Allegra came bombing out of the door. “It’s about time you got here. I’ve been home for half an hour.”
“Hello to you, too,” I said, still puffing.
“Do you know where there’s a pond or a creek around here?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, a bit surprised at the question. “There’s a pond at the other end of the cow pasture, behind the ridge, and a creek not far beyond that, but it’s all still Harper land.”
“Great,” said Allegra. “Take me there.” She started walking toward the ridge, really fast, taking the path back to my house.
“Why?” I asked. “Hey, wait, not that way.” I pointed to another path, not so clear, that went up the slope.
“Prissy has escaped. She does it a lot this time of year, and always finds water,” Allegra said, over her shoulder. She didn’t slow down, but went stomping straight up the hill. I ran to catch up.
“Who’s Prissy?”
“Our goose.”
“A goose?” I stopped running. “You got me running around like a crazy person for a goose?”
Allegra whirled around. “Yes, a goose. She’s got a bad wing and can’t fly, but she keeps trying. We have to find her before she gets hurt. Come on.”
“Lord love a duck,” I muttered. It was one of those things Grandma used to say when she thought someone was being a fool. I trudged up the hill, passing Allegra. “This way.” We walked and skidded down the other side of the ridge. At the bottom was the cow pasture, marked off with a barbed-wire fence. I held down the lower strand with my foot and held the other one up for Allegra to step through. At least she had enough manners to say thanks as I followed.
The cow pond was on the other side of the pasture, surrounded by trees and low scrub. The grass was pretty high, as nobody kept cows here anymore. Allegra charged on ahead. I caught up to her by the edge of the pond. The water was still—no sign of a goose.
“Why don’t you go that way and I’ll go this way. We’ll meet on the other side,” I suggested.
“Fine,” said Allegra. “Here, Prissy, here Priss, Priss, Priss,” she called.
I skirted the edge of the water, looking around the bushes for a goose, but no luck. Allegra came up to me.
“She’s not here. Now what?”
“We’ll look by the creek, over this way.” I led her up another little rise and down to the creek. Timothy was sitting curled up on a rock in the sun at the edge of the stream.
“Have you seen Prissy?” Allegra asked.
Timothy opened one eye. “No.” Then he closed it and rolled over, turning his back to us. We searched upstream for a while and then came down to where Timothy was still on his rock. I sat down on a bigger rock nearby. Allegra plopped down next to me.
“We need to find her before dark,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. I thought the stupid goose would find its way home when it was hungry. Then we heard something splashing.
“Prissy?”
There was a low honk from downstream. Allegra took off after the sound, shouting, “Prissy! Prissy, come home now!”
“I suppose we have to help,” said Timothy. He uncurled and began trotting toward the noise.
Around the bend, there was Allegra, chasing after a big white goose that was paddling down the creek. Sure enough, one wing didn’t fold back as pretty as the other, and as she got closer, I saw the bandage on it.
I picked my way over a couple of rocks to the other side, hoping to shoo the goose back to Allegra. She was talking to it, trying to coax it out of the creek. I came up behind the goose.
“Come here, Prissy,” Allegra cooed. Suddenly, it reared back, flapping its wings and throwing water all around. It snaked its head down and hissed at me. I stopped, spreading out my arms to wave it toward Allegra. Then it charged up the bank, honking and hissing, flapping right at me. I back-pedaled and tripped, landing flat on my back. The goose fluttered up a few feet, then landed on my chest with a thump, knocking the wind out of me. I tried to push it off so I could breathe, but it was heavy. It hissed again and poked its beak right in my face, snapping at my nose! I threw my hands up and it nipped my little finger.
“Prissy, stop that,” Allegra yelled. The goose hissed at me again, turning around on my stomach, lifting and placing one foot, then the other. It felt like getting punched. How could something that size hurt so much?
It circled one more time and poked its wet straggly tail toward my face. Then it hunkered down and made a grunting noise. Something warm and wet pressed on my stomach. The goose gave a big honk and hopped off me to the side.
