I left Hannie off at her classroom. She reached for the bag with the unicorn, but I wouldn’t give it to her. I wanted to show the unicorn to Alice and Patty Jo first, before I handed it over to Hannie and let her wreck it.
“I’ll give it to you later,” I said.
Hannie was still crying.
I felt worse than sour milk on an empty stomach, but Alice and Patty Jo were heading in from the playground toward the bathroom, just like they always did first thing in the morning, to put on their makeup and do their hair.
Today, in my penguin sweater, I felt good enough to be in there with them.
I ducked into the girls’ lavatory and started fooling with my hair, when Alice and Patty Jo pushed their way in. They came in talking about a television show they’d seen last night, and I sort of pretended like I was listening and that I agreed with whatever it was they were saying. We didn’t own a television, not since our old one died on us last year.
My heart was pounding as I waited for them to notice me.
I didn’t wait long.
“Oh, Maggie,” Patty Jo said, turning to take a closer look at me. She’d rinsed her short brown hair with something that made it look blond under the bathroom light. Mama would surely kill me if I ever colored my hair. But Patty Jo always did things like that. “I love your sweater. Where’d you get it? I want one just like it.”
“You like it?” I asked, grinning at my skinny self in the bathroom mirror. I didn’t want to say anything stupid, so I was afraid to say anything at all. Alice wasn’t looking any too pleased about my being there.
“It—it’s a real special sweater,” I said, forcing myself to say something. “One of a kind.”
I am so stupid! Why did I say something like that? How did I know it was one of a kind? Just ’cause I never saw one before didn’t mean there weren’t hundreds just like it. I was sure Alice would catch me up in a lie.
Alice just rolled her eyes up in her head. She was shorter than Patty Jo and had long brown hair she’d curled on some sort of iron. Her face was round as a clock, with a nose stuck up in the middle of it hardly bigger than the end of my thumb. “What do you mean, one of a kind?” she asked. “Somebody make that sweater for you or something?”
I tried to keep my breathing even. At least Alice hadn’t seen someone else wearing the sweater or seen it in a store somewhere.
“Sort of,” I said. “It’s got to do with what’s in this bag here.”
I pointed to the plastic trash bag. My hand was shaking, and I pulled it back close to my side before Patty Jo and Alice could notice. What if they laughed in my face when I told them about the unicorn?
“Oh, disgusting,” said Alice. “You got the sweater out of a mangy old trash bag?”
“No!” I said. My voice didn’t even sound like it belonged to me. It was high and shaky. “I didn’t get the sweater out of the bag. What’s in the bag got me the sweater.”
“Shoot,” Alice said. “I always knew you’d turn crazy in the head like your sister someday.”
“Hannie is not crazy in the head,” I said. “I’m not either. There’s something magic in this bag. I can prove it.”
“Sure,” Alice said, turning away and ignoring me.
“I want to see, Maggie,” Patty Jo said, her dark eyes curious. “What is it? What you got in the bag? Don’t you even want to see, Alice?”
“All right,” Alice said, turning back. “Let’s see what you got in there.”
My hands shook as I tried undoing the knot on the bag, and I ended up tearing a huge hole in it. I reached in and pulled the unicorn out, stuffing what was left of that sorry piece of plastic into the wastebasket.
“Ohhh,” Patty Jo said. “Isn’t it cute?”
“It’s nothing but a stuffed animal for babies,” said Alice.
“It’s a unicorn,” I said. “And it’s magic.”
Alice looked bored. “Sure,” she said. “And I’m Tinkerbell.”
“How do you know it’s magic?” Patty Jo asked.
“I didn’t have this sweater yesterday,” I said. I explained about Hannie and the unicorn and making a wish.
“I just wished myself some new clothes, and there they were.”
“Well, what else did you wish for?” Patty Jo asked.
I told her about Moochie wishing for something to eat.
“So what you gonna wish for next?” Alice asked.
“Don’t know,” I said. “Got any ideas?” I had a feeling that would get them.
“You mean you’d wish something for us?” Patty Jo asked.
“I might,” I said, trying to ignore that choked-up feeling I get when I’m not being too honest.
“You’re sooo lucky,” Patty Jo said. “Everybody in school’s gonna want that unicorn.”
Alice put on her lipstick in the bathroom mirror. “That sweater is cute,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it. For Alice that was like saying “Let’s be best friends.” Thank you, unicorn, I thought.
Patty Jo reached out and stroked the unicorn like it was something alive. “I believe it is magic,” she said. “Even you look different this morning, Maggie. Doesn’t Maggie look different this morning?” Patty Jo asked Alice.
I didn’t give Alice a chance to answer. “I sure feel different,” I said. Being with Alice and Patty Jo like that, I really did feel different.
“Can I try your sweater on sometime?” Patty Jo asked.
“Sure,” I said. “You could even borrow it maybe. If I’m not wearing it.”
“How you gonna keep someone from stealing that unicorn and making wishes on it themselves?” asked Alice, running her hand over the unicorn’s horn.
I thought about Moochie wanting to turn Brody into a roach last night. “The thing about unicorn magic,” I explained, “is it only works for good people wishing good things. Like if I wished something bad to happen to somebody, it just wouldn’t happen and I’d probably lose my wish for good.”
“How does the unicorn know if it’s a good wish or a bad wish?” Alice asked.
“It’s magic, Alice,” Patty Jo said. “It just knows.”
“Yeah,” I said, relieved Patty Jo was on my side. “Just like that.”
“So you’re not wishing Brody Lawson would fall off a bridge and drown?” Alice asked.
Everybody knew I hated Brody worse than cold spinach.
“I may be wishing something like that,” I said. “But I’m not wishing it on the unicorn.”
Patty Jo laughed. Alice laughed too. They were laughing the way they do with each other, but with me standing right there.
“That’s good you can’t make bad wishes on it,” said Patty Jo. “I can just think of some people I wouldn’t want making wishes on it at all. Like my sister Loma.”
“Yeah,” Alice said. “Your sister Loma would wish you off the face of the earth.”
The bell rang for school to start. I hadn’t done any work on my essay, but I’d talked to Alice and Patty Jo, and I guess that felt more important than any old stupid homework. Patty Jo, Alice, and I walked to class together, all three of us in a row, with me in my pink penguin sweater in the middle, carrying the unicorn in my arms.
“You think you could come over to my house this afternoon, Maggie?” Patty Jo asked. “You never been to my house before.”
“Sure. I might,” I answered, feeling fit to burst over being invited to Patty Jo’s.
“My mama bought chocolate cake yesterday from the bakery,” Patty Jo said, like maybe I needed some extra reason to say yes.
I thought about Moochie eating crackers. Maybe I could bring him home a piece of Patty Jo’s cake wrapped in a napkin, if I handled things just right.