Nearly forgetting that he was on stage, Goldengrape almost checked his watch. He was going to have a heart attack if things didn’t go right this time. He made sure his hat was on, fumbled with his gloves, and waggled his tail in half-anticipation, half-dread.
Sometimes he hated going up on stage. It was the crowd that nearly killed him. Since childhood, the rustic yellow earth pony had wanted nothing more than to be a unicorn. He settled for stage magician, which turned out to be very challenging—and, at the moment, quite stressful.
The fog had come out in great pillars. Goldengrape’s assistants had lifted him up through the stallion-sized hole through the floor, and the brights were on. So why was the music not coming through? He thought it might have been the timing, or maybe the fog—no matter what it came from, it really stung the eyes. And the nostrils. And the mouth. Noteworthy might have had a hard time with that.
Goldengrape couldn’t tell if the crowd was getting excited or frustrated. “Think, Goldengrape, think!” he chided himself quietly, then remembered he had a megaphone right up against his snout. He inwardly groaned, already hearing the crowd’s confused reactions, such as:
“He said something,” or
“What was that?” or even
“Mr. Magician, sir? Speak louder and maybe the dust mites next to ya will pick it up!” That stung a bit.
He reminded himself that a show was all about the patter and began to build on it and run with it. Unfortunately, he only got to the word ‘gather’, as in, “Gather around, little ponies, and behold!” or something like that. That was partly because Noteworthy had finally realized that he was the music guy (Goldengrape couldn’t see how someone so dimly colored as Noteworthy could be so dimly enlightened at the same time), and also due to the patter’s unwillingness to run with him, preferring to stay backstage. Stage fright, Goldengrape thought.
Once the music picked up, the show really came together. He made assistants disappear, pulled Angel out of his hat, and even managed to use a boot that was thrown at him for a trick.
The boot thing had actually been an inside joke with himself. He twirled his cornflower blue moustache during intermission (he was quite proud of the hairy thing), remembering. A young filly had come up to him post-show, and asked: “What does it take to become a magician?”
She looked at Goldengrape with expectant eyes, hoping for something substantial or, at the very least, clever. He had said: “Well, my dear. When you learn to pull a giraffe or a Saddle Arabian from a boot, then you’ve got it made.”
Leaning against that giraffe now, he remembered Blossomforth saying something while he was in his reverie. What had it been?
Oh, yes. It was coming to him now. She had said something about…he remembered the word five…ah! It was about how he was on in five.
Then it hit him. Well, the fact that he was on in two now and the boot that Blossomforth had thrown to get his attention. Ouch. He raced back to the stage in full-on gallop mode.
About a minute later, he showed up on stage. The crowd wasn’t there. Goldengrape glanced toward the ceiling. The crowd wasn’t there. He looked down into his little trick hole. Maybe they were hiding. Then he realized how crazy this kind of thinking was and dismissed such thoughts.
Blossomforth’s voice was calling his name. She had an apologetic look on her face. The mare was standing next to Noteworthy, also sharing the look.
Expecting the worst, he asked: “Alright, what happened?”
“Well, Berry Blast, the intern? You know her?”
“Yeah, go on.”
“She kind of forgot it was intermission, and dismissed the crowd.”
Up until this point, Goldengrape figured it couldn’t be worse than the time he’d tripped over his own cape. It was worse than that. It was worse than the time the entire audience, full of rich ponies, thought he was a unicorn (when he had started performing, he didn’t really advertise well), and demanded a refund. It was worse than when Berry Punch had taken a drink right out of the punch bowl, and worse than the time she did that after having a bunch of crumbs on her snout.
“Well, where is she now?” Goldengrape sighed.
“Were you planning on firing her?”
“No, nothing quite that severe. I did mean to give her a lecture, though.”
Noteworthy joined the conversation. “Lucky her!”
Blossomforth suppressed a smile at the irony.
“What do you mean?” Goldengrape asked.
“Well, I mean that she left with the other spectators.” Noteworthy nearly let a giggle escape.
Goldengrape pulled on his moustache, hard, and grunted. He went off to his office, and sat down in a leather chair. He had always found it quite nice for relieving stress, but this particular strain wouldn’t be relieved if the Canterlot Royal Guard told it to buzz off. As if it wasn’t enough, something struck him. He made a mental note to later ask Blossomforth just how many ponies had paid.
“Oh, Celestia. This is the worst night ever.” Goldengrape was milking it, he knew. He did see the ponies’ benevolent reactions to his show, and heard some nice comments, but he wanted to stay in a funk for a little longer. Sometimes he quite enjoyed it; it had been a while since he was able to sink into this deep of a funk.
Wanting to console her boss, Blossomforth rang the buzzer. He had had it installed back when he had been donated a generous sum of money by a pony known as Rarity. He thought he remembered the name from somewhere. But before he could think too hard, he had buzzed the contrasting-colored mare in and she was already relaxing in a chair opposite for him.
“Look,” she started. “it’s been a while since something like this happened.”
“Don’t I know it,” Goldengrape said. “It’s worse than—“
“Don’t start,” Blossomforth smiled, knowingly. “We thought to cheer you up, we would tell you a little something.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“A different stage magician dropped by. That one Trixie, remember? She used to be real snooty and uppity?”
“Hasn’t she reformed?”
“Exactly. I only figured that out a couple of minutes ago, though, which was when,” she stopped midsentence, partly for dramatic effect and partly because of something else that she seemed to be fumbling with. “Which was when Trixie dropped this off!” Blossomforth finished triumphantly.
“Wow.” Goldengrape was staring at a large 100-bit coin. “Wow. Oh, Celestia. This is better than the time—“
“Don’t start.”
Noteworthy buzzed. Goldengrape let him in, eager to see his reaction.
“Wow, man. This all you ended up with? That’s low.”
Goldengrape, confused, showed Noteworthy a puzzled expression.
“What are you looking at me like that for? Didn’t you get the other 400 bits?”
“There were…four hundred more bits?”
“Oh yeah.” Noteworthy didn’t say anything more, not because he had run out of things to say on the matter, but because a hoof was clamped around his mouth.
“We went over this.” Blossomforth seemed to be angry. “We don’t mention that Berry Blast thought that the four hundred bits was her paycheck for such a good show, and took off.”
Oops.