I looked down and saw that that goose had laid an egg on me. A big, fat, shiny, golden goose egg.
Chapter Eight
A GOLDEN EGG! THAT GOOSE laid a golden egg, right in my lap. It was dark gold and heavy. I touched it, real gentle. It was warm. The shell felt just like a regular chicken egg, smooth, but a little grainy at the same time.
“Give me that!” Allegra snatched the egg away. The goose hissed and flapped its wings.
“Hey! I wasn’t going to hurt it,” I said, throwing up my hand to keep off the goose. It—I guess it was really a she—hissed again, weaving her head around.
“You can’t have it,” Allegra said. “We need this egg.” She backed away from me. Huh, I bet she did. We could use that egg too—it must be worth about a gazillion dollars.
“She laid it in my lap, so seems like it should be part mine. Finders, keepers,” I said, just to make her mad. It did. She hugged the egg tight and kicked at me.
“I knew it, I knew we shouldn’t trust you!” She whirled around and started running up the path.
“That’s not fair!” I yelled back. “I haven’t told anybody anything!” I took off after her. That old goose hissed and snapped at me as I passed her. I caught up with Allegra near the top of the rise. “I don’t want your old egg anyway.”
“You can’t have it!” she yelled. “These eggs help pay for the clinic, for taking care of the patients like Timothy and the unicorn.”
I stopped still. Oh. I never thought about how much it cost. Medical stuff is expensive; I knew that. We had to sell the farmhouse to pay for Grandma’s hospital bills, even before she went into the nursing home. Allegra kept running down the hill. Then that mean old goose nipped me on the leg.
“Oww!” I kicked at the nasty thing as it waddled by, chasing after Allegra and her egg. That’s what I get for trying to help, bit and left behind. Allegra was almost at the cow pond, the goose honking after her. They were as mean as snakes, that girl and that goose, both of them. Allegra stopped at the pond, looking confused.
I thought about leaving them to find their own way back. Then I remembered the unicorn. Allegra might not let me see Moonpearl again if I did that, and Dr. B. might even agree with her. I ran down the hill to where she was standing. I touched her on the shoulder.
She whirled around and I saw she had been crying.
“Don’t you see, you stupid boy! If you take the egg, then people will find out about Prissy and all the other creatures and they’ll take them away and lock them up,” she said. “I wish Mom had never let you hang around. Who asked you to butt into our business, learning all our secrets?” Her face was all blotchy and she was crying harder.
“You’re the stupid one,” I yelled back. “You want me to keep your precious secrets but you treat me like, like I’m a toad or something. You’d probably be nicer to a toad than to me.”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and I thought she might have smiled. “I probably would,” she said, grudgingly. “Toads are cuter than you.” That was better. I didn’t care if she thought toads were cuter than me, as long as she quit crying.
“I won’t tell anyone about the egg, I promise.” I spit in my hand and held it out to her. “I’ll shake on it, so you know I mean it.”
“Ewww. No.”
“Ewww? You’re the one who had me shoveling unicorn poop.” I dropped my hand. “I ha
ven’t told anyone about the unicorn, or Timothy either.”
“It’s only been four days. You have to keep this secret forever,” she said. “You don’t know how hard it can get. We’ve had Timothy for three years and he’s easy, he understands not to talk and to keep out of sight when other people are around. But I can’t have girlfriends sleep over at our house, because they might see something. Some days, I want to tell someone so bad, because it’s just so great to catch a glimpse of the squonk or see a fire lizard fly again after Mom fixed his wing.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way before. It wasn’t hard not to tell Steve; he would do something lame, like charge his friends five bucks to see the unicorn. I wished I could tell my grandma though. She would love Moonpearl, just like me. She’d love Timothy, too. She might even like the stupid goose, who had caught up with us again.
“Now you can tell me.”
She sniffled a bit. “I guess.” I started up the path to the farm.
“Wait,” she called. I looked back. At least she had stopped crying. “Wipe your hand off.” She stuck out her hand. I wiped mine on my jeans and took hers to shake.
