The candy bouquets arrived—by Silver Spoon’s humble estimation—at seven-thirty, after the schoolhouse doors opened but before the first bell. Nopony, Miss Cheerilee included, had seen a deliverypony enter or leave, nor had anypony seen a student carrying them in. No wagons, no carriages, no carts. Nothing.
In a rare display of insight, Snails theorized the candy had been teleported in. Berry Pinch and Rumble agreed, though everypony else found themselves too occupied with stuffing candied flowers, lollipops, and butterscotch in their faces to care one way or the other where their great bounty had come from.
The scent of multiple candies swirled together in a wave of sweetness that tickled noses and tempted bellies. Silver Spoon circled the long way around to her desk, eyeing individual baskets of arranged sweets as she passed. Not a single generic basket in sight.
A peppermint skyscraper cocked to the left of Twist’s saddlebag, structurally reinforced by two peppermint bark bridges and a frothy marshmallow river. Twist edged a tenuous hoof toward a bridge spire, paused, and chewed her bottom lip. She went for one of the marshmallows instead.
“You know, it’d be better to eat the peppermint first.” Silver pointed at the base of the skyscraper. “It’s what’s holding up the rest of it, see?”
“But it’th tho pretty! I don’t want to hurt it.” Twist opted to put the marshmallow back where it came from instead.
“That’s silly. You’re s’posed to eat candy, not look at it.” Two desks away, President Pipsqueak nosed through the rubble of what had once been an elegant Buckinghoof Palace built from candy bars. A minor avalanche of chocolate tumbled into his mouth. “Goow mownin Filfer Ffoon!” He waved her down with a sticky brown hoof.
Eyeing the chocolate splattering Pip’s cheeks and muzzle, Silver opted to keep a healthy distance. She couldn’t tell where the stains ended and the president’s natural coat pattern began. Hopefully Shady Daze wasn’t snapping photos for the Foal Free Press today. “Good morning, Pip.”
“I’ll say it is! Blimey, this is the best, innit?” He mowed down another bar in four bites. “I haven’t had these chocs since we moved to Ponyville—maybe even longer!”
Silver adjusted her glasses and bent her neck to examine one of the wrappers. She didn’t recognize any of the brands or labels, but they all bore strange fonts and the quality seal of Trottingham’s world-famous candy shops. They had to be imports—if not overseas, then from a high-end specialty store in Manehattan or Canterlot.
“Yes,” said Silver Spoon. “It’s a... thoughtful present, isn’t it?” Not to mention expensive. How many bars had built this basket? Fifteen? Forty?
Sunny Daze and Peachy Pie sat by the bookshelves with little pails of jelly beans in their laps. Sunny had a bucket of Peachy’s favorite flavors, while Peachy had Sunny’s. They tossed candy into each other’s mouths, giggling when they caught a jelly bean and giggling harder when they missed. Miss Cheerilee would be picking candy out of dictionaries for months.
Silver passed quickly to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. The custom jelly beans had been thoughtful, but nowhere near as impressive as the peppermint skyscraper or candy bar clocktower. The same could be said for Featherweight’s one-of-everything Sugarcube Corner sampler, or The Dink’s skull-shaped basket of gummy worms, candy corn, and gumball eyes.
Truffle Shuffle, on the other hoof, beheld his golden pyramid of chocolate truffles as if the lost treasure of Griffonstone had dropped into his lap. Gently, he unwrapped one and nibbled its shell. His eyes got very, very big. Apparently, what the display lacked in style it made up for in substance.
Thus far, all the student council’s gift baskets sported headier price tags, which probably meant… Silver finally approached her own desk, withholding a long sigh. Yep.
A tower of imported teas from Trottingham, Zebrabwe, and Neighpon awaited her, along with at least twenty-five bags of fresh flower petals. At a glance, Silver found peonies, fennel, raspberry leaves, yellow roses, zinnias, filbert, and a host of exotic petals she’d never seen before at all. A blue jade teapot formed the basket’s centerpiece: a masterwork of blue-gray marbling in an elegant slender build, accented in sterling silver to match the handle and spout. A brand new tea ball dangled from the silk ribbons that tied the arrangement together.
Three sets of shadows fell over the teapot. Heavy breathing over Silver Spoon’s shoulder ruffled the ribbons. Staring straight ahead at the chalkboard, Silver took her seat as if nothing unusual had happened this morning at all. “Good morning, Crusaders. Is there something you need?”
“Us?” asked Sweetie Belle. “No, but it’s nice of you to ask.”
Scootaloo hovered into Silver’s line of sight. “But speaking of nice…”
“That sure is one pretty teapot!” Apple Bloom’s smiling face poked over the ribbons. “Gosh, an’ would you look at all that fancy tea? Why, I’ll bet nopony in Ponyville’s ever seen tea that fancy an’ foreign-ey before, outside Zecora. Ain’t it a right nice thing for somepony to do?” A most unwelcome yellow foreleg wrapped around Silver’s withers and squeezed. “I bet whoever put this together must’ve gone through a lot of trouble and likes you an awful lot.” Subtle as a sledgehammer, that Apple Bloom.
“I suppose.” Silver wriggled out of Bloom’s grip, frowning at the Crusaders’ close proximity to the new and breakable teapot. “It’s certainly an expensive apology.” The teapot alone was the stuff of weddings and cuteceañeras. It had to be five hundred bits at least.
“Wha—apology?” Apple Bloom fluttered her eyelashes in some garish imitation of innocence. “Who said anything about an apology?”
Sweetie Belle nibbled on her butterscotch wafer, getting crumbs all over the floor. “Yeah, it doesn’t even have a card attached, see?”
“So you don’t even need to worry about thankin’ anypony!” Apple Bloom grinned wider, ignoring Diamond Tiara, who’d just come through the door. “It’s an anonymous present.”
Indeed, none of the gift baskets had come with tags attached. No obligation to thank, accept, or reimburse through gratitude, favors, or otherwise. An automatic “out” came prepackaged. Not a bad gesture; too bad it didn’t matter when the giver couldn’t be more obvious.
“Apple Bloom, come on.” Silver let her voice raise high enough to be heard. “How many ponies in class—in all of town, even—can afford imported chocolate truffles or jade teapots for themselves, much less for the whole class?”
The Dink chewed her gummy bat wing a little slower and glanced at Berry Pinch. Pinch felt at the sealed envelope between her hooves, ears flat and trying to concentrate on her sketchbook drawings.
“We all know these are from Diamond Tiara, so I don’t know why anypony bothers pretending they’re not.” Silver scoured the gift basket for flaws in the jade or an oversight in the flower petals. To her great annoyance, she couldn’t find a single one.
The cheery façade dropped from Apple Bloom’s face. “Ya know, even if it was from Diamond Tiara—an’ nopony’s sayin’ it is—you don’t hafta act like somepony spat in your applesauce when they only tried to do somethin’ nice.”
“First of all, ‘hafta’ isn’t a word.” Turning her nose in the air, Silver tossed her braid. “And second of all, I don’t have to do a lot of things.”
An unspoken murmur of disapproval rippled through the classroom. Cotton Cloudy, who couldn’t stand Diamond’s face a week ago, shook her head and exchanged a frown with Tornado Bolt and Rumble. Rumble—who’d cost Diamond’s campaign the pegasus vote solely due to his grudge—shrugged sympathetically.
Diamond Tiara herself twitched her ears, frowned, and went back to rooting through her saddlebag. Naturally, she couldn’t meet anypony's eye after being called out on her dumb shallow bribe.
A young lady bore no obligation to accept an apology in any form, from anypony. Acknowledge the pony’s efforts and remorse, yes. Drop aggressions, yes. Call off a duel, certainly. Last Silver checked, forgiveness didn’t come with the package.
None of that, however, changed the fact that Silver Spoon ended up looking like a jerk. Diamond Tiara’s sad-sack face didn’t help, either.
If anything, not labeling the gift put more pressure on Silver to bend, not less. She’d been backed into a corner. “It’s still nice of her, though. You’re right, Apple Bloom, the teapot’s beautiful, and I’ve never tried zinnia in a tea before.” All technically true, and nothing absolved the guilty parties. Not a perfect response, but it would do.
The classroom pressure waned, though foals in the epicenter of the drama still watched from the corners of their eyes. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo glanced at each other, less than thrilled.
“Hey, I only pointed out what’s obviously happening.” Silver laid out her notebook and pencils, and slid the gift basket under her desk. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“No, but you don’t need to be so snippy about it,” grumbled Scootaloo. Her wings twitched at Silver Spoon’s frown. “Well, you don’t.”
“And you don’t need to stick your nose into other ponies’ business, Miss Scootaloo, and yet here we are.”
Scootaloo’s wings flared. “Hey, we only—”
“You caught me!” Diamond Tiara shrugged and smiled with a casual little giggle. “Can’t get anything past you, Silver Spoon. Yeah, these are from me, everypony. I, um…”
Now with all eyes on her, Diamond cleared her throat and adjusted her tiara. Lavender coils of her mane tangled in the spires, and it cocked sideways like an ill-fitting party hat. “I know last Thursday got kind of… the worst. I’m sorry if I hurt anypony’s feelings that week. Or ever. But I’m tryi—” She dared a glance in Silver’s direction, gulped, and refocused. “—I’d like to be a better pony than I’ve been. I know candy and stuff doesn’t make up for everything, but it’s the least I can do?” Her hooves shuffled under her desk. “For now, anyway.”
