Poncho walked into the Sweet Shoppe only to be surprised by an eccentric and boisterous girl. Before Poncho could do anything she abruptly looked at him. “Hi! have you been here before?!”
Poncho jerked to the side truly surprised by the abrupt nature of the question. “Uhh... no,” he replied.
“Oh! Well, welcome to the Sweet Shoppe, Poncho! I'm Pinkie Pie!” she tittered.
Poncho looked at her shocked. “P-Poncho? How do you know my name? I’ve never seen you before!” He watched her look him up and down rapidly.
Pinkie Pie laughed. “I know everything silly.”
“What do you mean you know everything?”
Pinkie put a finger on her mouth and looked at him closely. After a few seconds, she spoke back up in an excited voice. ”Well, I know your name is Poncho, because in an alternate world you’re a pony, in fact even I’m a pony, in even greater fact, everyone in this world are ponies and we went on amazing adventures with each other it was great except for the cult, zombies, clones, and something bad happened to you, but it was very heroic!” Pinkie Pie paused to get a breath of air. "Don't tell anyone I can do that! It's a secret power I have!"
“W-Well, what happened?” asked Poncho in confusion and slight fear. He was scared because she had a "super power" of knowing about alternate worlds.
Pinkie Pie busted out laughing and stopped to look serious. “Poncho, in said alternate universe, you sacrificed yourself to save a friend from a gunshot, dying as a hero!” Poncho lowered his jaw in shock.
“Really? That all happened?”
Pinkie squinted her eyes and stared at him making Poncho feel uncomfortable. “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe,” said Pinkie with a shrug. “I’m just getting that vibe.” She looked away from him before smirking. “Anyways, would you like anything? You can’t leave here without some joy from desserts!”
“Oh,” said Poncho looking at the overhead menu boards. After looking through the items he still didn’t know what he wanted. “I’ll just take whatever you think is good.”
Pinkie Pie smiled. “I know the perfect thing! Hold on, I’ll get it ready for you!” She ran behind the counter and looked through the display case of cupcakes. After closely examining them one by one, she picked up a big cupcake with a large mountain of icing and handed it to Poncho. “Here, have this as a gift for being a new friend! Take it!”
“Really? I can have it for free?” asked Poncho in puzzlement. He didn’t want to act like a jerk for not paying for something, so he pulled out some money. Pinkie shook her head.
“Yep! Free. It’s my gift to you!” she said with a grin. Poncho nodded and took the cupcake, eating it with only two bites. He thanked Pinkie and ran out of the store to wait for his father to pick him up.
~ ~ ~
On the Thursday after his Saturday detention service, Poncho found himself walking through the cafeteria trying to find somewhere to sit. He still was feeling bad for sporadically leaving the Sweet Shoppe before saying anything else to Pinkie Pie. After a quick glance, he sat down at an empty table near the back of the cafeteria. He looked around the room to see the bustling tables of people laughing and carrying on with each other. Before he could get too down on himself, a familiar face raced over and sat down.
“Shit dawg, way back here?” asked Tyrone as put his legs up on the table and leaned back into his chair. “I can dig this though. You don’t mind do you?”
“No!” yelled Poncho with happiness. He ignored the few stares he received from the adjacent tables.
“Cool. The others should be here soon too.”
“Others?”
Suddenly, Rivs and Sticky appeared behind Poncho and sat beside him, making Poncho jump in the process. They sat at the opposite ends of the table, facing each other. Both of them looked at each other in anger then quickly began downing their tray of food.
“What’s their problem?” asked Poncho to Tyrone.
“They are probably still mad from the park Saturday,” said Tyrone with a shrug.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” said Rivs with a mouth of food. “We are just rivals, that’s all.”
“Indeed,” said Sticky with a nod. “It was a close game, but Clyde and I managed to win it with a deep three from yours truly.”
“Yeah, it was a pretty awesome game–” Tyrone stopped as a pair of shorts hit his face. As he pulled them off, Clyde sat down at the table.
