CHAPTER FOUR

Sally meets a dragon

Sally saw a very strange animal walking towards her which looked like a horse but was pink and yellow and it was singing happily and appeared to be very friendly, as had all the other animals that Sally had met in this curious world. Sally thought it must be a carousel horse until she noticed the horn. Just one horn, about eight inches long, on it's forehead and she realised that it was a unicorn.

'Hello unicorn' Sally said 'you must be very happy today'. The unicorn jumped in surprise and Sally said 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you'. ' That's OK Sally' the unicorn said 'I hadn't noticed you yet because I'm not really here, except in your imagination. Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Figment, and your favourite colours are pink and yellow aren't they? and I'll bet you would really like to have a pony'.

'How do you know that I want a pony, and that my favourite colours are pink and yellow, and how do you know my name?' Figment laughed 'I told you, I'm in your imagination, I'm one of your thoughts and I know all the others, I know that you like riding on carousels, you pretend that you are riding your own pony. I bet you'd like to ride on my back, come on, get on and we'll go and look around'. Sally cried 'Oh yes please' and Figment knelt down on his front legs while Sally climbed onto his back and off they went.

Figment galloped off through the wood and Sally saw the most amazing sights. As the went the flowers got bigger and bigger and more and more colourful and after a while Figment stopped by a beautiful stream with the most brilliant blue water Sally had ever seen. The grass was rich and green and there was a wonderfully picturesque waterfall surrounded by a myriad of colourful flowers. 'Oh thank you for bringing me to such a lovely place' Sally said but Figment replied 'I didn't bring you here, this is your place, it's in your mind'.

'So you mean whatever I think you are, you'll become?' 'Not exactly' Figment said 'it's your subconscious thought, sort of, or something like that. I won't become a jumbo jet or an elephant if you think about one, but you really wanted a pony, and a unicorn is only a pony with a horn. You see unicorns are a fascinating legend, they are ideal for imagining, and they look like ponies.

Sally accepted Figment's explanation, she was having such a nice time and she didn't want to spoil it, so off they went again and soon it started to get dark and then to Sally's surprise they started to fly. They sailed up into the air and below them Sally saw the treetops getting smaller and smaller as they got higher. Then they were flying over rooftops and Sally looked down at the houses with lights burning in the windows and smoke coming up from their chimneys and she thought perhaps this was Never Never Land where Peter Pan lived, but then they crossed a river and Sally saw Big Ben and Tower Bridge and wondered if they would meet Mary Poppins up here.

They never met Mary Poppins, or Peter Pan, but Sally did see an enormous giraffe fly past, it was purple and yellow and she wondered if it was Milt's mother but it was gone before she could call out to it. She also saw a butterfly fluttering about and she giggled delightedly as a frog flew up to her and kissed her. Then Sally watched as a fish flew past shouting 'look at me, I'm flying'. When the fish saw the frog and the butterfly he said 'congratulations, I'm so glad that things turned out well for you at last, I hope you'll be very happy together'.

Then Sally jumped in fright, something had landed in her hair and was crawling around in it. She screamed and brushed it away and jumped to her feet. She was disorientated but it soon dawned on her that she had been dreaming and that there was no unicorn and the places they had been to and all the wonderful things she had seen really had been in her imagination.

'I'm very sorry' a small voice said 'I didn't mean to land on you, but when I hop into the air like that I often get blown off course and land somewhere other than where I had planned'.