//------------------------------//
// The Snow Family, Part 2: Baking Lessons 
// Story: Hearth's Warming is Merry in Our Town 
// by Sketcha-Holic 
//------------------------------//

After a bath and a good night's rest, Sugar Belle was ready for a second day with Double Diamond's family. 

She did some early morning baking in order to restock some of her goodies on the shelves, and then once again tasked Cuppa Joe and Pumpkin Spice to watch the cafe for her. She apologized for making them work so hard, but they didn't mind. The two were happy to be in charge for once, and being twins, they were having their own family time anyway. 

She was just about to leave when Party Favor opened the door. 

"Oh, hi!" he said with a bright smile. "I was just here to get a chocolate chip muffin, but seeing you here is a treat in of itself."

"Oh, well, I haven't left yet, but I was going to," Sugar Belle replied, twirling a loose curl in her mane. 

Party Favor giggled. "I"m glad I caught you, then. So... how was yesterday?"

"Oh... it was, uh, kind of weird." She tightened her hair tie with her magic. "We went out to find a Hearth's Warming Tree, found the perfect one, and ended up at war with squirrels."

Party Favor blinked. "At war... with squirrels?"

"I know. I could scarcely believe it myself. And from what I heard from Double Diamond and his family, this isn't the first time they've been fighting squirrels--apparently they have a rival back in the Unicorn Range named Chipparooney."

Party Favor held his breath as he stifled laughter. "What?"

"I know! And the squirrels we fought chucked pine cones at us like there was no tomorrow, and we had to throw snowballs, mudballs, and some pine cones of our own back!" Sugar Belle giggled, seeing as looking back on the memory made it funny to her. She sighed. "Unfortunately, we lost, and we we didn't get our perfect tree."

"Aww..."

"We did get a good tree, though."

"Yay!"

Sugar Belle nodded. "Yeah... battling squirrels is more intense than I thought. Who would have thought that I'd fight some? And they said that the ones we were dealing with were worse than Chipparooney."

Party Favor rubbed his leg. "Gee, I wonder if Chipparooney's anything like Cheddar."

"Cheddar?"

"Neighbor's dog." Party Favor shuddered. "Vicious creature."

Sugar Belle covered her mouth. "How big was he?"

"He was a toy poodle."

Sugar Belle blinked. "Uh... okay."

"Hey," Party Favor said with narrowed eyes. "I've learned in the past two decades of my life... it's the small dogs that you have to watch out for. Cheddar bit me more than once, and it always hurt so bad!" He started to use his hoof to bounce his blue curls. "And the worst part was, Kazam always mocked me because I had a mane and tail as poofy as Cheddar's fur, so I logically shouldn't be scared as something as fluffy as I am." 

"Oh, that doesn't make sense. Why did your brother have to torment you so?" Sugar Belle shook her head. "Oh, that reminds me, how are things going on your end?"

Party Favor scoffed. "Dad's not impressed with my balloons... like always. He also didn't like the fact that I made him and the girls wear corks on their horns so that they don't pop their mattresses. Gee, it's not like I don't want to rebuild mattresses for the next several days."

"I don't get why he's not impressed--your balloons are both a magical and engineering feat."

"Psht, he's still hung up over the fact my horn's a dud. Gee, I'm sorry for being disabled."

Sugar Belle shook her head again. "He needs to stop focusing on what you can't do with your horn." She put her hoof on Party Favor's chest. "If anything, he should be proud of what lays in your heart. After all, I've never known a stallion more noble."

Party Favor stared at her, a blush coming upon his cheeks. "I... I... uh... are you sure you're not just saying that because I come from the Canterlot gentry? Because, well, there are those higher than my family on the social ladder and uh--say, shouldn't you be heading to Double Diamond's place now? You've got things to do with his family, remember?"

Sugar Belle's eyes widened. "Oh, my gosh, you're right!" She focused her magic on one of the shelves, and put a chocolate muffin in Party Favor's hoof. "Here you go, enjoy!" And with that, she sped out the door. 

Party Favor looked at the muffin, muttering to himself, "Me... noble..."





Sugar Belle soon arrived at the house with a wagon full of ingredients. Double Diamond wasn't home, having left to have a meeting with his staff and advisers about preparing for the upcoming opening, leaving his own family to sit around the house. They read whatever books they brought or could find, or in the case of Green Circle, built a snowpony in front of the house. So, when Sugar Belle arrived, they welcomed her and her activity for baking Hearth's Warming treats. 

