Mr Deelox

By Jorja Donn, aged 10

Mr Deelox is not the usual kind of golden horned white prancing magical unicorn you would normally associate with when imagining such mythical creatures. Mr Deelox is simply an old, brown and torn stuffed bear with a large plastic turnip strapped to his tiny head. Phoebe could not say the word delicious, so instead of Mr Delicious which she had originally meant to call him, it came out as Mr Deelox and the name stuck.

My big brother Toby, nine years my senior says that Mr Deelox is special but he rolls his eyes and scrunches up his nose as if catching whiffs of mum’s homemade cabbage soup while he says it, so I don’t think he means it in a very pleasant way.

After a while Pheobe began to think that Mr Deelox looked weird so he ended up living at the end of my bed beside a three legged giraffe, an aging collection of McDonalds happy meal toys and a mouldy conker. Uncle Joe replaced him with a cute white fluffy unicorn with a glittering silver horn and a purple woollen mane. Which I have to admit was more in keeping with the piles of pristine toys and teddies Phoebe had collected recently, all sporting cute names like Precious, Daisy and Teardrop.

Mr Deelox was my idea. When Phoebe first became ill everyone hoped for a miracle. Unicorns are supposed to be magical; they can grant wishes and will do anything you want them to do just by asking politely. So because of this I made her one from the bear I was given when I was born. The nose for the unicorn proved impossible to make, even when I watched ten episodes of Mister Maker. I had no one to help me because Phoebe needed Mum and Dad much more. So I strapped a plastic turnip from my play shop to his head instead with an old shoe lace from the trainer of my build-a-bear, Mr Hugsey.

I am not like Max who keeps his room tidy and has all his files and cds alphabetised neatly on shelves; nor Phoebe who likes pretty, bright-coloured things. Max says that I am weird, but Mum just tells him to shut up.

“I am just quirky” Mum says.

I think that from the day I made Mr Deelox the hushed grown-up voices downstairs came to an end and the huge range of medicine bottles on the side board downstairs declined in number. Phoebe is a lot better now and we have a lot fewer visitors.

Unicorns are magical whether they are the traditional elegant white variety with a golden glowing horn and healing power or old brown bears with turnips strapped to their heads!