Odds Are Good Read Online Free PDF Page A

only doing what he had to do.
    He twisted the key in the lock and swung the door open.
    His uncle’s room was large and richly decorated, filled with heavy, carefully carved furniture. Above the dresser hung a huge mirror.
    Jamie hesitated for just a moment, then lay on his stomach and peered beneath the bed.
    The horn was there, wrapped in a length of blue velvet.
    He reached in and drew the package out. Then he stood and placed it gently on the bed. With reverent fingers he unrolled the velvet. Cradled by the rich blue fabric, the horn looked like a comet blazing across a midnight sky.
    This time there could be no interruption. Hesitating for no more than a heartbeat, he reached out and clutched the horn with both hands.
    He cried out, in agony, and in awe. For a moment he thought he was going to die. The feelings the horn unleashed within him seemed too much for his body to hold. He didn’t die, though his heart was racing faster than it had any right to.
    â€œMore,” he thought, as images of the place he had seen in his dreams rushed through his mind. “I have to know more.”
    He drew the horn to his chest and laid his cheek against it.
    He thought his heart would beat its way out of his body.
    And still it wasn’t enough.
    He knew what he had to do next. But he was afraid.
    Fear made no difference. He remembered again what his father had said about people aching to find their true name. He was close to his now.
No one can come this close and not reach out for the answer
, he thought.
The emptiness would kill them on the spot.
    And so he did what he had to do, fearful as it was. Placing the base of the horn against the foot of the massive bed, he set the tip of it against his heart.
    Then he leaned forward.
    The point of the horn pierced his flesh like a sword made of fire and ice. He cried out, first in pain, then in joy and wonder. Finally the answer was clear to him, and he understood his obsession, and his loneliness.
    â€œNo wonder I didn’t fit,” he thought, as his fingers fused, then split into cloven hooves.
    The transformation was painful. But the joy so far surpassed it that he barely noticed the fire he felt as his neck began to stretch, and the horn erupted from his brow. “No wonder, no wonder—no, it’s all wonder, wonder, wonder and joy!”
    He reared back in triumph, his silken mane streaming behind him, as he trumpeted the joyful discovery that he was, and always had been, and always would be, a unicorn.
    And knowing his name, he finally knew how to go home. Hunching the powerful muscles of his hind legs, he launched himself toward the dresser. His horn struck the mirror, and it shattered into a million pieces that crashed and tinkled into two different worlds.
    He hardly noticed. He was through, and home at last.
    No
, said a voice at the back of his head.
You’re not home yet.
    He stopped. It was true. He wasn’t home yet, though he was much closer. But there was still more to do, and further to go.
    How could that be? He knew he was, had always been, a unicorn. Then he trembled, as he realized his father’s last words were still true. There was something inside that needed to be discovered, to be named.
    He whickered nervously as he realized all he had really done was come back to where most people begin—his own place, his own shape.
    He looked around. He was standing at the edge of a clearing in an old oak wood. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling patches of warmth onto his flanks. He paused for a moment, taking pleasure in feeling his own true shape at last.
    Suddenly he shivered, then stood stock-still as the smell of the girl reached his nostrils.
    The scent was sweet, and rich, and he could resist it no more than he had resisted the horn. He began trotting in her direction, sunlight bouncing off the horn that jutted out from his forehead.
    He found her sitting beneath an apple tree, singing to herself while she brushed