The Magical Field Trip

“Hi, my name is Starla Shimmer. I am a twelve year old unicorn from Polandia. Today I am going on a field trip to the royal palace of Queen A1 (or Queen Ainsley). And welcome to my blo -”breakfast!!” - oh that’s my mom, I better go down before the pancakes are gone!”

“Good morning mom!”, I say as I slide down the handrailing of the stairs. She replies as she puts down a plate of pancakes at the table in front of my sister. 

“Hey big sis, you know that your bus will be driving near the Wandering Woods, right?” my sister says suspiciously.

“Um… yeah…”, I say as I take a bite. I look up and catch a glimpse of the smirk on her face, like she’s up to no good. I get a feeling that this is not any of her boring pranks and tricks. “Wait, what are you up to?” I ask, hoping that she doesn’t lie to me.

“Nothing… Just wondering if you could drop this off there.”, she responds. A ziplock bag lands in my lap with a weird squishy sound, and I see bits of chewed meat and leaves floating in a gooey substance.   

“Eww! Mom! Claudia is so disgusting!” I wrinkle my nose and pretend to be disgusted so that she will get in trouble.

“Claudette Skyglim Shimmer. Say sorry to your sister this INSTANT!" My mom, looking up at Claudia, demands from the kitchen in a booming voice.

“Ugh, FINE. Sorry not sorry that someone is going to be mad at you.” She says sarcastically while rolling her eyes and crosses her arms.

Suddenly, I hear a big screeching noise and look out my window. A bus slowly stops in front of the bus stop, and my friends wave to me from inside.

“Don’t forget your backpack!” Claude shouts, tossing my backpack over to me as I leave to get on the bus. 

After settling down on the bus, we begin heading to the palace when over all the murmuring and excitement, I hear a student whisper to her friends.

“I heard that this bus is so old, it’s older than the Hornbringers Statue.” 

“Wait, do you mean the statue of the world’s first unicorn which was built 10 millions years ago? There’s no way! It’s not a magical school bus like the one in the books.” I sneer, interrupting the conversation. Her friends and some of the other students glare at me.

“Um, yes way. Haven’t you heard that this bus was cursed by an evil sorcerer?", she mocks, before turning back to her friends and continuing to whisper like I don't exist. Her whispering blends in with the voices of everybody else like a blade of grass in a big green meadow.

“But not everything you hear is right. This bus might just be made specially so that it can last longer.” I refute. The murmurs stop and the bus becomes ghost-quiet except for the sound of engines going vrmm vrmm. I feel eyes staring at me like people in the Colosseum waiting to see who will win. I feel a sudden burst of confidence and continue. 

“Besides, it’s very apparent when something has good magic but the bus looks normal. Dark magic will stop working if it goes anywhere near dark and dangerous places.”

“Well, we’ll be going near the Wandering Woods so let’s see who’s right. I bet you five Pocks (Polandian dollars)!” She says and her minions nod and cross their arms. The other students are still looking at us with wide eyes.

Just then, my bestie for life, Capri, interrupts us.

“Guys, the bus sounds a little weird.” she said, worriedly. Seconds after, we hear a big rumble and the bus breaks down. I hear a few girls shriek when the bus suddenly slants to one side.

“Told you it was cursed!” the girl boasts, which made me want to shout at her. But before I can do anything, my teacher stands up.

“Okay mares, stay calm. Bob will fix it.” Ms. Ambers puts her hands in the air as if she was telling us to stop.

“Who’s Bob?” I stick my head out into the aisle a little too quickly and pull my neck. Wincing, I rub my neck.

“Our janitor.” she gestures to Bob with jazz hands, who is driving the bus.

“Wait, Bob?!” My jaw drops to the floor. 

“How is he supposed to fix a bus? He’s a janitor!” Capri stands up and cradles her head. The bus slowly creaks in agreement and Capri trips but she steadies herself on the armrest of her seat.

A branch falls down and scrapes the bus and everyone turns to the windows. Crooked Evergreen trees and fog surround us like bars in a jail cell. Thick roots stick up from the ground creating trails that go on and on. There is no sign of life except for the plants and trees starting from the little hill that separates the woods from the road which we were just on.