"All right then!" she said, standing in front of the lined up family in Double Diamond's kitchen. She levitated some note cards and passed them out to each pony. "We're each going to make a nice Hearth's Warming treat today. I have chosen these recipes for us to bake today based on how satisfying the end result is and how relatively easy they are."

Black Diamond wrinkled his nose. "What, you saying we can't bake?"

Sugar Belle raised an eyebrow. "No, I just have a bunch of tricky recipes that shouldn't be attempted by casual bakers. Anyway, the ones I chose should be fun enough to make. We have gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies, peppermint meringue shells, sprinkled marshmallow-rice cereal balls, chocolate and nougat pretzels, and fudge."

Powder Snow licked his lips. "Sounds delicious!"

"Wait, wait, wait..." Alta said. "Are we going to bake them all at the same time? Because I'm pretty sure about three of those require the stove, and the other three require the oven, and Double Diamond only has one oven."

Sugar Belle shook her head. "Oh, no, we'll take turns."

Blue Square narrowed his eyes at the card he held. "You gave me the fudge recipe." He looked up at Sugar Belle with a furrowed brow. "Are you exacting revenge on me for what I said the other day? Because no form of creative effort should go without criticism, because if there wasn't criticism, how could you improve? You're a fine baker, Sugar Belle." He stepped forward and patted her head, much to her annoyance. "But, you do need to correct the imbalances in your baking, after all."

"Blue, your criticisms were petty and weren't very constructive," Black Diamond said. "You were making a big deal out of very tiny mistakes."

Blue Square rolled his eyes. "Hey, at least I don't break down and take off when I'm criticized."

Sugar Belle glared at him. "Look, just because I gave you the recipe for the fudge doesn't mean I'm getting any 'revenge'. Still, since you're still complaining about it, I'd like to see you try to make so-called 'perfect' fudge, with perfect measurements, perfect stirring, perfect time in the fridge... you know the works that prevent a very, very picky eater from just dropping the fudge and squishing it under their hooves."

Blue looked at the note card and gulped. "H-how hard can baking be?"

"Fair warning, the fudge takes the longest to make, so you're going last," Sugar Belle said in a sardonic tone. Then, she straightened up and clapped her hooves with a smile. "All right, whoever has the sugar cookies goes first!"

The group of ponies looked at their recipes, and Greenie started to bounce. "That's me! That's me!"

Sugar Belle giggled. "All right, I'm going to be your supervisor as you do your stuff. You'll read the directions carefully, right?"

Greenie rolled her eyes. "Well, of course! I'm top reader in my class!"

Sugar Belle smiled, and used her magic to do up her mane in a bun. "Great! Let me just bring my wagon of ingredients into the kitchen, and we'll start."

Greenie nodded. "Okey-dokey!" Then she turned to her parents and asked, "Say, Mom, Dad, you mind pulling out some of the old Hearth's Warming records? We've got to bake to some Hearth's Warming tunes, you know!"





Once Sugar Belle brought the wagon of ingredients into the kitchen and put it in the corner nearest the oven, the baking began. 

The making of the sugar cookies was going smoothly, with Greenie reading the instructions as carefully as she could and following them step by step. She had made sure to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl from the wet ones, and she was currently sitting on the counter and stirring the 'wet' ingredients, singing merrily.

"Just hear those sleigh bells, ring-a-ling, ring-ting-ting-a-ling too..."

Sifting the items around in Double Diamond's fridge in order to make room for some of the desserts that were going to be made, Sugar Belle sang along, "Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you..."

"Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling 'Yoo hoo!'"

"Come on it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you."

Greenie kept eyeing the mixture she was stirring, checking to see if it was ready for the dry ingredients. "Have you ever been on a sleigh ride, Miss Sugar Belle?"

Sugar Belle shut the fridge door. "I'm afraid not. My friends back in Fillydelphia had invited me, but Father always said no, saying I'd break my curfew. And in my years in this town... we didn't really celebrate anything..." She rolled her eyes. "...unless it was equality. So, I haven't really had a Hearth's Warming for a long time."

"Geez, that's oughta suck," Greenie replied. "We ought to set up a sleigh ride so that you can have one!"

"Isn't it basically like riding a carriage, except the carriage is made for snow?"

"Yeah, but you could snuggle up warmly against somepony to keep warm from the cold, and they won't mind, because they think your body's warm." She set the bowl down, grabbed the bowl of dry ingredients, and dumped them into the wet. "Mom and Dad said their first date was a sleigh ride up in some canyon in the north, I can't remember which. Maybe whoever you ride with will be your special somepony."

