I told Aunt Emma as soon as we had gotten the Fuzzles settled down back at the clinic, but she didn’t believe me.

“Pip, didn’t you read the rest of the section in the Guide? Grims have set migration patterns. They spend the winters in Mexico, and they go to a colony in the mountains of North Carolina every summer. They’re famous for their migration. They don’t wander.”

“But what about the rogue Grim?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be a rogue Grim? No wonder they wanted to escape the island, if there’s a rogue Grim wandering around Two Duck Lake!”

Aunt Emma said, “It’s not impossible, but it is not probable—and besides, we don’t know they were escaping on purpose. One might have just rolled onto the Glassfish by accident, and the others followed. Fuzzles do tend to stick together like that. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, Pip. It’s too late now. It’s too late to change anything.”

“But we have all night! We could go looking for a Grim!” I insisted.

“Pip,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder—this is what grown-ups do sometimes when they are trying to tell you something that you won’t like—“I know this is a terrible situation. But we can’t do any good traipsing around Cloverton at night looking for an animal that’s not there. We can do some good by making sure the Fuzzles are not stressed out in the clinic and by going to the community meeting to make sure this never happens again.”

She went into the clinic then, but it seemed to me like she was really only going there to be sad about the whole thing.

I went to my bedroom. But I didn’t sleep. I lay in my bed and drew Fuzzles on my hands and tried to think of a plan. By the time the sun came up, I hadn’t gotten much sleep, but I’d decided what I was going to do. If there was a Grim, I was going to find it and talk to it. I would convince it to leave Cloverton. And then the Fuzzles would return to the wild. Everyone—from the Fuzzles to Mrs. Dreadbatch’s backside—would be safe.

There was only one catch. I needed transportation to find the Grim, and it was pretty obvious that Aunt Emma wasn’t going to skip the community meeting to drive me around looking for it.

I had an idea.

But I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. My mother always said, “Think twice, act once.” It hadn’t worked very well with the whole Unicorn Incident thing. But this time I thought I’d think once and then have Tomas think once, and together we’d maybe make a not-stupid decision.

As soon as there was enough light to see by, I called Tomas. His mother answered and gave up the phone to him after a moment.

“Pip?” Tomas asked blearily. He sounded as if he had been woken up. Or perhaps like he was still asleep.

“You’ve got to get over here fast. It’s seven o’clock, so we’ve got”—I looked at the clock—“four hours before the exterminators get here for the Fuzzles. That’s not long.”

“Not long to what?” Tomas asked, sounding a little more awake.

“To find a rogue Grim.”

He sighed, as if I’d suggested this every day for the last week. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Downstairs, Callie was already in the clinic answering the phone beside two dozen metal trash cans packed with Fuzzles—all the ones from Two Duck Lake, plus a few extras people had found that morning.

“Where’s Aunt Emma?” I asked.

“She’s in surgery. A Pawpig came in with a Lego stuck up his snout. Pawpigs,” she scoffed, but she didn’t sound like her heart was really into making fun of the Pawpig. She patted the nearest Fuzzle. It hummed.

“Hey—will she be in there long?”

“Do I look like I know how long it takes to de-Lego a Pawpig sinus cavity? She’s got that meeting right after, anyway,” Callie snapped, turning away.

Tomas arrived a few minutes later. His pockets bulged from the various inhalers, washes, sprays, bandages, and medicines he’d packed.

I lifted my eyebrows.

“What?” he said. “I wanted to be prepared. Grims can kill a man seventy-three different ways.”

I lifted my eyebrows farther.

“We’ll see who’s laughing when you need my bandages,” Tomas said solemnly. “So, where are we going?”

“The woods up behind Two Duck Lake. The Ducks saw the Grim, so I think that’s where it is.”

“We’re walking all the way to Two Duck Lake? We don’t have enough hours for that! And I should have brought blister pads …”

“Okay,” I said in a low voice. “I don’t want you to panic. But I think there might be only one way to make it to Two Duck Lake in time.”

Tomas frowned. “Motorcycle? Jet Ski? Race car? I don’t think I have the safety gear for any of those, but my brothers might.”

