• Published 22nd Jan 2013
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School of Hard Knocks - Hoopy McGee



Big crimes go to big ponies to solve. Small crimes? Those are mine.

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Bonus chapter: Cutie-pocalypse Now

“In that case, there are a few things I need to take care of,” I said.

“Such as?” Mom asked.

“Such as heading back to the Plum’s house for a little while.” I grinned up at her. “Mulberry promised to take care of something for me.”

A hurt look flashed across Mom’s face. “You’re leaving already?”

“Just for a little while,” I said.

The look on her face was tearing at my heart. I walked over to her, reared up on my back hooves and gave her a hug.

“I’ll be back,” I said into the fur of her chest. I felt her foreleg wrap around my back. “I just need to go take care of a few things.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice soft.

We held that way for a few seconds before breaking. I let myself back down on all four hooves and studied the floor for a few seconds. Some dust must have gotten in my eyes.

When I felt ready, I looked up at her just in time to see her smile. I smiled back.

“See ya soon,” I said as I walked to the front door.

“See you soon,” she replied.

I closed the door gently behind me and finally felt able to breathe again. Things had turned out far better than I’d expected. Mom had agreed to therapy, I wasn’t restricted by the Deal anymore, and above and beyond anything else, I now had the poison joke cure.

The little lavender pouch with the blue flower embroidered on it was hanging from its drawstring, which was looped around my neck. I reached up a hoof to touch it, as if to reassure myself that it was actually there.

I couldn’t help breaking into a wide grin. For the first time in weeks, my heart felt like it was beating freely. The world was stretched out before me, and I could take whatever path I wanted. I was free.

But first, there was a little matter I needed to take care of at the Pudding house. Mulberry had asked me to let her know if I’d need the guest room tonight. She had also promised to give me a manecut if things worked out right, and dammit if I wasn’t going to take advantage of that just as soon as I could.

I was nearly skipping as I trotted down the road, my hooves feeling light as a feather as I moved through the light Sunday crowd. The wide smile on my face felt like a permanent part of my features. That is, until I saw a suspicious flash of pink out of the corner of my eye.

Suddenly, I was wary and on edge again. I walked quickly towards where I’d seen that pink, and sure enough I saw a familiar pony walking down the street. She was wearing a pensive frown and staring at the cobblestones as she walked, an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on her face.

“Pinkie Pie,” I said, not loudly. She jumped anyway, as if I’d blown a trumpet in her ears.

“Cinnamon!” she yelped. “Ah! Hah! Hi! Er… Hi. How are ya?”

My eyes narrowed as a wide and slightly plastic grin stretched its way across Pinkie’s face. Definitely not suspicious at all.

“So, what are you up to?” I asked the pink pony.

“Uh, nothing,” she replied.

I scowled at her. If this pony had looked any more shifty, she would have been arrested just on general principle.

“What’s in the bags?” I asked.

Pinkie blinked her big blue eyes. “What bags?” she asked.

“The ones hanging off your back,” I said deadpan as I pointed at her saddlebags. “The ones that look like they’re about to explode, they’re packed so full. Those bags.”

“Oh,” Pinkie said, looking back at the bags as if she’d never seen them before. “These bags?”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying you want to know what’s in these bags,” Pinkie said. “Only, I wanted to be sure that’s what you were asking, and you weren’t asking about those bags back there.”

Pinkie pointed a hoof back over my shoulder and I was cursing myself even as I started looking. It was the oldest trick in the book. I snapped my head back around… to see Pinkie Pie still standing in front of me with a stunned expression on her face.

“You’re still here,” I said, surprised.

“I wasn’t expecting that you’d actually fall for that,” she admitted sheepishly.

“So, the bags?”

“Well, just a few odds and ends,” Pinkie said. Her plastic grin widened. “I’m taking some souvenirs back to Ponyville!”

“Right,” I said. She wilted slightly under my glare, but the smile stayed put. “So, you don’t have any weird plans?”

“Weird plans? I don’t know what you oh, my gosh, what’s that?!” Pinkie shrieked, pointing a trembling hoof behind me.

“Like I’m gonna fall for—hey!”

Pinkie just took off running. Credit where it’s due, that pony is fast. I stared after her until she vanished around a corner. Then I shrugged and continued on my way. The sooner I got to the Pudding house, the better.

