Laura Biddle, age 11, of Carmichaels, Pennsylvania,for her question:

Was there ever a real unicorn?

In the Middle Ages, artists painted portraits of the unicorn and ladies embroidered his picture in glowing colors. The handsome white horse with a long straight horn on his forehead certainly looked like a real animal. In those days almost everybody believed he existed    though nobody had ever seen a living unicorn. This we know for sure, because he never existed as a real live animal.

The amazing horse with a horn on his forehead was a creation of human imagination. Some people tried to prove he existed, even after scientists insisted that he was merely a mythical animal. Fossil buffs claimed to have found his skeleton. Sailors brought so called unicorn horns back from the Arctic. But the skeleton was assembled from the remains of different animals. The horn turned out to be the long spear like tusk of a narwhal. Too bad    because the imaginary unicorn was such a handsome creature.