I shook my head. “The only way we’re going to make it to Two Duck Lake, Tomas, is on the back of a Unicorn. And there’s only one Unicorn around here we can ask.”

*  *  *

“No,” said Regent Maximus. “No-no-no-no-no. You’ll collapse my spine! I’ll be a walking accordion! We’ll get lost! I’ll put my leg in a Groundfeatherdog hole! Oh, I’m too young to be maimed!”

Tomas looked relieved after I translated this response—he’d agreed to ask Regent Maximus, but clearly didn’t like the idea of actually riding him. He sneezed into his elbow and said, “Well, that’s settled, then!”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “Regent Maximus, I know you’re scared. But this is important.”

“Do you know what’s important?” Regent Maximus asked me in a high-pitched whinny. He ran his lips back and forth over his stall bars. It made a whub-whub-whub sound and the Griffins in the other stalls laughed meanly. “Life is important! The pursuit of breathing is important! I don’t want to die!”

“Neither do the Fuzzles!” I said. “You’re a show Unicorn! You’re supposed to be amazing! This is your chance to amaze! To be a hero! To prove to everyone you’re more than … well …”

I trailed off, but Regent Maximus wasn’t listening to me anyhow. He had stopped running his mouth over the bars and was instead tensing and untensing his lips. I could practically feel time ticking by. Maybe there was some other way to get to the lake. Maybe we could call a cab—I’d seen my parents do it twice in Atlanta, when they went to the airport. I didn’t have my allowance here in Cloverton, but I knew where the pizza money was in the kitchen. I could borrow it, right? This was an emergency!

Except—no cab driver would take two kids to the middle of nowhere, even if they had money.

I thought about the Fuzzles trying to tell me what was chasing them. Griimmmmmmmmm. If only I’d figured it out sooner! If only I hadn’t doubted my own ability to talk to them. If only I hadn’t assumed they didn’t have important things to say.

I took a deep breath.

“Look, Regent Maximus,” I tried again. “I know you’re scared. I’m a little scared too.”

Tomas and Regent Maximus looked at me, like they were ready to be way more afraid after hearing this. I shook my head and my cheeks went warm. “It’s just that I did something dumb with Unicorns back at my school in Atlanta.”

“Did a Unicorn die?” Regent Maximus gasped.

“No,” I said. “It’s just that I sort of got excited and didn’t think about anybody else. I only thought about how cool it would be to ride a Unicorn and show off, and I ended up breaking a lot of things. I was so embarrassed and it was terrible and I never wanted to see another Unicorn again. Definitely not ride one.”

I had Regent Maximus’s full attention—his ears were pricked and, for once, I saw the resemblance between him and the Barreras’ show Unicorns, because he was very handsome indeed. His intent expression made me feel both very important and very strange—no one had ever listened to me so closely. I kept going. “So I want you to know that I’m only asking you because I’m really afraid for the Fuzzles and this is the only way I can think of to get there. I don’t have any other ideas. And I’m pretty scared that I might be wrong about asking you.”

Tomas patted my shoulder and hiccuped a blue bubble out of his left nostril.

Regent Maximus quivered.

“I heard there are Bog Wallows at Two Duck Lake,” he whimpered. My shoulders slumped, but then he added, “So if we go, I’m not going through any water.”

“Agreed!” I said.

“Wait.” Tomas looked at me strangely. “Did he say yes? Are we really doing this?”

Regent Maximus and I both bit our lips.

Tomas said, “At least let me pick up my bicycle helmet from the house.”

*  *  *

Riding Regent Maximus was nothing like riding Raindancer. For starters, it took us ten minutes just to convince him to get close enough to the trash bins behind the clinic so that we could use one to climb onto his back. It was also strange having Tomas behind me—I’d already ridden and fallen from a Unicorn before, so I knew I could survive, but Tomas didn’t seem quite as sturdy as I was. He seemed equally concerned, because he clung to me tightly enough that his hiccup bubbles kept popping on my ponytail.

