“I don’t know,” Twilight said softly. “What if we make friends with the ghost and leave the treasure alone?”
“Let’s take the scientific method step-by-step. We don’t have to worry about the treasure yet,” Shamrock pointed out.
The sun was shining, and the ocean breeze was cool. The four friends were enjoying the walk so much that they made it to town before long and were all smiling as they wove their way through the cluster of little wooden buildings.
Shamrock noticed that the whole town seemed to lean east, as if the ocean wind had pushed it that way. Most houses had sea glass windows, with different blues and greens melted together. Unicorns were selling rope, seaweed, and trinkets from carts that lined the roads. Shamrock saw one unicorn push a cart filled with old books. The pages were browned with age, and it looked like the covers were made of everything from old sails to dried bark.
“Hey, kids! Looking for me?” The friends spun around, and Uncle Sea Star was standing right in front them, a big basket full of rope hanging from his neck.
“Uncle Sea Star, I have incredible news,” Sapphire told him in her serious student voice.
Then Comet yelled out, “She saw the Glowing Horn! She saw the Glowing Horn!” until Sapphire shushed her in an equally loud voice.
Shamrock looked around to see the unicorns of the town peeking at his friends curiously. There was a very old unicorn pushing a cart of glass bottles and iron pots and pans who looked particularly interested. Two unicorns dressed like Uncle Sea Star stopped their conversation and pricked up their ears. Shamrock was curious about what Uncle Sea Star knew too.
“Uncle Sea Star, you have to tell us how to lure the horn to the beach,” Sapphire was saying. “Think of the treasure!”
Uncle Sea Star chuckled. “This is a treasure-hunting sleepover, eh? No, no. Too many unicorns have been lost to this legend. You’ll just have to let the horn be, niece.”
“But I found a loophole!” Comet pressed. “If we lure the horn to us, then the horn can’t lure us to the sea.” She closed her eyes and nodded seriously, as if settling the point.
Uncle Sea Star just shook his head. Shamrock knew his friends were going about this all wrong. If he were going to be part of this fact-finding mission, then they were going to do things correctly.
“Right now we’re just gathering information to form our hypothesis,” Shamrock said seriously. “That means ‘an educated guess,’ by the way. We will not perform any experiments until we get our facts straight, I promise. Of course, we’d rather talk to you about this instead of finding the information someplace else. I mean, some of those old books over on that cart looked like they might have some information… and actually, those unicorns over there seemed interested.…” Shamrock drifted off, starting to get lost in thought. He wished they were closer to the library at school.
Uncle Sea Star chuckled and shook his head again. “Okay, okay, but this is just an old story, all right? Might not be anything to it. And all four of you must promise me you won’t get yourselves into any danger. Sapphire, don’t get me in trouble with your mother!”
Sapphire promised not to do anything dangerous.
Uncle Sea Star nodded and said, “Legend says that the Glowing Horn is always trying to add to its treasure. It’s supposed to be drawn to shiny things.”
The young unicorns nodded in unison, hanging on his every word.
“The thing is, the Glowing Horn knows unicorns want to take its treasure. Make sure it doesn’t see you, or else you could be in trouble with the ghost!”
Twilight sighed.
Sapphire ignored it. “Twilight, I think we’ll need to use your special powers.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Twilight said, shaking her head.
Before any of them could thank Uncle Sea Star for his very valuable information or even say good-bye, he was crossing the street, waving his horn to a unicorn with an eye patch and a very dirty apron.
5
Finding Treasure
Okay, so what do we do to find this treasure?” Comet asked as they walked away from town.
Shamrock said, “Well, we can all agree that we have different theories for how this will turn out—”
“We’ll be rich, with treasure!” Comet shouted.
“We’ll discover something valuable, at the very least,” Sapphire said with confidence.
“We’ll make a new ghost friend,” Twilight said softly.
Shamrock just nodded. They all knew what his theory was. “The next logical step is to conduct an experiment. Normally this would take weeks of planning, but I’m willing to cut some corners to keep the process moving. Does anyone have any ideas?”
Twilight mumbled, “I think Sapphire does.”
“I do!” Sapphire said, nudging Twilight gently with her flank. “We go down to the beach tonight. Twilight will use her invisibility to set out a bunch of sparkly things in front of a fire, so they get, you know, extra sparkly. Then we all hide in the grass and wait for the horn to come to the beach.”
Comet whooped and floated, yelling “Best sleepover ever!” again and again.
When Comet calmed down, Twilight finally said, “Okay, I’ll do it, but you guys have to promise to stay close by. Also, where are we going to find the sparkly stuff?”
Shamrock’s heart leapt right out of his chest. “The CAVES!” he blurted out.
His friends just stared at him.
Shamrock shook his shoulders, straightened his glasses, and tried to get back some scientific seriousness. “Ahem, I mean, there are sparkly rocks in the caves, remember? Perhaps we could gather those.”
“Great idea!” Sapphire replied. “I’ve seen them before, and I think they’re sparkly enough to lure the ghost.”
“If you guys don’t mind, I’m going to skip the caves. I have a surprise for all of us,” Comet said with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
“Do you need any help?” Twilight asked.
“Actually, yeah!” Comet said. “That would be great.”
The two