Button Mash dumped five more marshmallows in his mouth. “Hey, it’s a start! Too bad you didn’t bring any of those little marshmallow birds they sell after Winter Wrap Up.”
“I could still bring you some, if you want.”
“Sweet. Thanks, Diamond.”
Diamond’s sappy little smile returned. “You’re welcome!” She stretched her neck to see the rest of the room. “Are all the other baskets okay?” Her smile grew with the round of nods. “Okay, great. Hey, Truffle?”
“Yeah?” Truffle Shuffle kept one ear on Diamond and both eyes on Featherweight.
The skinny pegasus hovered three desks away, staring at the gourmet pyramid on Truffle’s desk. Featherweight’s double-sized basket of pastries and candy had vanished into his stomach sometime between first bell and Silver’s confrontation with the Crusaders.
Diamond Tiara stepped in to block the hungry pegasus’ view. “Excuse me, Vice President, but when’s the next student council meeting?” Behind her, Featherweight’s ears slowly rose above the tiara.
Truffle wrapped both hooves around his basket. “Thursdays, why?”
“Do you think we could move it to Tuesday? Or even this afternoon?” Cheerilee’s dog-eared copy of the council guidebook flipped under Diamond’s hooves. “If we’re going through with the playground idea—”
Pipsqueak popped up on the other side of Truffle’s desk. “You mean you got the money for it?”
“Yeah, but it’s complicated. That’s why I want to meet sooner rather than later, and we’re going to need more than just the student council.” Diamond skimmed the classroom end to end. More than half the class still watched her. “If anypony can maybe find time to come to a student council meeting this week, that’d be really great.”
So the candy and presents didn’t just buy everypony’s forgiveness, it also buttered them up for a meeting. Silver couldn’t fault Diamond’s logic, considering the pathetic turnout for last Friday’s school board meeting. The election drama had long since passed, and student government still had all the appeal of extra-credit homework.
Cotton Cloudy fluffed her feathers. “Oh, I actually have cloud duty on Tuesday and Thursday. So does Tornado Bolt.”
Rumble nodded. “Me too.”
“That’s okay.” Diamond’s sugary smile could put a dentist’s colt through college. “We can meet Wednesday.”
The Dink swallowed her gummy worms. “I’ve got a stakeout that day.”
The sugary smile faltered. “Couldn’t you reschedule? This is kind of important.” She thought for a moment. “Aren’t you supposed to do stakeouts at night?”
“Sure, if you want to be obvious about it.” The Dink thought it over and shrugged. “I guess we could move it around.”
“I can’t move mine. The Foal Free Press meets Wednesdays,” said Featherweight. “Sorry.” His soft brown eyes trailed down to Truffle’s gift basket. “By the way, Truffle Shuffle, are you gonna eat all of—”
“Yes.” Truffle flattened his ears.
If Featherweight couldn’t do Wednesday because of the paper, that meant Boysenberry, Shady Daze, Berry Pinch and at least five others couldn’t come, either. This project could use extra hype from the press; it’d be best to leave the newspaper staff be.
Diamond’s tail flicked. “Alright, that’s… fine. We can work with that. What about later this afternoon?”
Silver Spoon narrowed her eyes. “Monday’s my apprenticeship at Tealove’s, remember?”
Of course she didn’t remember. Why would Diamond Tiara ever bother keeping up with somepony else’s schedule when they always bent around her own all the time? No wonder she sprung this on everypony at the last second; Diamond probably assumed they’d all drop everything and fall in line like always.
On the other hoof, everypony else shouldn’t suffer just because of Diamond’s garbage time management. “I guess I could move my apprenticeship around. Again.” Silver flipped open her schedule book. “However, I think it’s a better idea if we held an emergency meeting today at recess. That way, everypony’s already here.” And they couldn’t sneak off without looking like a jerk.
Pip jerked his head toward the window. “We might as well. It’s not like there’s anything better to do when the playground’s broken, ‘cept play tag again.”
A recess meeting also meant they could rope in Cheerilee’s afternoon class, who wouldn’t hear about the meeting at all, otherwise. “So we meet at recess, then.” Silver Spoon turned to face Snips and Snails, who were already fishing for excuses. “Unless some of us have something better to do than help get a new playground.” She blinked slowly. “We’ll understand if you do.”
Snips and Snails glanced at each other, then at the rest of the class. They shook their heads and returned to their taffy and chocolate raisins.
“Wonderful.”
“And the sooner we can get everypony in on this, the better,” added Pipsqueak. “Secretary Silver Spoon motions that we shift this week’s Ponyville Schoolhouse Student Council meeting to recess—er, that is, school recess, not like a taking-a-break recess.” For a newbie, he got the hang of political ritual fast. “Does anypony second the motion?”
Diamond’s hoof shot in the air. “I second it! Oh, and we could have lunch while we do it. With tea!”
Scootaloo wrinkled her nose. “Tea? At recess? I’m cool with a meeting, but that sounds kinda—ow!” She rubbed her fetlock, glaring at Sweetie Belle. “What was that for?”
“Shut up, you featherbrain.” Sweetie made an effort to stare straight ahead, not looking at anything.
“You know, it’s fine when a pegasus calls another pegasus a featherbrain, but—”
“The motion is seconded.” The president clapped his hooves in lieu of a gavel. “Let’s put it to vote: all for?” Ayes all around. “Okay! See you all at recess. Oh, and um…” He pointed to their teacher outside talking with the gardener. “Maybe somepony ought to tell Miss Cheerilee what we’re doing.”
“Right, then. Everypony here?” Atop his humble throne of stacked encyclopedias, President Pipsqueak sipped his tea and took in the gathered assembly.
The student council assembled around a rickety picnic table, with Pip at the head and a modest tea party in the center. As tradition dictated, the vice president and secretary gathered on the right side of the table, while the new treasurer and Councilpony Twist sat opposite left. Everypony else gathered where they could, sitting in the grass, the trees, or perched on the shambles of broken playground equipment.
Truffle took a quick head count, cross-referenced the detailed roll taken by Secretary Silver, and stood. “Bubblegum Brush is home sick. The rest of Cheerilee’s morning and afternoon class are present, Mr. President.”
“In that case, this emergency meeting of the Ponyville Schoolhouse Student Council will now come to order.” Pipsqueak set down his teacup and pulled the white birch out from under his copy of the guidebook. “Now, for everypony who couldn’t be here for the board meeting Friday, which is… most of you, Secretary Silver Spoon will read the seconds before we start.”
Twist whispered in the president’s ear.
“Right, right—Silver Spoon will read the minutes.” He passed the birch over to her.
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Silver Spoon cleared her throat, turning to last week’s notes. “Friday afternoon, at about sixteen-hundred hours, Ponyville’s student council—excluding the not-yet-treasurer Tiara—met with the Ponyville School Board, staffed by Miss Cheerilee, Tall Order, and Pencil Pusher, and led by one Mrs. Spoiled Rich.”
Silver paused to pour herself a cup of Deerjeeling tea, adding a few drops of lemon juice. For a moment, she met Treasurer Tiara’s gaze over the simple blue ceramic teapot in the center of the table. The fancy jade pot still sat wrapped beneath Silver’s desk.
For the sake of time and short attention spans, Silver skipped the bulk of the board meeting and jumped to the chase. “The president motioned to request new playground equipment, with intent to follow through with his campaign promise to improve the school playground. Board member Mrs. Rich argued budget limitations.” She peered over the rim of her glasses.
The class blinked back at her with blank stares.
“Pip wanted to build the playground, but Mithuth Rich thaid we didn’t have the money for it,” clarified Twist.
Miss Cheerilee’s class smiled and nodded with a collective “Ohhhh.”
“Sheesh, why didn’t she just say so?” Snips muttered.
“Council motioned to request details of the budget.” The tip of the white branch tapped each bullet point as Silver ran down the page. “Board member Mrs. Rich released a budget book way too complicated for the student council to understand. Board member Mrs. Rich then refused to explain a word of it for purposes of undermining the student council and on the basis of being mean and rude to somepony only trying to do their job and who didn’t need to be embarrassed that way in public.”
Vice President Truffle Shuffle slowly cut himself a slice of the mediocre quiche Diamond Tiara had brought for their lunch. He exchanged a troubled frown with Twist, though Silver couldn’t imagine why. Whatever it was, it didn’t trouble him enough to speak up; not that he could. Silver still claimed the birch.
“President Pipsqueak excused himself from the meeting to seek outside help. Secretary Silver moved to filibuster for time, and to find another way around the budget problem. Motion passed, with board member Rich fully aware there was no possible way for schoolfoals to raise forty thousand bits all by themselves, w-with… with intent to embarrass certain members of the student council and make them feel weak and silly.” A vile unpleasantness bubbled in Silver’s stomach. She took a moment to compose herself. “Motion for new playground equipment failed to pass in a three-to-one vote. Miss Cheerilee voted in favor. Meeting then adjourned.”
Confused murmuring threaded through the crowd. Sunny Daze wondered why they had to meet here if the board denied the request. President Pipsqueak tipped his head to the side and sat up, waiting for the rest of it.
Technically, the minutes ended with the meeting’s closure. If it were up to Silver, she’d close it there and let the meeting move to new business. It wasn’t, however, and special circumstances called for exceptions. She switched notebooks.