Mulberry looked surprised to see me when she opened the door. “Back already? And not a stallion, I see.”

I shook my head. “Nope. It actually went better than I’d hoped it would. She’s agreed to go to therapy, I agreed to stay a filly on my terms while she works some stuff out.”

“Oh, Cinnamon, I’m so happy for you!”

“Yeah… it’s a huge weight off my withers, I can tell you,” I replied. “So, anyway… you mentioned you might be willing to..?”

I flipped my heavy braid with a hoof. Mulberry’s look of understanding was almost immediately eclipsed by one of worry. When she laughed, there was a nervous edge to it. “Well, um. Sure, I guess. Come on in!”

I frowned. Mulberry was acting a little strangely, but the why of it was escaping me. Still, it wasn’t like it made sense to stand out on the doorstep until I figured it out. I went inside the house, wondering what was up.

“Why don’t we, uh…” Mulberry trailed off, looking around with a hopeless expression on her face.

I was immediately pierced by a sense of guilt. The mare and her family had been through hell this last week, and here I was demanding a manecut out of nowhere. It was pretty clear she wasn’t comfortable with doing this right that moment. I decided to get out of the situation as gracefully as I could.

“You know, it doesn’t have to be right now,” I said. “It could be tomorrow after school. Or I could just grab some scissors and do it myself.”

“What? No! Don’t you dare try to cut your own mane!” Mulberry shuddered. “That never turns out well. Wait, did you say school?”

“Yeah. May as well go back. Not like I’ve got a lot else to do. Maybe Persimmon will let me read books during the more boring lessons.”

“Oh, I… um. I see.” Mulberry fidgeted on her front hooves for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I’ll do the manecut. I’ll do it tonight, even! I just need to figure out where…”

Mulberry trailed off as her daughter wandered out of the kitchen with a case of juice boxes balanced on her back. Plum stopped, then stared at me with something that looked disturbingly like panic.

“Cinnamon?!” she blurted. “You’re not supposed to—”

“Plum!” Mulberry’s voice was loud enough to make the filly jump. “Can you, uh… Oh! Can we use your room? I was going to give Cinnamon a quick manecut.”

“Are you sure, Mom?” Plum asked before shooting me an aside glance. “But what about the..?”

“Nevermind!” Mulberry replied hastily. “We can worry about that later! The important thing is to get her... oh, sorry, him up to your room right now and out of the living room.”

Something in that bizarrely accented statement must have clicked in Plum’s head, because a look of sudden comprehension came over her.

“Ohhhh, right! My room!” Plum smiled weakly. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m, uh… I’m going to just wait down here. For… um… very good reasons.”

“Right,” I said, forcing my face to remain straight.

“So, um… have a good time getting your mane cut!”

“Up we go, then,” I said. “See you later, Plum.”

Plum sagged with relief, which meant that she had to reach back quickly to steady the case of juice boxes as it started to slide off of her back.

“And I got all this juice out because I’m very, very thirsty,” Plum said desperately.

“Of course,” I said, as Mulberry groaned and facehoofed next to me.

“Uh, later, Cinnamon!” Plum said.

“Later, Plum.”

I bounded my way up to Plum’s room. Mulberry trailed behind me after making a detour to grab a chair, a large bath towel and a pair of mane shears. She smiled awkwardly at me as I climbed up into the chair. Then she draped the towel around me to catch any stray clippings.

“So, how do you want it?” she asked, then flinched at the sound of somepony knocking on the front door.

“Short,” I said. “I want it easy to wash. Oh, and you can take all the time you want.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” I grinned at up at her. “After all, we wouldn’t want to wrap this up while they’re still setting up the party, right?”

Mulberry sighed. “You figured it out, huh?”

“Subtlety isn’t exactly Plum’s strong suit,” I said with a shrug. “I assume it’s all Pinkie’s idea?”

“Yeah, she came back shortly after you left…” Mulberry trailed off thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how much I should tell you about it.”

“Ah. It’s a surprise party, then?”

“Damn,” Mulberry whispered. Then she flushed a deep red. “I mean, um… Yes. Well, it was supposed to be.”

I sighed. “I hate surprise parties,” I admitted.

“Oh. Should I tell them to call it off?”

“What, are you kidding?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “I would rather cut off my tail than disappoint Plum like that!”

Mulberry’s look of surprise melted away into a warm smile. “You're a good friend, Cinnamon.”