“There’s those extra shorts for wellness class you needed,” said Clyde.
“Thanks dawg,” said Tyrone who reached over the table to smack Clyde’s hand. “You ready to ball today in there?”
“Is that what we are doing today?”
“I guess, Coach Iron Will said we could do either basketball, volleyball, or just sit there and talk.” Tyrone stretched his arms out. “I’m glad we realized at the park we had wellness together. Now we can be gym class heroes.”
“Great,” said a sarcastic Clyde. He looked over at Rivs and Sticky who were acting like they were both in a eating contest. Clyde glanced over at Poncho. “So, how was your week?”
“Well–”
Poncho was interrupted by a loud crash of a tray falling onto the table. Cannon stood overlooking it and looked at the table. “There are no damn seats!”
“Then go take one dawg,” said Tyrone.
Cannon looked at the nearby tables and saw a small group of freshman with at least five empty chairs. Cannon lifted a finger at Poncho and the others and slowly walked over to the table with freshman. Without speaking any words, he quickly grabbed the chair and ran back. As he sat down, he looked over at the freshman table who had shocked expressions. Cannon waved at them and began eating his food to ignore them. “Freshmen...”
“Ah, so you actually showed up today?” asked Patel walking up to the table with a chair in his hand.
“Hey man,” began Cannon, “it’s not my fault I hate school.”
“Same, but you don’t see me skipping the first week of school,” teased Sticky while opening his milk carton.
“I didn’t skip the first week actually,” said Cannon with a smirk. “I went last Monday.”
“Ooooh,” said Patel in a joking manner and waving his arms around. “Watch out guys.”
“Hey!” yelled a voice from behind them. All the nearby tables also looked. When Poncho’s table turned to look, they saw Wahlburn striding towards them. “I’m sitting with you brothers!” Wahlburn took a chair from a table he walked by and pulled it up beside Cannon and Patel.
“Oh look, another badass,” said Patel with a grin. “How’s the weed?”
“Brother, I’m not doing that anymore, at least, not in school.” Wahlburn leaned back in his chair and sighed. “So, what’s going on? We seem to have met again.”
“It’s because there’s no where else to sit without it being extremely awkward,” said Patel. “I can’t be any more awkward than Poncho." Patel quickly glanced at Poncho. "No offense.”
Poncho let the joke by and glanced around the cafeteria. In a few seconds, he saw the waitress from Sweet Shoppe sitting with five other girls at a table. Poncho stared at her from afar.
“Who are you looking at?” asked Jeb. Poncho and the rest of the table flinched and noticed Jeb sitting at the their table beside Tyrone and Rivs.
“Jeb? When the hell did you get here?” asked Cannon.
“I was here since you sat down!” yelled Jeb. The others looked at each other on how that was possible and why they didn’t see him until now. Jeb frowned as Poncho kept his gaze towards Pinkie Pie’s table.
“Ey yo, that one girl over there has rainbow hair!” said Tyrone in bewilderment as he looked over at the table Poncho was staring at. “How is that even possible?”
“It’s probably dyed, or you know, genetics,” said Patel with a roll of his eyes.
“That’s crazy though...”
Before too long, the whole table began awkwardly staring at the girls’ table that was across the cafeteria. Thanks to the distance, they didn’t have to worry about being caught. Each one of them admired a certain girl at the table before Sticky turned around upset.
“Who are we kidding, we don’t have a chance with any of them.” The others turned around as Wahlburn smiled and threw his palm onto the table.
“Say, let’s make this a competition, the first one of us to get laid by any one of–”
Patel lifted up a hand to stop him from going any further with that idea and rapidly shook his head. “No, no, no. I’m going to stop you right there. Let’s not make this some stupid, cheesy, funny yet poor, movie plotline about a bunch of juniors trying to get laid before they become legal of age during the next school year, so they can act all cool and shit for the remainder of the year.”
“Okay,” said Wahlburn sadly. “How about a regular relationship with one of them then, or, let’s not just limit it to them, but anyone? Anyone except freshman of course.”