“Promise you’ll never tell about the magical animals. Cross your heart, hope to die, lose your eyes if you lie?” she asked, squeezing hard.
“I’ll never tell. Cross my heart, hope to die, lose my eyes if I lie.” I didn’t see how this promise was any stronger than a spit shake one, but I did it anyway. She looked at me hard for a couple seconds, then dropped my hand.
“OK,” she said and smiled.
“OK.”
“I’ll take the egg to Mom. You can bring Prissy back to the barn, now that you understand why she can’t stay out in the woods.” She tossed this order over her shoulder as she walked away. “I’m trusting you.”
I could see that having Allegra trust me didn’t mean she was going to stop bossing me around. I looked down at the goose. The goose gave me an evil look.
“Honk,” she said.
Chapter Nine
THINGS WERE A BIT EASIER with Allegra after the rescue of Prissy’s egg, especially since I managed to bring back that stupid goose. I only got nipped four times doing it. The best thing was Dr. B. told Moonpearl she needed to stay until her babies were born, even though her hoof was all healed up. I didn’t mind mucking out the stall anymore, because I got to take her out to the pasture for exercise. Moonpearl was so smart, I didn’t have to use a halter or a lead or anything; she would just follow me along the path. I’d never seen a prettier sight than a unicorn grazing in the meadow. Sometimes I had to leave her in the little paddock while I did other stuff around the clinic, but I always made sure I was the one who groomed her.
The money was nice too. Once in a while, I could get Steve to take me to the grocery store and buy things that I liked for a change, although he always seemed to find my box of Oreos, no matter where I hid them. Once he used the whole pack making piecrust, but he let me have half the pie, so that wasn’t so bad. I bought carrots and apples for Moonpearl, and catnip for Timothy.
It was early November when Jamal Witherspoon and his mom brought in his dog, Butterfinger. She was a great dog, a big old golden mutt with floppy ears and a tail that was never still. Jamal got her for his birthday when he was five. He taught her how to shake and fetch and all. Every school day, she was waiting at the end of his driveway when he got off the bus. Since Grandma moved, nobody was ever waiting for me to get home.
Jamal and his mom were in the waiting room when I went to sweep in there that day. Jamal’s mom had to take off work to bring Butterfinger to see Dr. B. She was lying on the floor at Jamal’s feet.
“Hey, Jamal,” I said. The dog didn’t thump her tail at me. “What’s up with Butterfinger?”
“She’s feeling real bad,” he said. “She quit coming to meet me at the bus, and she doesn’t want to play Frisbee anymore. Now she’s got this lump on her jaw and yesterday, she didn’t eat, not even when I sneaked her a chicken heart.” I could see he was awful upset about her. His foot was tapping a mile a minute, like it does when he takes a hard test at school. His mom looked upset too, and kept bending over to pet Butterfinger, making little shushing noises. I could see the lump close to the edge of the dog’s mouth.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “Dr. B. can fix her right up.”
Georgie came into the room and said to Jamal, “Come with me.” I went back to sweeping, making sure I got all the yellow dog hair out from under the bench where Jamal had been sitting.
My last chore of the day was putting out fresh water for all the patients. I went to check the cages and there was Butterfinger. She had one of those cones around her neck and near as I could tell, the lump was gone from her jaw. She lifted her head to whimper at me, then slumped back down. “Hey, girl,” I stuck my fingers through the wires to scratch her head, and her tail gave a feeble wave. When I finished putting out the water, I went to find Dr. B.
She was in her office, doing something at the computer.
“That yellow dog, she belongs to my friend Jamal. Why didn’t she go home tonight?”
“She was very dehydrated, Eric, so we’re keeping her to inject more fluids and more nutrition.” Dr. B. looked tired—more tired than usual, that is. “She’ll probably go home tomorrow.”
“Good, she’s OK then.”
“Not this time, Eric,” Dr. B. said, real soft. “She had an abscessed tooth, which we pulled and treated, but she also has cancer.”
