Not a Unicorn Read online

  Hot Springs is the ultimate faraway place.

  It’s also a real place, a town in New Mexico. Only it’s not called Hot Springs anymore. In the 1950s, a radio show called Truth or Consequences held a contest: If your town renames itself after our program, we’ll come host our show there. Hot Springs entered . . . and won. Their town has been called Truth or Consequences ever since. I don’t know what Beaumont or Esmeralda would think about the towns-people’s choice, but it’s a true story. I looked it up.

  Nicholas fake-clears his throat and taps the top of the issue to get my attention.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say.

  “There’s a drake,” he says, clearly having read this one already. “Page eight. Find it.”

  I flip to page eight, and sure enough, a drake—or what most people would call a dragon. Below the drake there’s a caption in small, light print that reads 46.12 N, 112.94 W.

  “Got it,” I say, and tell him the numbers, which he immediately records in a notebook. He pins a piece of yellow yarn to the side of the map right above 46 degrees latitude. Then he takes another piece of yarn and pins it at the top of the map, just west of 112 degrees longitude.

  I go over and grab the longitude string and pull it to the bottom, while Nicholas guides his yarn across the latitude line. Where they cross, Nicholas stabs the red flag into the map.

  “There,” he says. “It’s just west of Butte, Montana. What’s there?”

  This usually happens. The places where the coordinates meet are mostly in small towns, too tiny to be represented on Nicholas’s map, even though it’s gigantic. I enter the coordinates into his laptop. “It crosses at a place called Anaconda, Montana,” I tell him. “Population nine thousand two hundred and ninety-eight.”

  Nicholas steps back and studies the position of the new flag. “Anaconda, huh? So that’s where drakes come from.”

  “They also come from . . .” I lean in to get a closer look at the map. “Comfort, Texas, and Scotts Hill, Tennessee.” This isn’t the first drake to show up in Highwaymen.

  Okay, I’ll explain. Every time a new magical creature arrives in Hot Springs, they come with what we realized must be degrees of latitude and longitude written beneath them. The intersection of those lines is called a global address. We think these captions tell us the original global address of each magical creature. In other words, where it came from before arriving in Hot Springs.

  “I can’t wait till we can finally drive and take a road trip to all these places,” Nicholas says, gesturing grandly across the red-flag-studded map.

  It’s a good idea, one we talk about all the time. One that I’d be lose-my-mind excited about . . . if I didn’t have a horn on my head. All those red flags represent lots of strangers. “It’ll take a whole summer,” I say, hiding my thoughts from him.

  “Perfect summer.” Nicholas grins.

  I return to the Highwaymen in my hands and go back to page one. Every issue begins the same—during a calm and normal moment in Hot Springs. Sometimes a tumbleweed is literally bouncing down Main Street. It never ends that way, though. By the last page, the carnage will have been . . . let’s just say significant.

  Today, Esmeralda and Chet are riding out of town under the azure sky. Esmeralda’s white horse is named Sheba. Esmeralda raised her from a foal after Sheba’s mother was killed by one of Wesley’s baddies.

  Esmeralda looks over at Chet, and he grins back at her. Here’s the deal: Esmeralda loves Chet. He’s an outlaw, and some people think he’s bad, but not Esmeralda. She sees the best in him, even though he’s oblivious to her feelings. Beaumont, the sheriff, loves Esmeralda, but she doesn’t have a clue.

  Usually, Esmeralda, Chet, and Beaumont rescue the magical creatures who have been captured or injured, mostly by Wesley and his baddies. Wesley collects magical creature trophies—a fang from a Mongolian death worm, a talon from a griffin—whatever can bring the highest bidder. It’s a booming business, like elephant poaching in Africa. Wesley takes what he wants, leaving the dead and wounded behind. Whenever a new magical creature appears in Hot Springs, Wesley usually isn’t far behind. Esmeralda, Beaumont, and Chet make it their business to stop him.

  I turn the page.

  Overhead, the phoenix lets out a loud cry, and Chet and Esmeralda whip their heads around. A drake is crossing the distant plain and lumbering toward town.

