Read Unicorns? Get Real! for Free Online

her intermediate swim test last session, an achievement of which she was especially proud.
    And now, as she walked in only her petticoats with the snowshoes and winter gear slung over her shoulder, the temperature was still rising and it was suddenly summer. The Forest of Chimes was yet another one of the odd and slightly magical marvels of the country of Palacyndra that was as unexplainable and perplexing as the fickle seasons that came in no order at all. Lasting sometimes for minutes or days, but rarely longer than weeks, the seasons seemed to be guided by the whimsy of some unknown force.
    At first glance, the Forest of Chimes might appear to be any ordinary forest, but if one were to take a closer look, one would observe that the trees did not have leaves but instead clear glass bells. When the wind stirred, the songs of birds mingled in a lovely symphony with the chimes of the bells. It was a place of enchantment. But on this day, the forest was silent, as there was not the slightest breeze to stir the clappers in the crystal bells.
    Gundersnap found the tree where Berwynna had appeared to them when she had last visited her with Alicia and Kristen. She sat down on the moss to wait and wait and wait. Noon quickly slid into afternoon, and the light of the summer sky began to leak away, replaced by the pale lavender of twilight. Gundersnap grew more nervous with each passing second. She wasn’t worried about being late. That was the other oddity about the Forest of Chimes: time did not behave normally, and although one might think one had been gone for a very long time, one could return and find that only a minute had passed. But what if Berwynna didn’t appear? “G’mutch,” Gundersnap thought. “I wish the old crone would show up.”
    “What did I tell you about calling me a crone!”
    The princess caught her breath. Before her stood the strange old lady in her garb of leaves and moss and spider-webs. An owl perched on one shoulder. “An insult always brings me out!” She paused. “But what brings you out? Upon my brother’s wand! What a sight you are, scampering about in your smallclothes.” She began to cackle madly. “Oh my, if your parents could see you! They’d ask for a tuition refund. And what in the world are those things hanging around your shoulders?”
    “Uh…snowshoes, ma’am. Alicia lent them to me. You see, it was winter when I left,” Gundersnap said in a quavering voice. She took a deep breath and tried to begin. “So…”
    Berwynna merely grunted in response. “So what? So you mean so so? Or sew sew?”
    Gundersnap was becoming more flustered. She’d forgotten how Berwynna often spoke in riddles and tossed words about so that they seemed to take on multiple meanings and become as slippery as a wet frog.
    “What have you come for?” the old woman barked.
    “Information,” Gundersnap blurted out.
    “What kind of information?” The old lady screwed up her face and, squinting her eyes, looked fiercely at Gundersnap.
    “I have a problem, a big problem.” Her eyes began to tear up. I must not cry! I must not cry.
    “Cry if you want. Tears are free.”
    Oh darn! thought Gundersnap. She had also forgotten how Berwynna could sometime read one’s mind, just step into one’s thoughts softly and pick up little fragments and bits and pieces of things.
    “I didn’t think,” Berwynna continued, “that it was a big problem, but a small one, a pony and not a horse.”
    “You know? What should I do? How can I rescue him before he is killed in battle?”
    “Him, just him? Him could be anything. I like to give a problem its proper name.”
    “Menschmik.”
    “Ah yes, your mum had no business taking him off like that.”
    “But what should I do?”
    “Do? Dew?” Suddenly sparkling drops of water appeared to settle on her tangled pile of hair, which resembled more than anything an ill-made bird’s nest.
    Berwynna stepped closer to the squat princess. Gundersnap felt as if the old