“Define 'regular'.”
“Say, there’s strong feelings towards each other. However, you can’t just go up there and say “help me win a bet and pretend to care about me”, that’s cheating.”
Patel stroked his chin. “What does the winner of said bet win?”
Wahlburn shrugged. “I don’t know, winner can ask the losers to do something or give him something. Are all of you in?” Most of them nodded as Clyde and Poncho sat there.
Clyde crossed his arms. “I’m not doing it. You can’t place bets on things like that because if the other person finds out, they will try and force you out of their lives forever because you used them.”
“You just know you couldn’t win,” said Wahlburn with a grin.
“That’s not it at all.”
“You’re lame.” Wahlburn glanced over at Poncho who was eating some chips from his hoodie. “I’m guessing you’re not doing it either?”
“I agree with Clyde,” said Poncho. Clyde patted him on the back as Wahlburn sighed. They switched topics and talked about things that happened during the weekend. When Poncho told them about his visit to the Sweet Shoppe after Saturday morning, the others yelled at him as that could have been his chance to win the bet, even though he wasn’t a part of it.
The class bell soon rang and the people in the cafeteria fled the room and raced towards the classrooms. Clyde and Tyrone headed to the gymnasium, or in this case, the other half of the gymnasium because the other half was getting ready for the upcoming school dance.
As they entered, they saw Coach Iron Will sorting the students into two lines, male and female, and taking attendance. Clyde and Tyrone quickly joined the male line and waited to be called on. As Coach Iron Will was going down the line, Clyde looked around the gym to see if he recognized any familiar faces. Other than Tyrone, he didn’t know a single guy so he looked over at the girls line and saw two of the girls that were sitting at the table Poncho was looking at, the blonde haired girl and the violet haired girl.
Coach Iron Will finally stopped in front of Tyrone. “Ey yo, Coach. What are we doing today?”
Iron Will grunted and looked him straight in the eye. “What does it look like we are doing?”
Tyrone leaned to the side to see behind his massive build and saw a bunch of footballs. “Aw man, I know it’s football season, but why can’t we play basketball?”
“Because Iron Will is the coach of the football team, that’s why!” yelling into Tyrone’s face. The rest of the students looked over at them. As he leaned away from him, Iron Will smiled. “Say, you want to play basketball right?”
“Of course, I’m the best baller in this side of the city. I’m even going to join the school team come November when the season starts. My buddy Clyde is also!” Tyrone grabbed onto Clyde who gave a weak smile.
“How about this then, friend. You two play two others in a pickup game. If you win, we don’t have to play football the rest of the week. You got that friend! Where Iron Will comes from, you must attack the day head on! Iron Will wants you to back up your talk!” Iron Will looked into the air and took a deep breath. “Plus, Iron Will is tired from yelling at these laughable football players this school has.”
“Alright, I can work with that. C, you got point.”
“Fine with me,” said Clyde. He took off his jacket and walked over to the bleachers where everyone else was beginning to sit on. He placed his jacket on the bottom row and walked back to Tyrone and Iron Will.
Coach Iron Will turned to the crowd and scanned through them. He pointed at bulky fellow near the blonde haired girl from the lunch table. “You! You are going to show me your worth, and teach these punks a lesson!”
The boy stared at him for a while and nodded. “Eeyup.” He got off the bench and walked up to Tyrone and Clyde. Iron Will cracked his knuckles and looked through the crowd again and pointed his finger and began moving his arm around the crowd. After a few seconds, he stopped moving and called out the boy who he landed on.
“Get on down here! Iron Will has chosen you!” The boy sighed in rage as most of the girls began to get giddy when he walked down the bleachers. He walked up to the group and sighed again.
“Why me? I’m not cut out for this. I don’t even know how to play!” Clyde looked at him and noticed his comb in his pocket of his nice sweater. The boy pulled the comb out and combed his thick blonde hair and adjusted his thick white framed glasses.
“Dawg, we’ll go easy on ya,” said Tyrone with a smirk.