At that moment, I realized that the bus is cursed with dark magic. This must mean the sorcerers are coming. Ms. Ambers quietly tells us to hide under our seats and cover ourselves with everything we have and wait. Some students are biting their nails nervously and others are so scared that they are shaking like a massage gun.

We didn’t have to wait long, because a few minutes later we heard heavy footsteps coming from the door. Capri looks startled and freezes under the seats. In Capri’s eyes, I see a reflection of a tree-like monster about eight feet tall and with a stretched face. The monster stares straight into her eyes, and Capri lets out an ear-piercing scream, making the monster mad. It charges straight towards our bus.

“EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!” Ms. Ambers screams.

We rush out of the emergency exit of the bus, and run further into the Wandering Woods. The monster lunges towards us with its giant overgrown claws. The ground rumbles and shakes, causing an evergreen tree to crash down on the tree monster with a THUMP. A tiny spark ignites both the evergreen tree and the monster and the monster thrashes under the burning wood. We hide inside a tree just as the monster escapes from the jail of burning branches. The tree, different from others, is a gigantic oak tree with a big hole in the middle of the trunk, creating a room which we are hiding in.

After what feels like hours, Ms. Ambers suggests, “Mares, I think it's safe now. We’ve been hiding here for the past hour or maybe even hours and there still isn’t any sign of the monster . We can start making our way out, just not towards the bus because the monster may still be there.”

We all agree and come out of our hiding spot. We decide to walk in a straight line so that if we ever get lost, we could just walk the opposite way. Along the way, Capri keeps saying that she can hear digging sounds, and since her hearing is exceptional, I lay down to listen. As expected, I hear some digging sounds in a familiar pattern: scritch, scratch, rumble thud. According to my Mystical Mammals book, it is the sound of an adult Browntunnel woole. A woole is an animal that is specialized in knitting and digging tunnels. They look like a mouse and have a hard, beaver-like tail that they hide their tunnel holes with. They also have long sharp claws and are about one meter tall.

“Wait, that's the sound of a woole. Quick! Get off the ground, everyone!” I shout so loud that my throat hurts. Everyone tilts their head at me.

“What, Why?” Capri asks. Capri is a very good student and friend, but sometimes, she just doesn’t listen when I share interesting facts with her.

“Don’t you know? Wooles can make a sinkhole in three seconds if scared, and since we have so many people, they may think that we are exterminators.” I answer.

I hear a rumble and the ground starts cracking like a very bad drought just happened. Everyone jumps off the floor and holds onto the tree. The rumble gets louder and louder until I hear POP. A woole with big round glasses rapidly surfaces in front of us.

“Hi, friends! What are you doing here? It's dangerous here. Did you get attacked by a treceratops? Are you lost?” the woole sputters, like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland when he is late. 

“Yes and yes!” Capri answers happily with a hop. The woole understandably nods and welcomely gestures to its tunnel.

“Well then follow me!”

We stand beside the woole’s tunnel as it rapidly knits sliding mats for all sixteen of us.

“Done! Here you go!” the woole gives us the mats to sit on.

As we slide down the tunnel, warm orange lanterns light up the tunnel. The tunnel is so long that it looks like it stretches on forever. A strong smell of blackberries hits me in the face, maybe because the wooles eat so much. The tunnel is also surprisingly cozy for people that don’t have claustrophobia.

“So, what are you doing here? Isn’t it dangerous?” a student asks when we start slowing down.

The woole is curled into a ball, rolling down the tunnel, so we can’t hear it very clearly, but it said something like, “Nah, I'm fine with it. I’ve lived here for twelve years.” 

A few minutes later, Capri breaks the awkward silence.“Are we there yet? My mat is starting to rip.” Capri complains, as she looks at her mat. She randomly takes out a needle and thread from her hair bun and stitches the mat back together, smiling proudly.

“Yes, in fact, we have arrived.” the woole replies as we come to a complete stop. A big and wide platform with little benches that look surprisingly like a train station surrounds us. 

“What do you mean? I don’t see any opening to the platform except for the tunnel we just came from.” I say.  I spot a little woole hiding behind a pillar and I wave to it. It waves back with its tiny paws and an adult woole, who I think is its parent, pulls it away and heads towards the benches. 

“This is WWE, the Worldwide Woole Express; It can go anywhere, including the queen’s palace.” The woole walks to the train timetable and traces its fingers till it finds the current time, which is ten oh four. He looks to the right, and announces that the next train is heading to the queen’s palace, and will arrive in one minute. 

