Chapter 1

Rosa and Crystal JULIE SYKES illustrated by LUCY TRUMAN

CHAPTER ONE "Good work, Rosa. Crystal is the cleanest unicorn I've seen today and those silver ribbons look very pretty in her blue and purple mane and tail– a very good choice!" "Thank you, Ms Rosemary." Rosa blushed, her heart swelling with pride. She'd been at Unicorn Academy for a month now and she had been worrying recently that she'd done something to upset Ms Rosemary, the Care of Unicorns teacher. Rosa loved being the best at things and, even though she always put her hand up first to answer questions or volunteer for

jobs, for some reason Ms Rosemary had stopped picking her and kept asking the others instead. Rosa couldn't understand it. "Well done," Crystal whispered, her warm breath tickling Rosa's face. "Thanks!" Rosa stroked Crystal's sleek white neck, patterned with swirls of shimmery pink. Crystal was extremely pretty and Rosa had

been thrilled when Ms Nettles, the head teacher, had paired them together on their first day at the academy. Crystal was always happy to go along with whatever Rosa wanted to do and they'd made friends immediately. Ms Rosemary continued to inspect the other unicorns. The class was made up of the five girls from Diamond dorm– Rosa's dorm– as well as the students from Topaz and Ruby dorms. "Whisper's mane is plaited perfectly, Ariana," Ms Rosemary said approvingly to the girl next to Rosa. Serious Ariana, who was always neat and tidy and whose clothes were spotlessly clean, looked very pleased. "But, Matilda… oh dear!" Ms Rosemary shook her head as she inspected Pearl, Matilda's unicorn. The plaits in Pearl's mane were all different sizes, some of them were coming undone already and the tangle of different coloured ribbons in Pearl's tail looked as if they

had been tied on at the very last minute. "What's happened here?" said Ms Rosemary, holding up Pearl's tail. A few of the students giggled. Rosa cringed. She couldn't imagine anything worse than a teacher pointing out her mistakes in front of the whole class. Poor Matilda! But Matilda didn't look upset. "Sorry, Miss," said Matilda, pulling a small sketchbook out from her pocket. "But I was just about to do Pearl's tail when I saw a robin land on the ribbon box. He was trying to pull out some ribbon and he looked so cute I just had to draw him. Look." She held out the picture. She had perfectly captured the little robin's cheeky expression. Ms Rosemary seemed to soften slightly. "It's an excellent drawing but, Matilda, you are here at the academy to learn how to care for your unicorn and not to draw robins. You must try harder or you won't graduate at the end of the

year. Do you understand?" "Yes, Miss." Matilda pushed her tangle of red hair off her face and sighed. "It's just sometimes my fingers feel like they simply have to draw, but I'll try and stop them." Ms Rosemary smiled and moved on. "Shall we do something fun together when the grooming inspection's over?" Rosa whispered to Crystal. "Ooh, yes! How about we go to the play park?" Crystal said, her ears pricking. "Or we could go on the Safari Trail," said Rosa persuasively. "It goes all around the academy grounds. Apparently there are fox cubs, cave spiders and, if we're very lucky, we might even see a purple badger." "OK, let's do that," said Crystal. "We can visit the play park another time." "We could ask the rest of the dorm to come with us too," said Rosa. She'd been really excited about making friends at the academy,