Chapter 6

Chapter 6 I should have let him believe it was an alicorn, Princess Pulverizer thought regretfully. He wouldn't have known the difference. And he would have left the old unicorn alone. Why do I always have to show off? Still, there was no point thinking about should-haves or would-haves. What the

princess needed to do now was find a way to save the old unicorn. That was why she was standing quietly behind a curtain in the knights' drawing room, eavesdropping as they plotted. The princess had snuck into the room right behind the knights. It had been so easy. The knights had been huddled together and so focused on coming up with a plan, they never noticed her. The princess rubbed her ruby ring gratefully. It had done its job, allowing her to enter the room in complete silence. "Do you think the old unicorn is still where you spotted him, Gordon?" the princess heard a knight ask. "He's probably moved on, Humphrey," Gordon admitted. "To keep from being caught. Although he didn't look like he could go too far. He was really old. His beard nearly hit the ground. His fur had turned green and yellow. And he was just sitting there under

those long, drooping branches, barely moving." "Do unicorns go green when they're old?" a third knight wondered. "People go gray." "Unicorns are different from people, Filippo," Gordon reminded him. That is true. But Princess Pulverizer figured most likely the old unicorn's fur was green and yellow because he was hiding among trees that had green leaves and yellow flowers. Clearly Gordon had not read the book Unicorns from A to Z. "Are you sure it was an actual unicorn?" Filippo asked Gordon. "Maybe it was a horse." "Horses don't have beards or horns," Gordon told him. "I should've grabbed him when I had the chance. But I felt sorry for him. He was so feeble. It didn't seem like a fair fight. I figured the king would surely be fooled by that old walrus horn I got at a market."

Princess Pulverizer was impressed. What a knightly thing of Gordon to do! He would have gotten away with it too—if she hadn't opened her big mouth. "Well, we have to catch him now," Humphrey insisted. "We have a direct order— and very empty stomachs—to fill." "I don't think King Harvey will be satisfied with just one horn," Gordon said. "What's going to happen when he breaks it?" "He is always breaking things," Filippo agreed. "Remember when he was about to toast the Queen of Hammerhousen, and a bird tweeted outside the window? He got so scared he dropped the glass." "When he breaks the horn, we'll go hungry again," Gordon said. "We should get him some spares." "If there's an old unicorn around, younger ones can't be too far away," Humphrey suggested. "We can track them down and get all their horns."

"Let's head out first thing in the morning," Filippo added. "We are excellent animal trackers. I bet we'll be eating again by lunch!" This was even worse than Princess Pulverizer had feared. She had to warn the unicorns! Without thinking, she slipped from behind the curtain and raced to the door. The knights stared at her with surprise. "Where'd she come from?" Gordon asked as she whizzed by him. "Do you think she heard us?" Filippo wondered. "It doesn't matter," Humphrey told them. "She's just some princess. What can she do to stop us?" Humphrey was a fool. She wasn't just some princess. She was Princess Pulverizer. And she was going to stop the knights from

harming the unicorns. They would just have to wait and see.