The Adventures of The Bailey School Kids: Unicorns Don't Give Sleigh Rides

In The Adventures of The Bailey School Kids: Unicorns Don’t Give Sleigh Rides by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones, magic has found its way to the Bailey City Stables. But not just any kind of magic, it’s the kind of magic that can only be found where there is a unicorn hanging around. Liza gets regular riding lessons at the local stables. Due to the snow and icy conditions, she takes a fall and there is no one around to help her. Out of nowhere she hears sleigh bells and a unicorn, pulling a sleigh, shows up to save the day and takes her back to safety.

The Bailey School Kids volunteer to help around the stables in return for free sleigh rides from Mr. Withers. Every year Mr. Withers makes money off of the sleigh rides to pay for the stables and to donate to charity. Liza breaks down and tells her friends what happened when she fell and hurt her ankle. None of her friends believe her and take on the task of mucking out stalls to start their investigation. They are sure that there must be a white horse fitting Liza’s description, and as for the horn, she must have been seeing things.

“That horse was an ordinary horse,” Eddie said. “He was even wearing one of Mr. Withers’ jingle bells.”

“Eddie must be right,” Melody said. “After all, unicorns don’t live in Bailey City.”

“And they definitely don’t give sleigh rides,” Howie added.

When they go back to the stables all four of them notice something new. Beautiful poinsettias are growing in the ground and in the snow. Liza notices that they are all growing where the unicorn walked the day it came to her rescue. It had to be the reason they were there. Eddie doesn’t buy it for a second and is determined to prove Liza wrong. There is no such thing as unicorns.

No matter how much Eddie tries to deny the unicorn theory, he finds himself seeing things that shouldn’t be there either, things that fit into Liza’s unicorn fantasy. Eddie, alone outside hears the jingle bells for himself. He follows them until he finds a lost and freezing abandoned kitten. Next Howie hears jingle bells and is led to an old barn on Mr. Withers’ property to find an abandoned puppy. With every discovery, the group is sure that there is some sort of magic going on at the Bailey Stables.