//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Twilight Holmes: The Mystery of Basil Bones // by bats //------------------------------// As Rainbow and Twilight crested a hill, they heard Scootaloo’s voice in the distance. “—ust saying, is if ponies were meant to cut grass with stupid freaking lawn mowers, why’d they make grass seeds so delicious?” They shared a glance and Rainbow smirked. She lifted off the ground and flew upwards. “That isn’t how this works, Scoots,” Sweetie grumbled as she used her magic to push wads of grass down flat. Twilight craned her neck and could just make out Sweetie, working her way through one half of Scootaloo’s jungle of a yard. Twilight spotted Apple Bloom and Scootaloo on the other side. Apple Bloom shrugged and dropped down into the grass. “She’s got a point, Sweetie, they are pretty dang good.” She popped back up chewing a mouthful. “F’nd ‘nother b’ll!” She tossed a soccer ball free. It bounced on the sidewalk and vanished into Sweetie’s side of the yard. Sweetie grumbled and shook her head. “Still isn’t how it works.” Twilight watched her peer up over the lawn at the others before munching on one of the taller stalks. Twilight got to the front of the yard. It looked even worse up close. She sighed and shook her head. Scootaloo glanced up, dropped her ears, and gave Twilight a chagrined smile. Twilight gave her a sly one in return. “The others weren’t kidding, huh?” “I was gonna get to it.” As Rainbow landed, the others perked up and fought their way back to the sidewalk. “Hi, Twilight!” Sweetie chimed. “What’re you—oh, that’s right, we were gonna help you with something before Mister Basil showed up!” As they crowded in, Rainbow raised an eyebrow and looked sidelong at her girlfriend. Twilight met the look, but didn’t say anything, and forced a grin back at the fillies. “Actually, girls, we’re here to help you out.” “Huh?” Apple Bloom scratched her head. “We are?” Rainbow asked. Twilight gave Rainbow a flat look, grumbled, and rubbed her forehead. “Yes. We are.” Rainbow turned to the girls and shrugged. “Uhh, thanks, I guess,” Scootaloo muttered as she rubbed the back of her neck. “But we don’t need help with anything. We’re just looking for that dumb wheel.” Twilight exhaled sharply, then forced a slower breath. “Yes, Scootaloo, that’s what we’re here to help with.” Scootaloo opened her mouth to object, but Twilight kept going. “I’m sure you don’t actually need our help, but we have a theory, and the first step to test it is finding that wheel.” “You got a theory?” Apple Bloom asked. “A theory ‘bout what?” “Well, you see—” “About that Basil guy!” Rainbow announced, puffing out her chest. Twilight narrowed her eyes and flicked an ear. “You guys met him, right? He’s a total fraud!” “A fraud?” Sweetie said, her eyes wide. “Rainbow …” Twilight warned under her breath, just loud enough for Rainbow to hear. Rainbow raised an eyebrow. Scootaloo pursed her lips and tapped her chin. “Is he really? He seemed okay to me.” “Is—” Apple Bloom started. “We don’t know anything for sure,” Twilight cut in. “He might be, though. And we’re trying to find out if he is.” Scootaloo scratched the side of her head, raising an eyebrow. “And … our wheel can help …?” She looked to Rainbow. Rainbow shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I dunno.” Twilight sighed. “Yes. It can.” She cleared her throat and straightened. “What we’re doing is—” “I thought we were gonna set a trap.” Twilight’s mouth snapped shut and she folded her ears back, her right eye twitching. “Yes, Rainbow, that’s what we’re doing.” “So how—” “We’re testing the theory that Basil Bones has been setting up mysteries to then pretend to solve, and when I last saw him he was attempting to help find Scootaloo’s missing wagon wheel. Therefore it stands to reason …” As Twilight trailed off, Rainbow stared off into space. Twilight waited expectantly. After a moment, something clicked and Rainbow started, then bit her lip. “Um … that … it’s something that he took?” Twilight grinned and nodded. Rainbow puffed out her chest. Scootaloo scowled. “You mean Mister Basil stole my wheel!?” Twilight shrugged, letting her expression fall back to neutral. “Well … he might have, but we don’t know for sure. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, because if we find it first, we’ll ruin his chance to pretend to find it and make him look bad!” Twilight’s eye twitched again, and she shook her head. “No, not exactly. We’re not trying to make him look bad, we’re trying to catch him.” Rainbow frowned and rubbed her neck. “How’re we gonna do that, anyway?” “Well—” “Ooh!” Sweetie Belle chimed, “I know! If we figure out how he took it and what he did with it, that means we’ll know where it is! So if we find it there, it means he did take it!” Scootaloo nodded in appreciation. “Hey, yeah, that is a good idea.” “Makes sense to me,” Apple Bloom agreed. “So if’n he took it, what’cha think he did with it?” Soootaloo raised an eyebrow. “Beats me.” She turned