"Well... if I had to snuggle with somepony during a sleigh ride, it better be somepony worth snuggling and not somepony I'd want to bop on the nose."

Greenie giggled. "Like Weak Link?" Her face furrowed into a scowl. "He pulls my pigtails, blows spitwads at me, and he once buried me in snow! Yeah, I'd hate to be stuck on a sleigh ride with him--I'd punch him in the nose over snuggling with him."

Sugar Belle nodded. "I've heard that if a colt treats you like that, it means he's fond of you."

"That's stupid."

"Yeah, I figured that out some time ago."

Greenie started to exert a bit of strength in trying to stir the cookie dough. "Oh, geez, when did it become so thick?"

"That's what flour does to dough." Sugar Belle stepped forward. "Do you need help?"

Greenie shook her head as she strained in her stirring, grunting as her face turned red. "No, no, I'm a big girl, I can handle it!"

Sugar Belle shrugged. "All right, big girl, I'll take your word for it." She turned to the wagon. "Now, I know I packed some rolling pins..."

As Sugar Belle started to dig for one of her rolling pins, Greenie was busy fighting the thick dough. She pushed and pushed, driving her spoon into the mixture as much as she could. Her muscles were aching, and her wooden spoon was bending, threatening to snap in half. She sweated, her face turned red, and she wanted to scream at how suddenly hard it was to make cookie dough.

A sudden slip of the spoon made the dough fly out of the bowl. Time slowed down as the ball of dough arced across the kitchen, with the little green filly hearing her heartbeat in time with the slow seconds of the dough's journey through the air. The seconds slowly counted down to the moment of impact on the floor, and she expected the resulting sound to be loud and thunderous, reverberating with the horrible mistake that she had made. Her heart stopped when the dough made contact with the brown-and-green checkered floor. 

Plop.

She flinched, and glanced at Sugar Belle. Seeing as the unicorn didn't seem to notice in her digging for the rolling pin and her current action of scooping flour onto the counter, Greenie quickly sped to the dough with her bowl in hoof. Remembering the five second rule, she counted four before it was back in the bowl, and she quickly scurried back before Sugar Belle turned back to her. 

"All right, Greenie, is the dough all mixed up?" Sugar Belle asked. 

Greenie stared at the cookie dough, thinking it wasn't too dirty. It wasn't like there was a cockroach in it or anything. "Yeah, I think so."

Sugar Belle spread the flour all over the counter with her hooves, while simultaneously dusting the rolling pin with a bit more flour with her magic. "Then let's get to rolling it out."





After Greenie had finished the sugar cookies and was letting them cool, it was time to make the gingerbread cookies. Since Black Diamond had received that note card, it was his turn to go and bake. 

He looked between the containers that held the salt and the sugar. "They look the same."

Sugar Belle levitated a bowl toward him. "Oh, I'm sure with those keen eyes of yours you could tell the difference between salt crystals and sugar crystals. After all, didn't you quickly spot the uneven earth where the dead tree used to be?"

Black Diamond caught the bowl. "I'm better at spotting irregularities in things pertaining to geology, not baking ingredients."

"That's what the labels are for." Sugar Belle winked as she levitated measuring cups and utensils toward him. She tilted her head and gave him a curious look. "And I thought Blue Square was the one using the big words around here."

Black Diamond scoffed. "He thinks it makes him sound smart. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what he's talking about half the time."

Sugar Belle's brow furrowed. "Well, if anything, it'd be worth it to teach him that making sweets is not an easy thing, and nopony can make them the absolute 'confection of perfection' that he and whatever other ultra-perfectionists want." A tiny bit of venom rolled off her tongue during her quoted phrase, and several of the many memories that made her tense up flashed in her mind. 

Black Diamond held up the notecard and scanned the recipe. "Welcome to the club of being absolutely annoyed by him."

Sugar Belle nodded, and then looked up at the ceiling. It had been a while since she enjoyed baking just for Hearth's Warming fun instead of business. Hearing the clinking of the spoon Black Diamond used to stir the dry ingredients and the backdrop of a record playing the sweet croons of a choir, her mind wandered off to when she was just a little filly, eagerly baking cookies for her class's Hearth's Warming party.


-----
 

As an early bloomer, little Sugar Belle had been quick to work on expanding her talent in baking.