  Drakes are one of the few magical creatures on their enemies list. That’s because when drakes show up, they always try to burn everything down.

  Esmeralda and Chet pivot their horses. They watch the drake trundle across the desert floor.

  Chet says, “He’s a big fella, ain’t he?”

  That’s when the big fella lets out a bellowing eruption of fire.

  Esmeralda reins Sheba toward town. “I’ll warn Beaumont,” she says. Dust flies up from under Sheba’s hooves as she gallops away. Sheba gains speed and her great big beautiful wings spread wide. Sheba is a Chollima—a flying horse from actual mythology. As she and Esmeralda take flight, the phoenix follows, a purple tail to Sheba’s dove-white kite.

  Chet watches, awed. He can’t help himself. He’s always awed when Esmeralda flies away on Sheba’s back. When the magical moment passes, Chet squeezes his legs into the sides of his distinctly nonmagical regular horse. “Gid-up,” he clicks, and follows Esmeralda toward town.

  “Look what I found!” Nicholas says, coming into the room with a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. I didn’t even realize he’d been gone.

  I reach for the bag, but he pulls it back. “No orange fingers on Highwaymen.”

  Putting it aside temporarily, I get a handful of Cheetos, and Nicholas plops down on the floor.

  “Do you think Esmeralda and the gang would think you were a unicorn if they met you?”

  “Like in person?” I ask.

  “Yeah, just hypothetically.”

  “They would probably think I was a freak.”

  “They’d think I was more of a freak than you,” he says.

  I look at him sideways. “You could be normal. Heck, you practically are.”

  “Are you kidding? You don’t have to have a horn to be different.”

  Whatever, Nicholas. Ever since we met in sixth grade he’s done his best to convince me that he’s so different. Not buying it.

  “Boys like me don’t live in Hot Springs,” he says.

  “Yeah. Because boys like you don’t know how to ride a horse.”

  “Or something like that.”

  It annoys me when he tries to be a freak like me. I mean, if he wants it so bad, he can have it. But until Nicholas has a horn on his head, there’s no way he can understand what it’s truly like to be different.

  Fallout

  “I can’t believe you just left school,” Mom yell-whispers. “You can’t worry me like that!” Mom doesn’t want to upset Grandma in the other room, so we’re talking low. She’s making mac and cheese from the box, still in her Walmart vest.

  After Mom heard Nicholas’s dad’s message, and the one from Mrs. Whatley, she called me. She was so mad that she made me give the phone to Barry, who got an earful from her. Super embarrassing.

  “It wasn’t anything,” I say, and Mom’s eyes bug out.

  “Wasn’t anything?! You’re not like Nicholas. You don’t have parents to pay for things like college and everything else. You’ve got to keep up your grades, work hard, get scholarships. NOT SKIP SCHOOL. And you just got picked for the French competition. You don’t want to ruin that. What got into you?”

  I told her about the essay competition after I told Grandma, and like Grandma, she was like, “Of course, you have to go!” I choose to ignore that subject for the moment.

  “It’s not my fault!” I yell-whisper back. “Some kid stole my . . . stuff.” Now it sounds dumb even to me, but the feelings come rushing back.

  “Some kids are going to always be mean.” Mom sighs. “You can’t let them bother you. You’ve got to keep focused on the big picture.” />
  “Please don’t big-picture me.”

  “I will big-picture you!” Mom says. “Every minute of every day if I have to.”

  “It’s not just the other kids. It’s everything.” I say, standing my ground. “You don’t get it.”

  “Well, then, we’re even, because there is so much you don’t get either. You have to trust me. If you just stick to the plan, it’s going to be—”

  “What? Just more of the same amount of bad?” I shake my head. My mom is fixated on my grades and getting a scholarship to college. “Maybe we need a new plan.”

  “What does that mean?” she asks.

  “Maybe it’s time to take a break.”

  Her hand goes to her hip. “A break from what?”

  “School,” I tell her. I’m making this up as I go, but it’s sounding pretty all right.

