Alecia left, slamming the screen door behind her. Mr. Freelander looked disturbed.
“Where’s she going?” he demanded.
“Kate Higgins’s house,” Liz explained. “You know she has the same birthday as me.”
“Is that where everyone is?” Mr. Freelander asked, looking around the empty dining room. He asked the same question every year on Liz’s birthday.
“Yes, Dad,” Liz said.
“Well, she’s going to miss the main attraction,” he said. “Her loss.”
“I thought this was it,” Liz said, waving the phone.
“That’s not it,” Mr. Freelander said. “It’s in the barn.”
“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Freelander said to her husband. “Not yet. She’s not done opening all her other gifts. She hasn’t opened her gift from Jeremy.”
“It can wait,” Jeremy said, finally removing his party hat and setting it on the table.
“I want to see what’s in the barn.”
“You won’t believe it,” Ted said. He grabbed Liz by the arm and started tugging on her. “Come on. You have to see it. Come on. Now.”
“All right, all right,” Liz said, laughing and putting the phone into her pocket. “I’m coming.”
It was a long walk from the house to the barn. It had gotten dark out, though there was enough light from the moon and coldly glinting stars to see by. The frogs in the pond were calling to one another so loudly that it was almost a shock compared to the peaceful quiet of indoors. The air smelled sweetly of cut grass and of the wood Liz’s father was burning in the fireplace in their living room. Jeremy strolled companionably beside her, his hands in his pockets, as the grass soaked their boots.
“So,” he said as they watched Ted and Liz’s parents hurry before them, eager to get to the barn and open the doors to show Liz her surprise. “Do you think it’s a car?”
“Ted says it’s not a car,” Liz said.
“It’s got to be a car,” Jeremy said. “Why else would everyone be so excited?”
“I don’t think they can afford another car,” Liz said.
“You deserve a car,” Jeremy said.
Inexplicably Liz felt herself blush in the cool night air.
But it was different from when she’d blushed in debate class after getting Spank Waller’s note. Then she’d blushed with anger and shame.
Now she was blushing for a different reason entirely.
But before she had time to think about that, her parents were throwing open the barn doors, and Ted was yelling, “Look! Look! Aunt Jody sent it! She got it on her latest trip with SCA!”
As soon as Liz heard that, she lowered her expectations accordingly, and stepped into the barn.
At first Liz thought her aunt Jody—a widow who lived with her four cats and a Pomeranian named Tricki in a gated community outside of Boca Raton—had bought her a large white horse for her birthday.
Which would not have been the most unusual thing in the world, since Liz did, in fact, live on a farm and had once had a pony named Munchkin.
But although Liz had loved Munchkin very much, it had been some time since she’d expressed any enthusiasm whatsoever about owning another horse, Munchkin having passed on to that great pasture in the sky some ten years earlier.
It would not have been unlike Aunt Jody, however, to have mixed up age seventeen with age seven and think there’d be nothing little Liz would want more than another horse to replace the dearly departed Munchkin.
But what stood in the barn in front of Liz, glowing softly with a kind of inner luminescence that seemed to have nothing to do with the electrical light from the bulbs hanging from the rafters some thirty feet overhead, was not a horse.
Or rather, it had a horse’s body—a huge one, nineteen hands high at least— sleek, with a gorgeous white flowing mane and tail, soft blue muzzle, and purple fetlocks.
But jutting from the center of its forehead was a twisting, sparkling, three-footlong lavender horn.
What her aunt Jody had sent Liz for her birthday was, in fact, a unicorn.
“You,” Liz could not help blurting out, “are shitting me.”
“Elizabeth!” her mother cried in horror. “Watch your language!”
“But that,” Liz said, raising a finger to point at the monstrosity that even now was lowering her noble head to tear at some of the grass poking from Munchkin’s old hayrack, “is a unicorn.”