Now it was my turn to blush. “I just can’t break a little kid’s heart, that’s all,” I muttered.

Mulberry’s smile was a little too knowing for comfort. “Well, let’s get started, then,” she said.

The next half an hour passed faster than I would have expected. Great huge hunks of my mane were clipped away to fall in a golden pile on the floor. Meanwhile, Mulberry and I talked about nothing much in particular. I talked about my past, mostly anecdotes about my brothers being immature jerks, and Mulberry mentioned her sister and some of the good and bad times they had growing up together.

All the while, we both did our best to ignore the sounds coming from the first floor as guests arrived and furniture was rearranged. I wondered vaguely who all was here. Aside from Plum, there weren’t many ponies I could think of who would come to a surprise party for me. Hopefully Pinkie hadn’t done something too crazy, like invite my entire class from school.

“All done,” Mulberry said eventually. She went over to Plum’s dresser and nabbed a small hoof-mirror, which she brought over and held up in front of me.

The difference was amazing. I’d asked for short, and that’s what I’d gotten. The ridiculous braid was gone and my mane was now a coltish few inches in length. I turned from side to side to get a better look, noticing right away how much lighter my head felt.

“It looks good,” I said finally, rubbing a hoof along my head and enjoying how it felt. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Mulberry said with a smile. “Well, I guess I’ll go down and see how your party is going.”

I nodded. “I’ll wait up here. Let me know when it’s time to come down and be surprised.”

Mulberry snickered as she walked out of the room. I spent a while poking around Plum’s room, looking at the pictures on her wall and desk and reading the spines of the books she had in her little bookcase. During that time, I heard the front door open a couple more times, and the occasional burst of voices downstairs.

Even with the great relief I’d felt when my mom had agreed to therapy, even with getting the cure, I was worn out. I wasn’t in the mood for a party.

“Hey, Cinnamon!” Plum’s voice called from downstairs. “Stop messing around in my room and come down here!”

I sighed. For Plum’s sake, I would act surprised. I would act happy. I would pretend to enjoy this party, no matter how desperately I just wanted it to be over.

I braced myself before I walked down the stairs. I had expected them to jump out at me the minute my first hoof hit the ground floor, but nothing happened. Nopony was there. I looked around as I tried to figure out where the heck everypony was and then made my way to the living room.

Somepony, a filly by the sounds of it, giggled as I walked into the living room. So, this is where it was going to happen. I put on my best confused face and called out, “Plum?”

It came from my blind spot. I had barely sensed the movement of something dropping from the ceiling and landing behind me before that same something shrieked “Surprise!” directly into my ear.

I didn’t exactly need to pretend being surprised. I jumped halfway out of my skin, heart hammering as I jumped and stumbled sideways. Somewhere in the distance, a little filly screamed. I could only hope that it wasn’t me.

“I gotcha!” Pinkie Pie said, grinning hugely.

I could only stare at her for a long moment, my hoof clasped to my chest while I waited for my heart to explode or my lungs to collapse.

“You pink maniac!” I eventually managed.

“Surprise!” came from behind me, though I wasn’t startled this time. I turned to see several fillies pop out from behind random bits of furniture. Except for Plum, none of them were from my class, but I recognized them all. Plum’s friends from the slumber party, all of them with huge grins on their faces.

Pinkie chose that moment to turn on the light switch for the Pudding’s living room, and my jaw dropped at the changes I saw. The furniture had been pushed back against the walls to clear out a central space. Streamers in every color were strewn around the room, along with balloons tied anywhere there was space. The balloons also came in an eye-watering variety of colors, and more shapes than I could easily register. There were even some twisted into balloon animal shapes, bobbing festively at the ends of their strings.

The table was laden with a gigantic punchbowl, and the juice boxes from earlier were stacked in a pyramid next to the bowl, giving ponies an option for drinks. But I barely noticed that, because dominating the table was a multi-tiered construction of pastel colored confection, easily the largest cake I’d ever seen. I swear, the heavy oak table was bowed and groaning beneath the weight of it.

To put a topper on the decorations, a huge banner was tacked on the wall above the cake. It read “Happy Cute-ceañera Cinnamon Sugar Swirl!”

I blanched as I read my full name, exposed on the rippling cloth. Pointing a trembling hoof at the sign, I turned to Pinkie and demanded to know, “How did you know my full name?!”