“But I told Jamal you would fix her; you’d make her all better.”
“The cancer has already spread; that’s why her breathing is so labored. Treatment is expensive. She would need chemotherapy and maybe more surgery. It would require a long recovery time and would be painful for her. She’s a young dog and has a good chance, but it still might not work.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Can’t you fix her anyway? You just got another one of those goose eggs; you must be rich now.” I knew cancer was expensive, but people got treated for it all the time.
Dr. B. just shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Those eggs pay for a lot, but not always everything we need. I’ll send her home with some medications to make her comfortable, but that’s all I can do unless the family decides differently.”
“I could pay,” I offered. “You could use that money for Butterfinger instead of paying me.”
“That’s sweet, Eric, but it wouldn’t be enough, even if Mrs. Witherspoon accepted your offer. It’s not just a matter of money. She thinks it is wrong to make Butterfinger suffer through the chemo, losing her fur and feeling much worse than she does now. She doesn’t want her pet to go through that and she wants to spare Jamal watching his dog in pain. And we can’t treat an animal without the owner’s permission.”
“I bet Jamal would give you permission. He loves that dog more than anything.”
“It has to be from an adult. I’m sorry. It’s the hardest part of this job, the knowledge that you can’t save them all.”
“You can’t just send her home to die!”
“I’m sorry, but that’s all I can do now,” said Dr. B. I knew that voice, the one that adults use when they aren’t going to talk anymore, no matter how unfair something is. I stood there a bit longer, but she just went back to clicking around on her computer.
In the recovery room I hunkered down next to Butterfinger’s crate. She licked my fingers when I reached in to pet her. I had promised Jamal that we would fix Butterfinger. There had to be something I could do.
Then I remembered Moonpearl. One touch of her horn had cured Timothy. Those unicorn hairs made Grandma’s hands better. I bet she could help Butterfinger.
I checked the front desk—Georgie wasn’t there. Then I heard her talking to Dr. B. down the hall. No sign of Allegra either. The kitchen was empty. If I was quick, I could sneak Butterfinger out to the barn and back before anyone noticed.
I quietly opened Butterfinger’s crate. She thumped her tail at
me, but couldn’t stand up. I pulled the blanket she was lying on toward the door and eased her out of the crate. She whimpered a bit.
“Shhh, it’s all right, girl, it’s all right.” I stroked her sides to calm her and felt her ribs all bumpy beneath my hand. I took the cone off her neck, but she could hardly lift up her head. I squatted down, wrapped the blanket around her, and picked her up. Even all bony as she was, she was still heavy.
I made it through the kitchen and cradled her on one shoulder while I opened the door. No one noticed it clicking shut. I crunched across the gravel drive and into the barn. The door was creaky, but we got through. Butterfinger started a low whine.
A voice came over my head. “This barn has a cat; it doesn’t need one of those things messing up the place.” Timothy leapt from his perch in the hayloft onto a cross brace and down to the top of the stall door.
“She’s not staying.” I stopped in front of the unicorn’s stall. Moonpearl came over to the railing and huffed a greeting. The lovely rose and new earth smell washed over me and the dog stopped whimpering.
“This is Butterfinger,” I said. “She’s real sick and needs your help.” I laid Butterfinger down and slid open the door. Moonpearl stepped out, all graceful and calm. She turned her head and studied the dog. Butterfinger thumped her tail, which was a good sign. Timothy crept along the railing and crouched next to me, taking in the whole situation.
“Timothy, tell me if Moonpearl agrees to help.”
“Then you will take this creature out of my barn, preferably somewhere far away?” His tail lashed back and forth, which was not a good sign.
“She’ll go back home, far away from here.” I turned to Moonpearl. “Please, she’s my friend’s dog, and he loves her more than anything. Can you make her better?”
“Very well.” Timothy jumped down to the floor, keeping well away from the dog. Moonpearl studied Butterfinger, who thumped her tail some more, and whined a bit, but didn’t stand up.
The Unicorn in the Barn Page 5