by Emily Bliss
“Why?” Moon asked, looking surprised.
“We don’t know how to dance to the new music,” Breeze explained. “And the one time I tried, I tripped and fell over.”
Moon giggled. “That’s because at the same time you were dancing you were also blindfolded and trying to break a piñata with your horn.”
Breeze blushed. “Well, I guess that’s true,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know how to dance to it. And I’m afraid I’ll look silly and feel awkward if I try again. The ball is supposed to be fun, and the new music will completely ruin it.”
Firefly nodded. “I already have enough trouble dancing to the traditional unicorn music, and whenever I hear the new music, I freeze up,” she said. “It will spoil everything.”
Moon took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to dance to the raccoons’ new music either,” she said, “but I think it would be fun to learn how. And it would make the raccoons so happy to get to play the songs they’ve written.” She smiled hopefully at her sisters.
Breeze and Firefly looked at each other and whispered. Then they both shook their heads. “If the raccoons play the new music, we might have to leave early,” Firefly said.
“Or we might not come at all,” Breeze said.
“It will ruin the ball,” they said at the same time.
“I just thought it might be fun to try something new,” Moon said. Her hopeful smile bent into a disappointed frown. She looked like she might start crying.
Cressida put her arm around Moon’s neck. She knew exactly how Moon felt: often, it was exciting to listen to new music or eat new food or read a new kind of book. But she also understood Breeze and Firefly’s perspective: feeling uncomfortable was pretty miserable, especially at a dance. “Maybe you need a little bit of time to think about what to do,” Cressida said to Moon.
“Yes,” Moon said, brightening. “I need some time to think about it.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she smiled, turned to Cressida, and asked, “Are you ready to help prepare for your very first ball?”
“Absolutely,” Cressida said. Moon kneeled and Cressida climbed onto her back.
“We’ll still plan on meeting you at the Night Forest ballroom an hour before the ball starts,” Breeze said.
Firefly nodded. “Just please tell the raccoons to stick to the traditional music,” she added.
“I’ll think about it,” Moon said. “See you soon!” Then, with Cressida on her back, she galloped across the front hall of Spiral Palace and out the door.
As Cressida held onto Moon’s silky black mane, the unicorn hopped along the clear stones that led away from the palace and into the surrounding forest. For a few seconds, Cressida turned and gazed back at Spiral Palace. She grinned as she spied a flash of silver and a sparkle of purple through the window of the palace’s top tower. She bet Ernest was up there, perfecting his tuxedo spell.
“Thanks for suggesting I take a little more time to make a decision about the music,” Moon said. “I think it would be so much fun to learn to dance to the raccoons’ new music. The traditional unicorn music is fine, but, to be honest, I get bored dancing to the same songs over and over again.”
“I love learning to dance to new music, too,” Cressida said. One of her favorite things about her ballet class was that she learned to dance to music she had never heard before.
“Well,” said Moon, taking a deep breath, “maybe if we get to the Night Forest in time to listen in on the raccoons’ final practice session, you can let me know if you think it’s possible to dance to their new music. And in the meantime, I can’t wait to show you the Night Forest!”
With Cressida on her back, Moon turned right on a narrow path that wove through a grove of cherry and maple trees, and then galloped along a thick hedge covered in thorny vines with bright yellow, crescent-shaped flowers. She stopped in front of a hole in the hedge that was just a few inches taller than the tip of her horn. “This is the entrance to the Night Forest,” she said. “Close your eyes!”
Cressida shut her eyes as Moon took several steps forward. Cressida heard crickets chirping and bull frogs croaking. Owls called out, “Hoo! Hoo!” In the distance, a wolf howled.
“Now you can look!” Moon said. Cressida opened her eyes. Above her, the moon, like a pale banana, hung amid more tiny silver stars than she had ever seen. In the light of the moon and stars, she could make out the shapes of a pond, a meadow, and what looked like it might be the edge of a dark forest. Even though she could see about as well as she could in her bedroom with her unicorn nightlight switched on, she had to admit she wished she had a flashlight.
