too. The three of them had become great friends in their first term at Unicorn School when they’d all gone on a special quest to rescue their classmates.
Mum’s car pulled up in the leisure centre car park and the two girls immediately leapt out and ran over to the bush that hid the Magic Portal. Mum followed behind, carrying their bags, their homework and one of Mira’s shoes.
‘You might need these!’ she said.
‘Thanks Mum,’ 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 trainers. Mira got brand new glitter trainers for her birthday from her parents. She LOVED them and she couldn’t wait to show Dave. (Even though Rani said Mira had copied her, as Rani had got her glitter trainers first.)
After hugging Mum goodbye and the obligatory ‘off to school’ photo, the two sisters crawled into the bush and towards a patch of shimmering light. And after Rani told Mira to ‘stop hogging the portal’ they reached out towards the sparkles and tumbled forwards, 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 round 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 the middle of the Unicorn School paddock.
‘Bye!’ said Rani, running off.
‘MIRA!’ came a shriek, and Mira turned to see Darcy. Darcy shouted, ‘Woohoo!’, fluffed her big curly hair and gave Mira a jazz-hand high five.
Raheem was behind her, looking a bit 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 lovely 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 their unicorns.
‘I made this for Brave,’ said Raheem. ‘I’m a bit worried he won’t like it.’ And he got out a red cape, with a blue felt B sewn on to it.
‘He will love that, Raheem – it’s so cool!’
‘I got Star a wig so that we can have matching hair,’ said Darcy.
As they approached the unicorn paddock they heard a loud neigh and the thundering of hooves. Raheem’s unicorn, Brave, was galloping towards 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 bum poking out from the fence surrounding the stables. Dave had got stuck in the fence, trying to get to a pile of apples stacked outside the canteen. 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 stayed 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 backwards, 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 towards 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 scoffed them 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 realise how clever you are,’ said Mira, scratching behind his ears. Being back at Unicorn School was . . .
‘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 them 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 the register.
‘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 Number 19), 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 bit of a way to go to catch up with her sister’s total of a hundred thousand million.
The register seemed to take AGES 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 Sports 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 doing?’ asked Freya. Mira noticed that Freya had really cheered up at the news, but her unicorn, Princess, looked horrified.
‘Can we do 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 in a team with children from the other classes.’
Mira wondered if she would end up on a team with her sister. She wasn’t