“Dudes.” Mal whistled.
“Totally, dudes! That’s where those unicornies like to pop up,” Flap said. “But it’s, like, kind of rando.”
“Okay,” April turned to look at Mal and Jo. “So. Now what?”
“Now we call the cats home!” Mal said, pointing at the Clow Bell in April’s hand.
“Cats!” Ripley jumped. “There’s cats?! AMAZING!”
“No,” Mal said, “but there’s unicorns.”
“And we call them with the Clow Bells?” Molly tilted her head.
Mal smiled at Molly.
“Remember how Molly got the unicorn to follow us by holding out the Clow Bells,” Mal explained. “So. They eat them all the time; they would have become attuned to the sound they make. So maybe if we ring them, maybe they’ll come up!”
“Genius,” Molly said, carefully taking Mal’s good hand.
“Two points for genius,” Jo added, pointing at Mal.
“WE HAVE SO MANY POINTS NOW!” Ripley cheered.
April looked at the now slightly more wilted flower. “Do you think this one Clow Bell is enough?”
“I think it would help if we had more,” Jo admitted. “But that’s what we’ve got.”
“WAIT!” Ripley cheered. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out her sweatshirt, which was rolled around . . . a whole bunch of . . . Clow Bells!
“RIPLEY!” April gasped. “This is the best bouquet EVER!”
“I thought I would put them in the cabin for later in case we saw more unicorns,” Ripley admitted. “But we can use them now.”
“Okay.” Jo picked up the flowers and passed them around to the other scouts. “Let’s do this, Lumberjanes.”
“And Cloudies,” Ripley said. “Cloudies can help!”
And so everyone, including Flap, Swish, Boom, and Whoosh, stood by the edge of the cloud, holding a delicate flower in each hand.
Almost everyone.
“HEY!” Lady Dana arrived with her beard flowing out behind her. “What are you doing now?”
“RINGING UP SOME UNICORNS,” April said. “Want to join us?”
“Humph,” Lady Dana said, folding her arms over her chest.
“Okay,” Jo said. “Everyone else ready?”
“Yes!”
“YAS!”
“Let’s do it!”
“Yes!!”
“Ya, dudes.”
“Totally.”
CHAPTER 41
“Rosie!” Jen pointed. “LOOK!”
The unicorns froze. All at once. Like someone had pressed pause on the unicorn movie.
They pricked up their ears.
And listened.
“Hmmm,” said Rosie.
One unicorn in particular, with a purple and gold tail, raised its head up high. It shook its head. It whinnied. Like you would whinny if you were calling out, “COMING!”
Then, all at once, the unicorns shifted, like a wind picking up and blowing across the fields. They started to buck and rear up. Then they started to run.
“This could be something,” Rosie said, grabbing Jen’s hand. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” Jen twisted to follow Rosie. “Go where?”
The unicorns began to run in a circle, gathering up in a wave, a wave that was gaining momentum and lifting off the ground.
“I think it’s going to be UP,” Rosie said, and the two of them started to run. “Get ready to ride, Jet!”
“It’s JEN! And, uh, while we’re on the subject, have you ever ridden a unicorn before?” Jen hollered as they closed in on the cyclone of zipping unicorns.
“NO!” Rosie hollered back. “It’s going to be FUN!”
The unicorns were kicking up their own gale-force wind tunnel.
A wind tunnel that smelled like a very old dog blanket soufflé.
Rosie and Jen plunged forward into the twister of tails and horns.
Having taken half a second to think it over, Rosie offered this insight: “I’m thinking it’s going to be a little like riding a Ferrantio,” she shouted, as she reached out for a flying mane. “Minus the wings and hopefully minus the biting.”
“MINUS THE WHAT!?”
“HANG ON!”
CHAPTER 42
At first, there was not much to see, just a bunch of Lumberjanes and a few Cloudies waving flowers in the air next to a hole in the cloud.
Not that that itself wasn’t interesting, it just wasn’t very rescue-y.
April waved her flowers with her eyes closed. Hoping. Hoping. Hoping.
“Is this what they teach you at Lumberjanes?” Lady Dana fumed, pacing behind them. “Flower waving? Minus two points for weird ideas.”
