The Naughtiest Unicorn at Sports Day. Pip Bird

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, rubbishest 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 sports day now. The whole school had been divided up into four teams. Mira and Rani weren’t on the same team, which was a bit of 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 Sports Day every year and could have been in the Olympics if unicorns were allowed in the Olympics. 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 three children from each of the other classes. They went round the team with everyone 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 called Ali and a girl from Class Blue called Sarah. And two boys from Class Orange who were both called Tom and were wearing matching T-shirts. Yusuf from Class Indigo had a unicorn called Storm, who was inky black and covered in silver dots that looked like glittery raindrops. Their team captain was a girl called 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 rubbish at all the 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 loads 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 realise 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 head teacher, announced that each team needed to think of a team name.

      ‘All the teams are to be named after animals,’ the head teacher said, ‘so think very caref–’

       screamed Flo.

      ‘Sloths,’ said Miss Glitterhorn, writing it down on a clipboard. Laughter from the other teams rippled round 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 dithering 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 sports day.