//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Sour Apple 
// by adchild 
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It was in my last year at Ward's that I awoke one night in November to hear thump, thump, thumping coming from downstairs, likely the back door in the kitchen. As I lay warm and snuggly under my quilts, I then heard Granny shuffling around. Then the thumping stopped.

        Rarity heard it, too. "What's that noise, AJ?"
        "I don't know. I sat up. "But I'm going to see."
        "No, don't go. Maybe it's timberwolves attacking. Don't leave me, AJ." She was sleeping with her Opal huddled next to her. Unfortunately, Opal heard the thumping, too, because she sat up and meowed loudly. Short little meows. I hushed her and patted her head and she settled down again. And when I saw that she had quieted, I crept downstairs, assuring Rarity it wasn't timberwolves.
          As I peeked into the kitchen, I saw a candle lit, casting a peculiar light across the floor. I stood there trembling as Granny opened the back door.
        What huddled there could scarce be called a stallion. He was on his haunches, looking up at Granny appealingly. "You put the sign on the back fence?"
        "My name is Granny. But yes, I put the sign on the fence. I'll feed you and get you on your way to the train. But you can't stay the night. My son'll be very angry, he finds out I'm doin' this."
        "Grateful, Granny, grateful," the stallion said.
        "Now you go on back to the barn. I'll bring out some victuals. Meat an' bread and somethin' warm fer you to wear," she told him.
        Then she closed the door in his face and turned. And saw me.
        "What you doin' there, child?" the harsh whisper came across the kitchen.
        "I heard the thumping."
        "Well you best forget what you hear."
        "Can I go outside with you to bring his food?"
        "No. An' you ain't to go tellin' anybody else 'bout this. If your stepma finds out, I'll be horse fodder."
        "Now go to bed," she directed. And I promised I would, as I watched her gather food in the kitchen. Then we both heard the stairs creak behind us in the hall and froze.
         It was Rarity.
         "What you doin' here?" Granny said in a loud whisper. "What is this, a May Day Parade?"
         "I wanted to see," Rarity stammered.
         "See what?" Granny asked.
         "I don't know. I was afraid it was timberwolves coming to scalp us."
         "Only me," Granny told her, "an' I'll scalp you if'n you doan get up to bed now."
         Rarity turned and ran. I stayed to watch Granny go out the back door to the barn with a single Lantern and tow along with some victuals.


The next day I asked her, "How do they know to come to our house?"
         She chuckled. "You invited them."
         "Me?"
         "Yes. 'Member the day you painted those flowers on the front of the fence?"
         "You helped me, Granny."
         "Yes, but you didn't know why you were doin' it, did you?"
         "I thought I was just painting some flowers on the fence."
         "No. You were invitin' runaways to stop. You were tellin' 'em that here, in this place, if they wuz careful they could get food and clothes on their way to the train. You better talk to that Rarity filly. If'n she tells Dahlia, we're all finished."
         I just stared at her in wonderment. I was young enough to think it all exciting and to think of Granny as a hero. To think, right in the midst of us all, this was going on. But I had a question.
        "How long have you been doing this?" I asked.
        "Not long 'nuf."
        I continued staring while she kneaded some pie dough.
        "Things ain't always what you think, little one," she told me. And then she chuckled. "The next time you paint some flowers on a fence, think what you might be really doin'."


"It was just a traveler who lost his way last night," I told Rarity later that morning.
        We were both eating. It was Saturday. And I wondered if my "traveler" had gotten safely to the train.
        "I'm not stupid, AJ. I know what it was. I know Granny is using this place as a safe house for runaway ponies."
        I was trembling inside. Would she hold this over me now? Make me do things I didn't want to? She had every chance to lord it over me, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
        "I looked out our upstairs window and saw her taking the food to the barn," she said. "What else could it be? We had ponies who would do it in Canterlot, too."
        "Rarity, if you tell Dahlia...," I started to say.
        She leveled her blue eyes at me. "I said I'm not stupid," she repeated.
        I breathed a sigh of relief.
        "And AJ, I won't hold this over you. You don't have to worry. If you don't really trust me yet, I want you to know that."
        Like Granny Smith said, things ain't always what they seem to be. And the next time I went to paint flowers on a fence I'd remember that.


When I was fourteen, I got my puppy.
        At breakfast Pa said he had something to show me outside. I should have known what it was because of the looks and giggles of everypony at the table. And because of what Dahlia said.


       "Bright, you didn't."
       "Yes I did, Dahlia. Though it was forced on me. Payment for a debt I was owed. I thought, why not?"
       "Because she's a little ruffian now. She doesn't need anymore encouragement."
       He murmured something back to her. I couldn't hear what. Because by now Big Mac was leading over to me the most beautiful chocolate colored puppy I had ever seen.
       "AJ, this is Winona," Pa said. "She's yours."
       "Providing you behave yourself," Dahlia put in "Or I'll take away playing privileges."
       "He's yours," Pa said again.
       I embraced the little darling, who put her nose into my mane just as if she knew she belonged to me. I patted her, happier than I've been in a long time.
       "Can I take her for a walk?" I asked. There was a regular collar on her."
       "Only for a little bit," Dahlia directed.
       "Go ahead," Pa said. And he helped me put the leash on Winona.


By Spring, there were ten ponies in the house, to Dahlia's dismay. From my Granny, who was fifty three, down to three year old AppleBloom.
        Dahlia's patience was tried. She cried most of the time. She took to her room and stayed there and left the doings of the household to us.
        Then came the announcement from my cousin, Red June, that she was to marry Honey Daze and move to Manehatten. When they had settled she would invite Apple Fritter to live with them.
        I think it was the only thing that kept Dahlia sane. And I think she wished that Red June would also take me. I know I did.


Red June's wedding took place at the farm and the whole place was in an uproar for two weeks preceding. Rarity and I were invited to be bridesmaids, and here is where I got my say in a matter of grave importance to me.
       "If I'm to be a bridesmaid, I don't want to wear a dress," I told Dahlia.
       "How would it look for others to wear pretty dresses and not you?"
       "If I have to wear a dress, I don't want to be a bridesmaid. And I'm too old to scatter rose petals. So that means I can't be in my cousin's wedding. And I know Pa wants me to be in the wedding."
      "You are a limb of Cerberus," she said, "to corner me."
      "If I could go to Manehatten with Red June, I would."
      "You're too young. But you are going somewhere. You and Rarity are going to Madame Mentelle's boarding school when you graduate from Ward's. Your education isn't finished."
      "I don't want it to be."
      She was doing some embroidery. And never once did she look up at me. "What you don't know is that you will stay there all week and Big Mac will fetch Rarity home every evening. That is what you don't know."
      I felt the room swirl in front of me. Something fell and crashed on the floor of my soul. She was putting me out. As discreetly as she could.
      I didn't have to wear a dress, but at what price? Like Granny had said, the next time I painted flowers on a fence I should stop and think about what I was really doing.