“Lumberjanes love weird ideas!” Molly called behind her. “Plus a million points for weird ideas!”
“Heck ya,” Ripley said, pleased that they were still on a good point streak.
“Truth,” Jo nodded.
April frowned. This had to work. Had to. Had to.
“Just wait,” Mal said.
“Wait for WHAT?” Lady Dana barked.
“Sometimes it takes a while for something to work,” Molly said, patiently.
“They’re coming!” Ripley sang out. “I can smell them! They’re coming!”
“Yeek,” Mal said, but still, it was not the worst thing in the world. Because yes, it smelled awful, a wave of old eggs in a bed of Ferrantio droppings, but here they came!
A cacophony of unicorns, with pink tails and blue tails and green tails and red tails all aflutter, sparkling in the sun and smelling not unlike a rising tide of very old tuna fish sandwiches (if old tuna fish sandwiches could fly), emerged from the clouds. It was like a parade of unicorns, but slightly more chaotic. Somewhere in the bustle of bright colors, Rosie and Jen waved ecstatically.
“WOOO-HOOO!” Rosie called. “The cavalry has arrived!”
“GIRLS!” Jen cried, holding on to her unicorn with both arms. “YOU’RE ALIVE!”
“JEN!” Mal and Molly cried.
“ROSIE!” April jumped up and down.
HOORAY!
“UNICOOOOORNS!” Ripley trilled, whirling in the air, shaking her Clow Bells. “THIS IS AMAZING!”
It’s worth pointing out, for anyone who has plans to RIDE a unicorn, that there is no real command to get a unicorn to stop. Additionally, as noted earlier, unicorns don’t really like to take a direct route anywhere, so it took a little bit of time for the rave of unicorns to actually land on the cloudy crest.
The unicorn Jen was riding opted to take a few extra loops through the clouds before coming to a screeching halt that kicked up a significant amount of cloud.
Ripley recognized him immediately. “DR. TWINKLE!” she cried, adding, “JEN!”
As soon as she was sure they weren’t about to take another loop, Jen projectile-dismounted off her unicorn and was immediately pounced on by April, Ripley, Jo, Mal, and Molly. “YOU GUYS, I WAS SO WORRIED!” Jen gasped from under a pile of grateful scouts, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”
“Um,” Jo said, “not really, actually.”
“WHAT?”
Mal held out her arm. “I might have sprained my wrist during our death-defying ascent.”
“YOU HAD A DEATH-DEFYING ACCENT?”
“Ascent.” Molly clarified. “Although it would be cool to have a death-defying accent.”
“Actually, it was on a descent that this happened,” Mal said, pointing downward.
Jen pressed her hands against her cheeks, her eyes full of worry. “MAL!”
Rosie, whose unicorn was now munching on the Clow Bell that April dropped, leaned in and took a closer look. “Could be a sprain,” she said. “We need to get you to first aid. Ice will bring down the swelling.”
“We should get going,” Jen said, taking Mal’s good hand in hers. “Who knows how long it will take these nutty unicorns to get us back to camp.”
“Wait,” April looked around. “What happened to Lady Dana Deveroe Anastasia Mistytoe?”
&
nbsp; CHAPTER 43
Jo and April spotted the lady in question walking away from the crowd of unicorns and scouts. Her beard wavered in the breeze as she strode off, huffing and humphing.
April ran up next to her and threw her hands in the air. “Hey, we’re rescued!” She cheered. “We can go home!”
“Humph!” Lady Dana Deveroe Anastasia Mistytoe’s lips curled. “Quite the rescue. A bunch of nincompoop unicorns smelling like yesterday’s whoopee cushions. Don’t let the cloud bank hit you on the derriere on your way out.”
“Wait,” Jo said, confused, “you know what a whoopee cushion is but you don’t know what a plane is?”
Lady Dana didn’t seem to hear Jo. She slowed a bit. Then stopped. Then she turned to April and Jo, her face twisted into a scowl. “The sooner you rabble-rousers get off of Cumulous, the better. So make it snappy.”
April pressed her hands together at her chest. “But. Don’t you want to come with us? Back to camp?”
“Yeah,” Jo nodded, “once a Lumberjane always a Lumberjane!”
