CHAPTER ONE
Back to Unicorn School
Mira Desai had been in the kitchen since five A.M. doing her homework.
Usually this would be a very strange thing to do, but Mira’s homework was for Unicorn School and was much more fun than normal homework, so she wanted to spend every spare moment she had on it. The students had been asked to make a present for their unicorn, and Mira had thought of the PERFECT present for her unicorn, Dave. She was making him a lunch box. Dave loved lunch. And breakfast … and dinner!
Dave wasn’t everyone’s idea of the perfect unicorn—and he wasn’t what Mira had been expecting when she’d dreamed of going to Unicorn School. He was plump, with stumpy little legs and a mane like straw that stuck up in all directions. And Dave was a little naughty. And lazy. And greedy. But NO ONE could make Mira laugh like Dave could—AND he was her UBFF (Unicorn Best Friend Forever). Nothing could change that.
Right now she was decorating the special lunch box with pictures of all the fun they’d had on her last trip to Unicorn School.
Mira was just writing Dave’s name in glitter when her sister, Rani, joined her in the kitchen. Rani was two years older than Mira and also went to Unicorn School. She was in Class Yellow, while Mira was in Class Red. (The classes went up through all the colors of the rainbow.) Rani’s unicorn was named Angelica, and Rani always went on and on about how special and sparkly she was and how they’d won lots of medals. Rani laid a piece of paper on the table and put her fluffy pencil case next to it. She was making a poster to go on Angelica’s stall door. She started carefully drawing her unicorn with a gel pen.
“I’m just drawing a picture of the time Angelica and I won THREE medals in ONE DAY,” Rani announced.
Mira looked at the side of the lunch box. She had stuck on a picture of the time Dave had eaten three cakes in one minute.
“What’s that?” said Rani, leaning over. “It looks like a blob eating some other blobs. And why have you drawn a rat?”
“That’s ME,” said Mira angrily.
Rani continued, “It’s actually easier for you, you know. Everyone is SO jealous of me having a perfect unicorn. But no one would want your unicorn—everyone knows he’s the naughtiest, awfulest unicorn in the world.”
Mira shook her head. Rani had no idea about the adventures she’d had with Dave. They’d made it all the way through the Fearsome Forest AND performed a daring rescue on the Mystical Danger Cliff. Mira turned to her sister. “Awfulest isn’t a word,” she said.
They kept drawing in silence. A little later, Mira and Rani’s mom and dad came downstairs. “It’s so wonderful that they have this experience to share,” said Dad.
Then Mira grabbed Rani’s pink gel pen and Rani put Mira in a headlock, so Mom had to separate them. She told them to get their bags and get in the car—it was time to go back to Unicorn School!
* * *
Mira was so excited that she could hardly keep still as they drove to the Magic Portal that would take them back to Unicorn School. It wasn’t just that she would get to see Dave, but she’d also get to see her new Unicorn School friends Darcy and Raheem, too. The three of them had become great friends in their first semester at Unicorn School, when they’d all gone on a special quest to rescue their classmates.
Mom’s car pulled up in the rec center parking lot, and the two girls immediately leaped out and ran over to the bush that hid the Magic Portal. Mom followed behind, carrying their bags, their homework, and one of Mira’s shoes.
“You might need these!” she said.
“Thanks, Mom,” said Mira, as Rani jumped up and down, impatient to go into the portal. Mira’s hands were shaking, and she almost couldn’t tie the laces on her sneakers. Mira had gotten brand-new glitter sneakers for her birthday from her parents. She LOVED them, and she couldn’t wait to show them to Dave. (Even though Rani said Mira had copied her, since Rani had gotten her glitter sneakers first.)
After hugging Mom goodbye and taking the obligatory “off to school” photo, the two sisters crawled into the bush toward a patch of shimmering light. And after Rani told Mira to “stop hogging the portal,” they reached out toward the sparkles and tumbled forward, into what felt like thin air. It had only been a few weeks since Mira had last done this, but she’d forgotten how fast it was! It was like going down the big slide at a water park, but with air whooshing around you and rainbow lights whizzing past. Mira and Rani giggled and held on to each other as they shot through the air and landed with a soft thump on the Landing Haystack, in front of the Great Hall.
“Bye!” said Rani, running off.
