In a village where the houses were painted like boiled sweets, there lived a girl named Ava. Ava had sparkly shoes, a laugh like little bells, and the finest toy collection for miles: a kite shaped like a dragon, a wooden sailboat with real string rigging, and a scooter with streamers on the handles.
She also had a rule, and the rule was: nobody touches my things.
If the village children asked to fly the dragon kite, Ava said no. If they asked for a turn on the scooter, Ava said no, and rang the bell, and scooted away. Lately, she'd noticed, they had mostly stopped asking. She told herself she didn't mind.
One bright morning, hunting for interesting pebbles, Ava wandered further than usual — past the last fence, over the mossy wall, and into a part of the forest where the air seemed to hum, and tiny lights blinked between the trees even though it was daytime.
In a sunny clearing, munching on grass that was — Ava blinked — faintly rainbow-coloured, stood a unicorn.
"Oh, hello," said the unicorn, looking up. "I'm Globby."
"Globby?" said Ava, before she could stop herself. "That's a funny name for a unicorn."
"It's short for Globbernonk," said Globby, with dignity. "Which is worse."
His coat shimmered like the sky just before sunrise, and his mane drifted about even when there wasn't any wind. Ava stared and stared. "I'm Ava," she managed. "I've never met a unicorn."
"I know who you are," said Globby, munching. "You're the girl with the dragon kite. The one nobody's allowed to touch." He said it kindly, which somehow made it worse.
Ava's cheeks went pink. "It's my kite."
"Mm," said Globby. "Come on. I want to show you something."
He led her deeper into the forest, to a second clearing, where a swing hung from a great oak tree — a lovely old swing with a mossy wooden seat. One of its ropes had snapped, and around it sat a gloomy assortment of forest animals: two rabbits, a badger, and a squirrel who kept sighing very loudly.
"It's the only swing in the forest," said Globby quietly. "They can't fix it. No hands, you see. Paws are hopeless with knots."
Ava looked at the animals. She knew that gloomy sort of sitting-about. It was exactly how the village children sat when she scooted past them, ringing her bell.
"…I'm good with knots," she heard herself say. "I rig my sailboat myself."
It took the whole morning. Globby held the rope-end steady in his teeth while Ava climbed, and looped, and tied her very best sailor's knot, and tested it twice. And when the squirrel took the first swing — a huge one, ears flat back, cheering in squeaks — every animal in the clearing cheered too, and something in Ava's chest went warm and fizzy, like sherbet.
She swung with them all afternoon, taking turns. Taking turns, she discovered, made the waiting part exciting and the swinging part sweeter.
"Funny thing about that swing," said Globby, walking her home through the humming trees. "It's been there a hundred years. It's never once belonged to anybody. That's why everyone loves it."
Ava thought about that the whole way home. Unicorns are sneaky like that. They never tell you the lesson; they just leave it where you'll trip over it.
The next morning, the village children heard a bell ringing. It was Ava, standing in the square with her scooter, her sailboat, and the great dragon kite. "Wind's perfect," she said, holding the kite out. "Who wants first go?"
There was a stunned pause. Then everybody wanted first go, and they had to take turns — which, as Ava now knew, was the best part.
And on quiet evenings, when the sky went pink, Ava would slip back over the mossy wall to swing on the hundred-year-old swing and tell Globby everything. If you're wondering whether that's where the dragon kite eventually learned to loop-the-loop over the unicorn's clearing — yes. Yes, it is.