Lady Dana shook her head. “No, thank you. I am perfectly content.”
April looked at Jo. Jo looked at April and shrugged.
“We can’t just leave her here,” April whispered.
“But she doesn’t want to leave,” Jo whispered back.
“Two points off for rudeness!” Lady Dana barked. “I’m old, not deaf. I said I don’t want to leave and I meant it.”
April twisted her lips to the left and the right. “I don’t understand.”
“Well then, you’re not very smart, are you?” Lady Dana frowned.
“Actually,” Jo frowned back, “April is very very smart.”
Lady Dana pulled on her beard. “Call me an old lady set in her ways—”
“Okay,” Jo said. “You’re an old lady set in your ways.”
“That may be. But I’m still THE Lady Dana Deveroe Anastasia Mistytoe, and I like what I like. From what you say, the Lumberjanes aren’t what they used to be. And if it’s not the way it was, I’d rather stay here and have tea with the dim-witted Cloudies. At least here my records stand.”
“Life is more than records,” April said. “It’s more than great accomplishments and mountains.”
“Humph. Well, that’s what you think,” Lady Dana retorted.
April looked down at the Clow Bell in her hand. “Okay,” she said, “but I’m leaving you with this.” She placed the wilted Clow Bell in Lady Dana’s hand. “If you ever want to come down, you should just ring this, okay?”
Lady Dana looked at the Clow Bell. She twisted her beard tighter around her neck. “Seems unlikely,” she said. “But two points for helping out an old lady, I guess. Now, go on, scram.”
“Well,” April said, “I’m glad I got to meet you, THE Lady Dana Deveroe Anastasia Mistytoe. I’m always going to remember you.”
And with that, Lady Dana turned on her heels and strode off into the increasingly violet sky.
“Hey,” Jo put a hand on April’s shoulder. “The unicorns await.”
The unicorns were getting restless. There were no more Clow Bells to munch on and it was time to get zigzagging. Rosie and Ripley got on Dr. Twinkle. Mal and Molly got a tight grip on a relatively docile unicorn with a long, flowing mane the color of emeralds. Jo and April doubled on a chubby little unicorn with a sky-blue tail and a curly mane the color of blueberry pie. Jen clutched the neck of a prancing unicorn with a feathery golden tail, and Bubbles clutched onto Jen with equal vigor.
It was time to go. Dr. Twinkle let out a whinny like, “COME ON, ALREADY!”
The Cloudies paused to wave good-bye before going back to tea. “Bye! Don’t come back! ’Cause it’s totally super thunder and lightning climbing up here, and you need to stay where it’s sunny. Okay?”
“Okay!” Ripley waved enthusiastically. “Bye, Cloudies!”
Rosie nodded a quick good-bye, let out a shrill whistle, and they were off.
The unicorns rose up, soaring over the expanse of pinkish cloud, and whirled up high into the sky in a spiral of unicorns, then zipped down, plunging through the hole in the cloud like a bolt of lightning headed earthward.
“I’ve got you,” Molly whispered, wrapping her arms tight around Mal’s waist, the wind whipping through their hair.
As her unicorn zigged, April looked up and scanned the horizon of cloud for Lady Dana. But she was nowhere in sight.
“FAREWELL, LADY DANA!” April called anyway, as her unicorn swept past the cloudy world on top of the mountain that wasn’t a mountain.
It was possible that, wherever she was, Lady Dana said good-bye too.
CHAPTER 44
Flying on a unicorn, for all its zigs and zags, is a pretty divine experience. Highly recommended if you find a unicorn willing to give you a ride.
After a bit of a shaky start, a few turns that seemed a little sharper than necessary, the unicorns settled into an easy flow, banking left and right, soaring over treetops, dipping their hooves into the lake as they glided over the broken reflection of the setting sun on the water’s surface. Over the sound of happy unicorn neighs, Ripley’s giggles of joy could be heard, which made even Rosie smile a little.
Mal was freaked but she tried to focus on what she could see in front of her instead of looking down at the ground whizzing by like the world was on fast-forward. Molly did her best to help Mal stay steady, given she could hold on with only one hand.
The wind whipped Molly’s hair into her face and she closed her eyes. How amazing was it to go to a camp that involved, sometimes, flying?