“I told her,” a familiar voice said. Mom stepped into the living room, a look of horror on her face. “What did you do to your mane?!”

“Cut it,” I said. “It suits me better like this.”

“You could have asked me!” She stomped a hoof and laid her ears back. “You look like a boy!”

Red flashed before my eyes. I opened my mouth, a stinging reply loaded. Plum cut me off, which probably spared everypony in the room from having to listen to the two of us arguing.

“Yeah, it looks awesome!” Plum said as she trotted forward. “Hey, did we surprise you?”

I looked into her hopeful, grinning face and gave her the only answer I could. “You could definitely say I’m surprised, Plum.”

“Success!” Pinkie crowed, clapping her forehooves together.

“Where the heck did you get that cake?” I asked Pinkie Pie.

“Oh! That was super easy,” she said. “I went to the local bakery to see what they had, and it turned out that some ponies who were going to get married today canceled at the last minute. Something about the groom being arrested for corruption and conspiracy regarding some sort of smuggling operation. So I got it for cheap!”

“Ah,” I said, trying to process exactly how I felt about that and failing.

“And I even got them to put your cutie mark on it!” Pinkie said excitedly before scooping me up. She reared up on her hind hooves and held me up towards the ceiling, ignoring my reflexive bleat of protest. “See?”

“Put me down, you lunatic!” I shouted.

“Look at the cutie mark!” Pinkie demanded. “Look at it!”

I looked at the top of the cake. The frosting on the very top, where the figures for the bride and groom would have been, had obviously been replaced. Into the new frosting was etched a green police shield with a magnifying glass.

“It’s the wrong color,” I said flatly.

“What?!” Pinkie lowered me to her eye-level and stared at my flank. “Oooh!” she said, stamping a rear hoof. “If they hadn’t done that for free, I’d ask for my money back!”

“It’s fine!” I said, in a voice distressingly close to a panicked squeal. “We’re just going to eat it anyway, right?”

“But… I wanted this to be perfect.”

I looked over at the mare and was startled to see her lower lip wobbling and tears welling up in her eyes. Guilt stabbed at me.

“Pinkie, it is perfect,” I said quickly. “So the design is a little off. It’s still going to taste good, right?”

“Yeah!” Plum said, adding in her two bits. “It’s going to be great, Pinkie! Nopony else could have put together a party like this in such a short time. It’s fantastic!”

“Really?” Pinkie said, squeezing me to her chest in a hug and ignoring my attempts to wriggle out of it.

“Really,” I grated, no longer feeling guilty at all. “Could you put me down?”

“Oh, sure,” she said.

And then that crazy mare dropped me. I fell on my backside and glared up at her, but she was too busy being oblivious to notice. While Plum helped me back up on my hooves, I glanced around the room, taking in everypony. Peachy Keen, Lilac and Windy were all talking in a group. Mom was off sulking in a corner, probably upset about my mane, and Mulberry was standing next to her and talking softly.

Lemon Squeeze was standing by herself in the middle of the room. The little yellow unicorn’s wide eyes suddenly narrowed with determination as she stared at the gigantic cake on the table.

“When are we eating?” the filly demanded of the room at large.

“Whenever Cinnamon says we can,” Pinkie Pie chirped.

I shrank back as Lemon turned her megawatt stare onto me, comprised of equal parts eagerness, pleading and demand. And she wasn’t the only one. All of the fillies in the room locked their eyes onto me, staring as if I was the last hope they had before starving to death.

“Any time is fine with me,” I said with a shrug. “Let’s cut the cake.”

A general cheer went up, and I waved off Pinkie’s attempt to pass me a cake knife. That cake was too huge. I’d just end up making a mess out of the thing if I tried to cut it.

Soon enough, everypony but Pinkie Pie had a piece of repurposed and very expensive wedding cake. Pinkie was too busy passing out plates and napkins, getting drinks, and putting on the music. I groaned internally when I recognized Sapphire Shores belting out some homogenized pop song from the record player. But, hey, at least the cake was good.

Plum waved down Pinkie Pie after a few minutes and whispered something in her ear. Pinkie grinned, nodded, and zipped off. A few seconds later, Sapphire’s voice disappeared with the sound of a scratching needle. Moments later, a familiar tune came from the corner where the record player sat.