to Rainbow, who gave her a ‘don’t look at me,’ shrug, then looked to Twilight. Twilight gave them all a pained smile. “That would work, Sweetie Belle, but unfortunately I don’t know what he’d do with it, either.” “Rats.” Apple Bloom scuffed the ground with her hoof. “So how are we gonna find it? You gonna do the detectivin’ stuff that he does? You’re good at that, right?” Her ears fell. “Well … I don’t think there’s enough to go on to find it with proper detective skills, but—” “What’re ‘proper’ detective skills?” Apple Bloom asked. “Well, uh, it’s—” Scootaloo’s expression grew bewildered. “Is there a wrong way that would work?” “Um, sort of—” Turning away from Twilight, Sweetie rubbed her chin. “Mister Basil did think somepony stole the wheel, and that’s really dumb, so maybe it’s thinking dumb stuff? Thinking dumb stuff can’t be the right way to do it, but it was working for him.” “But—” Apple Bloom giggled. “If thinkin’ dumb stuff works, Scoots’ll find it in no time.” “Hey!” Scootaloo’s wings sprang open as she rounded on Apple Bloom. “I’m kiddin’, I’m kiddin’!” “Oh, I get it,” Scootaloo mocked, “you’re trying to find the wheel right now!” They all opened their mouths at once. “Listen!” Twilight shot in. “Just let me explain it all the way and stop interrupting me, and then it will all make sense and I can tell you the plan!” A pause of silence stretched out. Scootaloo snorted, then clapped her hooves over her face. The other two started to crack, and Scootaloo quickly swallowed down her laugh and forced out, “Okay, all right, we’re listening.” The others settled down and managed a half convincing look of chagrin. Twilight took a long, deep breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Let’s start with some basic information about solving mysteries. Basil Bones solves mysteries—provided he isn’t a fake—using abductive reasoning; making observations and using those to reach conclusions concerning a pony and what they’re like, or an event and what happened in it. While a pony might have a natural talent at abductive reasoning, it is a learned skill, one related to deductive reasoning.” Twilight fell into pacing, her voice evening out. “Deductive reasoning is a simpler idea, where using information you know to be true, you arrive at a conclusion. For example, we know it is true that wagons normally have four wheels, that your wagon only has three wheels, that Scootaloo takes good care of the wagon, and that nopony noticed the wheel falling off or being taken off. From these facts, we could come to the conclusion that the wheel was removed—either intentionally or unintentionally—by somepony else.” Stopping, Twilight turned to face the crusaders. “Abductive reasoning, on the other hoof, follows observations and tries to arrive at facts like those in the previous example. So, for instance, by looking at the wagon, I might be able to tell that the other wheels are kept clean and properly installed, and come to the conclusion that Scootaloo takes good care of it. So, by finding clues and figuring out what those clues can tell you, a detective can put together enough facts to where the deductive reasoning for figuring out exactly what happened would be as easy as coming to the conclusion that the wheel was removed. Which is the proper way to solve a mystery. With me so far?” Apple Bloom raised a hoof. “Yes?” “I thought ya told us to keep our mouths shut ‘til you were done.” Rainbow gagged and covered her face. “… I deserved that,” Twilight said. She took another steadying breath and continued. “Okay, so, proper way to solve a mystery. Let’s say we tried to do that on our own. The first step is we’d examine the wagon, like Basil did, and try to find some other clues that could lead us to where you lost it, like if there was any mud on the … part that a wheel connects to.” “Axle,” Scootaloo offered, then flinched. “Sorry! Shutting up!” “No, that’s okay, the axle, thank you.” Twilight rubbed her headache. “Maybe that mud was red, and this is just an example, but if it had red mud on it, we could use abductive reasoning and come up with the idea that the wheel must have been taken, or knocked off by accident, somewhere that has red mud. And we know there aren’t too many spots in town with mud that is red, right? Most of the mud off the river is brown, but there’s that big clay deposit that Thrown Coils makes his pots from. So we could go look near that spot and maybe find your wheel. Does that make sense? It’s okay to answer.” The three girls nodded, while Rainbow stared off into space, looking bored. “I get it,” Apple Bloom said. “Is it really simple like that? Movies n’ detectives like Mister Basil make it seem real hard.” Twilight grinned and fell back into pacing. “What makes it hard is knowing what to look for, or recognizing what you’ve found as something valuable, or knowing what to do with the information once you have it. So in this case, I might be able to figure it out from looking, but I don’t really know that much about the