“I can’t see very well,” Cressida said, gripping Moon’s mane more tightly.
“I had a feeling humans can’t see in the dark as well as unicorns,” Moon said. “Try putting on the glasses Ernest made for you.”
Cressida slid her hand into her pocket, pulled out her glasses, and put them on. Now she could see a pond with shimmering black water. Giant blue frogs with glowing orange eyes perched on the lily pads and croaked, their balloon throats bulging. On one side of the pond, a family of opossums lumbered through a meadow of thick, high grass. On the other side was a forest thick with trees and vines. White and silver owls perched in the tree branches, their glowing yellow eyes winking at Cressida.
“Wow!” Cressida said. “The Night Forest is beautiful.”
“I thought you’d like it,” Moon said. “Can you see well enough to walk?”
“Yes,” Cressida said. “These glasses are perfect. Thank you for thinking of them.”
“No problem,” Moon said, kneeling down as Cressida slid off her back. “Come this way.”
Cressida and Moon followed a path carpeted in spongy green moss into the forest. Soon the mossy trail disappeared, and thick vines, tree roots, and rocks covered the forest floor. It was difficult not to stumble or trip, especially while wearing a ball gown.
Soon Cressida and Moon stepped into a grove of gnarled cedar trees growing among vines and roots so thick and knotted Cressida wasn’t sure if she could keep walking without falling over. Moon paused, turned to Cressida, and smiled excitedly. “Want to see my favorite part of the Night Forest?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Cressida said. Then she looked up from the forest floor to notice hundreds and hundreds of gray stars, each about the size of a book, dangling from the tree branches.
“Do you mind if I make it so dark your special glasses won’t work?” Moon asked.
“No problem,” Cressida said. She wasn’t usually afraid of the dark.
“I can’t wait to show you Midnight Stars,” Moon said. “Their magic only works when it’s pitch black.”
Moon pointed her horn toward the sky. The opal on her ribbon necklace twinkled. Sparkling light poured from her horn. Suddenly, it was so dark that Cressida couldn’t even see her hands when she held them in front of her face. Though she wasn’t afraid, she had to admit she felt a little nervous. She reached for Moon’s back. When her fingers touched her friend’s soft coat, she took a deep breath.
Just then, the stars on the trees began to glow. At first, their light was faint. But after a few seconds, they brightened and began to change color: from white to yellow to orange and, finally, to a vibrant red. Soon, the forest glowed a spectacular shade of scarlet.
“Wow!” Cressida said. “The Midnight Stars are beautiful.”
“I thought you’d like them,” said Moon. “And that’s not all they can do.” She cleared her throat and called out, “Midnight Stars, please take us to the raccoons!”
The stars began to wiggle, jiggle, and swing on the branches. Then they lifted off the trees, swirled in circles above Cressida and Moon’s heads, and dropped to the forest floor in the shape of a long, glowing trail. “This way we don’t have to walk on all those roots and vines,” Moon said as she stepped onto the pathway of stars. They sparkled like rubies as her hooves touched them.
Cressid
a stepped onto the glowing pathway, and the stars shimmered. She took another step, and noticed that the stars were quite smooth. They weren’t slippery, like ice, but they were perfect for spinning and twirling, even in sneakers. Cressida turned and jumped as she walked, giggling.
Moon watched her and laughed, and then they both sashayed forward.
Soon Cressida and Moon were leaping and twirling together along a path of stars that led through groves of towering pine trees, beds of giant ferns, clusters of flowering vines, and marshes full of reeds and pussy willows. Then the trail of stars made a sharp right and ended in a sea of darkness that Cressida guessed was a meadow, though with all the stars’ red light behind her, she couldn’t see well enough to be sure.