“Now this is music,” I said, as Days and Night’s third and best album began to play.

“If you say so, grandpa,” Plum said, grinning while she nudged me in the ribs.

“I ain’t that old, kid,” I said with a snort. She stuck her tongue out at me, and I couldn’t help laughing.

And, you know, it turns out that the party wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Not that I was enjoying myself, of course. I mean, playing pin the tail on the pony was a little juvenile, and it’s not like I had any fun when we played beanbag tic-tac-toe, especially since Pinkie Pie went undefeated. I only smiled a few times when we played charades. Whacking that piñata with a stick may have been satisfying, but that was just because it let me work out some of my frustrations. And when we went out back to play a long and chaotic game of freeze tag, I barely laughed at all, and…

Fine. I had fun, dammit, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

From time to time, I would see Mom as she watched us play. The look on her face was… complicated. She was smiling and looked about to burst out crying at the same time. It wasn’t a sour note, not exactly, but I didn’t know how to deal with it. So, I didn’t. I kept my mind on the games as the day flew by.

Sugar filled us to the brim as we went back for seconds, thirds, and even (in Lemon Squeeze’s case) fifths of that deliciously rich cake with its buttery frosting. As the sun went down and the party moved back indoors, we found the little yellow filly on the floor, groaning and lying on her back. She started to lever herself up, her head rising over her distended belly like a tiny yellow sun.

“C’n I have more cake?” she whispered plaintively, the pain evident in her voice.

“Sweetie, I think you’ve had enough,” Mulberry said. “You’re going to be sick if you keep that up.”

“You did good, though, kid,” Pinkie Pie said after she downed her eighth slice of cake. “Almost kept up with me!”

Lemon scowled and rocked back and forth until she had enough momentum to roll back up onto her hooves. When she glared at the cake, I followed her gaze. Even with as much as we’d eaten, we’d barely dented the thing. There must have been enough cake there for a couple hundred ponies and, even with the top two layers gone, the thing still stood taller than I did.

I saw trouble in the filly’s eyes as she marched her way slowly towards the table. Her face was set into a mask of pained determination, and I knew in an instant that this filly wasn’t going to let any mere cake beat her.

It was when she reared up on her hind hooves and tried to climb up onto the table that I realized that I’d underestimated her resolve. I shouted and started moving forward, but it was too late. The table, already overloaded, began to tip forward.

Lemon, her eyes wide and panicked, let go and started scrambling away. The other fillies shrieked in dismay as the table began to topple. The cake started moving forward, at first with a deceptively glacial slowness that gave way to a rapid but inexorable slide off of the table.

Time slowed down. Everypony was out of the way except for Plum, who was staring wide-eyed at the confectionary avalanche about to fall on her. I rushed forward, intending to knock her out of the way, but she chose that exact moment to try and bolt... in my direction.

My hooves skidded across the floor as I tried to stop myself. Plum and I ended up colliding, knocking the wind out of both of us as an enormous shadow loomed over the two of us. Plum grabbed hold of me, panic making her grip me like a vice, and started inhaling for what would have no doubt been an ear-splitting scream if only she’d had a chance to utter it.

And then the cake hit us. It was like being hit with a very heavy pillow, knocking the two of us to the floor with Plum still holding onto me. I pushed up with my hooves and my head popped out of the cake like a jack-in-the-box, and then I heaved, pulling Plum out of the cake and frosting that was now heaped on the floor.

Plum looked around with a stunned expression on her face. I waited and worried, hoping she wouldn’t be too upset that her party had just been ruined. Finally, her eyes made it around to me, and she just stared for a few seconds.

“Cinnamon,” she said gravely, “I think you have some cake in your hair.”

I smiled uncertainly as Plum burst out into hysterical giggles. The others in the room started laughing too, as if they’d been waiting on Plum’s reaction to tell if this situation were funny or not. Mulberry clucked her tongue and pulled her daughter out of the sticky mess, and my mom did the same for me while ignoring my protests that I could get myself out.

“Well,” Pinkie Pie said, “so much for sending home a few slices of cake with everypony!”

Lilac groaned at that. “Nice going, Lemon… hey!”

I glanced around to see Lemon Squeeze, an expression of pained satisfaction on her face, muzzle-deep into the collapsed cake and chewing with a relentless determination.