“Of course it’s a unicorn.” Her father walked over to the animal and gave her a hearty smack on her gleaming white flank. The unicorn tossed her head, her silky mane flying, and let out a musical whinny. Liz got a whiff of her breath, which smelled like honeysuckle. “Your aunt’s always sent you the nicest gifts. Remember that Christmas she sent you that hand-stitched pink fairy costume with the tutu and the detachable wings made out of real swan feathers?”
“Jesus Christ, Dad,” Liz said, flabbergasted. “I was five years old. This is a live unicorn.”
Both Mrs. Freelander and the unicorn eyed Liz reproachfully. Neither of them seemed to appreciate her colorful language. The unicorn in particular seemed disapproving as she delicately chewed the hay Liz’s father had left out for her. Her irises were the same lavender color as her horn. There was no denying it. They were as sparkly as Troy Bolton’s.
“What’s wrong with it?” Mr. Freelander asked defensively. “I think it’s great. Who else do you know who’s ever gotten a unicorn for their birthday?”
“Uh, no one,” Liz said. “Because they don’t exist.” Even Mrs. Rice, the worst teacher in the world, knew that.
“That’s not true,” Ted said defensively. “They’ve been extinct for a while, but they’re making a comeback. It’s all in Aunt Jody’s card. Right, Dad? Give her the card, Dad.”
Mr. Freelander fumbled in his back pocket for something, then drew out a folded card that he passed to Liz. She opened it, and saw that it was as lavender and glittery as the unicorn’s eyes. On the front, next to a cloyingly sweet picture of an unnaturally thin blond girl in a white dress sliding down a rainbow, it said, To my beautiful niece, on her seventeenth birthday.
Opening the card, Liz read, Happy birthday to a niece who brings sunshine wherever she goes! A niece like you is …
Naturally nice
In her own loving way.
Each smile that she smiles
Can brighten a day,
Especially when she’s so pretty and gay!
What the hell, Liz thought. She read on.
Just want to tell you what a joy it is to have you for a niece, and how much beauty you bring into the world, Liz! her aunt Jody had written. That’s why when I saw Princess Prettypants at the renaissance fair I attended with my friends from the Society for Creative Anachronisms last month in the Great Smoky Mountains, I just knew I had to buy her for you. I know how much little girls adore their fairies, princesses, and unicorns!
Holy shit, thought Liz.
And I know you’ll make sure Princess P. gets a good home! Aunt Jody went on.
Unicorns have been extinct for years, of course, but a few Appalachian breeders have discovered how to clone them from a perfectly preserved specimen found in a peat bog and are hoping that they’ll make a comeback. Soon they should be as popular as VCRs!
There was some other writing at the bottom of the card, but after Liz got to the words “Princess Prettypants,” she could barely stand to read any farther.
Princess Prettypants?
Liz glanced over at Jeremy. Seeming to sense that she was looking at him, he raised his gaze to meet hers.
Liz mouthed the word she was thinking: eBay.
Seriously. With any luck she’d be able to make enough selling Princess Prettypants to pay back all her debts and put a down payment on a decent car. Not a metallic blue Volkswagen convertible Beetle. She’d given up on that dream. Just any car. She’d take any amount of money to get rid of Princess Prettypants, who at that moment let out a delicate fart, filling the barn with rainbows and the scent of night-blooming jasmine.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Liz said.
“Elizabeth Gretchen Freelander,” her mother said sharply.
“Well, I’m sorry, Mom,” Liz said. “But I’m seventeen years old, not nine.”
Mr. Freelander sighed.
“I told you she wouldn’t like it, Debbie,” he said sadly to his wife. “I told you.”
Liz bit her lower lip. What was wrong with her? Here her aunt had gone to all this trouble to ship what was probably a very expensive gift all the way from the Great Smoky Mountains.
The least she could do was be gracious about it.
“No,” Liz said. She noticed that everyone, including the unicorn, was staring mournfully at the barn floor. “No, I like it. I do.”