“Enough talking!” yelled Iron Will. “It’s time to play! Have someone come up here and jump ball!” Tyrone ran up to the mid court line as the bigger of the other two boys walked up.
“Come on Big McIntosh!” yelled the blonde haired girl, “your sister believes in ya!”
“Eeyup,” replied Big McIntosh. Clyde looked over at the girls again who were on the bottom row of the bleachers to see the violet haired girl casually looking at her nails and back up to the court. Once he saw her briefly look his direction, Clyde looked away and at Tyrone.
“Come on Trenderfoot!” yelled half of females in the bleachers. Clyde looked at the other boy who was under the opposite basket waved to his fans. The fans quickly calmed down and Iron Will walked up to the spot on the court in the middle of Tyrone and Big McIntosh. He threw the ball up and dodged the two as they jumped in the air. Big McIntosh was taller than Tyrone so he was able to hit the ball backwards for Trenderfoot to get. Tyrone laughed and stepped backwards. Trenderfoot hesitantly advanced the ball.
“Play ‘chaos’ on them,” said Tyrone to Clyde.
“Already?”
“Why not?”
Clyde shrugged and ran past Big McIntosh and walked straight up to Trenderfoot. He began to move around him to stop him from dribbling the ball. Trenderfoot stopped in place as Clyde took the opportunity to poke the ball out and take it. The ball bounced the on the floor as Clyde ran up and began dribbling it around.
“Hey!” yelled Trenderfoot. “You can’t do that!”
Clyde laughed. “I didn’t touch you so it’s fine.” Clyde stood in place dribbling the ball as Trenderfoot crouched down and walked slowly up to him to attempt defense. Clyde jabbed his foot to the right to see Trenderfoot move to the right. Clyde smiled and bounced the ball to his left and began running to the left side. Trenderfoot froze at the sudden move and at an attempt to follow him, fell to the ground. The crowd gasped and laughed as Clyde stopped and took a jump shot, which went in. The crowd clapped at the made shot and Clyde held out his hand to help Trenderfoot up.
“Don’t touch me!” yelled Trenderfoot. He got up and ran to mid court as Tyrone threw him the ball. Trenderfoot quickly passed it to Big McIntosh who threw it up. It banked off the backboard and went in. The crowd gave a clap and the blonde haired girl gave a whistle. Tyrone threw Clyde the ball and pointed to the ceiling. Clyde nodded and Tyrone ran up beside Trenderfoot to screen him. Clyde followed through with the screen as Tyrone ran towards the basket. Big McIntosh and Trenderfoot ran after Clyde who threw the ball above the rim to the left. Tyrone jumped up and slammed the ball into the hoop. The crowd this time cheered loudly and went crazy at the alley-oop.
The game continued in similar fashion. Clyde usually dropped Trenderfoot with a dribble move with the crowd cheering in awe or laughing, then either Clyde went for a layup or he passed it to Tyrone for a dunk or jumper. For defense, Clyde and Tyrone mostly double teamed Big McIntosh and left Trenderfoot to jack up shots, who nearly airballed every time. After Iron Will called off the game, a small crowd of students cheered for Clyde and Tyrone then continued talking in their small groups .
“So, what did you think?” asked Tyrone to Coach Iron Will. “I told you we have some pretty sick moves.”
“You also played a bunch of amateurs so it didn’t really count,” said Iron Will with a chuckle. Tyrone yelled at him and the two began arguing back and forth. Clyde walked over to his jacket and sat on the end of the bleachers. He watched as Big McIntosh sat down beside the blonde haired girl who kept giving him some words of encouragement. All he did to reply was a nod.
At the far other end of the bleachers, Clyde watched Trenderfoot walk by a group of girls who began laughing at him. He turned towards them to try and make them stop, but they and another group continued. Trenderfoot stormed away from them walking towards the door near Clyde. As he got close, he gave Clyde a deadly stare and walked out of the gymnasium.
