Listening to the rain can be really calming, but sometimes it makes me sad. I was standing outside Sugarcube Corner listening to it, and I wasn't very happy. I was thinking about Dinky, and what the strange pony that came to the door told me. What did he mean when he said I might "lose custody" of her? What does "custody" mean? Whatever it means, I don't think I want to lose it. Maybe I'll go look it up in a dictionary when I'm done with my mail route.
While I was thinking, something distracted me from the corner of my eye. I turned around, and right then my crossed vision focused on a muffin poster inside the window of Sugarcube Corner. The rain running down the glass in front of it made the picture look even less like a real muffin… But it still looked so good, and I was hungry. I licked the glass, but then I stuck out my tongue. It tasted bad. Like glass, and water. And dirt. Definitely dirt. I sighed, knowing that I didn't have enough bits on hoof to buy one, and then started flying again to continue my mail route.
Those words that pony said were haunting me for the rest of my entire route that day, and all I did was wonder what would happen when he came back that night. He said he'd be coming around 8:30, to give me 'the details'. Whatever the details are, I hope they'll tell me how to make sure I don't lose my Dinky for custody. Or… Lose my custody for Dinky… Whatever that means.
When I came home, I looked at the clock. Thank Celestia, it was only 7:49! I heavily breathed out, and trotted up the stairs to look for Dinky. But she wasn't in her room, so I came back downstairs and called her name, or… Spoke her name, because I wasn't really getting loud yet.
"… Dinky? Dinky where are you?" I asked with a chuckle. "Are you playing hide and seek again? Actually, I don't think it's hide and seek unless you tell the other pony you're playing…"
"Derpy?" Dinky came out from the door of the kitchen, and I went up to her happily. But… She didn't look very happy.
"Oh, hi Dinky! I didn't see you there! But then again, I didn't check the kitchen yet, either."
"Derpy, where were you?" The look on her face made me frown, because she looked like she was scared or worried before I came home.
"What do you mean? I was working, silly! And I came home a little early, just for my little sister!" I told her, trying to keep a good attitude to cheer her up, "I told you I would come back at 8 o' clock and we could go get something special to eat with the bits I made today, remember?" What I forgot, is that I barely had the bits to buy a muffin earlier.
"But it's not 8 o' clock…" I saw her eyes start to water, "It's almost 9 o'clock!"
"What?" I turned around, and looked at the clock I saw before. Well, it looked like 7:50 to me… Then I heard Dinky say something from behind me.
"Not that one…!" She went into the kitchen, and when she saw me follow her in, she pointed at the clock in there. "This one! And the one in my room, too…" Then, I remembered something.
"Oh!! We never set that one for the spring savings... Thing! So…" I gasped, "I'm late?" I frowned, "Oh, I'm sorry, Dinky! I had such a small amount of letters today that I thought I should deliver some more, too, because I thought I had time… I didn't know I was an hour late!"
"It's okay, but I was really hungry while you were gone. And really scared while you were gone, too…" She nuzzled her head under my chin, "There was someone knocking on the door, but I didn't want to answer it… And then they started knocking even harder, and I thought they were gonna break in…" At first I had no idea what she was talking about, but then it hit me.
"That custody pony!"
"That what pony?"
"The pony that was going to talk to me about-…" I stopped talking when I remembered that I probably shouldn't make Dinky worry, and then I backed away. "Uh… Well the point is that we were supposed to have a guest over…"
"So I was scared of a guest?" Dinky frowned again.
"Sorta…" I went to the door, and opened it. When I looked down, I saw a little letter, so I picked it up and brought it in the house.
"What's it say, what's it say?" Dinky was smiling now because she was excited to see mail, but she still sniffled a little bit. "Is it for me? Is it for you?"
"Huh, I don't know…" I opened it up, and started reading it.
"My Dear Derpy Hooves,
I see you aren't home at the moment, so I'll have to reschedule our discussion to the same time tomorrow. Feel free to ask any questions you may have, and think the matter over. If you aren't interested in waiting until tomorrow, you may come to a 24-hour café with me to discuss the matter. I'm going to be relaxing there until 10:00pm. The address of the café is on this letter below this message. I look forward to speaking with you."
"What does that mean?" Dinky asked me.
"… I think he wants to talk to me… Well, I guess I'll just go tonight! You're going to bed soon anyway, right?" I smiled at her, and she nodded at me. So after making dinner, I decided to go meet him at the cafè. I had to know what was going on.
As soon as we saw each other at this "24-Hour Cafè" (I didn't even know we had something like that), we sat down and started talking.
"So, you got my letter, then?" He started off.
"Yup! I thought that it would bother me all night if I tried to sleep, so I came here instead."
"Yes, I see…" He sighed, and leaned forward, "Derpy Hooves… As I told you earlier today, I'm here to inform you that you may lose custody of your younger sister Dinky Hooves. If you have any questions or concerns, now's the time to tell me what they are."
"Oh yeah, I got one." I began, "What's this whole 'custody' thing you're talking about? I don't get it."
"You don't even know what 'custody' is?" He sighed again, "Well, right now, you have the rights to look after her. Those rights you have are called 'custody'."
"Oh. Okay, wait… So…" I stopped to think about this. So 'custody' is 'the rights' to look after Dinky… And if I lose those 'rights'… I gasped, "Oh no! So I might have to give Dinky away?"
"That's right."
"But why? What did I do?"