“MIRA!” came a shriek, and Mira turned to see Darcy. Darcy shouted “Woo-hoo!” and fluffed her big curly hair, then gave Mira a jazz-hand high five. Raheem was behind her, looking a little anxious as he always did, but pleased to see Mira.
“We’ve been waiting for you to arrive before we go and get our unicorns!” Raheem said, grinning.
That gave Mira a happy, warm feeling inside. Although she had friends in the real world, it was so nice to have special friends at Unicorn School to share lots of adventures with! The three friends started to talk about the presents they had made for their unicorns.
“I made this for Brave,” said Raheem. “I’m a little worried he won’t like it.” And he held up a red cape with a blue felt B sewn onto it.
“He will love that, Raheem—it’s so cool!” Mira said.
“I got Star a wig so that we can have matching hair,” said Darcy.
As they approached the Grand Paddock, they heard a loud neigh and the thundering of hooves. Raheem’s unicorn, Brave, was galloping toward them. Raheem instinctively dived behind a trough just as Brave skidded to a halt. Brave was confused for a moment, but then Raheem quickly crawled out and gave him a hug. Mira was right—Brave LOVED the gift. Raheem put it on him, and Brave stomped around, striking superhero poses.
Darcy and her unicorn, Star, were busy taking selfies with their matching hair. Mira looked around for Dave, until she saw a very familiar unicorn butt poking out from the fence surrounding the stables. Dave had gotten stuck in the fence trying to get to a pile of apples stacked outside the cafeteria. When he heard Mira call his name, he whinnied. So Mira ran over. She tried pulling his legs to help get him out, but he remained stuck in the fence. She climbed over and gave him a shove from the other side.
With a loud POP, Dave came free from the fence and fell backward, knocking over a unicorn who’d been walking past.
“Sorry!” called Mira, as the unicorn picked herself up, tutted at Dave, and trotted away.
Mira turned back to her unicorn, who was trotting straight back toward the gap in the fence, eyeing the apples hungrily.
“Wait—Dave, I got you something!” said Mira, pulling the lunch box out of her bag.
Dave’s eyes went wide and he gave a happy grunt. He was even more delighted when he nudged the lid off with his nose and saw that Mira had filled the lunch box with doughnuts. He scarfed them down immediately, just as Mira had expected he would, but he did a little trick of bouncing each doughnut on his nose before catching it in his mouth, which made Mira laugh.
“I don’t think people realize how clever you are,” said Mira, scratching behind his ears. Being back at Unicorn School was …
CHAPTER TWO
Team Sloth!
“Good morning, Class Red,” said Miss Glitterhorn.
“Good mooorrrrning, Miss Glitterhoorrrn,” chorused Mira’s class. They were sitting in their classroom. Each desk had a taller unicorn desk next to it, with a bag of hay and shelves for grooming brushes. As usual, Dave had already eaten his entire bag of hay and was sneaking mouthfuls from the desk next to them, which belonged to Jake and his unicorn, Pegasus.
Pegasus noticed and moved the bag away from Dave with his hoof. Dave waited until Pegasus looked away and moved it back. Pegasus snorted indignantly. “Control your unicorn!” hissed Jake.
Mira wanted to remind Jake how she and Dave had rescued him from the Mystical Danger Cliff, but somehow she knew that wouldn’t help. Dave ALWAYS managed to get on the wrong side of Jake, and she suspected Jake was embarrassed that Dave had come to his rescue.
Jake and Pegasus turned back to face the front, and Dave crept over to steal another mouthful of hay.
Miss Glitterhorn said she had some VERY important news for the class, which she would tell them right after she’d taken attendance.
“I wonder what it is!” squeaked Flo, her glasses falling off in excitement. Flo was unicorn obsessed and was wearing a unicorn onesie. Mira wasn’t sure if it counted as dressing sensibly (Unicorn School Rule 20), but the onesie did look cool.
“Maybe it’s a school trip,” said Freya, who was Flo’s twin sister.
Mira hoped that whatever it was, there would be a chance for her and Dave to win a medal. She had a ways to go to catch up with her sister’s total of a hundred thousand million.
Attendance seemed to take FOREVER as the class all waited for the very important news.
FINALLY their teacher finished and said, “Now, Class Red, I am excited to tell you that tomorrow is … Unicorn School Field Day!”
