Unicorns? Get Real!

wonder.
    “Oh, so much is true.” Gundersnap beamed, and from her pocket she took out a handful of the most glorious fat rubies any of them had ever seen. So brilliant was their ruby-red light that it caught all of them in its radiance. But the most radiant of all was Princess Gundersnap, who was as beautiful as any princess in the entire camp of princesses.
     
    That evening when the clock began to chime midnight, the four princesses made their way up the winding staircase of the hidden turret. They took up their needles and thread and began to stitch.
    “You should do these last stitches,” Princess Alicia said, nodding toward the short little horn that grew out of the creature in the tapestry. Gundersnap stepped up with her needle and thread. She began to stitch. Now at last it was all so clear as she began to stitch the final images of two unicorns flying through a starry night. One was ridden by a princess—a radiant, lovely princess.
    Outside summer had slipped back to spring. It was almost as if the princesses could hear the new grass pushing up. And tomorrow there would be daffodils, and Gundersnap would go to a place in the meadow where she knew the sweetest clover grew to feed her dear Menschmik.
    “So I guess the tapestry is finished, the story told,” Gundersnap said as she broke off the thread from her last stitch.
    Really? thought Princess Kristen. The princess from the Realm of Rolm narrowed her eyes. In another part of the tapestry, some pale-green stitches looked the same color as the water in the lake where the campers swam, but it was as if the stitches had broken in the lake’s center and the head of something very strange was rising from the waves. It was rather frightening. And were there flames coming from its mouth? Was it some sort of dragon, a water dragon? Kristen squinted harder.
    The tapestry was not finished! And this mystery was hers to solve, Kristen’s, the princess from the Isles of the Salt Tears in the Realm of Rolm. A dragon, though? There hadn’t been dragons for centuries. And here at Camp Princess? Maybe. She’d have to send for armor. The lightweight, waterproof, no-rust chain mail. She’d seen the perfect set in the Knights and Squires Survival Catalogue . And would her dad lend her his sword? Could she pray for a sword? It didn’t seem quite right…but maybe. Yes, by Saint Michael, patron saint of war, she could. If there was a patron saint, it was okay to pray—right?
    Whatever !

About the Author
    Kathryn Lasky is the Newbery Honor–winning and national bestselling author of many books for children and adults. She has created picture books: PORKENSTEIN, SUGARING TIME, and LUNCH BUNNIES; novels: BLOOD SECRET, THE BONE WARS, BEYOND THE BURNING TIME, and A VOICE OF HER OWN; and the bestselling series Guardians of Ga’Hoole. When she’s not writing, she and her husband, Christopher Knight, enjoy sailing the world aboard a boat named Alice.
    Kathryn Lasky lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can visit her online at www.kathrynlasky.com.
    Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Credits
    Cover art © 2007 by Amy Saidens
    Cover design by Sasha Illingworth
    Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Amy Saidens

Copyright
    CAMP PRINCESS 2: UNICORNS? GET REAL!. Text copyright © 2007 by Kathryn Lasky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
    Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196283-7
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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