Clyde shrugged it off and put on his jacket. He untied his left shoe to tie it again tighter as he watched Iron Will and Tyrone who were now playing one on one on the court. Tyrone had the ball and tried to go past him, but Iron Will was a better defender than he thought who kept preventing him from slashing towards the basket. Tyrone began some dribble moves, but Iron Will just laughed at him. Losing his patience, Tyrone quickly did a hesitation move and exploded to the right side of the paint. As he went up for a layup, Iron Will jumped up and swatted the ball towards the bleachers.
Clyde watched the ball fly through the air towards the two girls and Big McIntosh who were busy talking about something. Clyde quickly got up and ran towards them. As he got close, the girls looked up at him and finally saw the ball and Clyde extending his arm out to deflect the ball away right in front of the violet haired girl. As Clyde landed, he realized his shoe laces on his left shoe were still untied and he began to fall forward. He felt hands touch his chest to try and stop him and a female scream, but he fell too fast and closed his eyes. He stopped falling when he felt his arms touch the bleacher row above the bottom seat. Once he opened his eyes, he saw a mesmerizing sight: a pair of eyes that were a mix of light and dark blue looking up at him.
“Um, hello...” said the violet haired girl. Clyde realized the hands that tried to stop him were hers and she was in the spot in between the row of bleachers.
“A-Are you okay?” asked a concerned Clyde. As he kept his stare on her, he felt his face get warm. She was definitely, in his mind, the prettiest girl he had ever seen and it felt like a dream to be this close to her.
“I think so, I’m just stuck as you’re blocking me in...” replied the girl. Clyde kept looking into her blue eyes like he was in a daze. He quickly snapped out of it after a few seconds and pushed off the row of bleachers with his arm, launching him backwards. He extended his hand for her to grab which she did and Clyde felt warm again. He pulled back and she sat back up on the bottom row of bleachers. He let go of her hand as she patted her skirt of dust.
“Rarity, are you okay?” asked the blonde haired girl. Big McIntosh popped his over his sister’s shoulder to check as well.
“I believe so Applejack,” said Rarity. She looked up at Clyde and smiled. “Thank you for helping me out of there.”
“It was my pleasure,” said Clyde nervously. “I saw the ball coming and it was my natural reaction to stop it.” The longer Clyde stared at her, the more awkward he thought he was. She didn’t seem to take notice or mind though.
“I’m glad you did,” said Applejack with a smirk, “Ah wouldn’t know what we would do with our “Pretty Miss Rarity” having a bruised face or broken nose.”
“Eeyup,” replied Big McIntosh.
Rarity smiled at their comments and looked back up to Clyde. “Sorry if I come off rude, but what is your name? I’m afraid I’ve never seen you before.”
“I just came to this school last week. My name is Clyde.” The others nodded and the class bell rung. Applejack and Big McIntosh waved good bye and ran out of the gym. Rarity slowly got up from the bleachers and looked at Clyde.
“Thanks again Clyde, even though it wasn’t anything too dangerous,” she said with a smile. “I’ll see you later sometime.” She turned around and took a step forward and stopped. “Oh, do make sure you tie your shoe...” She gave Clyde a wink and walked away as Clyde felt his face get warm again. He crouched down and began tying his shoe as Tyrone walked up to him.
“Did you see that block!” said Tyrone looking down at Clyde. “I didn’t know Coach had steroid-like blocks!”
“Yeah.” Clyde hopped up and turned towards the door. He saw Trenderfoot standing at the door with a smile on his face. Before Clyde could question him, he turned and walked away. “What was that about?”
“I have no idea,” said Tyrone. “Say, I saw you talking to those two girls at that table a few minutes ago. I thought you weren’t playing that challenge.” Tyrone smirked.
Clyde's face grew red. “I’m not! Your blocked layup almost hit Rarity in the face so I stopped it.”
“Rarity? You already know one of their names? Damn, you work fast dawg. You’ll win in no time,” said Tyrone in total troll mode. Clyde angrily walked out of the gymnasium as Tyrone followed, laughing behind him.