There were murmurs of surprise and then cheers from most of the class, except Raheem, who just fidgeted in his seat.
“What sports will we be playing?” asked Freya. Mira noticed that Freya had really perked up at the news, but her unicorn, Princess, looked horrified.
“Can we play handball?” said Darcy.
“Chess?” Raheem said hopefully.
“What about wrestling?” said Freya eagerly. Princess fainted.
“You don’t get to pick the sports,” said Miss Glitterhorn, raising her voice over the chatter. “Now, in assembly we will be getting into our teams. The whole school will be divided into four teams, so you will be on a team with children from the other classes.”
Mira wondered if she would end up on a team with her sister. She wasn’t sure if it would be worse to be with Rani or competing against her.
“And the winning team,” continued their teacher, “will get to go on a mystery quest.”
An excited “Oooooooooooh” ran around the classroom.
Mira looked at Dave. Maybe he’s athletic in a secret and unexpected way, Mira tried to tell herself.
But she couldn’t forget what her sister said that morning about Dave being the naughtiest, awfulest unicorn in the world.
Would they let their team down?
* * *
Mira looked at her team in the assembly hall. She was feeling more excited about field day now. The whole school had been divided up into four teams. Mira and Rani weren’t on the same team, which was a relief. Rani was on a team with Jake, from Mira’s class, who had spent the whole morning telling everyone how his parents had won Unicorn School Field Day every year and reminding everyone that they were Olympic show jumpers. Mira could hear Rani confidently telling the rest of the team that they were SO going to be the winners. “And we HAVE to beat Mira’s team,” Rani declared. “Whatever it takes—do anything you can to win!”
Mira gulped and turned back to her own team. She was with Raheem and Flo from Class Red, and there were children from each of the other classes. The team took turns saying their name and the name of their unicorn. It was a lot of names to remember. Mira already knew Jimmy and Anja from Class Yellow, because they were friends with her sister. There was a girl from Class Green named Ali and a girl from Class Blue named Sarah, and two boys from Class Orange who were both named Tom and wore matching T-shirts. Yusuf from Class Indigo had a unicorn named Storm, who was inky black and covered in silver dots that looked like glittery raindrops. Their team captain was a girl named Yasmin from Class Violet.
Flo was beside herself with excitement, and Miss Glitterhorn had to keep taking her outside to calm down. Raheem was the opposite—he stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking glum.
“It’ll be fun, Raheem!” said Mira.
He frowned. “It’s just that I’m really bad at all sports, and I don’t want to let anyone down.” He looked sideways at Brave, who was stretching and trotting on the spot.
“Don’t worry,” said Mira. “Winning doesn’t matter. I mean, if we do win and get tons of medals and beat my sister and laugh in her face, that will be THE BEST…” Mira’s voice trailed off as she pictured this.
“Mira?” said Raheem. He waved his hand in front of her face.
“Sorry—yes! The main thing is we all work together and have fun.” She gave Raheem a friendly nudge on the shoulder.
Brave gave him a friendly nudge, too. Unfortunately, Brave often didn’t realize his own strength, and Raheem went flying, landing in the middle of the next team.
Raheem untangled himself and came back over. Despite looking a bit dazed, he grinned at Brave. Mira could tell he appreciated his unicorn trying to cheer him up. Raheem cheered up even more when he saw that Sarah from Class Blue had brought a crossword book with her.
Madame Shetland, the tiny Unicorn School principal, announced that each team needed to think of a team name.
“All the teams are to be named after animals,” the principal said, “so think very caref–”
“Sloths,” said Miss Glitterhorn, writing it down on a clipboard. Laughter from the other teams rippled around the hall.
“But—” said Mira.
“Be quiet, Sloths!” barked Madame Shetland. “Now, the rest of you, think very carefully about your team name and what it says about you and your ambitions.”
After conferring, one team picked Cobras, Jake and Rani’s team chose Rhinos, and Darcy’s team spent so long arguing that they ended up being called Team Lions or Tigers.
“Why did you pick sloths?” Mira asked Flo.
“I heard they like hugs,” said Flo, shrugging.
Mira sighed. Sloths were cute, but they didn’t sound like the sort of animals who would come first at field day.
Text copyright © 2019 by Egmont UK Ltd. Illustrations copyright © 2019 by David O’Connell.
