Zach Lopez vs. the Unicorns of Doom by Justina Ireland

Author:Justina Ireland [Ireland, Justina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery; teens; paranormal; scary; heroes; friends
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2020-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

There Have Been Better Days

The next morning when Zach went down to breakfast, he was surprised to find his mother sitting in her bathrobe, drinking coffee and humming, “DEE da DEE, DEE da DEEEEE” as she stared out the window.

“Hey, we need to leave soon. It’s almost seven o’clock,” Zach said, his worry from last night stronger than ever. Usually when he came down to breakfast, his mom was dressed and ready to go, her foot tapping impatiently while she waited for him to grab a cereal bar. But today she was super chill, not at all like herself.

“I think I’m going to take a sick day,” she said.

“But you never take a sick day,” Zach said. Last year his mom had gotten the flu, and rather than stay home, she’d gone to work, a paper bag tucked into her purse in case she had to throw up while she was stuck in traffic on the freeway.

But here she was today, not a care in the world, and happier than Zach had ever seen her. And she was still covered in glitter. His mom hated glitter because it made a huge mess. Nothing made sense, and it was making Zach’s stomach hurt.

His mother continued humming. The song was flat and toneless, less of a song and more of the kind of weird, constant buzz a bug might make. Just listening to it made him want to run in the opposite direction.

He walked across the kitchen and opened the cupboard to get a cereal bar.

Rainbow glitter drifted and swirled across the counter, driven by an unseen breeze. Zach looked around. There was glitter all over the kitchen table, the counter, even the floor. The glitter in his mom’s hair sparkled like she’d just gotten back from a party.

“Where’d all this glitter come from?” he asked, his unease growing even more.

Ms. Lopez looked around and frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know it was here.”

Zach carefully grabbed a cereal bar from the cupboard, trying not to touch the glitter. He didn’t know how, but it seemed bad. He grabbed his backpack and ran out the front door. He was going to be late. He had to get going.

He slammed the door and locked it, and then turned around fast. Right outside the front door, his sneakers splashed in a puddle, and he realized that it had rained again overnight. But that wasn’t the most surprising sight.

There, in the middle of the yard, was a horse with a golden horn.

Not a horse. A unicorn.

It looked like every unicorn on TV and in the movies: a large white horse with a pink and blue striped mane and tail. In the middle of its head, a golden-spiraled horn narrowed to a point. It was absolutely beautiful.

Zach froze. The unicorn hadn’t noticed him, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do. It tossed its head and a cloud of glitter filled the air, sparkling in the early morning sunshine. The glitter drifted and fell to the ground a few inches away from the toe of Zach’s tennis shoes.

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