“Don’t worry, I won’t,” said Penelope. She walked slowly up the slope, enjoying the balmy air, the beautifully colored sky, and the soft springy grass underfoot.
When she reached the top of the hill, she looked down into the next valley and admired the color scheme of mauve grass, blue bushes, and magenta flowers. She suddenly saw a small animal rush out of one clump of bushes and bound into the next, but it happened so quickly that she couldn’t tell what sort of animal it was. She concealed herself in one of the blue bushes and sat there quietly, waiting for it to reappear. Presently it did so, and Penelope caught her breath in surprise and delight, for it was a pale lavender-colored baby Unicorn with huge dark blue eyes. Its mane and tail were like spun gold and its tiny horn was like a twisted stick of transparent, golden barley sugar. The Unicorn stood, every muscle taut, its ears pricked forward, its nostrils wide, looking back the way it had come.
Then Penelope’s blood ran cold, for over the brow of the hill, strutting like an enormous colored cockerel, came a Cockatrice. It paused and looked about it, its cruel, greeny gold eyes glittering, its scales gleaming green and gold and red in the sun. As it moved its head, Penelope could hear its scales rustling and clattering together, and she could see the wisps of blue smoke trailing from its nostrils and the tiny flicker of orange flames springing up and dying down as it breathed. The Unicorn must have seen it too, for it turned round and bounded along the valley, dodging in and out of the blue bushes until it stopped, panting, not far from where Penelope sat concealed. She could see its nostrils widening and its ribs heaving as its breath rasped in and out.
The Cockatrice, having surveyed the valley, twitched the end of its forked tail to and fro, like a cat; then it bent its great cockerel’s head forward and started sniffing the ground, uttering a low snarling noise to itself—one of the most horrible sounds Penelope had ever heard. The Unicorn, hearing this and clearly too exhausted to run any farther, crouched down and laid back its ears, its eyes wide with terror. Suddenly the Cockatrice seemed to pick up the scent, for it uttered a pleased, blood-curdling crow and started down into the valley.
Penelope wanted desperately to help the baby Unicorn, and yet she knew it would be dangerous to attract the attention of the Cockatrice. But, as she sat there, she noticed that the Cockatrice seemed very bad at tracking by scent, for several times it lost the trail altogether and wandered round in circles, clucking to itself. Penelope began to work out a plan. If the baby Unicorn’s track was broken, the Cockatrice might well lose it altogether. The only way to do that was to substitute her scent for the Unicorn’s. She knew her plan was horribly risky, and that if it failed both she and the Unicorn might be burnt to death by the infuriated Cockatrice. But she knew that if she thought about it for too long, her courage might fail her, so she got to her feet and ran down into the valley, zigzagging through the bushes to where the Unicorn lay, and she gathered it up into her arms. The Unicorn gave a tiny whinny of terror and started to kick and butt her with its horn.
“Stop struggling, you silly thing,” hissed Penelope. “Stop struggling. I’m a friend. I’m trying to help you.”
At the word “friend” the Unicorn stopped struggling and lay in her arms, looking up into her face with its big terrified eyes as dark blue as pansies.
“Friend?” it asked in a soft voice. “Friend?”
“Yes,” whispered Penelope. “Now lie quiet and I’ll try to save you.”
Although the Unicorn was as small as a fox terrier, it was quite a weight, as Penelope soon discovered. She ran back up the hillside, dodging from bush to bush, moving only when the Cockatrice had its head down to smell the ground, for she was not sure how keen its eyesight was. Panting, she reached the top of the slope and then watched to see if her trick had succeeded. The Cockatrice was now nearing the spot where Penelope had picked up the baby Unicorn, and she watched it, holding her breath.
Suddenly, the Cockatrice, which had had its beak to the ground, sniffing to and fro, reared up with a startled snarl. Its eyes closed and it sneezed suddenly and violently. Flames and smoke shot from its nostrils and burnt a great black patch on the purple grass. It sneezed again and again uncontrollably, and each time it did so it burnt a great patch of grass or set fire to a bush. To Penelope’s amazement it didn’t seem able to stop. It was behaving like someone with hay fever. At last, its eyes watering, it turned and ran off, still sneezing violently, leaving a trail of blackened grass and smoldering bushes behind it.
“Well,” said Penelope. “I didn’t know I smelt that bad. Anyway, at least it’s gone.”
“Thank you for saving me,” said the baby Unicorn in its soft voice. “It was very kind and very brave of you.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Penelope. “It was successful, which was the main thing. But what on earth were you doing, being chased by a Cockatrice? What were you doing out alone? Where are your father and mother?”
“The herd’s over there,” said the Unicorn. “I slipped away because I wanted to practice my butting.”
“Your what?” asked Penelope.
“Butting,” said the Unicorn, nodding his head up and down, so that his horn glittered. “You know, with my horn. We have a Great Butting Contest every year, and this year I’m old enough to enter, and being Crown Prince I’ve got to win, you see.”
“Crown Prince?” asked Penelope.
“Yes,” said the Unicorn. “I’m Septimus, Crown Prince of the Unicorns. My mother and father are the King and Queen.” “All the more reason why you shouldn’t be running around on your own,” said Penelope severely. “Think—Crown Prince of the Unicorns being beaten by a Cockatrice.”
“I know,” said Septimus contritely, “but I had to practice my butting, and the cork forests are the best place for that, because it doesn’t hurt your horn so much if you choose a big cork.” “Well, your mother and father must be worried to death,” said Penelope. “The sooner we get you back to them, the better. Why did the Cockatrice chase you?”
“He said he wanted to take me to their castle, so that the Cockatrices would have control over the Unicorns,” said Septimus. “And he caught me once, but I gave him a jolly good butt and got away. He didn’t dare use his fire, because he wanted me alive, you see. I’m glad he didn’t, because he might have singed my mane and tail, and they’re rather beautiful, aren’t they?”
Penelope shivered. “Yes, very. Well, you’d better come with me to my friends and we’ll see about getting you back to your family.”
So they went down the hill. Septimus gamboled gaily around Penelope, apparently having quite forgotten his recent narrow escape.
Peter and Simon were enchanted to meet a real, live Unicorn, but horrified at the risk Penelope had taken to save it from the Cockatrice.
“Honestly, I would have called you all, if I could have,” she protested, “but I had no time. I had to act at once.”
“I hope this idiotic creature is grateful to you,” said Parrot severely. “He doesn’t deserve to be saved, playing truant like that.” But Septimus wasn’t listening. He’d found a small puddle under some bushes and was gazing, entranced, at his own reflection.
“They’re all the same, these Unicorns,” Parrot went on gloomily. “Vain as vain. Give them a mirror, or, in fact, anything they can see their reflection in and they carry on as though they’re hypnotized.”
“Well, he’s only a baby,” said Penelope, “and he is rather beautiful, you must admit.”
“Oh, he’s pretty enough,” Parrot conceded, “but no brains. They’re all like that. Well, I suppose we’d better be getting on our way and return him to the bosom of his family.”