Jo marveled at the relatively strange aerodynamics at play in the unicorns’ flight. Which is what you tend to marvel at when your gay dads spend most of their breakfasts talking about drag, when drag is a force that acts in the opposite direction of a moving force—and also the subject of their favorite TV show.
April was thinking about Lady Dana, up in the clouds, grouchily resting on her laurels and sipping tea with the Cloudies.
Fortunately for everybody, the unicorns seemed to sense they were carrying injured passengers on this second pass, and they came to a gentle stop in the fields of Clow Bells. They even waited for the Lumberjanes to dismount before they recommenced zipping around and munching in the fields that served as their happy home.
The sun was setting. The sky was turning eye shadow purple and pink and yellow.
Jeremy the moose, who had been wondering where everyone went, was there to carry Mal and Rosie back to camp.
“I’ll see you guys in a bit!” Mal waved from Jeremy’s back.
“Come on, Jeremy,” Rosie urged, making a series of tick-ticking noises. It was nice to be riding something that smelled just like moose, she thought, which is not an unpleasant smell when you’re used to it.
“Right,” Jen said, turning to the rest of the scouts. “NO messing around. We’re going RIGHT back to camp.”
“YA!” Ripley said, as she turned and did a jumping wave at the unicorns. “GOOD-BYE, DR. TWINKLE!”
“Holy Julia Child, I’m starving,” Molly said, grabbing her stomach as they marched after Jen.
“Maybe there’s some leftover chili,” Jo offered, with a sly grin.
“Yeek,” Molly said, “I don’t know if my stomach is up for a near-death experience, a unicorn flight, AND more chili.”
“YAY CHILI!” Ripley cheered, doing her own version of a zigzag home, with Bubbles in hot pursuit.
April stopped, for just a second. How could something like a medal or a mountain be so important one minute, so important it filled your whole body, and the next minute not even there, not important at all? At her feet were the puzzled-out pieces of the sign. The warning they missed. Beyond that, no mountain. Just the horizon and the setting sun.
Molly reached back and grabbed April’s arm. “Come on,” she said, “I bet someone’s set up the bonfire. Let’s go.”
And so Jo and Ripley and April and Molly and Jen headed back into the woods. A
nd the unicorns were left to chomp peacefully in the shadow of a mountain that wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 45
There is little in this world that is more magical than a bonfire.
It was Zodiac’s turn to start the fire, which Barney lit with a bow drill, which is a contraption, consisting of a spindle and a piece of wood, that lets you light a fire using friction. Which means you have to use a sawing motion, and a tool that looks like a bow, to spin the spindle until you get a spark.
It didn’t take long for the spark to become a flame and, with a little coaxing from some moss and kindling that Woolpit cabin gathered from the woods that day, a fire.
When the fire was roaring, scouts gathered from all the cabins. The Zodiac scouts hauled over their accordions and someone from Roswell brought a guitar. Maddy, from Woolpit, had a tambourine.
“So,” Wren from Zodiac asked, “what are we singing?”
Mal came back from the first aid tent with an ice pack on her arm and sat next to Molly on one of the logs next to the fire. “Nurse Carol says she thinks it’s just bruised,” she said happily. “So I should be okay in a day or so.”
“That’s awesome,” Molly said, wrapping her arm around Mal’s shoulder.
The Zodiac scouts were trying their hand at an accordion version of “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.”
“Bleh,” Mal said, sticking her tongue out. “If we’re going to play with Zodiac, we’re going to have to pick some better music.”
“We’re going to play?” Molly raised an eyebrow and pointed at herself doubtfully.
“Well, yeah,” Mal said. “I mean, if we do it together, does that sound like something you’d want to do?”
Molly looked over at Zodiac. Zodiac looked like they were having fun. Wren had her hair tied up on the top of her head, and she was kicking left and right as she pulled the folds of the accordion open and closed. She shut her eyes when she played. The light from the fire reflected off the keys as her fingers danced up and down.
“I might suck,” Molly said, looking at her feet.
“There’s no way you’re going to suck,” Mal said, taking Molly’s hand with her good hand. “And it will be cool to learn something together! We can be the left hand and the right hand!”