Also, Regent Maximus didn’t seem to have the same five gaits as the Barreras’ Unicorns. He moved between slinking and scampering and ducking and shaking, depending on what we passed. For example—a bunch of dog water bowls? He scampered past those. A little sunflower-shaped windmill in a lady’s yard? He ducked. The worst was when we passed a yard with three little yappy dogs behind the fence. I noticed them pretty early on, but thought—well, hoped—that maybe they were the watching sort of dogs, rather than the barking sort.

Unfortunately, they were the barking sort.

All three of them ran up to the fence, yapping and shouting and carrying on in squeaky little barks.

“It’s okay, Regent Maximus!” I shouted. “They’re behind the fence!”

But Regent Maximus was beyond comforting. He leaped up into the air and screamed, “They’re going to gnaw my ankles off!” When he came down, his foot caught the edge of a garden bed full of sunflowers.

Tomas gripped me tighter. “Oh, no! I’m allergic to sunflow—”

He didn’t get to finish, because Regent Maximus leaped again, all twisted, and Tomas and I went flying through the air. I saw the three little dogs beneath us, staring, as we arced over them. We hit the grass and rolled and rolled and rolled until we stopped with a little oof.

“Tomas!” I yelled the moment I could sit up. “Are you okay?”

“Yep!” Tomas said mournfully. “Except I’m also allergic to Chihuahuas.” All three of the little dogs capered around him, licking his face and wagging their tiny tails. Tomas sneezed, and they scattered for a second, but then went right back to the licking. On the other side of the fence, Regent Maximus paced frantically.

“Sorry!” the Unicorn said. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t know what they were! Are they dogs? Are they monsters? Are they eating you, Tomas? Are you mortally wounded? Am I?”

I sighed. “No, we’re okay. They’re just dogs, Regent Maximus.” I stood up and rubbed the spot on my butt where I’d landed. “All right, let’s try this again.”

We led Regent Maximus over to the quiet country road. We’d been trying to keep our distance from the road, because the noise of cars seemed likely to scare him, and because him spooking into traffic would be a lot more dangerous than him spooking into a field. But we were far from the clinic’s trash bins now, so we needed the ditch beside the road to climb back on to his back. Tomas showed Regent Maximus that there was no water, ooze, or Bog Wallows in the ditch, and then the Unicorn stood in it, quivering, as we climbed back on. I quickly directed him back into the field, away from the road.

But Regent Maximus was clearly still freaked out by us falling. Or by the journey itself. Or by breathing. He was beginning to mutter to himself. And he was still shaking. I could tell he was only two seconds away from spooking again.

“I can’t go on,” Regent Maximus said. “It’s all over. I’ll never make it home alive. What am I doing? What was I thinking? I knew children were dangerous! I knew the world was full of things! I gallop into danger! I gallop to my end! When the gore—”

“Here’s an idea,” I told Regent Maximus. “Stop for a second. What if you close your eyes? Try it now.”

I couldn’t tell from his back if he was listening to me, but he stopped moving, and then he stopped talking. He stood, ears flicking rapidly from left to right. But slowly his breathing calmed and he stopped shivering.

“That’s better,” Tomas said. “But we’re running out of time. We can’t go anywhere with his eyes closed.”

“Actually …” I said. “Maybe we can. I have an idea. Regent Maximus, do you think you can trust me?”

The Unicorn made a humming sound like a Fuzzle in response. I couldn’t tell if it meant yes, no, or I am very afraid of life.

“I’m going to steer you with the reins,” I said. “I won’t let you get into trouble. I’ll see the dangerous things and turn you away from them, and you don’t have to see them and be scared.”

I expected Regent Maximus to protest, but he nodded his head vigorously. I guess he thought it was less dangerous to gallop about with his eyes closed than to face the world. Oh, well! I turned to Tomas and discovered his eyes were closed as well.

“Seriously?” I said. “I’m the only one looking where we’re going?”

I was.

It hit me all at once: I was riding a Unicorn, just like I’d always dreamed about. And just like my first Unicorn ride, I’d talked my way into the situation. But unlike the Unicorn Incident, this Unicorn was listening to me, and I was listening to him.

Even though we still had a long way to go, I couldn’t stop the grin from slowly spreading across my face.

And then I guided us all to Two Duck Lake.