Lucy and the Lost Unicorn

By Matt Fowler

“Did you hear that, Mommy?” I asked.

Storms had kept us inside today, and Mommy was making cupcakes.

“It’s just the thunder, Lucy,” Mommy said.

I wasn’t so sure. Thunder had rumbled the house, and there had been a flash like lightning. But…the light was the colour of a rainbow.

I put down my book and looked out the window. That’s when I first saw it, running in the rain. It was so beautiful and every color of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

“Mommy! There’s a uni—” Thunder struck again, though, and Mommy, startled by the thunder and my shouting, dropped the cupcakes all over the floor.

“Lucy! Look at what has happened. Maybe there’s one or two we can still eat…”

As Mommy tried to salvage a cupcake, I began putting on my boots and raincoat.

“I’m going outside.”

“You better not,” Mommy said, “not in this weather.”

The door closed behind me as I stepped into the rain and wind.

The unicorn was nowhere to be seen, and I thought that maybe I had just imagined it.

“Hello!” I shouted. “Um—unicorn, here unicorn, here!” I tried. I didn’t really know how to call a unicorn.

It was no use… The unicorn did not come out of hiding. I was sure it could hear me because unicorns have excellent hearing.

I circled Mommy’s car, but I did not see it. I looked left and right but did not see any unicorns running in the neighbors’ yards, though there was a cat looking for a dry spot. I searched the garage, but nope, there was no magical beasts in there either. Then, I crept up on the large tree in the front yard—if I were a unicorn, I would definitely hide there! A twig broke beneath my foot, and I was sure that I scared the unicorn away… I was wrong, though, the unicorn was not there either.

Standing under the tree, I thought hard about where I had not checked. Unicorns, I decided, were really good at hide and seek.

I was just about to go inside again when I heard crying. I knew that it had to be the unicorn.

I found it in the backyard, running in circles. Its horn was tangled with the clothesline.

“Oh no!” I shouted to it. “I’m coming, hold on.”

I ran to it, my green rainboots splashing in the puddles. The unicorn was quite scared, but it stopped running when it saw me.

“I can help,” I told it, and to my surprise, it bowed.

“Lucy!” Mommy said, coming out of the back of the house. “Be careful! Is that a—a unicorn?”

“Yes, Mommy,” I said, removing the clothesline from the unicorn’s single golden horn.

The unicorn was so happy that it licked me. Unfortunately, it was wearing my grandmother’s dress. It looked silly, and Mommy and I laughed. After we had taken the dress off, the unicorn licked me again.

“How in the world did this happen?” Mommy asked.

“It was scared and didn’t see the clothesline.”

“I mean, how in the world is there a unicorn in our backyard?”

“Oh, well, it got lost in the storm,” I said, as if it was obvious. “There must have been a rainbow and the lightning struck it.”

“Uh-huh,” Mommy said.

The sky was clearing. A fresh rainbow formed, and one end of it landed in our backyard. The unicorn galloped around the yard happily to say thanks before running straight up the rainbow. Its coat shimmered in every colour of the rainbow. Mommy and I waved goodbye, and the rainbow disappeared again into the clouds.

Just then, Daddy came out of the house, eating a cupcake.

“What did I miss?” he asked. “What happened to the clothesline?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Mommy said.

I winked at Mommy, “Just reuniting a baby unicorn with its mom.”

We both giggled.

- Total nr. of readings: 3,809 Copyright © The author [2020] All Rights Reserved. This story may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author except for personal use.