Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE Freya stared round. She was in a secret room! The full moon was shining through the cracked glass of a small window, giving her just enough light to see by. The tower room contained only a dusty desk. Shelves lined the curved walls and were packed with glass jars filled with old dried herbs. There were a couple of paintings hung around the room. One was an old picture of a frozen lake but the picture that really caught her attention was a lifelike portrait of a handsome young unicorn with a long golden mane. Stepping closer, Freya saw that the artist had entitled the picture "Prancer". She wondered why it was hidden away in a secret room. Before she could think about it any more, she

heard the sound of her friends' voices on the other side of the wall in the cupboard. Freya stood like a statue. "There's no one here." Rosa sounded almost disappointed. "What was that noise then?" said Matilda. "Maybe some boxes fell over," suggested Violet. "By themselves?" Rosa didn't sound

convinced. "Well, there's definitely no one up here. Come on, let's go back down to the dorm," said Ariana. Pressing her ear to the wall, Freya listened as they left the cupboard. She breathed out a trembling sigh of relief. They hadn't found her or the robot. Phew! As she looked around the room, an idea slowly formed in her mind. This would be a perfect workshop! There was plenty of space to

work and she'd be able to get to it really easily from the dorm. Her friends would never find it and she would be able to finish her robot in peace. Then, after Honey's birthday, she could show the room to the rest of Diamond dorm. A grin spread across her face as she imagined how surprised they would be! A secret room– they would love it! She wished she could tell them all straight away, but it was only a few more days to wait. Going to the revolving wall, she pressed the lever again and spun back into the cupboard. Picking up the robot, she carried it into the secret room. There were some rags on one of the shelves and she used them to wipe away some dust from the desk. As she did so, she saw there were some strange dark scorch marks on its wooden top as if someone had placed a burning rope on it. Weird. Freya shrugged, maybe someone had been doing secret science experiments up here. She turned to her robot again.

Luckily, the unicorn robot didn't seem to have suffered for being carried around. Freya examined it. It wasn't much to look at. Built from plain grey metal, it had a rectangular face and wonky ears. Its thick neck was bolted to a rectangular body and it held a large basket in its mouth by the handle. Its legs were straight and fixed to a platform mounted on wheels. The unicorn didn't have a mane or tail, but it was still

recognisable, and Freya felt a surge of satisfaction as she examined it. "Not bad! Now I just need to work out why you sometimes run into obstacles in front of you and how to stop you from spinning to the left," she muttered. It took her a while but eventually Freya worked out how to adjust the sensors she'd fitted so that the unicorn would be able to tell if it needed to stop to avoid crashing into things. It was voice activated. "Robot… Forward!" she commanded. The unicorn set off on a straight path but then veered off in a circle. Freya stopped it and tipped it up to examine the motor. Humming softly, she selected a screwdriver from her tools. She took her time, carefully laying the screws, cogs and other motor parts beside her on the floor. Everything seemed to be working properly and she was sure it was all in the right place. What else might cause the unicorn to turn in a circle? The two axles were definitely the same length. She'd measured them twice before she cut them. The wheels were the same diameter, so it couldn't