“We’d better tidy up the Midnight Stars before we go see the raccoons,” Moon said. She shrugged and added, “Though I have to admit that I love it when it’s pitch black.” She pointed her horn to the sky. Her opal shimmered, and sparkling light poured from her horn. The Night Forest grew lighter, and immediately the stars began to wiggle and jiggle. Then they lifted into the air and flew in circles as they turned from bright red to orange to yellow to white and, finally, to a lightless gray. Then, like a school of fish, they bolted back into the woods.
“Thanks so much for showing me the Midnight Stars,” Cressida said.
“My pleasure,” Moon said. “Are you ready to listen to the raccoons’ practice session?”
“Yes,” Cressida said. She turned to see that they were, in fact, standing in front of a meadow. And among the grass and wild-flowers were the biggest oak trees Cressida had ever seen—they were much bigger than the one with the magic keyhole in the woods behind her house!
As Cressida and Moon walked into the meadow, Cressida noticed that spiral staircases, made of thousands of twigs fastened together with pine needles, wound around the trees and ended at oval-shaped doors midway up the trunks.
Moon paused in front of the biggest tree and stepped onto the stairs. “The raccoons built these staircases just for me,” Moon said. “Otherwise, it’s not really possible to climb a tree if you have hooves. Want to come up?”
“Yes, please!” Cressida said, grinning. She had always, ever since she was a little girl, wanted to visit a raccoon in a hollow tree. Now she was going to get to do just that! She followed Moon up the stairs, holding up her ball gown.
At the top, with Cressida right behind her, Moon knocked on the door with her hoof. “Hello?” she called out. “It’s me, Princess Moon.”
“Princess Moon! Come on in,” said a voice from inside the tree. “Did you bring Cressida?”
“I sure did!” Moon said, nudging the door open with her nose. Then, she and Cressida walked inside.
The first thing Cressida noticed inside the hollow tree was that nearly everywhere she looked—hanging on the walls, lined up on shelves, even stacked on the floor—were musical instruments. Some looked like instruments she recognized from the human world: there were guitars, banjos, violins, flutes, clarinets, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, drums, xylophones, and triangles. But there were also instruments Cressida had never seen before, with curly pipes, strings at odd angles, many-sided drums, and spiraling keyboards.
In the center of the room four raccoons, each with lime-green stripes and mask, sat in a circle holding their instruments.
“Cressida, these are my good friends,” Moon said, nodding toward the raccoons. “You’ve already met Ringo.” He smiled and waved at Cressida. “And here are Renee, Roland, and Rita. In addition to playing traditional unicorn music on harps and drums, the Night Forest raccoons invent and build new instruments and write their own songs.”
“Wow!” Cressida said. “It’s wonderful to meet you. Thank you for letting me visit your hollow tree.”
“The pleasure is ours,” Ringo said.
“We’ve always wanted to meet a human girl,” Renee explained, twitching her whiskers.
“We’ve heard the human world has wonderful music,” Roland said. “I’ve wanted to visit, but I have a feeling someone might think a green raccoon listening to music was just a little odd.”
Cressida giggled. “Probably,” she said. “But you could all come listen to music with me in my room anytime! I wouldn’t think that was odd at all.”
“That would be fantastic!” Ringo said, grinning.
Rita stared for several seconds at Cressida’s face. “Those are such wonderful glasses,” she said. “You almost look like one of us!”
“Thank you,” Cressida said. “They help me see in the dark.”
“You can’t see in the dark?” Renee and Roland said at once.
“I can’t even imagine what that would be like,” Rita said.
“Is it strange to need light to see?” Ringo asked.
“It’s not strange to me,” Cressida said, shrugging and smiling.
The raccoons nodded, fascinated.
Then Ringo said, “We were just practicing some new music we’ve been writing together. We’re hoping Moon will let us play it at the ball. Would you like to hear it?”
“Absolutely!” Cressida said. “But first, will you tell me the names of your instruments?”
