Never Let a Unicorn Drive a Monster Truck
8 pages · 7 min · ages 5+
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Everybody at Rumble Ridge knew the rule: never let a unicorn drive a monster truck. Dazzle did not like that rule. Dazzle liked mud. She galloped straight into the biggest puddle on the track and stamped. Splosh! Mud flew everywhere, and it was wonderful. Then her horn went Pling! and all the flying mud turned into rainbow sparkles. “Not now, horn,” said Dazzle. Rocco the rhino looked down at her from his giant black truck, The Crusher. “Unicorns do rainbows,” said Rocco. “Monster trucks do mud.” On the Wall of Champions, every driver who had ever jumped the Big Mud Pit had their name painted in huge letters. There was no unicorn on it. “There will be on Saturday,” said Dazzle.
Dazzle built her own truck out of old parts from the scrapyard. It had wheels taller than a house and a horn that went HOONK. She called it Thunderhoof. Then she painted it the scariest colour there is: black. With orange flames. She painted the very last flame, stood back, and looked at it. It was so tough. It was so mean. Dazzle was so excited that her tail swished and her hooves danced. Pling! The black went pink. The flames went into rainbow stripes. A bunch of daisies popped out of the bumper. Rocco drove past slowly. “Nice sparkles,” said Rocco.
“A tough truck needs a tough roar,” said Dazzle. She climbed into Thunderhoof, pulled on her helmet and stamped on the pedal. VROOOOM! The whole scrapyard shook. The windows rattled. A crow fell off the fence. It was the loudest, scariest roar Dazzle had ever heard, and she loved it so much that… Pling! Out of the exhaust pipe floated a cloud of soap bubbles and three butterflies. The HOONK horn went tootle-oo, tootle-oo, like a lullaby. The crow climbed back onto the fence and sat down to listen. Dazzle's ears went hot. “Nice sparkles,” said Rocco.
On Saturday, the stands were full. There was popcorn, and flags, and a meerkat with a microphone. In the middle of the arena lay the Big Mud Pit, brown and deep and gloopy, with a ramp on each side. Dazzle pulled a thick woolly sock over her horn and tied it tight. Then she put her helmet on top. “No plinging,” she told her horn. “Not one pling.” “Next up,” shouted the meerkat, “a unicorn!” The crowd went quiet. Somebody dropped their popcorn. Rocco folded his arms. Dazzle revved Thunderhoof and started to roll.
“Go, Thunderhoof, go!” shouted Dazzle. Faster. Faster. Thunderhoof roared up the ramp, and Dazzle's heart roared with it. “She's going for it!” yelled the meerkat. “The unicorn is going for it!” This was it! This was the best moment of her whole life! Pling! The sock shot off her horn. Boing! The helmet flew off after it. Sparkles burst out of the truck. The wheels turned into giant fluffy clouds, and giant fluffy clouds are very bad at jumping. Thunderhoof sailed into the air, wobbled, and came down right in the middle of the Big Mud Pit. SPLAT. The mud came up to the doors. The wheels spun. Nothing moved. The whole arena went quiet.
Rocco walked to the edge of the pit and looked down. “Told you,” he said. “Never let a unicorn drive a monster truck.” Dazzle sat in the cab, stuck. Her mane was full of mud. Her horn gave one small, sad fizz, and a tiny rainbow dribbled out of it. It curled over the steering wheel, down the door and into the mud, like a little slide. Dazzle looked at it. It was a curve. A curve going up. Dazzle had tried to paint the pling away, roar it away and tie it up in a sock. She had never once tried letting it out. “Horn,” whispered Dazzle, “go on, then.”
PLING! It was the biggest pling Rumble Ridge had ever seen. A rainbow burst out of her horn, wider than a road, and curved up out of the mud, over the arena, and all the way to the far side. Dazzle put her hoof down. Thunderhoof's cloud wheels bit into the rainbow, and up they went, out of the mud, higher and higher, above the flags, above the stands, above Rocco's open mouth, and down the other side, landing with a thump that shook the popcorn. For a second, nobody breathed. “Did a unicorn,” whispered the meerkat into his microphone, “just drive up a rainbow?” Then the whole crowd jumped up and roared. That afternoon, the meerkat painted a new name on the Wall of Champions. It was very sparkly.
When everyone else had gone home, Rocco came over. He scuffed his big foot in the dust. He looked left. He looked right. “That rainbow thing,” he mumbled. “Could you… do it to my truck?” Dazzle grinned. Pling! The Crusher went bubblegum pink. Its hubcaps turned into daisies. Glitter drifted down onto Rocco's leather jacket. Rocco climbed in, very slowly, and pressed the horn. Tootle-oo, tootle-oo, it played, like a lullaby. Rocco sat there for a long time. “Best,” said Rocco. “Day. Ever.”