The school bell rings. Isa rushes to her classroom and sits down next to Helen, her best friend. “Alright, students! Settle down!” the teacher, Ms. Chai, says. “Now as you know, Christmas is coming up. So we have to prepare for the…Christmas Pageant! Are you all excited?” 

Everyone is silent. “Since people aren’t answering, I think the answer is no,” a boy whispers. “Everyone,” the teacher continues. “The Christmas Pageant is a very important part of the school year! So, this year, instead of casting roles, the whole school will be in this pageant. Some will paint the background. Others will do acting. We have the people backstage…” She pauses. “So we must be ready and respectful. Okay?” “Yes,” everyone says.

Isa groans softly. She wishes that she didn’t have to participate in the pageant. Now, she did. Last year, she didn’t perform in the Christmas Pageant because she was sick. Good thing she was sick! Isa had many lines. And she got to miss out on the mess that everyone made last year during the pageant!

Maybe Isa could fake a sickness to not have to go and act at the pageant. But then again, that was the oldest trick in the book. The teachers would’ve been bound to figure it out, maybe discussing the matter based on coincidence or not. Well, Isa would probably just have to go with it.

“Now, everyone, open your reading textbooks and read pages 78-85. It’s an excerpt from Island of the Blue Dolphins, a fantastic novel!” Mrs. Chai says with delight. All the students open their reading textbooks and start reading. After a while, everyone is finished. “Now, I’m going to ask some questions. Carlos…what is…” Isa doesn’t pay attention to the rest of it until she is asked a question. 

“What point of view is this story told in, Isa?” the teacher asks. “It’s told in the 1st person by Karana.” Isa replies. “Excellent!” Mrs. Chai smiles. “Alright, everyone! Now go to lunch. I want to speak with you, Isa!” Everyone else walks out of the classroom. Isa asks, “What is it?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to say that your grades are very good! You’re getting A pluses every time we have a quiz or test!” Mrs. Chai thinks for a moment. “Did your parents help you study?” “No. My older brother, Charlie, and my elder sister, Roxanne, help me study at home whenever I don’t understand something.” Isa explains. 

“Well, I was thinking about putting you in a gifted program. It’s called ‘Shooting Stars!™’ You might enjoy it. They have classes during winter and summer. I thought maybe you could sign up! You can find tons of students like you there!” Mrs. Chai says. “I know you don’t have many friends since you started this school last year.” 

“Yeah…” Isa looks down at her feet. She wishes she is more popular, like other kids in her class. “Well, you can go to lunch now,” Mrs. Chai says. “Run along now.” Isa walks into the cafeteria to order her lunch. She walks to the table she and Helen always sit at. To her shock, she finds other girls and boys at the table.

Helen turns her head. “Oh, hey. Who are you? Anyways, wanna join this table? We only have…oh, wait, we don’t have any seats left, sorry.” She gives a sorry look. “Don’t worry. Maybe you can sit over there with the lunch lady. She looks lonely.” 

Isa is boiling. Why is Helen behaving like this?! Did Isa do something wrong? No, of course not! “Helen,” Isa says calmly. “A word?” “Gladly! I don’t know how you know my name, though. Excuse me, besties!” 

Isa and Helen go to another table where no one would hear them. “Helen! Why are you acting like you don’t know me? Why are you acting so mean?” Isa asks. “Because, idiot! I finally have some new friends. New best friends! Unlike you. All you ever did was talk about science, social studies, blah blah blah!” 

“B-but I thought you were enjoying our discussion of protons and atoms!” Isa says. “No. I was only pretending to be enjoying myself. You’re not a cool kid. You’ll only embarrass me more in front of my new besties!” Helen walks back to the other table. “Helen, wait!” Isa wails, but Helen doesn’t turn her head around.

In the next few days, everyone has roles in the pageant. But Isa is too upset to even think about a pageant. She wishes that the school would call off the dumb pageant and just set up a stupid mission bazaar. A boy comes up to Isa during lunchtime.