  “What do you mean, a break from school?”

  “You girls okay in there?” Grandma calls from the couch in the adjoining room.

  Mom grimaces at me. “We’re fine, Mama.” She’s trying to sound like everything’s okay, but her voice is never that high-pitched unless she’s worried or lying. “We’re going to eat in just a minute.”

  When she looks back at me, I whisper, “Yeah, a break from school.” And why not take a break? Because just think, if Dr. Stein can remove my horn, I can always go back. And if he can’t—well, what’s changed, anyway?

  “Oh, don’t even.” Mom glares at me. “You can’t quit school.” She takes a deep breath, then says, “You’re so smart, Jewel. And so beautiful. You can’t just throw away an education, sweetheart.”

  How come when she calls me sweetheart, it doesn’t sound so sweet? “None of that matters if I can’t go anywhere without people being distracted by this thing!” I say, pointing to my horn, in case she’s forgotten.

  “They’re not so distracted that they don’t reward you for good work. He chose you for the French thing.”

  “Because I wrote about this!” I gesture to my horn again. “But it’s because of this that I don’t want it.”

  Mom shakes her head. “Listen, I don’t know a better way to make lemons into lemonade than that. You’re the one who chose to write about your horn. And he wants you to do it. How you’re so good at French, I will never know, but you are.” She looks at me with exhausted eyes. “Can’t we just go with it? Say an easy yes for once?”

  I want to scream. What kind of logic is that? “I’m not up for everybody staring at me.”

  Mom shoves a bowl of leftover string beans into the microwave. “Not everybody stares at you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Let me tell you something,” she says, looking hard at me. “Your life may be tough. It may be unfair. But you are going to finish school. You are going to graduate from college. Got it? You’re not going to end up like me.”

  That last bit makes me pause. “What’s wrong with ending up like you?”

  She rolls her eyes at me with a bitterness that makes me think she’s forgetting I’m her daughter, not a friend. “Please. Really, Jewel?”

  “You’re a good mom,” I say, meeting her gaze.

  “Yeah, regular Mom of the Year,” she says, and looks away. She punches the timer on the microwave and presses start. “Go on and set the table, okay?”

  After dinner, I grab my laptop and head out our apartment door. Sam, the nine-year-old kid who lives downstairs, is kicking his soccer ball against the side of the building. He’s completely unaware of the unicorn standing only a few feet away from him. Sam doesn’t look up at me, but Carmen does.

  Our apartment building is two stories, and we live on the second floor. Emma’s bedroom window is directly across from mine, with a parking lot between us. So close, and yet so far.

  Sitting on the steps outside our front door, I open my laptop and hope for an internet connection. Sometimes it’s better out here. I finally get in, but “Angela’s” inbox is still empty.

  I look down at my green sneakers we got from the local thrift shop and my pink laces I snagged from the Dollar Store. Secondhand sneakers with a buck’s worth of laces. If that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does.

  The soccer ball gets away from Sam and rolls past Carmen. It bounces off the hood of my mom’s brown Corolla, which is minding its own business in its regular parking space below. As he retrieves the ball, Sam looks up at me and gives me an up-nod. Nine years old and already too cool for an apology.

  My eyes meet Carmen’s. She stands so patiently at the bottom of the stairs. What is she waiting for me to do? Get on her back and ride away with her?

  That almost happened once. A long time ago, I climbed onto Carmen’s back from the hood of my mom’s car.

  I was six years old and saw Carmen from my window, nodding her head up and down at me like she did when she wanted my attention. It was late; Mom was asleep. I snuck out and ran down the stairs in bare feet and hugged my unicorn, which really meant I wrapped myself around her giant front leg that was taller than me. When I let go, she bowed low and I knew exactly what she wanted me to do. I climbed up onto the Corolla’s hood and clambered onto Carmen’s back.

  I had never been on top of Carmen before. I was up so high that I should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. As she clomped across the parking lot, I tightened my fists around her white mane while the streetlamp threw her enormous shadow and my smaller one across the pavement. At the two-lane street, Carmen stopped and looked both ways before crossing and taking us into the woods.

