Page 27 - Ugly Unicorn

In our story, Cosmos is on a vacation out West. He meets a group of wild horses and their leader tells him the ancient history of horses. The leader explains that once, long ago, there were only a few horses and of course, unicorns. The leader explains that unicorns were not a separate breed of horse but were horses that were ugly.
To Cosmos’ confusion, the lead horse explained that by ugly, he did not mean their appearance. They treated others in an ugly manner. They made fun of others. They gossiped and were quick to point out other’s shortcomings or mistakes. All of these behaviors were very unhorse like.
The leader explains gossip to Cosmos, “Gossip is when you tell others something about another which is hurtful. Gossip can be an untruth or it can be the truth. But the purpose in telling it is to make another look bad or foolish to those with whom you are gossiping.
"Gossiping is designed to make you look better or more important by making others look worse.” Children often do not understand the “self-serving” and hurtful side of this behavior and unfortunately, neither do many adults.
Those horses that engaged in these types of behaviors would get a little bump in the middle of their forehead. If they kept up this behavior the bump would grow. If they stopped their hateful and hurtful behavior, the bump would go away. But as noted in the story, for some horses, these hurtful behaviors had a special allure that caused them to continue until the bump became a horn. Once
they had developed the full size horn, they were unicorns and unlike to change.
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