This is a first draft of Chapter 10 of The Unicorn Guide, the fourth book in the 11 Quests series. Books 4, 5 and 6 tell a new story, so you can read The Unicorn Guide even if you haven’t yet read the first three books. Since this is a first draft, if you spot any errors please let me know! I’d be happy to find out in email and fix it. Feel free to send along any other comments you may have. Make sure you read Chapter 1 first!
Chapter 10
Andrea
The day had been the craziest day of Andrea’s life. It had started off being plenty exciting as she continued on a week-long cruise of the Amazon River with her cousin Carla. There was just so much to see in the Amazon. It was so different from her home in New York City. In New York, it seemed as if everywhere you looked you see something that was manmade. Here, everywhere you looked, it was natural and alive. It was exciting, and a little scary.
Before coming on this trip, Andrea had read about the Amazon River and the huge variety of creatures that lived not only around the river, but in the river as well. At the time, she had thought to herself, “No swimming for me on this trip!” Her fall from the boat had seemed to last for ages and the whole time, she had thought, “I can’t believe I just fell overboard into the Amazon!”
While she fell, time was practically stopped. As soon as she hit the water, time started zooming forward faster than she had ever felt it move before. The water was warm. She thought she saw a fish. Movement on the shore to the left caught her eye and she saw what appeared to be an alligator heading into the water. She thought she saw a horse running toward the alligator before her view shifted to a wild-looking boy jumping into the river from the bank straight ahead of her. The boy quickly swam out to meet her.
“You must come with me. It’s not safe,” the boy said.
Andrea could totally believe that. She followed the boy without a word to the side of the river. He climbed up onto land, held out a hand for her and pulled her up under the cover of the trees along the water’s edge.
“Follow me,” he said and, without giving Andrea a moment to decide, started walking away swiftly alongside the river.
Andrea started following and the boy turned left, continued walking and… disappeared. She looked back at the boat for just a moment, but when she turned her head back to the boy, he was gone. She stood for a moment, puzzled, and then heard hoofbeats coming toward her from the direction from which she had just come. She spun around and found herself two feet away from what would have been a horse, if not for the long, spiraled horn pointing in her direction. As surprising as the sight of a unicorn was, what happened next left Andrea completely speechless.
“Hurry! I must get out of sight,” the unicorn said.
The unicorn was speaking… to her! Andrea was startled into action and started walking in the direction the boy had gone. A couple of times, she felt an urge to stop and look elsewhere, or to turn back entirely, but one look at the unicorn was enough to keep her going. After about a minute of walking, she suddenly noticed the boy just a few steps in front of her.
“We can stop here for now,” he said.
Andrea stopped walking and looked around. She was surrounded by lush greenery, as she had seen lining the river for miles along the cruise. The plants here looked different than the ones she saw along the river. Perhaps, she thought, it’s just that the plants a short distance inland are different from the ones just along the river. After looking a bit more, she realized that one of the trees appeared to have been staring at her and then quickly closed its eyes when she noticed it. And that wasn’t the strangest thing she saw.
“That fern is on fire,” she said, pointing to a fern with flaming leaves.
“Oh, that’s just a Fiery Fern,” the boy replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Andrea turned to the unicorn. “Where are we?”
“This,” Esmeralda said with a sweep of her horn, “is the Lost Jungle.”
Andrea’s face went blank for a moment and she felt a little “click!” in her mind. “An 11 Quest. For me,” she said aloud in wonder, to no one in particular.
“A what?” the boy asked.
“My cousin, Carla, told me about how she went on a grand Quest a few weeks ago with her best friend James, a fairy and a dragon. I thought maybe she had really gone to some writing workshop or something, because it was a great story. I didn’t think it was real. Until now.
“I mean, here I am… in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, rescued from an alligator by a boy who looks like he’s from some tribe but speaks English and a horse that turns out to be a unicorn and also speaks English. And that tree was looking at me, and that fern over there is on fire but there’s no smoke.”
“The Lost Jungle is a magical place,” said Esmeralda. “It is one of just a few places on Earth where the magical Elder Folk live.”
“The Elder Folk!” Andrea exclaimed. “I heard Carla say that also.”
“What were you saying about an ’11 Quest’?” Tumi asked Andrea.
“Sometimes, after someone turns eleven, they are chosen for a Quest.”
“Oh, like my Usimaro,” said Tumi.
“And my First Protection,” said Esmeralda.
“You’re both eleven also?” Andrea asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” the unicorn replied. “And maybe you are right and you have been chosen for a Quest. It seems like too much of a coincidence that the two of you have both ended up in the Lost Jungle by mistake. I am Esmeralda.”
“And my name is Tumi. I am of the Maitsuba tribe.”
“My name is Andrea and I am from New York City.”
“Welcome to the Lost Jungle, Andrea,” Esmeralda had said. “Now we had better get moving. It is not safe after dark, and the Fiery Ferns are already alight. We have a long walk back to the Unicorn’s Glade.”
The three of them had set off immediately, moving briskly once they reached the path, with the unicorn leading the way. As much as she knew it to be true, Andrea still couldn’t believe what was happening to her.
Esmeralda kept speeding up and then slowing herself down when she saw that the two children were not keeping up.
“Somehow, I now have two humans I need to take care of,” Esmeralda thought anxiously to herself. “And a third that’s trying to get through the border,” her thought continued as she remembered the horse riding man. “This is not going to be an easy First Protection.”
Continue reading with Chapter 11