Unicorns? Get Real!

served as a desktop, and the one below that had been lined with cushions for Myrella to sit in. Myrella called these lower drawers her “study” and found this vertical living arrangement quite to her liking.
    Gilly peered over the edge of the balcony and watched Gundersnap as she straightened out her tiara, muttering in the strange language known as Slobo.
    Signor Pippinia was now addressing the princesses.
    “Dancing is an art form, my ladies. It is not a race, Princess Kristen. And now that you are having your first try with high heels, we need to think control and balance. So we are having slow dances. Let me demonstrate.” He snapped his fingers. A servant came forward with a pillow. Perched on the pillow was a pair of high-heeled red velvet shoes with emeralds embedded in the heels. Signor Pippinia slipped off his boots. “Luckily the Queen Mum and I are the same size. She has kindly lent me her shoes, which are perfect for my high-heeled demonstration.” He nodded at Queen Mother Adelia Elsinore Louisa, the Camp Mistress. “Now observe.” He clicked his fingers, and the musicians began to play a slow tune with a heavy beat. “One-two-three and one-two-three…a nice little dip and then a twirl and then one-two-three and one-two-three.” He swirled by the Princess Gundersnap and bowed to her. She took his hand. The smoothness went out of Signor Pippinia’s step, and it became more of a march.
    Gilly rolled her eyes.
    “Easy, easy, Princess Gundersnap,” the dance master cautioned. “We are not on a battlefield with your mother the empress, thank goodness. We are in a ballroom. You want to lead? Oh sure, no problem.”
    Princess Gundersnap got a glint in her eye. Sticking her neck forward, she began to shove the dance master around the ballroom floor. He might as well be a battering ram, Gilly thought. And then again wondered, as she had so many times, how come she had been born a simple servant and these girls royal princesses, born to rule. She just knew that she would be a much more graceful dancer than any one of them.
    Oops! Gundersnap had just plowed into another pair of dancers, who went on a wild skid across the ballroom. Four jeweled high-heeled shoes flew up into the air.
    “Got it!” Crispin yelled as he reached over the balcony and caught a pearl-encrusted shoe that had flown in a lofty arc toward the ceiling.

Chapter 1
    GUNDERSNAP’S PROCLAMATION

    Princess Gundersnap sat down at the desk in her chamber and took a piece of paper and a quill pen. She chewed the end of the quill. Within a minute the end was in shreds. “Oh dear!” She sighed. “What can I write Mummy?” Maria Theresa, Empress of All the Slobodks, was not your warm and cuddly kind of mum. Gundersnap sighed once more and dipped the pen into the inkwell.
Dear Empress Mummy, Royal Majesty of the Empire of Slobodkonia,
It is not quite summer as it should be. But that often happens here at Camp Princess with its odd seasons. At least it’s not winter. Let’s say it’s autumn in July. Although I am happy to be here, I of course will miss terribly our usual summer sojourns to the Convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Misery. I’ll miss our lovely hours together kneeling on the stone floors while praying for your successful invasions of a kingdom. This year it is to be the Empire of Hottompot, is it not? How excited my dear sister Princess Zelda must be that you may capture a prince for her there!
    “And how lucky I am to be the ninth daughter!” murmured Gundersnap. There were at least four more daughters ahead of her who would have to be married off, not counting sons. Maybe there would be a shortage of kingdoms to invade when her turn came to be married. Maybe the supply of eligible princes would have dried up and she could actually marry someone of her own choosing. Although she doubted the supply would run dry anytime soon. Across the lake at Camp Burning Shield, there seemed to be plenty of royal princes. Alicia, her turretmate, who was more than slightly boy crazy, was constantly asking when the dance with Burning Shield would be. Gundersnap continued writing.
I want to thank you for allowing Gortle to come to camp for this session. I cannot wait until he arrives. I am sure he will entertain us well .
    “Fat Chance!” Gundersnap muttered. If there was one thing that Princess Gundersnap snapped over, it was the ill treatment of court dwarves. The poor little humans suffered various painful conditions and