“Post-meeting minutes.” Silver Spoon gripped the birch between her teeth and breathed slowly through her nose.
In.
Out.
Okay.
“At seventeen-hundred hours, President Pipsqueak returned with Diamond Tiara and school ponies Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle—otherwise known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Tiara informally approached the council and board member Mrs. Rich with a three-item proposal.”
Students shifted and murmured beyond the council’s table. The Crusaders began whispering amongst themselves. Diamond Tiara twitched her ears and sat higher in her seat.
Silver kept her eyes on the page and her voice calm, professional, and neutral. “Item One: Opposition to board member Mrs. Rich’s general position of being a high horse-slash-annoying browbeater-slash-the literal worst all the time. Item Two: Opposition to calling said Cutie Mark Crusaders ‘blank flanks’, and defense of the Crusaders as friends, despite Tiara’s long history of being enemies with the Crusaders and despite Tiara’s actual friendship with Secretary Silver.” Her voice wavered. She cleared her throat, but it did little good. “No motion proposed to defend Secretary Silver whatsoever even though she’d just had the absolute worst meeting ever.”
Pipsqueak leaned down to address Truffle. “Are those the actual minutes?” he whispered.
Truffle glanced at Silver’s notebook. “…Actually, yeah, they are.”
“Are meetings always this juicy?” Boysenberry climbed higher on the broken teeter-totter, listening with pricked hungry ears. “Gosh, I need to pay more attention to politics.”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders shifted awkwardly at the sudden attention they’d attracted. They ought to get used to it; that perk came free with Diamond’s friendship package. Apple Bloom held a steady stare towards the council table, waving the red brush of her tail through the grass. She whispered something to Sweetie Belle, who nodded.
Silver adjusted her glasses, searching for where she’d left off. Before she found it, a pink hoof raised in the air.
“Uh, excuse me, please?” Diamond waved her hoof harder. The other hoof flew through the student handbook. “Please?”
Interrupting the reading of the minutes was highly unorthodox, especially when one did not hold the birch twig. Or when said member had held her position less than a week. But Diamond did say please. Silver brushed a stray strand of mane out of her face. “Fine. The student council recognizes Treasurer Diamond Tiara.”
“Okay, let’s see, um...” The frantic page flipping slowed to a crawl. Diamond’s hoof landed towards the middle, in the parliamentary procedures section. “Emergency motion for Class Secretary to recognize the fact that Treasurer Tiara wasn’t present and didn’t know any of that stuff at the board meeting happened, and that the Class Treasurer would have said something if she did.” Diamond flipped a few more pages. “And uh… additional motion to say sorry about that?”
Silver sipped her tea. “The motion is under consideration.”
Apple Bloom’s head popped over the edge of the picnic table. Her bow upset the jam on Pip’s mini toasts. “Motion to say that it ain’t fair to go blamin’ other ponies for not apologizin’ about somethin’ they didn’t even know happened.”
“Motion to counterpoint that I said the motion is considered, not rejected.” Silver’s tail whipped against the edge of her seat. “Additional counterpoint: Miss Apple Bloom is not a member of the student council, was not recognized to address the student council, and did not raise her hoof. Which is rude. Also, it’s none of your business.”
Scootaloo raised both hooves. “Uh, counter-counterpoint: You’re the one who brought it up, so you kinda made it our business?”
Loathe as Silver Spoon was to admit it, the raggedy filly had a point. Young ladies didn’t let their emotions get the better of them. Professionals knew how to separate personal and official business. That second part would be much easier if the personal stuff stopped crossing over all the darn time.
She knew she’d have to sit at the same table with Diamond eventually, but did it have to be today? It hadn’t even been a week since the election. Sun’s sake, why couldn’t they have met on Thursday’s recess with a normal schedule? But no, Diamond Tiara couldn’t let anything be easy, could she?
Truffle Shuffle cut himself a new slice of quiche. “Could we get back on topic, please? We only have until the end of recess, you know.”
Silver nodded. “Of course, Mr. Vice President.”
Deep breath.
Hold it.
Okay.
“I’m sorry, everypony. Where were we?” She bypassed the half-page of bribery complaints. Stick to the facts and get this over with. “Item Three: The newly appointed Treasurer Tiara motioned to request funding for the playground equipment from her father. Base plans shared, with little detail. Meeting for Friday then adjourned.” The white birch passed back to the head of the table. “Over to you, Mr. President.”
A colt never looked so relieved for the end of the minutes. “Thanks, Silver Spoon. I don’t think there’s any new stuff, so Diamond Tiara?” The birch exchanged hooves again. “What’s the word on the playground?”
Diamond pushed a plate of scones to the side and tossed down a manila folder. It flopped open in the center of the table where everypony could see and reach it. “The good news is we’ve got twenty-two thousand bits for brand new high-quality playground equipment.” She pulled out a checklist, pointing items out as she went along. “It’ll cover a new tetherball court, slide, swings, teeter-totter, two picnic tables complete with stools, new balls, a new fence, merry-go-round, and a net for volleyball or badminton or whatever. And if we all play our cards right, we’ll also get…” She paused for effect. “Project X.”
The congregation leaned forward with a collective “Ooooh.”
The Dink reared on her hind legs. “What’s Project X? A water slide? Bungee cords? A death ray? Ziplines? A trampoline?” Her golden eyes grew wide. “An arena for ultra battletag?”
“What’s ultra battletag?” Truffle Shuffle wrinkled his nose. “It doesn’t sound safe.”
Berry Pinch rolled her eyes. “Duh, that’s why it’s ultra.”
“I dunno, I’d rather have a water slide,” said Featherweight.
Twist leaned back to see the thin colt on the tree branch. “But it’ll be winter thoon. You won’t get to play on it.”
“Nope, ‘cause in winter it becomes an ice slide!” Featherweight bounced on his tree branch, scattering orange leaves across the table.
You’re lucky you’re cute. Silver picked an oak leaf out of her teacup. “So, what’s the bad news, Tiara?”
Diamond tugged out a sketch of the playground’s layout: an old map from a defunct plan to cream the Cutie Mark Crusaders with water balloons. Silver Spoon had axed it for being too brutish and easy to trace. It still worked fine as a map, and all the prime playground spots had already been marked off.
“The bad news is… we’ve got twenty grand for playground equipment. Nothing else.” Diamond Tiara steepled her hooves, eyeing the council. “It can’t cover installing the new stuff, or even moving out the broken stuff.”
“Which meanth all we’re gonna get ith a bunch of thtuff in boxeth.” Waving her hooves over the side of the bench, Twist leaned back to take in the foals gathered around them. Not a meeting of student council, but a meeting of the tribes: all ages, all cliques, every rung on the social ladder. “We’ll need thomepony to put it together. Thomepony like…”
“…all of us,” finished Silver Spoon.
It sank in.
The schoolyard’s excited murmurs fizzled. Foals gathered closer to the table to see the plans for themselves. An awkward, motionless silence overtook the budding enthusiasm. Slides, swing sets, and volleyball nets suddenly looked less like a gift list and more like a chore wheel.
This proposal skirted dangerous waters. Ignoring the safety hazards of handling equipment—and to think, Mrs. Rich had worried about insurance liability from just playing on it—a project of this stature took weeks to complete. Diamond essentially asked everypony here to give up not just one recess, but ten. Ten at the very least. No wonder she’d brought imported chocolate.
If Diamond Tiara felt the schoolyard’s apprehension, she didn’t show it. “Exactly!” A familiar spark lit her eyes as she swept her hooves over blueprints and bullet points.
It almost felt like the start of the talent show or sneaking out for Nightmare Night. Diamond grasped a project too big for her bridle, a new scattershot scheme star-high and miles wide, coupled with the pure ambition and stubbornness to pull it off.
“I bet we can have the whole thing done by harvest time.”
Diamond Tiara smiled. Not the paltry, simpering thing she’d tugged along all day, but the real thing. The kind that convinced you this crazy idea could not only work, but work perfectly and in record time. Warmth beamed upwards and outwards from that smile, lighting up wonderful things about ponies they’d never known they had. At a glance, a pony knew Diamond believed in the work, and she believed in them. Anything and everything she said couldn’t be anything other than true.
Silver Spoon smiled back. For a silly little moment, she couldn’t remember why she’d ever been angry at all. Who could stay angry with somepony who smiled that way?
Silver gently touched the base of her braid.
I didn’t ask you to speak.
The moment passed.
The stack of encyclopedias wobbled as Pipsqueak edged forward. “D’you really think we can finish before the Summer Harvest Parade?”
“No, Pip. I know we can.” Diamond turned to the ponies gathered behind her. “But we’re gonna need everypony—and I mean everypony all in on this. It’s like I told you yesterday—”
Silver blinked. Diamond met with Pip? When did that happen? Certainly nopony had told her about it.
“—this is a huge project that’ll need lots of time and lots of hard work.” Diamond shifted to address the ponies crowded at the other side of the table. “And I won’t lie; that work’s not gonna be fun sometimes.”
Snips frowned. “Work? You don’t mean like… school work? Or work-work?” He didn’t favor the thought of either one.
“Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh, I ‘unno.” Snails sucked his teeth. “That sounds hard. And like work.” Sharp as a tack, those two.
More hooves rose in the air, though nopony waited to be called on.
