“It’s. A. Piece. Of. Wood. Literally. It’s a piece of wood. You’re surrounded by them all day, every day, when you’re in the stable,” I said, dropping my forehead into my hand.

I was trying to be patient with Regent Maximus, but we’d been out here since lunchtime. It was hot and sticky, and gnats kept flying into my eyes. My entire arm was already covered with Fuzzle doodles I’d done while waiting out Regent Maximus’s many meltdowns. This board business hadn’t seemed like such an impossible task when I’d made the deal, but apparently Mr. Henshaw knew his Unicorn better than I’d thought.

Tomas, who was standing over on the clinic’s back step to avoid allergy bubbles, pointed out, “In fact, the wood used to build the stable is bigger. This is just a little piece of wood.”

“Bigger pieces?” Regent Maximus said, flicking a fearful ear toward the stable. His eyes widened. He started to tremble.

Great. Now he was afraid of the stable too.

Regent Maximus wasn’t the only thing on my mind. I was starting to feel a little more nervous about the Fuzzle situation. A lot more nervous, actually. We were one day closer to the exterminators’ arrival and we were no closer to a Fuzzle solution. We hadn’t seen Mrs. Dreadbatch again, but Aunt Emma had showed me a Cloverton newspaper article over breakfast. The tiny Cloverton museum had caught fire the night before, and all of the historical Civil War uniforms had been destroyed—I guessed Fuzzles would settle for wool uniforms when they couldn’t find any underwear. S.M.A.C.K.E.D. had called for a community meeting over the Fuzzle situation. Apparently they needed a majority vote in order for the extermination to go forward.

Extermination! Even the word sounded terrible.

Aunt Emma had said she’d go to the community meeting and talk about how well the habitat on the island was working for the moment. But she’d looked worried. She knew it wasn’t a permanent solution.

“No,” Regent Maximus was saying to Tomas. “No-no-no-no-no.”

“Why is he making noises at me?” Tomas asked. “I didn’t say anything!”

“His face!” the Unicorn said. “That boy was about to ask me to get closer and I won’t! I—no-no-no!”

I grimaced at him. It was hard to believe that he was the same species as the Barreras’ Unicorns. Regent Maximus slouched as much as a four-legged animal could slouch, and his rainbow forelock dribbled uncertainly over one eye. Also, Tomas had put one of his brothers’ white tube socks over the Unicorn’s horn, which made him look even less noble. Tomas told me the sock was to make training Regent Maximus safer. I didn’t think a tube sock would stop what Jeffrey Higgleston had called “the purest weapon in the natural world,” but Tomas was insistent.

Tomas switched to our previous topic of conversation: Fuzzles. “Maybe the you-know-whats are flying—well, rolling—south for the season? Like how birds do?” Earlier, we discovered the word Fuzzle sent Regent Maximus into a blind panic. Literally blind. He’d squeezed his eyes shut, then started running. Luckily, he hit the hay bale rather than the tractor right beside it.

“Nobody has mentioned anything online about a migration. And somebody would’ve noticed if they did it every year,” I replied. “Things don’t just suddenly decide to migrate.”

Tomas pulled a little motorized fan out of his pocket and waved it back and forth in front of his face. He looked at me. “What? Heatstroke can send you into cardiac arrest in minutes.”

I wished Tomas could have a conversation with Regent Maximus. I thought they’d have a lot to talk about.

The clinic’s back door cracked open. Bubbles trudged through, looking indignant, and Callie’s voice followed him: “Go on! If I find out who gave you pineapple, they’re dead. Now the whole office smells—” The door slammed shut.

Bubbles rolled his eyes, then laid down on the back step right beside Tomas. Under his breath, the Miniature Griffin muttered, “Smells better than her nail polish.” Then a small noise erupted from his rear end.

Tomas frowned. Regent Maximus shuddered.

Bubbles asked me, “What’s going on out here?”

I said, “We’re trying to teach Regent Maximus to go over that board over there.”

Bubbles chewed on a claw with his beak as he studied the board. “You mean, jump over it?”

“No. Walk over it.”

“And he … can’t?”

“He’s nervous,” I explained politely, since now Regent Maximus was listening. “About splinters. And tripping. And there were some ants near it earlier—”

“Unicorns,” Bubbles interrupted, looking thoroughly disgusted. He closed his eyes, though I could tell he was not sleeping.

I turned back to Regent Maximus. “Think about it, Regent Maximus. Mr. Randall’s going to be here soon, and we’ll have to leave to take today’s Fuzzles to Two Duck Lake. This could be your last chance to go over the board today!”

Regent Maximus’s nostrils flared. “Why? What’s going to happen later today? Earthquake? Killer bees? Shipwreck? What do you know?”

“All right,” Bubbles broke in grouchily. “Let’s do this.” Rising, he stretched, extending his claws and bristling his feathers. “Hey, Unicorn! What’s his name? Regent Maximus? Regent—that’s a long name. How about instead of Regent What-evers-mus, I call you …” He hunched forward, ready to pounce, and said, “Dinner.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Dinner,” Regent Maximus echoed, with a note of hysteria in his voice. “Dinner.” He eyeballed Bubbles, trying to decide if this twenty-pound creature was really a threat.

Flexing his small claws, Bubbles twitched his tail from side to side.

“Pip! Pip, hide me!” Regent Maximus screamed, prancing behind me. He stuck his head under my arm to keep an eye on Bubbles. I felt him quivering. His tube-socked horn was right in front of me. It was quivering too.

“I haven’t had a good Unicorn in ages,” Bubbles said, low and menacing. “I can’t wait. Do we have any steak sauce, Pip?”

“Bubbles,” I said. “I don’t think—”

Regent Maximus was no longer forming coherent sentences—he was just shouting words: “Pip! Dinner! Eat! Hide! STEAK SAUCE!”

Bubbles sprang forward—sort of. He was too old to actually spring, so he just heaved himself off the back stoop.

It was enough.

Regent Maximus reared, rainbow mane waving like a flag behind him. He took off like a shot. Right at the board in the grass.

He leaped over it like it was nothing.

Tomas let out a loud “Whoop!” and jumped to his feet. Regent Maximus didn’t even notice what he’d just done—he continued on, wailing “Steak sauce!” at the top his lungs. When he reached the fence on the edge of the property, he shot a furtive look back at Bubbles, then dove behind a trough.

“You’re welcome,” Bubbles said to me. He pulled himself back onto the stoop with a yawn. “Unicorns. I’d rather have HobGrackles.”

“Don’t look so smug,” I shot back, even crankier than before. “That Unicorn didn’t learn anything.”

Tomas joined me, and together we walked over to retrieve Regent Maximus. He was still wedged behind the trough, which would have been a pretty good hiding spot, if it weren’t for the clearly visible tube sock sticking up above it.

“Why did Bubbles attack?” Tomas asked, because of course he hadn’t understood a word of Bubbles’s plan.

I explained it as Tomas removed a handful of fruit-flavored cough drops from his pocket, then placed a tantalizing trail of them from Regent Maximus’s hiding spot out into the yard. I heard the Unicorn make snuffling smelling noises behind the trough, but I guess he wasn’t tempted enough to come out just yet.

Tomas shrugged and stuck the last cough drop in his mouth. He said, “Well, you have to admit, the idea of getting eaten is pretty scary. I’d probably run too if something said it wanted to eat me with steak sauce. Especially since I’m allergic to steak sau—”

My bad mood suddenly melted away, replaced by excitement. “Tomas! That’s it!”

“My steak sauce allergy? It’s really an allergy to the caramel coloring—”

“No! The Fuzzles!” I clapped my hands together. “I think I know why they’re here!”