I excitedly shout out, ”That’s exactly where we have to go!”, just as the train stops.

“Well let’s get going! You don’t want to be late do you? Hop on the train!” Remember to grab on and buckle your leaf-belts, the train is going to depart at any moment now…” The woole reminds us.

<Beep cheep squeak…>

“And there it is, get ready for some fun!” the woole squeals.

WHOOSH. A blast of wind hits me in the face like a hair dryer as the train quickly departs from the platform.

“Woah, this train is so cool, what is it powered by?” I ask as I fiddle with the loose thread on the seat.

“Oh, the train? The train is powered by triggers attached to a giant lever and since it’s so heavy, we need a lot of help to move it. So who else should we ask for help other than the Bonkers? Bonkers are half porcupine and half kangaroo animals with poisonous spikes that can shoot out twenty spikes at a time, and it only takes a few minutes for the spikes to regenerate. They agreed to help us with the condition that we build a trampoline for them to jump on. So we attached pulleys to the trampoline to move the lever, and now they are all happily jumping around.” the woole says, out of breath.

“Cool! But how does the train know where to go?” I hand the woole a bottle of water from my backpack and it quickly glugs it down. 

“Well, at different times of day, they change the rail that guides the train to its destination by rotating the rail where the tunnels intersect. But I’m not sure how they change it. Do they push it or do they use a lever or pulley? Maybe we’ll see later!” The woole answers, taking a few blackberries from its pouch and stuffing it in its mouth.

The train screeches and the wind stops. Capri looks up from her notebook to the window.

“Oh, yay! This must be our stop!” Capri informs us. She points eagerly to the door and unbuckles her seatbelt.

“Yes indeed, mares! Hope you return to your homes safely and if you ever need me, you know where to find me.” The woole gives us each a card with an address on it. The card I got has some blackberry juice stains in the corner.

“BYE - umm what should we call you?” the student asks.

“Just call me Woole. Pronouns he him.” Woole replies and smiles in a very friendly way. I smile at him and he blushes (at least I think he does; I can’t tell over the fur). 

“BYE WOOLE!!!” everybody says except for the girl and her friends, who were already going up, chit chatting with each other.

“Oh and Starla, is it?” Woole taps me to get my attention.

“Yes, what may I help you with?” I turn back and look at Woole, waiting for him to continue. I catch a glance of Capri gesturing for me to hurry up on the outside of the tunnel.

“Have you at any point met Claudette Shimmer?” I could tell that Woole had trouble pronouncing Claudia’s name when he took out a piece of paper to read off of.

“Yes, That’s my sister!” I say, puzzled by the fact that a random woole who lives in the middle of the Wandering Woods knows my sister.

“She said that a purple unicorn would come and drop off some fertilizer.” Woole says a little impatiently and looks at its feet.

“Oh, that was fertilizer? Let me check my bag…. Here it is! Why is it in my bag?” I hand Woole the bag of fertilizer, and wave goodbye before catching up  to Capri, who is still waiting for me. We  rush toward the others as a blinding beam of light hits my eyes.

“Ah, light at last.” I say to myself.

The light is not only coming from the sun , but it is also coming from the bright white palace of Queen Ainsley! 

We have to tell the queen about what happened! She’ll be flabbergasted! I say to myself.

We rush to the palace and go round and round on the spiraling stairs and after what seemed like thirty minutes, according to Capri’s homemade paper plate clock, we finally make it to the Throne Room. Queen Ainsley is shocked when we tell her and reassures us that she will fix the problem as soon as possible. 

Afterwards, we go down to the ground floor to meet our tour guide, and begin exploring the nooks and crannies of the Queen’s castle. 

As the clock strikes three, our tour comes to an end and we head to the bus stop to go home.

The bus stops in front of my house and so I shout over my shoulder “Bye Capri! See you next week!” when the bus door opens.

“Bye Starly!” She teases me.

“Hey!” I playfully shout at her and she giggles.

I open my front door and announce that I'm home.

“Sweetie! What did you do today?” My mom asks as she takes off her mittens and lays them on the table with some freshly baked cookies.

“Nothing, just a regular tour.” I lie to my mom.

THE END