She could smell the sweet, chocolatey aroma wafting from the oven, swirling around the room in an elegant dance. One sniff massaged her nose, and she could sense the individual ingredients that had been stirred into the dough, as well as being scattered all over the counter and floor. She could sense the distinct starchy dust known as flour, the sweet crystals of sugar, its brackish twin called salt, and the double whammy of baking chocolate and chocolate chips, combined with several other ingredients. 

With a smile, she eagerly watched the oven window like a movie, snuggling her fluffy moose doll, Mr. Chocolate. Each brown blob of dough had flattened into crisp islands on the baking sheet, with tiny pools of chocolate on them. Already her mouth was watering, and she was one hundred percent sure that her chocolate chocolate chip cookies were bound to be the talk of the school. 

A deep, gruff voice boomed above her. "Whatcha doing, sweetheart?"

She looked upward at the big, mauve unicorn stallion towering above her. With scruff on his chin that matched his curly, mulberry mane, he looked over her with a soft curiosity glistening in his green eyes.

Sugar Belle squeezed Mr. Chocolate. "Making cookies for my class. We're having a Hearth's Warming party at school."

The stallion, her father Herb, chuckled. "Is that so? Mind if I had a little taste test?"

Sugar Belle supposed that there was no harm done. The timer dinged, and Sugar Belle was quick to sit Mr. Chocolate down and open the oven door with her fledgling magic. The bang of the open door hitting the floor made her jump, and the heat blasted in her face and made her skin tingle with a little too much warmth. She squeezed her eyes shut, worried about her eyes being burnt.

Luckily, Herb managed to pull the cookie sheet out and close the over door in record time. As Sugar Belle opened her eyes, her father was already levitating a cookie and sniffing it. She watched as he tentatively took a bite, and chewed slowly. She could catch each crunch with her ears, and examined his stoic face.

Rubbing her hooves, she squeaked, "I know you like chocolate, Daddy. Lots of ponies like chocolate, so I thought it'd be perfect to make it for my class."

Herb swallowed the bite, and then stared coolly at Sugar Belle. She stared back in confusion, wondering why he wasn't shoving the whole cookie in his mouth, why he wasn't humming in delight, or why he wasn't even smiling. Watching as the stare grew colder and colder, her heartbeat grew in volume and tempo. She held still, anticipating his reaction.

Herb dropped the cookie, and crushed it. Sugar Belle gasped as he ground his hoof into the floor, her body feeling physical pain as the cookie was squished more and more. After a few tense seconds, Herb removed his hoof, revealing a pancake of chocolate on the floor. And to her horror, he used his magic to throw the other cookies onto the floor, and then stomped all over those.

"Daddy!" she shouted, jumping forward and trying to salvage some of her precious cookies. "What are you doing? Stop!"

Herb swiped the cookies she saved from her hooves, and crushed them with his magic. Glaring at her, he snarled, "Too chewy. Too much chocolate. Not enough flour, too much salt, vanilla's too bitter, and you let your hair fall in the dough!"

He threw the mound of chocolate at Sugar Belle's horn, and she reacted with a squeaky whinny of pain. As she rubbed her head and started to pull the cookie ball off her horn, Herb ordered, "Clean up this mess! I can't have my kitchen like this when I'm having friends over, and I don't want them to see the disaster you caused while baking that crap!" He narrowed his eyes. "And next time, your baking better match the talent you got your cutie mark for."

As Herb left in a huff, Sugar Belle managed to pull the cookie ball off her horn. She stared at the cookie ball, and then looked around at the mess in the kitchen she had made in her mixing of ingredients. She spent a good long minute staring at the remains of her cookies on the floor, and a lump formed in her throat.

She wiped her eye, pulled Mr. Chocolate close, and took a bite out of the cookie ball. "It doesn't taste that bad..."


-----


Sugar Belle shook her head and looked over Black Diamond's shoulder as he took another bowl and put the wet ingredients in, starting with the sugar. Or, at least, what looked like the sugar. She had a little moment of doubt, but she brushed it off, reasoning that he read the labels... and that salt containers were generally smaller than sugar containers. 

Black Diamond gave her a funny look. "Please stop breathing on my shoulder."





Once Black Diamond's gingerbread cookies were done, she moved on to the chocolate-and-nougat pretzels with Alta. In talking about the mountain quarry her great-grandfather had built and her older brother currently owned, she ended up burning the nougat and the chocolate. In her dash to take the nougat off the stove and try to fix it with extra sugar, she ended up accidentally tossing it onto her own head, which Sugar Belle had to pry off... only for her to stumble back and cause the chocolate to fall on her head. 