“No, you don’t,” Ted said. He too was still looking at the floor, kicking at some feed that had fallen from the hayrack. “You think you’re too cool for unicorns. Well, you know what?” Ted lifted his gaze, and Liz was surprised to see that there were tears gleaming in his eyes. “Evan Connor’s little brother, Derek, told me you guys are the ones who’ve been going around stealing plaster geese out of people’s yards!”
Mrs. Freelander gasped. “No!”
Liz’s father just shook his head, looking as ashamed of her as he had the first time he’d ever heard her use the F word upon accidentally stubbing her toe.
“That’s right,” Ted raged on. “I found them hidden in Munchkin’s old stable!
Eleven of them, all in different fancy outfits! I wasn’t going to say anything because I thought you were cool, Liz. My cool big sister. But now that I know you don’t like unicorns, I don’t think you’re cool at all. And … and one of those plaster geese you stole was from my best friend Paul’s house. And his mom wants it back!”
With that, Ted ran from the barn, obviously hoping to escape before the tears gathering in his eyes started to stream down his face.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Liz said in the ensuing silence, during which Princess Prettypants shifted her weight, causing one of her glittering silver hooves to strike against the barn floor and set off a musical chime that sounded not unlike the bells that rang out from the Venice Freedom Evangelical Church every Sunday morning.
“You’re the one who’s been stealing plaster geese from people’s front yards?”
Mrs. Freelander asked, giving Liz an incredulous look. “The one they reported about in the Police Beat in The Venice Voice? That was you?”
“Mom,” Liz said, shame causing her own eyes to suddenly fill with tears. “I’m really sor—”
“Young lady,” Mrs. Freelander interrupted furiously. “You are grounded.
Forever.”
And, wrapping her sweater more tightly around herself, she stormed from the barn.
Mr. Freelander sighed and gave the unicorn one last pat on the rump.
“Now you’ve gone and upset your mother,” was all he said as he turned to follow his wife. “And she worked so hard to give you that nice party.”
When he was gone, Liz walked over to the stall door across from where Princess Prettypants was standing and sank down onto the floor, leaning her back against the rough wood. She wiped her eyes with the back of a wrist.
“Ted’s right,” she said, swallowing against the sudden lump in her throat. “I’m not cool.”
Jeremy crossed over to Princess Prettypants and laid a hand on her shimmering neck. She rolled her purple-eyed gaze toward him appreciatively.
“Selling her on eBay is kind of extreme,” he said. “Don’t you think? She seems like a nice horse.”
“Unicorn,” Liz corrected him. She really wanted to cry now. Jeremy hadn’t disagreed with Ted about her being uncool.
Well, Jeremy had always made it perfectly clear that he hadn’t approved of her going out with Evan—and, okay, that had been a mistake … almost as big a mistake as stealing the plaster geese. She’d been dazzled by Evan’s good looks and his fancy TAG Heuer watch and the fact that he’d wanted her. Her, out of all the girls in school.
She had failed to notice the small fact that Evan, like his friend Spank, was a douche bag.
She stretched her legs out in front of her, then crossed her ankles, keeping her gaze on her feet in order to concentrate on not crying.
“It’s not a horse,” she said, her voice tear-roughened. “It’s a unicorn. And do you have any idea how much money I still owe my parents?”
“Well,” Jeremy said. His voice didn’t sound too steady either. “This should come in handy, then. Here.”
He dropped something into her lap. When Liz looked down, she saw through her tear-blurred gaze that it was a key. With a red ribbon wrapped around it.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Your birthday present,” he said.
She glanced up at him questioningly. He appeared to have something more he wanted to say to her, but he was holding himself back for some reason… .
Which was unusual, because she’d always thought they could tell each other anything.
Well, almost anything.
“I gotta go,” he said suddenly, removing his hand from the unicorn’s neck. “I’ll see you around.”
“But …” She looked down once more at her present. “What’s it a key to?”
But when she glanced up again, Jeremy had already left the barn.
She didn’t get up to go after him. She didn’t want him to see her cry, any more than he, apparently, wanted to stick around to talk.