“Hey,” the boy says. “Can I join you?” “Sure.” Isa nods. The boy sits down. “My name’s Ron. What’s yours?” All Isa can let out is a small “Isa.” “I saw what happened a few days ago,” Ron says. “The drama between Helen and me?” Isa asks.

“Yeah.”

The children eat their lunches silently. “Do you…wanna hang out with me?” Ron asks. “Sure. I guess. You can’t be worse than Miss Popular,” Isa says. They both laugh. “You mean that Helen girl? She’s not popular yet. Only has a few followers at school.” Ron looks at me. “And who cares about Helen? You gotta let some people go.”

Isa nods. The bell rings. “We should get back to class,” Isa says. “Ttyl?” Ron asks. “Ttyl!” Isa chuckles. She feels like she’s in a good mood. 

At the pageant’s rehearsal, Helen says hi to Isa. “Hello, Helen,” Isa says, frowning. “What do ya want?”

“Oh, nothing. Just wanted to say congrats on getting the biggest part of the play.” Helen sneers. “I convinced the director of the pageant to give you the biggest role. You have over 30 lines.” She pauses and then whispers, “For each scene.” “What da-” Isa exclaimed. “Why’d you do that?” “I knew you’d hate this part, but if you do well, you might actually become popular,” Helen says. “Anywaysgoodluckbyeepeace!” Helen disappears.

…………

“Mrs. Palinsky, there must have been a misunderstanding! I never wanted this part!” Isa exclaimed. “What do you mean? You have the part of the dog that the girl gets for Christmas.” Mrs. Palinsky says. “Really? Helen told me I had the biggest role,” Isa explains. “Well, I’m sure she meant no harm.” Mrs. Palinsky smiles like everything is fine. 

Isa groans and goes into the school hallway where the lockers are. She finds a doorway marked, “Don’t enter. Something is in here.” Isa opens the door anyway. What harm would it do anyway? She opens the door to find a cute little baby unicorn. The baby is adorable! It has four tiny legs, little sparkly wings, and pink hooves.

Isa is speechless and immediately puts the unicorn in her school bag. When she gets home from school, she unzips her backpack and lets the unicorn out. Isa waves at the unicorn. She knows it can’t talk; she’s a full expert on unicorns. 

If you think unicorns are not real, you’re wrong! Unicorns are real, and Isa has one to prove it. Isa realizes that this unicorn would probably make her popular at school, but she knows she can’t let out the secret about the unicorn. She has to protect the unicorn and feed it and do other things to make sure it doesn’t die or get injured. But for a 10-year-old girl, that’s a lot of stuff, right? How can she do all that?!

Isa starts by naming the unicorn. She names her Fluffy since, true to the unicorn’s name, she is fluffy. And cute. She also grabs water and feeds it to the unicorn. Unicorns love water. Especially baby unicorns. “I shall feed you some chips. Be right back.” Isa exits the room. The baby unicorn behaves and sits in the bedroom. Isa immediately comes back and feeds the unicorn the chips.

“Squee!” The unicorn makes a sound with delight. “I guess she likes that.” The next day, Isa goes to school and practices in the audition for the pageant. All she has to do is say, “Woof, woof!” and crawl around like a dog. Couldn’t they have found a robot dog for the part?

The day after that, after Isa goes home, she dresses up in her dog costume and says to Fluffy, “I’ll be right back! Here, hide in here.” Isa puts Fluffy in a box with holes, water, and food and leaves for the pageant. 

At the pageant, Isa gets nervous. Yes, all she has to do is bark and crawl, but what if she messed something up? She gets butterflies in her stomach. Luckily, she gets sick again, so someone else has to do the puppy act. Can you guess who that person is? That’s right, Helen! Helen has to replace Isa for the pageant’s dog, and another girl gets to play the role of the one who gets the puppy for Christmas. 

Well, all’s well that ends well. For now! This isn’t the end. This is just the beginning…

Written by Kruti Patel