They remade the confections after washing their hair, though in her haste to finish up her turn, Alta ended up letting a few stray hairs from her mane and coat fall into them, and the little strands managed to hide from the both of them. 

Then, after the pretzels, it was the rice-cereal balls with Powder Snow. In melting the marshmallow, the big lug somehow got himself stuck to the floor. Sugar Belle had to pry him off the floor with a broom, putting her magical might in levering the sticky giant. 

She managed to free him, but at the cost of Double Diamond's broom. 

Finally, she got around to making fudge with Blue Square. She was not particularly looking forward to dealing with him, and wondered how long it'd take for him to annoy her with his extreme fussiness. 

It didn't take long, as he immediately started with counting the grains of sugar. And with him being an earth pony, it was going to take longer than it would have with Sugar Belle, a unicorn. Aside from that matter of a pointless chore that would be too time consuming, Sugar Belle was irritated with him for starting with the wrong ingredient. 

"Blue Square," she began. "You're supposed to begin with the milk, butter, and baking chocolate."

"Oh, I know, I know," Blue replied, carefully holding a tiny grain of sugar in between his hooves and dropping it in the cup. "I'm just making sure that all the ingredients are perfectly measured before I actually begin. I don't want a single grain of sugar out of place."

Sugar Belle sighed. "Why does the number even matter?"

"One grain means the difference between too sweet, too bitter, and absolutely perfect! It's not like you know anything about perfect, Little Miss Dusty Fudge--I can still taste that flour you didn't properly stir from two days before."

Sugar Belle blinked, and her eyes narrowed into a stony glare. Without even moving a single muscle of her body, she activated her magic, using it to snatch the cup and scoop up the sugar. Placing it back on the counter, she watched with mild satisfaction as Blue Square beheld the scene in horror.  

Then, Blue shrieked. "No! Now I have to start all over and make sure that the measurement is perfectly even with the exact amount of sugar crystals to fit in a cup!" He leaned forward and shook his hoof at her. "Do you know how many crystals that is, Missy?"

Still holding her intense glower and without missing a beat, she answered, "3,472."

Blue blinked. "Say, how did you--"

Sugar Belle got in his face. "I've. Counted." She backed him up into the wall, poking at his chest in order to emphasize certain words. "Stayed up all night as a ten-year-old filly just to count every single grain for just one cup, making sure that each and every grain fit perfectly into place as the cup was filled to the brim! Knowing just how long it takes to count to nearly thirty-five hundred, I'm not willing to wait for your tedious perfectionism so that you can satisfy your ego!"

Blue Square shuddered. "Whoa, whoa, take it easy, it's just a cup of sugar. No need to get mad about it."

Sugar Belle narrowed her eyes and snarled, "If there's no need for me to get mad about it, then there's no need for you to make a fuss over minor mistakes that nopony else will notice." She backed up and stared at him coolly. "Now... I want that fudge done today." 

Blue nodded. "Yes, Ma'am." With that, he shuffled back to the counter, and started doing the measurements as quickly as he could. 

Sugar Belle's face relaxed, and she leaned on the wall to catch her breath. Holding her chest and panting, she muttered, "Goodness, I scared myself..."



 

After the fudge was done and Sugar Belle made the peppermint meringue shells, Double Diamond soon returned, shaking snow off his coat and rambling on about the opening and how the celebration was going to go. He mentioned how the weather team was going to put on a show with their Wonderbolt guest, how Party Favor was banding together with others in order to decorate, and that everypony was eager for Sugar Belle and her cafe team to provide some treats. He was pleasantly surprised when his family took him into the kitchen and showed him the desserts they made. 

Double Diamond whistled. "Wow! You guys made those?"

Greenie nodded. "Yep! Miss Sugar Belle helped us!"

Sugar Belle nodded. "We had fun, though we had a few mishaps. 

Double Diamond looked around at the splatters of chocolate, marshmallow, and nougat all over the floor, walls and ceiling. He noted how dusty with flour the counters were, and felt sugar and salt crystals crunch under his hooves. He even noticed his broom snapped in half in the corner. With a sigh, he muttered, "I thought baking required some cleanup."

"You came in before we could even start."

Greenie bounced up and down. "Come on, try our treats, bro!"

Double Diamond laughed. "All right, don't mind if I do."

His first action was to take one of the peppermint meringue shells, which gained a nod of approval from him. He immediately deduced that it was Sugar Belle's work, and moved on to the others, seeing as those seemed full of promise with their alluring smells.