“Is this gonna take more than three recesses?”
“Yeah, how long is this supposed to be?”
“Doesn’t this violate foal labor laws?”
“We’re just kids! We slide on slides, not build ‘em!”
“What’s Project X?”
“Can I get another candy bouquet?”
“Whoa, whoa! One at a time, guys!” President Pip stood, wobbling a little on the encyclopedias. “I know it all sounds like a lot, and yeah, we’ll ‘ave to give it a few recesses…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “…and some after-school time—”
Cries of outrage blasted the council. Diamond tucked her tail close.
Pip waited for the noise to settle. “Thing is, we’re in a bit of a pickle ‘ere, an—”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Button Mash snorted. “You’re the one who promised us a playground. AND an arcade.”
Pip flinched.
“Yeah,” added Rumble. “Nopony said anything about putting the playground together until the last second.”
Boysenberry shook her head. “This is why my moms always say never trust politicians. Oooh, and know what else I heard?” She leaned over to Carrot Crunch, who straightened his ears. “I heard he never even had a plan to get a playground, and Diamond had to bail him out last minute.” She glanced at Silver. “I heard it from a good source.”
Note to self: double-check open windows before complaining to Ferdinand. Silver Spoon arched a cool eyebrow. “So the treasurer helped the president with a money problem, what’s your point? It’s a student council, not a magic wand. Truffle, pass the sugar, please.”
Two lumps plopped into a fresh cup of tea. She should have Deerjeeling more often. “Of course…” Silver stirred idly, examining the white swirls in her cup. “Nopony needs to build a playground if they don’t want to.” Her eyes flicked up to her fellow councilponies. Follow my lead. “The school board might have a point; maybe we’re not ready for a job this big.”
Diamond reached for her little black budget book. “Sure, it’s not too late to cancel the order. We’ll wait until we raise enough money to hire a construction crew. No big deal.”
“Yep, it’ll be fine.” Twist winked. “Truff, how long did you thay it’d take to get the money with fundraitherth?”
Sipping her tea, Silver scanned the crowd. Foals whispered to each other, examining their dilapidated slide and smashed fence and warped merry-go-round. The council had them on the ropes. She slid the meeting minutes to the vice president.
Truffle tapped the budget notes. “We’d need to have somewhere between twenty-five and fifty fundraisers, assuming we sell out every time, every month. So, it’d be twenty months, at least.”
“Why, that’s only two years!” A prim little smile graced Silver’s muzzle. “No time at all.”
More unhappy murmurings.
“It’s a shame, though,” sighed Diamond Tiara. The budget book came out again. “Pip, Twist, and I ran some numbers with Miss Cheerilee and Tall Order yesterday. We figured if the whole class pulled together with a little help from ponies around town, we could finish in…?” She gestured toward the president.
“Three weeks!” Pipsqueak preened with the fresh wave of class approval. “Maybe even two and a half!”
“More like definitely in two and a half. We could do it. I know we could, because I know you guys.” Diamond seized the birch between her teeth and jabbed it at the pigtailed filly next to Boysenberry. “I’ve only known Prickle for like, three months, but I can already tell she’s the strongest filly in Ponyville—maybe the strongest pony period, after Big Macintosh.”
Prickle Berry blushed and tried to hide her face in her own pigtails.
Diamond’s flattery train didn’t stop there. “Scootaloo can pull a wagon across town in a blink; just think what she could do carrying supplies. And you know the Crusaders’ clubhouse? Babs Seed told me Apple Bloom restored the whole thing all by herself in an afternoon!”
“Aw, well…” Bloom waved her off with a do-go-on chuckle. “Only a couple of new boards, fresh coat of paint.”
“I bet you’d work great with Berry Pinch.”
The pink unicorn perked up. “Wait, what about me?”
“She’s a great artist, and I bet she could draw way better blueprints for Project X.” Diamond rolled out a wrinkled water-stained sketch of her elaborate jungle gym idea. A cross of tape pasted the four parts together where they’d torn. Faded hoofprints marred the edges. “Also, we could actually read it.”
Snips nosed his way through the saucers to get a better view. “Wait, isn’t this just the jungle gym thingy from last week? That’s all Project X is?”
“Um. Yeah, sort of.” Diamond’s ears drooped, then jerked up again. “It’s so much more than a regular old jungle gym, though, so I thought it should have its own name. Project X is a placeholder name.”
“We should call it The House of Skulls and Daggers!” The Dink spread out the name with her hooves. “Or Midnight Castle!”
“I don’t really think it looks like a castle, Dinkster.” Berry Pinch rubbed her chin. “What about Blüd Häüs? You spell it with umlauts. Umlauts are cool.”
Prickle Berry gasped. “Ew, no, that’s way too scary!”
“Yeah, and Miss Cheerilee will never let us get away with it,” said Cotton Cloudy. “Let’s call it Tim!”
Rumble stretched a wing. “Tch, that’s stupid.”
Cotton’s wingspan arched higher. “YOU’RE stupid!”
Pipsqueak raised his hooves for order. “We can think about names later.”
“We have two years to decide,” said Silver Spoon, “since nopony wants to build it themselves.” Personal grievances or not, she still knew how to play ball. “Theoretically, if we did handle it ourselves, what would the rest of student council be doing, Treasurer Tiara?”
Diamond considered it. “Twist could help with all the math stuff—along with yours truly—and Truffle could be our safety inspector. The last thing we need is somepony in the hospital. You’d do what you do best, Silver: use your connections. We’ll need somepony to round up some adults who can help us out, like that Hard Hat guy. Wait, do construction workers like tea?”
“Everypony likes tea,” Silver huffed. “Everypony decent.”
“You’re good friends with Pinkie Pie, and she knows everypony. Oh, and Fluttershy! She could, like, get her bird friends to airdrop—”
“The pegasus foals could do that, you know.”
“—or that! See, that’s why we need you, Silver. You’ve got the best advice.” Flatterer. “You’re super organized too, so you’d be perfect to tell Princess Twilight about the project. Also, grownups like you.” Diamond paused. “Most of them, anyway.”
“Right,” said Truffle Shuffle. “It’s basically the same job you’re doing as secretary anyway.”
Pipsqueak coughed into the frog of his hoof. “Or it would be if anypony actually wanted to build it, but they don’t, sooooooo…” He let the sentence trail off into the land of missed opportunities.
Miss Cheerilee’s class felt the dream of epic jungle gyms and sparkly new swings fade into the mist, and they scrambled to catch it before it was lost forever.
“WAIT!” Rumble zoomed out of the tree and over the table. “No wait, we could do it!”
“It’s not that much work,” cried Snips and Snails in unison.
“Well, okay.” Diamond flashed one of her newly patented squeaky-clean-fresh-start smiles. “If you really want to.”
A thousand points of Apple Bloom’s gaping mouth twinkled, reflected in circles upon crystal circles. The filly rocked back on her haunches, her neck stretched so far back her bow tapped the base of her tail. If Silver Spoon had known a sixth-century chandelier was all it took to shut her up, she would have brought Bloom to her house years ago.
“Gosh, it’s so big. I didn’t think it’d be so… so fancy in here.” Bloom watched the multimillion-bit antiques and imported rugs with a guarded eye, as if she expected a baroque vase to launch itself off the podium any moment. Glancing at her mud-caked hooves on the spotless marble floor, she drew her legs close.
Yawning, Berry Pinch hopped on the banquette and stretched like an alley cat. The pink split ends of her tail wicked across the damask upholstery. “Well, yeah, it is a rich pony’s house.”
“You can’t be that surprised.” Silver Spoon glanced up from the table where a brand new designer three-ring binder spread out for them, still empty. “I mean, you’ve been to Diamond’s house before at least twice and it’s way more expensive than this one.”
Apple Bloom shook her head. “Diamond Tiara’s house is bigger, but it’s not so… fancy-like. Feels like I’m fixin’ to go and break a vase in here, and then I’ll be in debt for eight million bits, and then I’ll have to become a maid and wax all the floors for hundreds of moons ‘til I can pay it off.” The oddly specific scenario sent shivers through her coat. “I heard y’all downsized when you moved to Ponyville. Guess I expected somethin’ less expensive an’ breakable.”
When had she found out about that? Silver flicked her ears. Had Diamond been leaking secrets, or had the Silvers’ money problems fed into Ponyville’s well of common knowledge? Apple Bloom acted as if she’d expected regular old upper-middle-class furniture or something.
“We did downsize, can’t you tell?” Silver raised her hoof to the banister overlooking the foyer. “I love our house—it’s nice and cozy, don’t get me wrong—but it’s only got, like eleven rooms.” Thirteen, counting Brass Tacks’ workout room and the off-limits basement. “I don’t know how much it cost, but a cute little place in the country like this can’t be more than a few hundred thousand bits or so.”
Berry Pinch stared as if Silver Spoon had dropped one of her wrestling figures in the toilet.
Silver blinked. “What?”
“Do you actually hear yourself when you talk?”
Silver Spoon tilted her head. “Yes?” Diamond’s house mostly had locally-made furniture, but with the pool, the panic room, and a three-acre lawn, the house itself had to break two million at least.
“I—never mind.” Pinch rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. “These rich ponies, I swear.”
“Listen, I just didn’t expect a chandelier that fancy, is all. I didn’t mean to make a fuss, I’m sorry.” Apple Bloom flicked her tail over her hooves. “Applejack says it’s rude to go ‘round pointin’ out how much money somepony has.”
