The Unicorn Princesses series
Sunbeam’s Shine
Flash’s Dash
Bloom’s Ball
Prism’s Paint
Breeze’s Blast
Moon’s Dance
Coming soon
Firefly’s Glow
Feather’s Flight
For Phoenix and Lynx
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Unicorn Princesses, Moon’s Dance
About the Author and Illustrator
In the top tower of Spiral Palace, Ernest, the wizard-lizard, stared at his bookshelf. He tilted his scaly green head to one side and his pointy hat almost toppled off. “Hmm,” he said. “What book of spells should I study next? Magic Storms and Other Bewitched Weather? No, the unicorn princesses wouldn’t like that much. Enchanted Bangs and Conjured Crashes? Nope, too loud. What about—”
Before he could finish his sentence, a loud thumping on the door interrupted him. “Come in!” he called out, straightening his hat and cloak.
The wooden door creaked open, and a red dragon wearing a white chef’s hat and apron entered. “Good morning, Ernest!” the dragon boomed. His flame-colored eyes glimmered, and blue smoke puffed from his nostrils. In one clawed hand he held eight bulbs of garlic.
“Hello, Drew,” Ernest said, smiling eagerly. “Can I help you with something?”
“You sure can!” Drew bellowed. “We dragons down in the palace kitchen were wondering if you might provide us with some magical assistance.”
“With pleasure!” Ernest said, jumping with glee.
“Fantastic,” Drew said as threads of smoke rose from his nose. “Could you turn these bulbs of garlic into eight large cooking vats? We’re preparing to make the Blast Feast for Princess Breeze, but none of our usual pots are big enough.”
“I know just the right book of spells!” Ernest exclaimed. He grabbed a thin red book entitled Magic in the Kitchen and flipped to a page that said, in large letters across the top, “Big Pots, Large Pans, Giant Vats, and Humongous Cauldrons.”
“Thank you!” Drew said, and he set the garlic bulbs down on Ernest’s table.
“I’m sure I can do this one perfectly on the first try,” Ernest said. He read over the spell several times, mouthing the words silently. Then he stepped up to his table, grabbed his magic wand from his cloak pocket, and lifted it into the air. He took a deep breath before he chanted, “Cookily Slookily Stockily Stew! Garlic Starlic Smarlic Smew! Make Eight Bats for a Tasty Brew!”
Ernest waited. The bulbs of garlic didn’t spin or jump or quiver. Instead, thunder rumbled. Ernest scratched his head. “Oh dear,” Ernest said. “I’m not sure why that didn’t work.”
“Well,” Drew said, “I’m not a wizard, so I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because you said ‘bats’ instead of ‘vats.’ ”
“Oh dear!” Ernest said again, slapping his hand to his forehead. Ernest turned and looked out the window just as eight bolts of silver lightning tore through the sky right above a distant meadow.
Drew shrugged. “We all make mistakes,” he said. “I usually have to try a recipe five or six times before I get it right.”
“Hopefully Princess Breeze won’t notice anything is amiss before the Blast,” Ernest said. Then he turned toward the garlic, cleared his throat, lifted his wand, and chanted, “Cookily Slookily Stockily Stew! Garlic Starlic Smarlic Smew! Make Eight Vats for a Tasty Brew!”
The bulbs of garlic spun around, faster and faster. Then, with a swirl of wind and a bright flash of light, the garlic vanished, and a tower of eight enormous silver vats appeared by the door.
“Marvelous!” Drew boomed, and a huge cloud of smoke came out of his nose. “I’m impressed you got it on the second try. Well done!”
“Thank you,” Ernest said, blushing.
Drew turned to the stack of vats and hoisted two off the top. “These are heavy! I’ll take these down to the kitchen, and then I’ll come back and get the rest. Thanks again for your help!” The dragon, with one arm wrapped around each vat, lumbered out of the room.
Early one Saturday morning, Cressida Jenkins watched the willow trees in her backyard bend and sway in the wind, and she decided to build her first-ever homemade kite.
While her parents drank coffee and talked in the kitchen, Cressida collected sticks, scissors, tape, and markers from her desk drawer. She found a pink plastic bag under the kitchen sink and then sat down with her supplies on the living room floor. Corey, her older brother, lay on the couch drinking orange juice and reading All About Bats, a book he had gotten from their grandmother for his birthday.
Cressida cut the plastic bag into a large diamond. She arranged the sticks into a cross and taped them to the diamond. Next, she used the markers to decorate the pink plastic with pictures of the seven unicorn princesses Cressida had befriended: yellow Sunbeam, silver Flash, green Bloom, purple Prism, blue Breeze, black Moon, and orange Firefly.
Corey glanced at Cressida’s kite and rolled his eyes. “Are you ever going to stop being obsessed with unicorns?” he asked. “Bats are much better. For one thing, they’re actually real. And, they can fly. Did you know they sleep all day and hunt mosquitoes and other insects all night? I bet unicorns, even if they were real, couldn’t do that.”
Cressida shrugged. She had much better things to do—like fly her kite—than argue with her brother. “I like unicorns and bats,” she said as she used a light blue marker to put the final touches on Breeze’s mane and tail.
Little did Corey know that not only were unicorns just as real as bats, but that any time she wanted to, Cressida could visit the Rainbow Realm—a magical land ruled by the unicorn princesses. To travel there, all she had to do was push a special key into a secret hole in the base of a giant oak tree in the woods behind their house.
“Why are the unicorns wearing those strange things around their necks?” Corey asked, frowning as he studied her kite.
“They’re magic necklaces,” Cressida explained. Just like the real princess unicorns, each of the unicorns Cressida had drawn wore a magic gemstone