Next, he took one of Black Diamond's gingerbread cookies and took a bite. His face immediately contorted into a grimace, and he forced himself to swallow the bite. He glared at the cookie for a bit, and then turned to the others with a look of worry. 

"Salty..."

Sugar Belle blinked and glared at Black Diamond, who shrugged and mouthed, "Salt and sugar look the same to me."

"There are labels for a reason," Sugar Belle chided.

Double Diamond downed a glass of water, and wiped his mouth. "Okay... next one." He took a bite out of one of the the chocolate and nougat pretzels, and another expression of disgust came on his face. "Ugh... hairy." His taste test of the marshmallow rice cereal balls brought on the same reaction, as well as Sugar Belle shooting a look of disbelief at a sheepish Alta and Powder Snow. 

He took a bite out of Blue Square's fudge, with more of a mildly perplexed expression. "It's kind of bitter and... burnt?"

Blue Square backed up into a corner, and hissed, "I tried to make perfect measurements, I really tried! But she wouldn't let me! She thinks that not having the exact number of grains is unimportant, but I knew she was wrong!"

Sugar Belle groaned. "It's bitter because it was burnt, not because there's too little sugar in it; if anything there might actually be a little too much. Besides, you were panicking at the stove, that might have something to do with it."

"It's not my fault you're scary!"

Double Diamond held a hoof up. "Blue, chill. It's not the end of the world." He glanced at the lone unicorn in the room. "And Sugar Belle? Scary? I don't know, I think that's a bit of a stretch."

Greenie pawed at the floor. "Are you going to try my cookies or what? I made sure none of my hair got in the dough, and that I didn't confuse the salt and sugar, and they clearly aren't burnt! I think you'll like them."

"All right, all right..." Double Diamond swiped a sugar cookie and took a bite. With a perplexed expression upon hearing and feeling a squelchy crunch that wasn't anything like a cookie, he took a look at his bite mark. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, the unswallowed bite falling out of his mouth, and he tensed up as if the cookie was going to eat him back. 

Greenie frowned, feeling her heart being torn in two. "Did I put in too much baking powder?"

The horrified Double Diamond threw the cookie across the room, yelling, "Cockroach! There's a cockroach in my cookie!"

Double Diamond's brothers both started laughing at his reaction, bringing bout a glare and angry snorts from him. He shook his hoof as if to threaten them with a pounding, only refraining from doing so under the glares of his parents. Meanwhile, Greenie was wide eyed in shock, and turned to look at a certain part of the floor, the gears turning in her head. 

Sugar Belle blinked. "Cockroach? How did that get in there?"

Greenie's hoof brushed against the floor. "Well... I kinda dropped the dough while you weren't looking..."

"What?! Oh, no, don't you know that bakers and chefs don't use food that's been on the floor? It's contaminated even without the cockroach!"

The filly's ears drooped and she looked away. "I know... I just didn't want to waste ingredients."

"But you could've made somepony sick!"

Her eyes still wide and glistening, Greenie teared up, and then bolted out of the kitchen with sobs, much to Sugar Belle's dismay and heartbreak. Immediately, Alta noticed her daughter leave the room, and dashed right behind her. All was quiet as the boys turned and stared at the door, with Double Diamond clearly burdened with guilt. 

"Aw, man... darn bug phobia," Double Diamond muttered. 

"Entomophobia," Blue Square corrected. 

"You're not helping!"

Sugar Belle sighed. "Let's just clean up the kitchen."





Cleaning up the kitchen took the rest of the afternoon, and Sugar Belle had to leave that evening. With the others busy with other things, she donned her winter wear in front of the front door. She didn't feel quite satisfied with her Hearth's Warming--which was a shame, because she liked Double Diamond's family. 

But, alas, it was her last day with them, and tomorrow was going to be with Night Glider's family. 

Double Diamond approached her. "I'm sorry we didn't get to go sledding today. We would have shown you that we all have some sweet moves on skis and sleds."

"It's all right. I'm not sure Greenie is ready to look at me after the cockroach."

Double Diamond shuddered. "We need an exterminator in this town." He leaned on the wall. "To be honest, I think I was the ruder one. I mean, you don't throw a filly's cookie across the room, even if there is a bug in it. It may have offended her."

Sugar Belle sighed. "I can't believe you had to taste all those screwups..."

"Well... everypony makes mistakes, I won't hold a grudge."

Sugar Belle smiled at him, and then opened the door to leave. As she walked out into the cold night, Double Diamond grinned and saluted her, saying, "Don't worry, I'll have a talk with Greenie. Have fun with Night Glider's folks."