A Cutie Mark Crusader recognizing her rudeness and actually apologizing for it. Would wonders never cease? “She’s right, it is,” said Silver, “but it’s okay, Apple Bloom. I don’t blame you.” She smiled to show no hard feelings, nodding to the tiered chandelier above them. “Honestly, it is pretty expensive for the house.” At auction, it could have helped buy a Canterlot mansion twice this size. “Mother didn’t want to sell it because it’s an heirloom.”
“Ooh, an heirloom!” The tension washed from Bloom’s withers. “I know all about those; the Apples have lots of ‘em.”
Apple Bloom circled the foyer to the table where Silver Spoon had spread seven neat piles of notes, including the freshly inked sketches of Project X that Berry Pinch had drawn last Thursday.
Berry Pinch gave the room an easy, satisfied smile. “It’s not as complicated as it looks. I gave it lots of details to be sure everypony knows wha—” She yawned again. “What we’re doing.”
Indeed, she’d drawn them simple enough to be understood by the average schoolfoal, but with enough detail to guide an adult. Miss Cheerilee and Big Macintosh helped her label all the little parts with technical names. Silver Spoon organized the sketches in order of importance (or her best guess thereof) and the likelihood of getting it. Needless to say, she tucked the zip lines and arcade near the back.
Other playground drawings sat to the side. Nopony really needed pictures to know what a tetherball court or swing set looked like, but the new map could help figure out where to put them.
The two-page map spread out inside the binder so that it’d be the first thing a pony saw when they opened it. Silver studied it, frowning. Pinch might have drawn the symbols and lines, but the placements, the dotted lines running end to end, the entire feel of it echoed the candy map from last Nightmare Night. Diamond Tiara’s hoofprints were all over it.
Silver Spoon shook her head with a scoff. Of course they are, you silly filly. Project X is her idea. She obviously planned for the rest of the playground to go around it.
For the first time, Diamond had a project idea that could benefit not only herself, but her classmates and all the other foals for years—maybe decades—to come. Her father would be proud of her. Golden Glitter would be proud of her. The entire town would be proud of her. A win.
Silver supposed she ought to feel happy for Diamond. Everypony else seemed to.
Bloom nudged a second stack of drawings toward Silver to be filed: the underground plans. Nothing too fancy, just some open space and pillows with a feel somewhere between a secret base and a basement rec room. Pipsqueak wanted to do right by his campaign promise to Button Mash and add arcade machines, but Miss Cheerilee had vetoed. Diamond offered to donate one of her pinball machines, but that got vetoed as well. Diamond then tried proposing some sort of educational game, which received a “maybe”.
“Scootaloo told me that Miss Cheerilee and the school board got clearance from the mayor to build it already.” Bloom scooted closer to the table, happy to sit on the marble tile. “Lucky that Diamond already knew Tall Order so well, huh?”
Silver Spoon accounted none of that to luck, but if one had the connections she may as well use them. “Yes, it saved us a few days.” Perhaps even a few weeks, depending on when the mayoral staff finally got around to approval or whatever they did at town hall. “At this rate, if we get all the adults we need, we’ll be done before harvest vacation.”
“I know we’re still not leavin’ for another hour, but if we finish early, we could get somethin’ nice from Sugarcube Corner.” Apple Bloom glanced at the remaining stacks of pages. “Do you want help putting this together? I can do it backwards from the other side and meet ya in the middle.”
“You don’t need to do that.” Technically, since they’d already run the sketches by Cheerilee, Bloom didn’t need to stick around at all, but as the closest pony to Project X besides Diamond herself, and a pony with construction experience, it helped to have her around. “But that would be nice, thanks. Berry Pinch?”
The unicorn snapped awake from a catnap.
“You want to help, too? You drew it, so you know best about the order it should go in.”
Pinch gave another yawning nod. “It’ll keep me awake with something to do.” She shook herself off and took a seat next to Apple Bloom. “Ugh. Nopony needs to be up at eight in the morning on a Saturday.”
“Really? I’m always up way earlier than that.” Apple Bloom tapped her chin, “At least I think I am. It’s whenever the rooster crows; I don’t really keep track of the exact time.”
“Sheesh, you’re almost as bad as Diamond Tiara.” A sleepy green eye opened wider to examine Silver Spoon. “Lemme guess, you too? Is this some kind of earth pony thing, or a being-friends-with-Diamond-Tiara thing?”
“I prefer to think of it as a not-being-a-lazy-lump-of-a-unicorn thing.” Silver placed a thin stack of papers in the binder, grinning at Pinch’s wrinkled nose. “Would you rather a ponies-who-can-manage-their-time thing instead? You stayed up all night last night, didn’t you?”
An eraser wobbled in a lime green glow, slowly orbiting Berry Pinch’s fetlock while she warmed up her horn. “Hey, I had important stuff to do. It’s not my fault Tiara decided to pull all this stuff at the last minute, and I’m not jumping through hoops for her sake. I already lost recess for a month; I’m not letting her take Friday night wrestling, too.”
“You’re the one who agreed to it,” Silver Spoon pointed out. “What were you going to do at recess with a broken playground, hunt for the spirit of the haunted teeter-totter?”
“We were gonna play battletag—not that you’d know anything about any kind of tag, Silver Snob.” Six blueprint pages lifted with Pinch’s magic, wobbling through the air before they settled in the binder prongs. “I dunno why you even care this much about Diamond Tiara’s pet project. Last I checked, you weren’t talking to her.”
“I’m not.” Silver splayed her ears. “And I don’t. We happen to be on the same student council, that’s all. Besides, I don’t think any of that’s really your business.”
“Uh-huh. Like how calling her out in front of the whole class last Monday wasn’t my business either, right?” Pinch held up a mollifying hoof before Silver could bite back. “Chill, I’m just pulling your tail. Fair’s fair, Diamond dragged you first.”
“That’s not what—I mean, I didn’t mean anything by it.” The shuffling papers stopped. Silver’s eyes flashed up and back down to her work. Both fillies were staring at her now. Her ears splayed flatter, flushing a rosy shade of pink inside. “I didn’t! It sort of just… happened.”
She hadn’t done it on purpose. How could she have? A public attack would only give Diamond more pity party supplies. It had been a simple—and overemotional—mistake, that’s all.
“Anyway, what’s over is over. It doesn’t matter now.”
Echoes of Brass Tacks’ hoofsteps clicked above them as he went about his duties on the second floor. Every now and again they caught a glimpse of him carrying a wastebasket from Father’s study or dusting the banister. The conversation withered into shuffling papers and side-glances.
More hoofsteps. The clock chimed nine. Mother’s laughter drifted from some far private corner of the house.
Apple Bloom’s tail brushed over the marble tile. “Well, I think it matters.”
“Good for you.” Silver Spoon frowned, but kept her eyes on her work . “When your opinion matters, maybe I’ll care.”
“Oh please, not this mess again.” Bloom flipped her fluffy tail with a sigh. “Swear it’s like talkin’ to the same exact pony with you two sometimes.”
Something told Silver Spoon the other half of that “you two” didn’t refer to Berry Pinch. She shifted through the blueprints faster. “Whatever. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Says you.” The antique wood groaned as Apple Bloom leaned forward. She crossed her forehooves, letting them dangle across the binder’s edge. Close enough to pop Silver’s personal bubble. “Whenever anything gets too tough or too hard—when somepony goes and says somethin’ y’all don’t want to hear—y’all fluff out your fur, back into the prickle bush, and snap your teeth at anypony who pokes atcha. None of this’ll go away just ‘cause you decide to be mean to me—”
Silver jolted upright. Her muzzle wrinkled inches from Apple Bloom’s. “I am not mean!”
“And I’m Princess Blueblood,” mumbled Pinch.
“Nopony asked you.”
Apple Bloom rolled on as if nopony had said anything. “—so hunkerin’ down on being angry and acting ugly to folks ain’t gonna help nopony, Silver. It ain’t!” The ratty little busybody jutted her chin, lips twisted in a self-righteous pucker. Her little snort steamed Silver’s lenses. “I think you’re right—you’re not a mean pony, not really, but that don’t stop you from acting like one, and I don’t know why! This is stupid, Silver Spoon!”
Silver flattened her ears and shifted to the far side of her cushion. “Hey, I don’t have to care about your opinion if I didn’t ask for it. You’re the one storming into other ponies’ houses, making a big deal over nothing and accusing them of being mean.”
“Don’t go playin’ dumb, you know I’m not talking about that. Diamond Tiara already apologized to you twice now. Three, countin’ the tea set.” Apple Bloom closed the distance between them in two scootches. “I don’t know what’s so hard about burying the hatchet.”
Silver Spoon angled her head back toward her work, but her glare smoldered over the rim of her glasses. “Newsflash, farmpony: high-class hooves don’t touch hatchets.”
“For goodness—” Bloom threw her hooves up. “Fine, bury the butter knife or whatever fancy ponies use instead of hatchets, then! Diamond’s honestly sorry, Silver; she feels downright terrible about it. Last weekend, whatever time she didn’t spend on the playground she spent frettin’ about you and how bad she treated you.” Her head ducked down to meet Silver’s eye. “It’s not like she’s fakin’ it if that’s what you’re worried about. She’s really and truly sorry, and means it.”
