A Unicorn's Tale, Part 2

2.

One day Larry woke me early. I asked him if we were going to the observatory on the hill. 

“It’s closed today,” he said. “Come on.”

He took me to a bakery where he snatched the cakes out of a display case, while I stood on the sidewalk and looked pretty. Humans on the street thought I was a miniature horse, some sort of gimmick to draw customers to the bakery; I was small and sweet and hornless, despite already getting that silver glisten in my coat. Parents sat their toddlers on my back, while teenagers snickered and waited their turn. I tried my best not to bolt as one of the bigger kids pushed past the younger ones and jumped onto my back. 

“Giddyup,” she cried. She kicked my flanks with her combat boots.

My magical instincts kicked in and I leaped forward. I had never gone so fast in my entire short life. We jumped across streets, Colorado Boulevard, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, until we paused in a forest.

Yes, this exact forest. 

The girl’s not here. I left her in Morocco. That was our stop after Malibu, Diamond Head, Phuket, Eritmae, and Timbuktuu. You call it teleporting, but it’s not really teleporting. Our hooves have to touch down somewhere between each stride. I happened to get lucky with solid land on every bounce. 

Bet you didn’t know unicorns bounced. Well, that is another “misnomer”, and another story.

Right now I am guessing you want to know why I left the poor girl in Morocco. To begin with she was not so much of a poor thing as a solid brat who did not know when to stop her yippee-kai-yaying and go-fasters. For another thing she could not have ridden a banister let alone a horse, at least not like she thought she could. Halfway around the world and she was already slipping sideways; it was only a matter of time before she tipped sideways and fell into the dirt. Lastly, this was my maiden voyage with magical gifts. There is never any real preparation for times like these, but if I had at least had talk with some other unicorn I might have figured out a few things.

I cannot remember my thoughts exactly but I probably thought I was daydreaming about being a full-grown unicorn. Even as unconnected at I was, even I heard the stories: the speed of Marcai Bolt, the agility of Wanda “Ninelives” Manetossy, the beauty of Lavina Tailswisher. What foal didn’t idolize at least one of the legends?

When we appeared in north Africa the girl slipped off my back in the middle of a sunny plaza and wailed for her mother. I turned my head and lifted my hoof in preparation for the dance I had seen Larry perform, but suddenly I bounced backward. Alone, I retraced every stop until I returned to the street in front of the bakery, where the crowd had started gasping and pointing at the space I had vacated anywhere from one minute to ten minutes before.

“Rookie!” The voice shouted down at me. I looked up to see Larry perched on top of the bakery beside a heap of stolen baked goods. “Get up here, Rookie.”

I asked him how. He told me something that would have made my first trip a lot easier if I had known what I was doing. I got my first lesson in how to bounce.

Read the Third Part