In April Messymimi is supplying us with prompts at her Meanderings.
This week's prompts are:
sustenance
booth
street
hint
syrup
drab
and/or
older
cardboard
wounded
front
empty
astonished
I continue the story about Susan's first
visit to Unicorn Farm.
To allay any confusion - I hope - the chapters will be captioned with the words: Unicorn Farm-The Beginning 1 - ..
Next morning they had the traditional first morning in the summer house breakfast of pancakes and syrup, Linda was quick to eat, while Susan sat meticulously rolling her pancakes and licking her fingers. As soon as her plate was empty, Linda excused herself and ran off to the house near the forest. It was the living house part of an old farm, the rest had long since been torn down, and the fields had been sold in square lots to people wanting to build new summerhouses. Linda was going to see if Wilma and Beth had arrived. Susan carried her plates, and Linda's to the sink, then she took her book and found a place with shadow for the book, and sun for the rest of her. She had only just begun reading, when her mother came out and called her. She lifted her head and looked up.
"Shouldn't you go and play with Linda and the girls?" Mom asked with just a hint of irritation in her voice. Susan sighed. They just wanted to sit on hanging branches and pretend they were riding real horses, or discuss boys and clothes and horse magazines till the moon turned blue.
"Well," she said, "Linda has already left."
"She'll be back soon," Mom replied. And sure enough, they came giggling in from the street through the hole in the hedge. Susan got up and put the book back on the table in the garage.
When all the girls had reached the cornfield, Susan suggested that they went for a walk along the edge of the cliffs, down towards the old abandoned farm. Linda, Wilma and Beth agreed, but they hadn't gone far before Beth started complaining that it was too hot, and that the ears of corn were tickling her bare legs. A hare suddenly jumped up in front of them, and they ran after it as fast as they could. Of course, they did not catch up with it, but now they were almost down by the fence that separated the fields of the old farm from the rest of the island.
"My mom and dad say that strange things are happening at the old farm," Wilma said. "Strange flashes of light, are seen at night, like thunder in there, even when there are no clouds at all. And then there are some people around, but only sometime." Mother says it's probably just tramps, but my father is not sure. He says the place is haunted. They both say it is dangerous to play in there. "As if to confirm their words, they noticed a sign by the fence, right where the path ended and you could slip through. A cardboard sign read: Beware - Danger - Falling objects! in big red letters,
"What is a filing oject?" asked Beth.
"Falling objects it says. That means things falling down upon your head," Susan explained.
"Well, that's what Dad warned us against," Wilma said. "Let's go home now, I don't want anything falling on my head."
"Ahr, let's take a look," Linda said. "You can only have something falling on your head if there's something above you that can fall down. And right here's only trees above us."
Linda and Susan went over to a large lilac bush and looked through the branches. The farm looked older than old. One corner of the barn was sagging, the barn door was ajar and the thatched roof was full of holes. It was hard to see clearly. On the other side of the dense leaves the air felt less transparent, kind of heavy. Wilma and Beth came over to them, and Beth pushed her way in front of them. Susan moved slightly to the left and in between the bushes to make room for her. The weird air around the farm bothered her eyes and she rubbed them while pushing a little further into the bush.
"Look!," Susan exclaimed in an astonished voice: "a unicorn!"
"A unicorn," Linda sneered, is it the white horse in there you rave about? It is a drab, old nag. Hanna from Hilly Farm would not even look at it. "Hanna from Hilly Farm was the heroine of an ever continuing story in one of the horse magazines, the three girls swallowed.
"You are right," Wilma agreed, "and ... girls, today is Tuesday, 'The horse magazine' has come out. Let's go to the kiosk and get it?"
"Yes," Beth said, "then we can have an ice cream at the booth as well. It opened yesterday. And maybe some candy."
Susan sent her a wounded look. She didn't want to go all the way to the bridge just to watch the other girls buy horse magazines, ice and candy. She was saving all her money for a new bike. She always got used bikes, but a brand new, blue bike ... just her own. It would be wonderful. Maybe even better than a horse. The word 'horse' made her think of the white horse. Had it really been a unicorn? It had looked just like one. Susan really wished there were unicorns, fairies and trolls, and maybe even a wicked witch - just not too evil. She went back to the lilac bush and looked through the leaves. The horse - or the unicorn - was still there, but it had gone farther away and turned it's back grazing the sparse grass for sustenance, so that Susan could not see its front, only the tail.
"Maybe I don't know much about horses, like Linda and the girls, but it doesn't look like a pitiful nag," Susan thought. "At least it has a very nice tail.
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I have yet to read an installment of this tale that I haven't loved.
SvarSletThank you so much!
SletI would too prefer a bicycle over a horse. honestly, bicycles are easy to keep clean.
SvarSletmy understanding here that these beginnings is when susan haven't discovered magic or the farm yet so I think there really is a unicorn that they saw. will she get her bike or will she get to ride a unicorn?
have a lovely day.
You are right about us being at the very beginning of Susan's story. In a book this would be the very first chapters.
SletSusan got her bike. We see her not wanting to leave it for a week in the old lumber yard in later chapters. Whether she'll ride a unicorn, if that is what it is only time will tell.
I'll have to hope for good prompts to continue translating the beginning of my book.
Susan is my favorite bookworm!
SvarSlet