“Good. She should be sorry. That’s got nothing to do with me, though.” The third stack of material locked in the binder. Blueprints for Project X’s watchtower bled through the paper. Silver could make out faint designs for a tea table in the center. She laid down a divider to make way for the next stack. “I bet she doesn’t even know what she needs to be sorry for.”
“She knows she hurt you,” said Apple Bloom. “That’s gotta count for somethin’. Right?” One look at Silver’s expression gave Bloom all the answer she needed. “Well…” Frustrated, she sucked her teeth. “Did ya tell her why you’re so hurt?”
“It’s stupid to accept an apology when somepony doesn’t even know why she’s doing it. She’s not stupid. If Miss Tiara can’t even figure out what she did, then we have nothing to discuss.”
“Diamond ain’t a mind reader, neither,” Bloom sighed. “See, if y’all would just talk—”
“Maybe Silver doesn’t want to talk, Apple Bloom.” Berry Pinch drew herself up, narrowing her sharp green eyes. “She doesn’t gotta if she doesn’t wanna. If Tiara decided to be a giant butt trumpet all over the place, it’s not up to Silver Spoon to shrug it off like nothing happened, ‘cause it did happen, and it sucks.” She lashed her short slip of a tail and glared daggers into the table. “Diamond Tiara doesn’t get off scot-free just ‘cause she feels bad.”
“Or because she tossed a few thousand bits at everypony.” Silver Spoon hadn’t expected Berry Pinch of all ponies to tap in, but she certainly wasn’t about to complain.
“That’s not what I said!” Outnumbered, Apple Bloom backed away from the table, trying to focus on both fillies at once. “It’s—” She took a breath and a moment to regroup. “Diamond Tiara wants to do better, be a better pony than she’s been. Wantin’ to change oughta count for something, I think.”
Slowly, Berry Pinch rose to her hooves. “I don’t.”
Apple Bloom flinched closer to the table.
“I don’t.” The tip of Pinch’s left ear twitched like a telegraph knob as she measured Bloom’s hurt expression. Sympathy flickered across her face. She clenched her jaw, doubled down on her conviction, and walled it out.
“I don’t care if she wants to be better. I want a lotta stuff too, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get it, even if I deserve it. Unlike some ponies.” Everything Berry Pinch said last week about letting things go, all the stuff about not wasting energy on being mad, all the shrugs and the she’s-not-worth-its evaporated in the heat of her glare. “‘Sorry’ doesn’t fix anything she did to me, Apple Bloom.” The stare turned on Silver Spoon. “C’mon, Silver, back me up on this.”
Silver Spoon went back to the binder and curled her tail close. “I think it’d be better not to waste time arguing about Diamond Tiara and get back to work.”
Pinch flumped back on her haunches. “Figures.”
Silver hunched her shoulders. “I don’t want to get in a fight, Pinch.” Especially not about Diamond.
“No, you just don’t want to fight out in the open. You wouldn’t have a single problem complaining about her under the table, I bet.” Berry Pinch’s magic rustled through a stack of blueprints. “I dunno what you’re scared of; it’s not like anypony here’s gonna use it against you.”
“I’m not scared, but I—” Silver adjusted her glasses with a little cough. “I don’t know, I feel weird about it.”
Apple Bloom sighed. “Now, that part I can understand. This whole thing still feels kinda funny. I’m not used to Diamond Tiara being all... not terrible to me all the time.” Her amber eyes grazed Silver Spoon and ran away again. “If I hadn’t seen her with my own two eyes when I found out about her Ma and stuff, I might not believe it either.” She rubbed the back of her neck, frowning at the wide expanse of the Silvers’ foyer. “Really, the only reason I know I can believe it is ‘cause Diamond didn’t know we were there. Besides, I don’t think even she could fake that face. She looked so sad.”
So the Cutie Mark Crusaders had started it. Silver should have known that Diamond Dazzle Tiara would sooner sink to the bottom of Luna Bay than ask for help or accept pity. Those three always did pop up at a pony’s worst time. Like bad credit, but worse. Of course this whole thing happened because they poked their noses where they didn’t belong. Of course it did.
Silver Spoon’s mouth drew into a grim, wire-thin line. “Those gift baskets weren’t Diamond’s idea at all. They were yours.”
Apple Bloom adopted an intense interest in the architecture of the ceiling. “Uh… maybe?” She squirmed under Silver’s corrosive stare. “We jus’ wanted to help, is all!”
“Right, and get your friendship therapist cutie marks while you’re at it, I’ll bet.” Silver sneered at Bloom’s flank, as yellow and barren as the Badlands. And it didn’t even work, blank flank. Silver Spoon didn’t say it. She didn’t have to.
A coral pink flush colored Apple Bloom’s cheeks. She glared. “That’s not what we were doin’, Silver Spoon. We saw somepony—no, we saw our friend having a hard time and wanted to help her. Didn’t know that was a crime.” She reached across the table and pointed an uppity little hoof at Silver’s chest. “But if you want an apology, then fine: I’m sorry you got a fancy expensive tea set for free from your old friend who wants to make nice with you. That what you wanna hear?”
As a filly who’d been raised better than to entertain rhetorical questions, Silver snapped her tail in Apple Bloom’s face.
“Golly, Silver Spoon.” Berry Pinch clicked her tongue. “I thought you didn’t want to fight.”
Silver cleared her throat. “We are not fighting. The two of us are having a discussion.”
“Which is exactly what adults say when they want you to think they’re not fighting.”
“Huh. Now that I think about it…” Apple Bloom glanced out the window and down the road that led to Sweet Apple Acres. “I remember Diamond’s daddy used to say that, back when she’d come over for one of those long weekends.” Slowly, her brain dusted off and connected old dots. “…oh. I forgot Spoiled Rich isn’t her first… Oh, wow.” She sighed, shaking her head. “No wonder Diamond was such a pain in the rear all them years.”
“That is the single biggest load of horse apples I’ve heard all week!” Pinch banged the desk so hard the papers jumped. “So Diamond’s moms are jerks, who cares?” Her short mane flared with a toss of her head. A pale scar curved close to the cranberry hairline. “My dad’s meaner than Goldie and Spoiled put together and I never went around being terrible to ponies.”
A conversation from The Dink’s séance last October whispered in the back of Silver’s head: Your friend’s lucky Pinchers didn’t knock her teeth out. I would’ve if she’d said that to me. Silver glanced at the notch in Berry Pinch’s left ear. She told her that one day she’d end up in jail, just like her dad—she said that already knowing what Pinch’s dad is like.
Silver’s gaze trailed from the unicorn’s ear to her face. Pinch stared back expectantly.
“Yeah, and besides,” said Silver, “Mrs. Rich never made Diamond throw out my speech.” She mumbled it in a whisper. Any louder and her chest might get waterlogged again. “And nopony forced Diamond to tell me I’m not allowed to speak, either.”
Apple Bloom had the sense to tread carefully. Thank goodness. “Maybe not, but if not for that I don’t think Diamond woulda turned out how she did. She said she’s been under a lot of pressure lately.”
“And?” Silver humphed. “So am I.”
“I know.” Bloom shrugged at Silver’s surprise. “Sweetie Belle told me. Listen, it’s not just Diamond I wanna let bygones be bygones with, Silver. You’re an ornery lil’ fusspot, and kind of a know-it-all, but I think you’re pretty okay.” She risked a smile. “And you brew a mean cup of apple tea.”
“I know.” After a pause, Silver added, “But thank you, I try. For what it’s worth, you’re kind of okay yourself. For a loud obnoxious busybody with bad hair.”
“Thanks.” Apple Bloom leaned forward with a fretful little frown. “But I still dunno why you can’t just accept her apology, Silver.”
And back to that old line again. Of course. Silver should have known better when Bloom started complimenting her tea. She didn’t care a bit about tea. Without a word, Silver went back to filling the binder.
“The only pony you’re hurtin’ by getting all bitter an’ stubborn is your own silly self, you know.”
Silver Spoon didn’t budge from her notes. Luna’s sake, if I knew she’d start quoting posters from a guidance counselor office, I would have done the blueprint binder myself.
“In the end, it’s only gonna—” A note of silence. The table creaked. “You got some nerve, Sterling Silver Spoon, you know that?”
Silver’s head popped up. Did this two-bit hayseed with no cutie mark just pull full name rank on her? On her? As if Silver were some ignorant little weanling called in from the yard?
“Yeah, you heard me. Where do you get off actin’ all high and mighty about this? I get you got your feelings hurt, but you’re not the only pony in the world with hurt feelings.”
“You don’t get to tell me how to feel, Apple Bloom!” The sentence wobbled and stumbled through the air, dragging a blood trail behind it. Silver bit the inside of her lip until the quaver went away. It didn’t matter what kind of sob-story measuring stick this uppity little farmer pulled on her. Apple Bloom of all ponies was not going to shake her. Silver blinked the wetness from her eyes and glanced at the unicorn trying (and failing) not to eavesdrop. The last thing she needed right now was Pinch telling everypony how she’d cried like a yearling.
“I’m not! I’m sayin’ you got no business acting so huffy about not acceptin’ her apology like it’ll change somethin’ when it won’t. If anypony oughta know that, it’s me.” Bloom banged both hooves against her chest. “You two were terrible to me and my friends day in and day out for years. Diamond herself’s been giving me a hard time three times longer than she’s even known you, Silver Spoon. Way meaner an’ way nastier than she ever, EVER was to you, and it got even worse once you showed up. If anypony in town oughta hold a grudge, it oughta be me—you showed up in my nightmares for Celestia’s sake!”