  I remember everything about that night so vividly. Carmen threaded through trees while I rocked gently back and forth on her back. Soon, I realized I didn’t have to hold on at all. Carmen wasn’t going to let me fall.

  I couldn’t tell how much time passed—it could have been an hour or a handful of minutes—before we reached a big boulder by a stream. Across from the boulder was a narrow descending trail covered by an awning of vines. I couldn’t see where the trail led, but it was leading somewhere. I felt that with certainty.

  When I slid off Carmen’s back, the boulder was cold under my feet. I can still feel it when I think about that night. We stood there staring at each other, horn to horn. It was the first time we’d stood like that—I’d never been so high up before. I remember reaching out and placing my hand on her face. I don’t know how I knew what Carmen was thinking, but I always did—I always do—and as I stood on that cold boulder half a lifetime ago, I knew she wanted me to come with her down the trail. But I had the feeling that going with her meant not coming back.

  Eventually, Carmen lay down and I climbed off the boulder and curled up beside her. I wasn’t afraid, because I knew Carmen would watch over me. I remember feeling as loved and secure as I ever had. When I fell asleep, I dreamt of her.

  The next morning, I woke up on a pile of leaves and Carmen was gone. When I heard strange voices calling my name, I got up and wandered toward the sounds.

  When they finally got me to Mom, she hugged me until I thought I might break. After that, she got a deadbolt for the front door and hid the key. So I could never scare her like that again.

  “Mind if I join you?” I look up to see Grandma standing beside me at the top of the stairs.

  “Sure,” I say, and she sits down next to me, holding an old photo album.

  “Did I ever tell you that my grandfather only got an eighth-grade education?”

  “Really?” I turn to her, brightening, before I realize she must have overheard at least some of me and Mom’s fight.

  Grandma cocks an eyebrow. “You sound like you think that was a good thing. He was a smart man who would have loved an education. But back then, by the time you got to eighth grade, most kids had to give up the books to work on the family farm. That’s how it was out in the country.” She pauses, then adds, “But that’s not how it is for you.”

  I tip my head back and groan. “We were trying to whisper.”

  “I may be old, darlin’, but I’m not deaf. I hear
a lot of things you and your mother don’t want me to hear.”

  “So you’re taking her side?”

  “I’m not taking anybody’s side. You know me better than that.” She squeezes my hand. “I’m just presenting another side of the story.” She opens the photo album with her right hand. “And here’s another.”

  “How many sides does this story have?” I scoot toward her and look down at the pictures stuck behind cellophane. There’s a girl holding a baton in a short sparkly outfit with her hair up in a bun, smiling into the camera. “Is that Mom?”

  “That’s my Angela,” Grandma says. “I took this at the state finals in baton twirling. She was third place of all the twirlers in the entire state.”

  “The state finals?” I gaze at Mom more closely. I knew she twirled, but I didn’t know she was this good.

  “She was the star at football games.” Grandma turns a page, and there are more pictures of Mom in front of the whole marching band on the high school football field.

  “I’ve never seen these before,” I say, staring at my teenaged Mom, who looks so young and hopeful. So not how she looks now. “She was . . . amazing.”

  “She is amazing,” Grandma says. “She was my miracle. You know that, right?”

  I nod. Grandma likes to tell me this story.

  “They thought your grandpa and me would never have a baby of our own. And then lo and behold, forty-year-old me gets pregnant.” She claps her hand on her knee. “I don’t think we really believed it for the longest time. Your grandpa would stare at my growing belly, afraid to touch it, bless his soul. And when your mama finally came,” she says, her eyes sparkling, “she was everything we’d hoped for.”

  “I know, Grandma.”

  “It’s easy to think your mom’s being hard on you,” she continues, her voice growing serious. “But you need to know she had dreams, too. She wanted things. To be a teacher. To have a nice home. To have a big family. To have a nice husband.” She pauses. “And then life didn’t work out like she . . . well, expected.”