“No, sweetie,” Mulberry said as she pulled the filly away from the floor cake. “We don’t eat food off of the floor.”

Lemon made mumbling protests around the cake in her mouth as she flailed her hooves. Mulberry glanced at a window and heaved what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief.

“It’s getting late, and it’s a school night,” the mare said. “Maybe we should wrap this up. Lilac, can you keep your sister away from the cake?”

“Yes, Missus Pudding,” Lilac said, then immediately had to bite on her younger sister’s tail to keep her from running back to the crime scene.

“You know,” Plum said as I tried in vain to get the frosting out of my mane, “I was totally getting out of the way until you tried to ‘rescue’ me.”

“Yeah...” I said slowly. “Sorry about that, Plum.”

“So, I think it’s only fair to say you owe me for all of this.”

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “What is it that you want? I don’t have any money. You want some of the plushes out of my bedroom? I’m planning on getting rid of them.”

“No, though I’ll definitely take a few if you don’t want them.”

“Okay, then what?”

“You. Me. Playground, tomorrow. We do whatever I want the whole recess.”

I snorted and looked around. The fillies were already gathering by the door. Lemon was looking back at the cake with a forlorn longing in her eyes. I hoped the kid wasn’t going to be too scarred by this.

Much to my surprise, my own mother was coming out of the kitchen, hauling a broom, dustpan and garbage can. She set to, cleaning up the cake with a relentless efficiency while ignoring Lemon’s distressed squeaks from the doorway.

“Fine by me,” I said. “I owe you that much for throwing me the party.”

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie protested. “I helped!”

“You sure did, Pinkie,” I said with a solemn nod. “Thanks.”

Pinkie Pie beamed at me. It sure didn’t take much to make that mare happy.

“Almond?” Mulberry called from the doorway. My mom dropped the broom into the crook of her foreleg and looked up at her. “I’m going to walk the girls home. I can clean the cake up when I get back, but those two are going to need a bath.”

“Oh, I’ll clean up the cake,” Pinkie said. “Why don’t you get the girls into the bathtub?”

“I’m not a—” I started saying.

“Sounds good to me!” Mom said over me. I scowled up at her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Alright, then,” Mulberry said, looking relieved. “Say goodnight, girls!”

“‘Night, all!” Plum said cheerfully. “Thanks for coming!”

She elbowed me in the ribs, prompting me to add, “Yeah, thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting us!” Peachy Keen said, and Windy nodded next to her.

“Sorry about Lemon,” Lilac said. “But we had fun! Didn’t we, Lemon?”

Lemon opened her mouth to say something, went a little cross-eyed, and then vomited noisily. Mulberry sighed and pressed a hoof to her forehead as the rest of the girls all shrieked in dismay and backed away from the mess.

“Rookie mistake,” Pinkie Pie said sadly from behind me. “The kid has potential, but she should have stopped half a slice earlier.” After a few seconds she added, “Wow, look at her go!”

It was pretty impressive, in an extremely horrifying way.

“Fantastic,” Mulberry said sourly once the filly was done.

“Sorry,” Lemon Squeeze mumbled.

Something about the shamed and miserable expression on Lemon Squeeze’s face moved me a little.

“Hey, it’s okay, kid,” I said. “I had fun, and you helped me have fun. So, I mean it when I say ‘Thank you’.”

The little filly looked at me for a moment, still looking a little green. But then she smiled. “I had fun, too,” she said.

“And on that note, I think it’s time to get you girls home,” Mulberry said as she stepped carefully around the mess in her foyer. “I’ll be back soon,” she said, then closed the front door behind her.

“Did you really have fun?” Plum asked me, a note of hope in her voice.

I hesitated for a moment and then shrugged. What was the point of hiding it? “Yeah, I had fun,” I said with a smile. “Thanks, Plum. For everything.”

We exchanged an extremely sticky hug, which my mother decided to interrupt.

“Bath time!” Mom said cheerfully. Ignoring my protests, she began herding us towards the stairs and, after asking Plum for directions, into the bathroom.

“Wait, wait, we’re going to take a bath at the same time?” I asked as my mom began filling the tub with steaming hot water.

“Why waste water?” Mom asked.

“Don’t worry, Cinnamon,” Plum said chipperly beside me. “I’ll let you play with the rubber duck.”

I opened my mouth intending to object. What came out instead was an unexpected laugh.

