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This story is dedicated to my daughter Karen, whose interest in unicorns is legendary.
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It all happened last Wednesday. The day started like most other weekday mornings. Blond eleven-year-old Karen had crawled out of her cozy warm bed that morning to see the sun already high overhead. It was mid-July, and though the nights were still unusually cool for this time of year, it didn't take the sun long to push the mercury over the eighty degree mark.
The schools had already closed their doors for the summer break more than six weeks earlier. Karen loved her summer vacations, but got easily bored if there was little to spark her interest. Uncomfortably warm days were especially difficult for her and her active life-style.
This particular day was starting out oppressively warm. Karen finished her bowl of oatmeal slowly, relishing every last raisen her mother had cooked with the hot cereal. By now little beads of persperation had begun to form on her forehead just below her hairline. She felt the trickle of a drop of sweat glide slowly down the back of her neck. The thermometer outside the porch door showed over eighty degrees and it wasn't even ten A.M. The day was going to be another scorcher.
"What am I going to do?" Karen asked herself as she brushed her teeth after breakfast. The idea of drawing unicorns occurred to her. Within the past several years Karen had been sharpening her artistic skills, and unicorns were her favorite subject. She thought about the idea for awhile, but decided it was too warm for such an activity. The pencil would be too difficult to hold steady in her sweaty hand.
Karen walked slowly out the front door of her house, still trying to decide what she could do to break the monotony. She hoped her mother wouldn't ask her to do some boring chore, or to take care of her baby brother Edward. Karen loved her little brother, but he could be a real challenge for the young girl to handle.
Karen's two miniature schnauzers, Smokey and Cocoa, yapped impatiently as she walked around the corner of the white two-story farm house Karen called home. The hint of a slight breeze greeted her, giving her a little relief from the sultry heat. The bright July sunlight shimmered and danced on Karen's golden hair as she headed toward the back of the house. She decided she needed to give her schnauzers food and water, when suddenly the two dogs started barking, jumping, yapping, and fussing at something on the other side of the yard boundary fence.
Just to the north of Karen's home was a kind of fenced in no-man's-land. A rickety old house, long neglected and left to the elements, stood awkwardly among cottonwoods, scraggly and fruitless apple trees, old shrubs, and tangled undergrowth. In the back of the old house stood an ancient windmill, creaking and groaning with age. What used to be someone's lawn was now completely overgrown with weeds and wildflowers.
The house had stood alone for many years in quiet neglect. Now something was different; something strange and really weird was happening with the old house. At first Karen sensed it more than seeing or hearing it. She jumped back with a sudden start! Gone was the boredom she had felt earlier. She no longer noticed or cared about the hot sun relentlessly beating on her flushed face. All she felt now was her heart beating and pounding wildly within her chest.
The door to the old house stood wide open. Someone, or rather, something, was slowly walking out! Karen heard the sudden whinny of a horse followed by the thunder of hoof beats as whatever it was raced from the inner darkness of the old ramshackle and took off like a bolt of lightning to the far side of the fenced in no-man's land. In a flash it cleared the five foot fence to the east, and went streaking off between two rows of half-grown corn, up over a hill, and out of sight!
Karen gasped in utter amazement. She rubbed her eyes, wondering if the shimmering heat had caused her to imagine what she had just seen. She pinched herself to make sure she was not dreaming. She had just seen the most powerful and dazzling white horse she had ever laid eyes on. High on the powerful steed's forehead, displayed like some proud midieval knight's spear, Karen had seen the horn of a unicorn!
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