busting out the door—suddenly yelped. He tripped over nothing whatsoever, flew through the air, and then he was … flying?

  No! Not flying! Tomas whistled again, sharper this time, and patted his knees. There was a commotion of hooves and brays from the seemingly empty pen. The prince wasn’t flying—he was being bustled along on the backs of stampeding invisible Rockshines! Tomas jogged back and forth, and the Rockshines seemed to follow him—I could tell because Prince Temujin was shouting and clinging on to invisible hair, waving back and forth behind Tomas like a kite tail.

  There were footsteps behind me—the police officers’. Together, we watched Prince Temujin bumbling along through thin air.

  “Bring him this way, Tomas!” I called.

  “Is he a wizard?” the police officers asked.

  I shook my head. “No. Just a Rockshine specialist.”

  Tomas took a big, wide circle to me, then abruptly sat down. The Rockshines wheeled to a stop; Prince Temujin slid to the ground, his fancy clothes covered in dust and straw and his toupee fluttering open like the flap of an envelope.

  The police officers didn’t even ask questions. They just faced me and waited for answers.

  “Prince Temujin. He’s the one who cut off the Unicorn tails!” I said.

  “The Rockshines stopped him from escaping the country,” Tomas added proudly. The Rockshines had gathered around him and were blinking on and off into visibility, like Christmas lights—if Christmas lights were brownish gray. Or grayish brown.

  “Hey!” one of the Rockshines said accusingly to Prince Temujin. The prince flinched at the noise.

  The first police officer—her name tag said that her name was McDonald—asked, “How do you know the prince stole the tails?”

  I explained about the Blankbirds, and then about how I’d lost the pair of them that I’d seen project the image of the prince’s bald spot. We all gazed up at the rafters; there were many Blankbirds watching us.

  “Well, that’s okay. We’ll just get the Wimpeling!” McDonald said.

  “The what?” Prince Temujin was trying to sound official and professional and princelike, but it was hard to take him seriously since there was a big Rockshine footprint in the middle of his forehead.

  “We used Wimpelings to analyze smells from the Unicorn pens. Just a quick formality. Once you’ve been cleared, you’ll be free to go,” the other officer said, patting Prince Temujin on the shoulder. It was pretty clear that he didn’t think the prince was responsible. McDonald, however, didn’t seem so sure. She lifted her radio to her mouth and called for another officer to bring a Wimpeling to the Rockshine stalls.

  “Good, yes,” the prince said, but I could tell he was nervous—the Wimpeling would prove I was telling the truth. He cleared his throat and went on, “And what about these two? They tried to crush me with these … sheep … things.”

  “Rockshines,” I corrected.

  “The most common variety of Glimmerbeasts,” Tomas added.

  “And Rockshines are really quite harmless, Your Majesty,” McDonald said, and smiled at him. The prince didn’t smile back. He looked longingly at the door he’d nearly escaped through.

  Finally, another police officer came rushing up with the big orange bucket I knew housed a Wimpeling. Behind him was a small crowd—people from the Unicorn show, mostly, some of whom were still leading their Unicorns.

  “Sorry,” the new police officer—his name tag said his last name was Krogh—said. “They overheard you on the radio.”

  “Wait, the prince? Or Pip? What’s going on?” someone—Mr. Barrera, who was leading Fortnight behind him—said. Marisol was beside him, her eyes wide. Aunt Emma and Callie pushed their way to the front, and I saw Regent Maximus and Mr. Henshaw peering through the crowd from the back.

  “Pip! What did you do to the prince?” Callie asked, tidying her hair and smiling at Prince Temujin as she spoke.

  “Pip! They tried to put flowers on my head,” Regent Maximus cried.

  I ignored them—I was too busy watching the police officer with the Wimpeling. Prince Temujin shifted a little as the bucket neared him. Tomas left the Rockshines to stand beside me.

  “So a Wimpeling is some sort of … um …” Prince Temujin said, trying to spy into the bucket.

  “It’s a variety of magical sea slug,” I said.

  McDonald reached into the bucket to pull out the soggy Wimpeling. The crowd made a loud “ew” noise; Fortnight gagged. McDonald and I both glared at them.

  The other officer smiled a little at the prince. “We’ll just need to let it get a good smell of you.”

  “You’re going to put that thing on me?” the prince asked, horrified.

  “Oh, it doesn’t bite, and it’s not slime season,” McDonald reassured him. “It’d be best if we put it on your face. There’s no way it can get a face scent wrong.”

  “My face?” Prince Temujin looked at me, then Tomas, then the Wimpeling. I put my hands on my hips. A little Wimpeling to the face was nothing compared to the Unicorns losing their tails!

  “All right, close your eyes,” McDonald said, walking up.

  The Wimpeling quivered, and I heard it say, “Oh yes! Delicious smells! Let me at them!”

  McDonald lifted the Wimpeling. “One, two—”

  Prince Temujin held up his palms. “No! I did it!”

  “What?” Mr. Barrera shouted.

  The prince put his head in his hands and shouted, “I cut the Unicorn tails!”

  The crowd gasped. The police officers gasped. Even Tomas gasped—wait, no, he was just using his inhaler.

  The crowd began shouting angrily as they recovered from their shock.

  “Ruiner!”

  “Traitor!”

  “Sabotage!”

  “I wasn’t trying to s
abotage anything!” the prince said pleadingly, looking for—and not finding—sympathetic eyes. “I was trying to save something.”

  “What do you mean?” Krogh demanded.

  The prince took a deep breath and looked over the settling crowd. “My country—Galatolia—is very proud of our magical creatures. We once had more unique magical creatures in our borders than anywhere else in the world. Some scientists even think Galatolia had Dragons once! But over time, so many have been lost. The Galatolia Galloper and the Sherrybill have already gone extinct. The Junebird, our national symbol, is endangered.”

  “What’s a Junebird?” Mr. Barrera asked. He didn’t sound very touched by the prince’s story so far, and I couldn’t really blame him.

  I spoke up. “It’s a very rare magical bird. They lay golden eggs and have long tails.”

  “They’re extraordinary,” the prince said fondly. “And they’re almost gone. You see, they lay only a single egg every few years. Because the eggs are golden, thieves steal them from the nests. Now, Galatolia is down to only a handful of Junebirds, and we’re doing everything we can to keep them safe.”

  “What does that have to do with Unicorn tails?” someone asked impatiently.

  The prince took another big breath. “Junebirds only build their nests from Unicorn tails. The finer the quality of the tail, the more likely the Junebird will love the nest and lay her egg there. We have Unicorns in Galatolia, of course, but they’re smaller, rougher varieties—whereas the Triple Trident hosts Unicorns with the finest tails in the world.”

  “But why steal them?” Marisol asked, sounding hurt. “You ruined Duchess’s chances! You could have at least waited till after the show!”

  The prince shook his head mournfully. “If Junebirds can’t make a nest of quality, they simply don’t, and it’ll be another few years before they try again. Three of our breeding pairs have started looking for Unicorn tails, and, of course, haven’t found any. I have to get back to Galatolia with the Unicorn tails. The survival of the species is at stake! I cut only two tails—that already means that one of our pairs won’t be able to have an egg this time around.”