“Fine, you all win,” I said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

In the end, we were in the bathroom for over an hour. It could have been longer, but I’d had my mane cut nice and short earlier that day and was cleared of frosting in a matter of twenty minutes or so.

Plum took a bit more work, her wild mane holding onto the cake as if it were trying to absorb it. It took no less than five shampoos and rinses to get it all out, and even then she still smelled of vanilla. Mom helped her dry off as I cleaned out the tub, rinsing down the last crumbs of cake.

Mulberry had returned during Plum’s second rinse, poking her head into the bathroom just long enough to see that Mom had everything under control. She smiled and tipped me a wink before she withdrew. I don’t think either Mom or Plum noticed her.

I stopped mid-yawn when I got downstairs and looked around in wonder. The cake had been cleaned, as well as Lemon’s little “accident” by the front door. The furniture had been moved back to where it belonged, and all evidence of the party was gone.

“Wow,” I said, truly impressed. Apparently, Pinkie can clean quickly when she wants to.

“I know,” Mulberry said as she came out of the living room. “Oh, before she left, Pinkie wanted me to give you this.”

I took the little envelope from her, opened it and read it. Then I read it again.

“Huh,” I said. “Well, I guess she has a point.”

“What does it say?” Mom asked as she came down the stairs, a still-damp Plum trailing behind her.

I read the card out loud:

Dear Cinnamon, I hope you had a fun time! And I know things have been hard on you, because I know what it’s like to feel like you’re in the wrong body! But always remember, you are who you think you are. So, try to think of yourself as somepony wonderful, because you are!

Love and smooches,

Pinkie Pie

“Aww, that’s so sweet!” Plum said, giving me a slightly soggy hug.

“Yeah,” I said. “I feel bad, now.”

“Why is that?” Plum asked.

“I always blamed her for what happened to me. And it wasn’t really even her fault, when you get right down to it.” I frowned. “And I completely forgot about her going through the same thing, only worse.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the whole story,” Plum said.

“I admit, I’m interested too,” Mulberry added.

I glanced at my mom, who just shrugged.

“Alright, I guess I can tell you all about it,” I said. When Plum yawned, I chuckled and added, “Maybe not tonight, though.”

“Maybe not,” Mulberry said wryly.

We said our goodbyes, which included another hug from Plum and, surprisingly, Mulberry. Mom got a pair of hugs as well, which apparently shocked her down to her hooves. She didn’t stop smiling all the way home.

My mother and I stood awkwardly in our front hallway for a while, neither of us knowing what to say. I found my eyes drawn to the damaged wall between the hallway and the living room. The hole was ragged and ugly, but I knew it could be patched. Maybe I’d always think of the hole that was there even after it had been filled in. But then, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe we would be able to move on…

I cut myself off when I realized I was thinking in metaphors.

“Mom,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “I know things between us have been… well, broken, I guess. But we can fix it. It will take a lot of work, but we can fix it.”

“Yeah,” Mom said. Then she added impishly, “I was looking at the hole in the wall, too.”

I couldn’t help it, I just started laughing. I didn’t even protest when she pulled me into a tight hug. Instead, I hugged her back. I didn’t have my mom back, not yet, but I could definitely feel her there in that embrace.

“I’m going to bed,” I said when we broke off the hug. “I have a lot I want to get done tomorrow.”

“Good night, Cinnamon,” she said.

I trotted up to my room and looked around. Pink and white filled my vision, along with a plush softness that still irked me. Still, I took some comfort in the knowledge that change was inevitable. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start making those changes.

I clambered into bed, and ended up having the best night of sleep I’d had in weeks.

Author's Note:

I didn't feel comfortable putting this in the middle of the last chapter. I felt like it didn't fit, like it broke the flow of that chapter. I think it works better as a bonus chapter, and I hope that you do, too.

As always, many thanks to my editing team, listed in no particular order:
Merlos the Mad
Brilliant Point
Coandco
Ekevoo
(I should write it that way all the time, from now on. I like the slope their names make!)
With a special guest appearance by Ludicrous Lycan, providing thoughts and insights of a pre-readery nature.

Also, a quick "Thanks that she'll never see" to Allie Brosh of "Hyperbole and a Half" for her "God of Cake" blog post, which was part the inspiration for Lemon Squeeze in this chapter. The rest of the inspiration was, well, I really like cake.