Ringo grinned. “This one,” he said, nodding to an instrument that looked like a harp with four flutes poking out from the bottom and a drum on top, “is a flarpophone.” He pointed to Renee’s instrument, which looked like a large banjo with four blue keyboards wrapped around its body. “This is a quadruple-duple-banjinano.” He laid a paw on Roland’s instrument, which looked like five trumpets welded to the top of an accordion. “This is a trumpledump-ledordion.” He pointed to Rita’s instrument, which looked like eight long, thin, curly saxophones arranged in a circle. It reminded Cressida of an octopus. “And we just built this one today,” Ringo said. “We’re calling it an octogoloctohorn.”
“Amazing!” Cressida said. “If you’d like to play your new music now, I’d love to hear it.”
“Me too,” Moon said.
Ringo, Rita, Roland, and Renee smiled and nodded at each other. Ringo tapped the side of his flarpophone as he counted, “One and a two and a one, two, three, four.” The raccoons began to play, blowing into pipes and mouthpieces, strumming strings, crawling with their fingers up and down keyboards, and thumping on drums with their tails. The music sounded like a combination of the jazz her father listened to, the rock and roll her mother liked, and the show tunes her friends Daphne, Eleanor, and Gillian loved. The more she listened, the more she couldn’t keep her toes from tapping. Soon her body was swaying, her feet were stepping, and her arms were waving.
She glanced over at Moon, who was swaying with the beat and furrowing her brow. “I really want to dance,” she whispered, “but to be honest, I’m not sure how.”
“Try doing this,” Cressida said, stepping back and forth and waving her arms.
Moon took a step and then stopped. Her face looked uncertain.
“You can do it,” Cressida whispered gently, twirling and kicking to the beat.
Moon slowly took another step and tried to swish her tail. And then she froze. “Maybe Breeze and Firefly are right and we should stick with the traditional unicorn music,” Moon said, her face falling. “I want to dance to the new music. I really do. But I feel so worried about looking silly that I can’t. Though I sure would hate to disappoint the raccoons by telling them not to play their new songs.”
Cressida paused and thought about how to help her friend. She decided that the raccoons’ new music wasn’t the kind of music that you danced to by learning certain steps and sequences of dance moves, the way she did in her ballet class. Instead, it was the kind of music you danced to by making up your own ways of moving. “I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way to dance to this music,” Cressida said. “Try closing your eyes and letting your body move in whatever way it wants to.”
“But what if I look ridiculous?” Moon asked.
“Then we’ll look ridiculous together,” Cressi
da said, winking at Moon.
Moon smiled, even though she still looked nervous. She closed her eyes. For a few seconds she simply stepped back and forth. But soon, keeping her eyes tightly shut, she began to twirl, rear up, click her hooves together, and jump. For a moment, Cressida watched her friend. And then she closed her eyes too and began to spin and jump with the music. After a while, Cressida opened her eyes to discover Moon’s eyes were open, too. The two looked at each other and began to dance together: twirling at the same time, nodding their heads to the beat, skipping and prancing around the inside of the hollow tree.
When the raccoons stopped playing their music, Moon and Cressida, both out of breath, burst out laughing.
“That was the most fun I’ve ever had dancing!” Moon said.
“Me too,” Cressida said.
“Thank you!” the raccoons said, smiling proudly. Then all four stood up and took a bow.
Ringo cleared his throat. “Princess Moon, there is something we wanted to ask,” he began. “Have you decided whether we can play our new music at the ball?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” Moon said. “Breeze and Firefly really want us to stick to the traditional unicorn songs because they’re worried they won’t know how to dance to the new music.” Moon smiled at Cressida. “But it’s pretty clear there are all kinds of ways to dance to it.”
Ringo, Rita, Roland, and Renee exchanged hopeful glances.
“I just need a little more time to make a decision,” Moon said.
Ringo nodded. “Would you like us to play another new song?” he asked. “We could play a really fast one that’s even better for dancing.”
“Oh, thank you so much for offering,” Moon said. “I’d love to keep dancing, but I think Cressida and I had better go finish decorating the ballroom. There are more balloons and more strings of glow-in-the-dark rainbows I want to put up. And Breeze and Firefly are going to meet us there soon to help out.”