"Well, how do I start…" He started thinking, and then when he decided what he wanted to say, he looked at me again and started listing a whole bunch of things that were wrong… With me. "To start, you're irresponsible. You've left a young filly like Dinky home alone countless times for hours on end, while you're off working for the post office, barely making enough money to support yourself, let alone a sibling. I've also received reports from Dinky's friends and our investigator that there have been occasional times where you didn't feed her, due to forgetfulness or quite literally not having enough food in the house. You're barely getting by on your house bills, and aside from money-…" When he stopped his sentence, I knew he was hesitating. He sighed deeply. Then I knew something was wrong. "… Ms. Hooves… You are-… Or well… You seem to be… A danger to yourself and others. Including Dinky."
"Wha?" A danger? I never tried to hurt anypony. How could I be a danger to Dinky?
"Well, it's your countless accidents and reputation of, well… Messing up."
"Oh, mister," I said with a slight giggle, thinking it was like a joke, "I know I'm clumsy, but I don't think tripping once in a while or dropping my food on the floor by accident is a danger to Dinky! … Unless she slips on it."
"But you must understand, it's more than just tripping and bumping things or dropping your food. From a few residents around town, I've had witnesses who have seen you-… Hold on, let me get out my papers." He took out some papers from a folder he had, and then started reading one of them off to me. "According to this, you've been seen falling multiple times from the sky, flying into trees, tripping over things, bumping into buildings, and knocking into doors."
"W'll yeah, but that's just tripping and bumping stuff, isn't it, mister?"
"Oh, but I'm not done. On the job, you've been reported to have delivered mail to the wrong houses, damaged precious packages and messages to the point where you were demoted, and ruining other ponies' mailboxes and messages by trying to shove in mail that wouldn't fit. Also, supposedly because of your eyes, you aren't a very good flier, as witnessed in the Cloudsdale Flying Competition. Your clumsy flying has caused injuries to yourself and occasionally other ponies. I'm personally surprised they haven't given you some kind of flying ban."
"But what does that have to do with-…"
"Please, allow me to finish." He said, interrupting me. "As for injuries... In town, you have bumped into many ponies and knocked them down, you have knocked down various things such as pulling down strings of lights causing other ponies to fall or be injured, you have broken several of Roseluck's flowerpots, resulting in somepony accidentally cutting themselves, and you have caused damage to multiple things including roofs, merchandise, plants including trees and tree branches, food, and as mentioned before, mail. Packages, packets, folders, letters, and messages. Other than the mail, almost all of these things have caused harm to others. I even have one report of you falling from the sky, and roughly bumping into a school pony during recess hours, causing them to receive injuries. I can go on all day mentioning the sorts of trouble you get yourself in, including worse situations, but I think you get the point. And, of course, the most well-known accident of all, you completely destroyed the roof of Town Hall, and almost caused serious injuries to Miss Rainbow Dash twice during the ceremony for the very pony who was willing to offer money to fix your mistake."
"Oh… Can I talk now?"
"Yes. I'm finished."
"Well, I haven't hurt Dinky yet! I try to be super careful," I was hoping he would take that as a good answer, and let me keep her.
"The key word, my dear, being 'yet'. Although, you already have hurt Dinky in some way. By - as I mentioned - not having the money to support her, if anything. I've had reports of Dinky's school friends mentioning how many times she's come to school hungry because her older sister forgot to give her breakfast, or because you told her you were short on bits that morning."
"But I always made sure she had food when she got home. Or I brought food to school for her when I got some." I frowned.
"Did I mention that I have another report from her teacher that Dinky has occasionally been experiencing malnutrition problems during recess? Fatigue, loss of energy? Stomach pains? And did I mention that on those days, Mrs. Cheerilee had asked her what was wrong, and the only thing Dinky had to say was that nothing was wrong besides the fact that she missed breakfast that day and dinner the night before?"
I didn't talk this time.
"While we're on the subject of what happened with Dinky, I have reports about you accidentally causing her to break her wrist during one specific accident at Sisterhooves Social, whilst ruining the race for everypony else by breaking a majority of the obstacles on your first run... Actually, I hear that's why you couldn't enter the following year, resulting in Amethyst Star entering with Dinky in place of you." He sighed again. He was doing that a lot. "Mrs. Hooves, the point is that if this continues much longer, we're going to have to hand Dinky over to someone who can actually take care of her. Your mother, perhaps?"
"Oh, no." I shook my head, "My mother left Dinky and I on our own, so it's just us!"
"Then I'm afraid we're going to have to hand her to an orphanage. I'm sorry, Mrs. Hooves, but I'll give you a week or two, and if your situation hasn't changed by then, you're going to have to say goodbye to Dinky. I have just enough information to prove that Dinky needs to be in better care, and you need to change that if you want to keep her in your custody."
I didn't have a lot to say after that. We ended up leaving a little after our talk, and I had a harder time sleeping that night than I thought. I thought that when I came to the café to talk to him, we could sort things out and everything would be okay! But it turns out, things are worse than I thought they were…
When I got home, the first thing I did was check on Dinky. I went to her bedroom, and saw her all snuggled up in her bed. She looked so cute, and so… Small. I tried focusing my eyes to get a better look at her, and managed to get a good view of her for a little while before my eyes crossed again. I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead… Then I teared up… I don't want to lose her… She really is all I have, the only one who thinks I'm more than just clumsy…
All I was thinking about that night, was Dinky. Was he serious when he said I would lose her? I had nightmares that night, about falling on Dinky and making her cry, and then that stallion taking her away…
I hope everything will be okay...