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The first thing Angelina thought when she woke up the next morning was, wow, my head feels weird.
She tried to sit up, but her body didn’t want to bend the way it usually would. Something soft and fluffy banged against her cheek. Pushing up on her arms, she tried to push it away and the hard edge of her hand scraped her skin. Startled, she jerked her hoof back and stared at it.
Angelina scrambled to stand, but she had too many legs – at least twice as many as she’d gone to bed with – and she fell off the bed, taking the covers with her onto the floor, landing in a heap.
“Errhuhuhuhu!” Angelina closed her mouth and tried to clap both hooves over it, but they wouldn’t bend properly. What was that sound? Like a horse’s squeal of distress, sharp and loud.
Wait. Hooves? She stared at her hands, or at what should have been hands, but there were no fingers, no thumbs. Just the hard, dark curve of... She scrambled to get up, shredding the sheets and tossing blankets everywhere.
Then her head banged against the bedpost.
Wait. No. Not her head. Something on top of her head. She tried to look up and caught a glimpse of something long and white. The fluffy thing flopped down against her face again, obscuring her vision. Suddenly, Angelina realized what it was. Her pillow. And it was stuck to her head somehow. There were feathers everywhere.
What the heck was going on?
“Angelina? What is happening? Where are you?” Mom stood in the doorway, staring at Angelina with wide eyes, but not an ounce of recognition. “And where did you get a unicorn?”
“Mom, it’s me, Angelina!” Angelina tried to say, but what came out was more like, “Maaa, iyhmmee, Anheleeeeennah!” Which wasn’t much help to either of them.
Mom frowned and squared her shoulders; a look Angelina knew meant business. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”
Suddenly realizing that she was standing on all fours, Angelina tried to rear up and stand on her back legs. Mom’s eyes got huge. Angelina’s middle sister, Marianna, chose that moment to burst into the room.
“What’s wrong with Angelina?” She took one look at the new Angelina and squealed with delight. “Mom! When did we get a unicorn? It’s beautiful! Look at that gorgeous white coat and her mane is beautiful! Oh, my gosh! The horn! It’s sparkling! Are we keeping it? What are we going to name it? I wonder if unicorns eat the same stuff as horses.”
“I didn’t...” Mom began faintly, as Angelina came back down on all fours.
“Ahm Anheleeeeennah!” Angelina said, trying to identify herself.
It didn’t work.
Marianna peered behind Angelina. “Uhm, Mom? Where’s Angelina?” Then her eyes got big. “You don’t think the unicorn ATE her, do you?”
“No dear, unicorns are vegetarians.”
From behind them, Angelina’s youngest sister, HollyAnne, piped up. “That’s Angelina, right there.”
“Where?” Mom whirled around, looking frantically for her oldest child.
But HollyAnne pointed right at Angelina. “There.”
Mom and Marianna followed the pointing finger, and Angelina hung her head. Everyone gasped and took a step back. Angelina realized suddenly that pointing your horn at people — even accidentally — could be considered impolite at best and threatening at worst. She raised her head.
“You think that’s Angelina?” Mom asked HollyAnne.
“Of course it’s Angelina,” HollyAnne replied.
“How do you know?” Marianna asked.
“How can you not? Look into her eyes. That’s Angelina in there, even if the rest of her looks different. Besides, she’s wearing Angelina’s clothes, isn’t she? The ones she had on yesterday?”
Everyone stared. Even Angelina. HollyAnne was right. The seams were mostly torn, but the remnants of Angelina’s favorite dress and tights were still clinging to Angelina’s new body. Rather uncomfortably, now that she thought about it.
She shook herself and the tattered fabric fell on the floor.
Mom took a tentative step forward, but kept both the younger girls behind her. “Angelina?” she asked.
Angelina nodded her head up and down enthusiastically. Mom stepped back abruptly and Angelina stopped.
Mom forced a smile. “Well, at least you aren’t a very big unicorn... yet. Nowhere near what you’ll be full grown, I... expect. And you really are very... beautiful.”
Angelina turned her head and looked at herself. Mostly, she looked like a horse, except her tail was sleek rather than fluffy, with a cute little tuft on the end, and her hooves were more goat-like than equine. Her legs were muscular, but slender, and she had four instead of the two she was used to.
As for her face... Well, for that, she’d need a mirror, just like always. She snorted. Good to see some things hadn’t changed.
Slowly, carefully, she walked out of her bedroom, discovering in the first few steps that four legs took a bit of getting used to after ten years with only two. Getting all four limbs to move in concert wasn’t the simplest thing she’d ever done, but if she didn’t think about it too hard, it was easier.
Her mom and sisters backed up, making room for her, then followed when she headed for the bathroom. Angelina checked the mirror first.
Her face was long and slender, with a silvery white mane hanging down the left side of her neck. Her coat was white too, and she had big, brown eyes with the longest, darkest lashes she’d ever seen.
And... No. It wasn’t possible. But there it was. A little fluffy white beard dangling from her chin. If she could have blushed, she would have. Girls didn’t have beards!
But the horn made up for it. Long and slender, the pure white spiral grew straight as an arrow from the center of her forehead halfway between her eyes and her ears. It was amazing, and she could have sworn it glowed, just a little, under the bathroom light.
She licked her teeth. They tasted faintly of hay, which made no sense, since she hadn’t eaten anything but pasta since lunch yesterday, and she’d never eaten hay in her life.
She stared at the toothbrush with slowly dawning horror. How was she going to brush her teeth without thumbs? How was she going to eat? Get dressed? Angelina took another look at her new body. None of her clothes were going to fit.
What the heck was she going to wear?
“Maaaaaahhhhmmmmm!” she brayed, and her mom put both arms around her neck, hugging her tight as hot tears slid down Angelina’s cheeks.
She was definitely going to be late for school.