Apple Bloom sniffed hard. “Even after all that, I’m still willing to let bygones be bygones, but you won’t even hear her out. It’s stupid!”
“You’re stupid!” Silver spat back on instinct. “Just because you rolled over and forgave her doesn’t mean I have to, and just because she’s been meaner to you longer, it doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.”
Bloom snorted at her.
Whatever, let the hayseed be mad. Silver snatched up her pen and clamped it hard between her teeth. She ought to get back to work and not give Bloom the least bit of satisfaction.
What section had they left off on, anyway? Only three piles remained for sorting, but did they go in front or in back, or…? Pressure built in Silver’s chest. The pen wobbled in her mouth. Silver spat it out. “I don’t care how mean Diamond was when you two were five and she broke your apple cores or whatever. It’s not the same, Apple Bloom.”
“It’s really not.” Berry Pinch’s voice drifted in from the other side of the table, shy, soft, and flat. She may as well have spoken from the other side of the world. “Diamond Tiara wasn’t your friend when she did it to you. Especially ‘cause…” The rest of the sentence caught in her throat and died there. “…it’s just different, okay?”
Apple Bloom rested her chin on the tabletop, ears pinned. “Well, it doesn’t feel that different to me. Still hurt.” A hot, resentful stare rubbed against Silver’s coat. “A lot.”
Neither filly could argue that. One couldn’t compare a snakebite to a manticore sting, but both got a pony into the hospital. “Okay, fine. I’ll give you that.” Silver dabbed her eyes with her fetlock. “It’s not a contest, though, Apple Bloom. You don’t win because Di’s been mean to you longer.”
The lash of Apple Bloom’s tail slowed to a tap. “That’s not what I meant.” She studied Berry Pinch and Silver Spoon’s faces. Gradually, the anger faded from her own. “I guess maybe it wasn’t nice of me to jump on ya like that. Sorry.”
“That’s… okay, I guess. I’m sorry, too. For the stuff today and, um… the stuff before today, too.” Silver wiped her lenses and slipped her glasses back on. She recalled the farmer’s shy reluctance when she’d entered the house. Maybe it hadn’t been the antiques that intimidated her. “Was I really in your nightmares?”
“Uh.” That had been more information than Apple Bloom meant to share, it seemed. With an awkward waggle of her shoulders, she returned to filing blueprint pages. “Couple times, yeah. Still are, sometimes.”
Silver had never been in somepony’s nightmares before. Not to her knowledge, anyhow. “Huh. What am I like? Do I have long spidery legs and glowing eyes? Wolf fangs? A chainsaw?” Chainsaws weren’t her style at all, but dreams didn’t run on common sense.
“No.” Apple Bloom never sounded so quiet. “You’re just you.”
“Oh.”
“Silver, listen. I’m not saying you need to kiss and move in together with Diamond Tiara, alright?” Bloom pointed her tail towards the other end of the table. “Accepting an apology can’t be that hard. Berry Pinch is as mad as you are, and she still did it.”
Silver whirled around. “Wait, what? You did?”
Smoothing the last few sketches into the binder, Berry Pinch shrugged and nodded.
“Then what was all that stuff from before?!”
“Hey, I accepted her apology. I never said I forgave her.” A white envelope stuck out of Pinch’s saddlebag, still wax-sealed with Diamond’s cutie mark. “We stopped being best friends a long time ago, anyway. I traded up for The Dink.” She shrugged again. “So. Yeah.”
Apple Bloom nodded. “Right, see? At the very least, it’d get Diamond Tiara to quit worryin’ herself into a wreck over you and let her get to what she’s s’pposed to be doing.”
“If Diamond still can’t control her emotions, that’s not my problem, Apple Bloom.” Besides, from what Silver had seen earlier this week, reports of this “wreck” had been highly exaggerated. “Diamond Tiara seems fine to m—”
“Hi, guys! Good morning!” Diamond’s voice sailed through the window crack, too chipper for eight in the morning.
Speak of the devil. Silver looked up expecting to see a pink nose pressed against the glass. She only found the neighbor’s cat curled up in the Silvers’ bed of wilting snowdrops. White petals tumbled across its black pelt in the morning breeze.
The voice had to have come from somewhere, and Silver knew she hadn’t imagined it. She opened the window and stuck her head out the window, scanning the road.
Diamond stood in the dirt road separating the Silver property and Miss Junebug’s house. Fully loaded saddlebags bulged at her sides while her neck craned backwards towards the sky. Tornado Bolt and Featherweight hovered a few feet above her nose.
“Hi there, Diamond Tiara. You’re up early, huh?” Featherweight’s darling dinner plate ears tilted forward. “Hey, you didn’t bring any of those fancy éclairs along, did you?”
“I think it might be too early for éclairs,” said Tornado Bolt. “We already had breakfast, and I think they’re not supposed to be a brunch food.” The grey pegasus dipped a bit lower. “But um, while we’re on the subject, do you have any of those Power Pony Sigil Pops left over? Those were sooooo cool!”
Apparently, this had not been the way Diamond expected the conversation to go. She blinked at her saddlebags, then back up to the pegasi. “Not really, sorry. I already gave you all of what I ordered.”
Featherweight sagged in the air. “Awww. That’s okay, I guess.”
“But!” Diamond reached a hoof out to them. “When I get my allowance next week, I could always order more, though! We could have some when we take breaks from building the playground.”
“Thanks, Diamond Tiara! That’s real cool of you.” Tornado Bolt shot The Power Ponies’ signature signoff salute. “We’ll see you around.”
“Oh! Uh, actually, guys?” Diamond reared on her hind legs to stay in their sight before they could drift off. “Guys?” The chipper lilt in her voice flaked. Featherweight and Tornado Bolt drifted out of Silver’s view, but their silhouettes still shaded Diamond’s face. “Hey, I actually was wondering when you’d come down to the schoolhouse today.”
Silence. Featherweight’s shadow fidgeted.
“The new equipment comes in tomorrow morning. We could use as many hooves as possible to clear out the old broken stuff before it gets here.”
“Oh, uh… today?” Bolt’s voice trailed off as her shadow shrank. “You mean like… today, today?”
Diamond’s laidback chuckle strained through her teeth. “Well, I don’t mean next month.”
“I can’t. I’ve actually got tickets to Power Con today, see?” Tornado Bolt held them out. “Sorry.”
“Oh.” The chuckle died entirely. Diamond flicked her tail, clicked her tongue, and tried again. “Well, that’s okay! We can do it tomorrow.”
Tornado Bolt cleared her throat. “Um. It’s all-weekend tickets, actually.”
That wouldn’t have been a problem if everypony hadn’t spent the past four recesses playing skyball (Rumble borrowed his brother’s ball from home) and tag. As the week wore on with little progress to show for it, most foals came to an unofficial agreement that there wasn’t enough time at recess to work on the playground.
Bubblegum Brush argued that nopony wanted to come back to class dirty and sweaty, and the rest of the class decided this had been a perfectly serviceable excuse. They also ignored the student council’s counterargument that ponies got just as dirty playing skyball and tag.
“I guess it’s only me and you, Featherweight.” Diamond upgraded to her patented pageant smile. The sun rose barely three hours ago, and she’d already resorted to the big guns. How many other foals had better things to do today? “You’ve been working out with your big brother, right? Now you can do some real heavy lifting!” No immediate answer came. Diamond’s smile widened. Silver Spoon could practically hear the hinges creak. “No pain, no gain, right?”
“I’m kinda busy this morning too, Diamond,” Featherweight finally admitted. “Me and Rumble and Shady Daze are gonna meet Button for pinball.”
“What about after that?”
“Yeah, we’ll pop in after we’re done, maybe.”
Featherweight’s confirmation had all the watery confidence of a parent’s “we’ll see.” It directly translated to “If we happen to remember” at best, and a polite “Absolutely not” at worst. Diamond Tiara knew that. She HAD to know that. And yet…
“Okay, awesome! So, I’ll see you then, alright?”
“Sure. See ya, Diamond Tiara. Thanks again for the éclairs!”
“You’re welcome, see you this afternoon.” No way Diamond bought that tripe. Featherweight might have had the bone structure of a supermodel and eyes like the deepest pools of Horseshoe Bay, but the colt couldn’t lie his way out of a wet paper bag. What game could she be playing at? “Featherweight—you are going to be there, right?”
Featherweight made a subtle motion that may or may not have been a nod. The two shadows shrank into pinpricks.
Silver Spoon raised an eyebrow. She glanced at Apple Bloom, who’d joined her in the windowsill, and at Berry Pinch, still at work with the binder. “So, like I said. Diamond’s totally fine.”
Apple Bloom adopted one of her big sister’s deadpan stares.
“What?”
Bloom sighed. “Nothin’.” She raised a hoof and waved at Diamond, who’d likely known they’d been there the whole time. Two ponies sticking out of a window would be kind of hard to miss. “Mornin’, Diamond Tiara!”
“Good morning, Apple Bloom. Hello, Silver.” Diamond Tiara crossed the lawn, stopping a few paces short of the snowdrops under the window. The neighbor’s cat opened an eye at the pink hooves near its napping spot and edged farther in the flowerbed.
Silver Spoon offered a polite nod. “Good morning.”
Pinch raised a lazy hoof in greeting.
Diamond stretched her neck to peer over Apple Bloom’s shoulder. “Hey, Pinch. Didn’t see you there.” Surveying her audience, she stretched a hoof toward the windowsill. At the last second, she noticed Silver’s forelegs crossed upon the sill, reconsidered, and put her hoof down again. “I’m on my way to Town Hall right now. If you want, you could…” She pricked her ears and pointed at the table. “Wait, are those the plans for Project X?”
“No, it’s the blueprint for my new doghouse.” Berry Pinch paused mid-yawn. “…Actually, a new place for Mr. Dog isn’t a bad idea.” She jotted a note on her fetlock.
“Can I see?”
A loose-leaf diagram of the center slide levitated up from the binder rings. Pinch held it up a few seconds before filing it away.
Carefully, Diamond stepped around the snowdrops to get a closer view. “It looks amazing—way better than my old version! So does that mean you’re almost done with the blueprints?”
Berry Pinch twitched her ears, pleased. “Almost nothing; I finished it on Friday.”
“Yep!” Apple Bloom bobbed her head towards the tiny single stack of papers on the table. “Right now we’re actually organizin’ all the blueprints and notes and stuff in this here notebook—”
“It’s a binder,” clarified Silver Spoon. Folders lacked effort and class. A portfolio would be overkill and aroused suspicions of adult interference. A stylish binder found a reasonable middle ground between the two. “I decided it would be easier to read everything and find what we need fast. We’re going to Hard Hat’s place to show him as soon as we’re done.” Behind her, the last stack of papers whittled down to about five pages. “Which should be in a few minutes.”
“You finished all that?” Diamond’s eyes grew wide, her voice soft and impressed. “Already?” She beamed. “Wow, thanks! That’s awesome work, you guys, seriously.”
Silver blinked. “Uh, it’s literally what you told us to do?” Technically, the binder had been Silver’s idea, but she’d assumed the task came with a prerequisite for decent presentation. “Reformed” or not, they were still dealing with Diamond I-Made-Pie-Charts-To-Negotiate-Bedtime Tiara. “You gave us a whole week to do it.”
“I know, but…” Diamond pawed the garden topsoil. “Things have been going a little slower than I’d planned, lately.” A lot slower, more like. “I guess I’m just glad to see something roll like it’s supposed to.”
If anypony else had something to do this weekend that they’d conveniently forgotten to mention, the playground wouldn’t finish until next Nightmare Night. This sounded like a job for Class Secretary Silver’s attendance sheet. “Pinch, do me a favor and give me my planner?”
“What, you can’t walk a whole two feet across the room? I’m not your maid, Silver Snob.” The planner hovered over and dropped at Silver’s hooves anyway.
“Do you know who else is coming to clear the schoolyard this weekend?” Silver nosed through the pages until she found a clean sheet. “Mister Hard Hat’s probably going to need clear space to figure out where to put Project X.” Best case scenario, he might even be able to start digging before Monday.
“I saw Prickle Berry and Bubblegum Brush on my walk here, and they said they’re coming after lunch. I haven’t seen many ponies from our class yet,” said Diamond. “Most of them are probably still in bed or eating breakfast. Yesterday they all said they’d be coming, though. Pretty sure they’ll be there.” She smiled to prove it. Prove it to who, Silver couldn’t know.
“‘Pretty sure’? You mean you don’t actually know?” When Diamond didn’t answer right away, Silver lashed her tail.
Celestia’s sake. Maybe the class treasurer didn’t mind waffling for fifty semesters, but while Diamond dragged her hooves she dragged the rest of the student council with her. This playground bolstered the bulk of Pip’s administration plans; he’d be hurt the most by its failure. The council itself had barely shaken off its connotations of dorkitude. It couldn’t take a hit like this. What is with this filly and screwing up other ponies’ reputations?
Silver closed her eyes. She breathed. “Okay. Have you considered not asking ponies, but telling them where they should be?”
“Yeah, this whole thing’s your idea, ain’t it?” Apple Bloom lifted Diamond’s original rough draft of Project X’s east bridge, the one connecting the watchtower and the ziplines they weren’t getting. “You’re the filly who knows where everything oughta go, so that means you know best where everypony oughta be.” She smiled encouragingly. “Right?”
“It’s not that. A lot of ponies happen to be a little busy this weekend.” Diamond Tiara shrugged and laughed it off. “I mean, it’s still only the first weekend, and we’ve still got all of Sunday if today doesn’t work out.”
Silver Spoon narrowed her eyes. “They’ve already had a whole week and barely done a thing.”
“I don’t want to push anypony too hard, that’s all. We’ll still work it out. Okay?” Diamond smiled again, all apologies and sunshine. It wouldn’t fool baby Pumpkin Cake.
Silver Spoon’s coat rumpled. This sugary slop was the stuff of scholarship students—green scholarship students too stupid or naïve or gutless to realize how the gears of society moved. Diamond had been engineering the Ponyville Schoolhouse social scene years before Silver stepped through the door.
Silver stepped back from the window, suppressing a scowl. The sight of that milquetoast cubic zirconia smile turned her stomach. “We need to get back to work, alright?”
“Okay, Silvie. See you.”
Don’t you dare call me that in that cutesy-cute voice. “See you.”
The last of the blueprint sketches settled in the binder. Apple Bloom clicked it shut. “Alright, now I know you saw that, Silver Spoon.” She kept the class secretary in her line of sight as Silver bent beneath the table to fetch a fallen pencil. “Sumthin’ funny’s going on with her and you know it.”
“So what? Diamond’s business is not my business, Apple Bloom.” A familiar black ooze bubbled in the pit of Silver’s stomach, slithering up the sides and into her throat. She shoved it down. “As a matter of fact, why do you even care?”
“’Cause I’ve actually got a heart still beatin’ in my chest, unlike some ponies.” Bloom flicked her tail across her hooves. “Ponies are supposed to care about each other, especially their friends. Remember?”
“I remember you didn’t notice or care about Diamond’s problems until about a week ago. Besides, it’s not like she’s the only filly in town having a hard time, and I don’t see you giving any of them a hoof.” Silver drew herself up in a huff. “If you’re really such a sweet little sweetheart who ‘only wants to help’ why don’t you help Truffle Shuffle or Prickle Berry? Scootaloo’s probably got some sob story she’s been sitting on, and she’s your actual best friend. Why you don’t help her and leave mine alone?”
A pause. Slowly, Apple Bloom’s ears stood straight up. An almost-smirk struggled on her lips. “So. Diamond’s your best friend, huh?”
“…You’re lucky I was raised right, Apple Bloom. Quit avoiding the question: why are you so obsessed with Diamond Tiara all of a sudden?”
“Actually, yeah. What IS up with that?” Berry Pinch tilted her head. “You got a crush on her or something?” She scratched the space between her withers with a pen. “It’d explain a heck of a lot.”
“She—what?! Eww, no!” Bloom stomped unladylike figure eights around the foyer. “Sheesh, why do I gotta have a crush to care about somepony? I told you, it’s ‘cause she’s my friend. But you’re right, it ain’t just that. I got a…” She tossed her head in a restless search for the right words. “I dunno, it’s a feeling. A real weird feeling about all of this. Something’s not right with Diamond Tiara, y’all.”
“Naw, really?” Pinch waggled the pencil at Apple Bloom’s nose. “I could’ve told you that, Shadow Spade.”
The foyer echoed with Apple Bloom’s stomping hooves. “No, I don’t mean just that! It’s something…something else. When she came to our clubhouse last week and saw all our crusadin’ stuff, she said—” With a snort, she shook her head. “No, didn’t say it, not out loud, but there’s something goin’ on with Diamond’s cutie mark.”
The stomping slowed to a stop. Apple Bloom tilted her head back, staring into the labyrinth of gears inside the grandfather clock. Her eyes followed the pendulum back and forth. “I don’t think Diamond Tiara understands it. Not entirely or…” Confidence in her argument melted under Silver Spoon’s incredulous stare. “This all sounds kinda crazy, don’t it?”
“No, it sounds idiotic.” Even as she said it, however, Silver’s heart skipped. “Of course Diamond knows what her cutie mark means! She practically spelled it out for everypony after she stood up to her stepmother for you, remember?”
But Diamond had also said it with the same cubic zirconia smile she’d had at the window. Said it at ninety-percent confidence. Said in a way to convince herself along with everypony else—why else say it out loud? Nopony there cared but her. Silver certainly didn’t.
Miss Silver Spoon stepped forward, raising her head to regard a nosy little hayseed from the proper height. “Berry Pinch and I have been friends with Diamond Tiara longer than you, Miss Apple. I think we know a little more than you do.”
Apple Bloom’s face twitched, but otherwise didn’t budge. “Exactly.”
Silver Spoon frowned.
“Nopony knows Diamond the way you do. If there’s anypony who can help sort out what’s goin’ on—”
“Then they are more than welcome to try, Miss Apple Bloom.” After a quick double-check that the materials were in order, Silver Spoon packed up the binder and swung on her saddlebag. “Contrary to popular belief, I am not Diamond Tiara’s butler.” She couldn’t help a sour smile at Bloom’s guilty flinch. “I don’t clean up her messes.”