mechanics of an axle to tell what part is what. I might miss some mud, or a different clue because I wouldn’t know enough about how it works. Or, if I did find the mud, I might think it was … axle grease? Is that a thing?” Scootaloo nodded. “Sure. But that’s on bigger wagons. This thing’s just on bearings.” Twilight nodded with enthusiasm. “Exactly! I might mistake some mud as axle grease, and not know enough to be aware that your wagon doesn’t use grease. And even if I did find the mud and knew that it didn’t belong, let’s say instead of being red, it’s … I don’t know, bright green. Even if I knew it was a clue, and knew it was important, I don’t know of anywhere in Ponyville with bright green mud, so I wouldn’t have any idea where to look.” Sweetie Belle scrunched up her snout. “Bright green mud? Maybe in the forest, it’s kinda swampy in there some places.” Apple Bloom looked sidelong at Sweetie. “We didn’t really find green mud, ya know.” Glaring, Sweetie puffed out her lower lip. “I know that! Green mud’s just a weird idea and got me thinking!” “If there was green mud,” Scootaloo offered, “that’s a pretty good idea, I think.” Sweetie beamed. Twilight cleared her throat. “Regardless, there are other problems that would get in the way of us taking the proper route of mystery solving. If we’re right and Basil Bones set the situation up himself, there could be evidence he planted to make the situation look like something else happened, but then again he might have not done that. Instead he might have cleaned up all the evidence that might point towards him, or other directions, so it’d be a mystery only he could solve. And while he’s a pony, and ponies aren’t perfect, it isn’t very likely that he left something that would give him away by accident, since he solves mysteries for a living and would know what he’s doing. The point being that we can’t actually trust any of the evidence on the wagon itself.” Sweetie’s eyes widened with understanding. “Ohhh, I get it, because if we can’t trust any of the evidence, we wouldn’t even be able to start coming up with conclusions through the, uhh, abductive reasoning thing, since none of the observations we’d make would be good enough to get a conclusion from.” Twilight grinned again. “Yes, sort of. It isn’t that we couldn’t start, it’s just that we’d end up second guessing everything, because it might be a real observation, or it might be planted. Plenty of mysteries have been solved by detectives who couldn’t trust all the evidence, since ponies who are trying to get away with a crime don’t really want to be caught. All it really does is make everything harder.” Scootaloo rubbed her chin. “So … we could try to solve it, but it might be really hard, we might not know enough stuff to figure it out, and the guy who did it might have hid all the clues from us to begin with.” Twilight nodded. “Yes, exactly. That’s why we aren’t going to try to solve it the proper way.” The three fillies and Rainbow all looked to Twilight. “All right,” Apple Bloom said slowly. “So how are we gonna solve it?” Twilight smirked. “We’re going to cheat.” She was met with four bewildered looks. “Um,” Rainbow said, “It’s Basil that’s cheating, not us.” Twilight slumped. “I swear, you’re all doing this on purpose now.” She sat down and rubbed her face with both hooves. “We’re going to cheat at mystery solving. All those things I said about abductive reasoning, reaching conclusions, and making theories? That’s all really useful for things like murder mysteries or major thefts.” She stood up again and walked over to the wagon, sitting off in a Scootaloo’s yard and almost hidden by the grass. She lifted it up in her magic and flipped it upside down. “But when you’re a student at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns and need to carry around a set of matching quills—” Twilight’s horn glowed brighter, and the three wheels on the wagon lit up, spinning in the air like she’d flicked them to life, “—and are also the sort of pony who ends up leaving her quills in the weirdest places—” her horn’s magic turned blue and pulsed at a slow, steady pace, “—you quickly learn spells to help you find a lost item from a set.” She set the wagon back down and spun in place a half step at a time. The others watched her as she crossed her eyes to look at her horn, which pulsed at the same sluggish rate, but faded from a light blue to turquoise, and then green once she faced back down the street in the direction they’d walked from. “Ohhhh,” the four said together. Twilight smirked again. “Come on, girls. Let’s go find a wheel. Bring the wagon.” She led the way down the street. Twilight’s eyes hurt. She’d stared cross-eyed at her horn as they paced up the street, watching the green fade back to blue then correcting her course, weaving through town in roughly the right direction. A few blocks away from Scootaloo’s house, on the other side of the town square where the buildings started to thin out again, the frequency of the pulses had doubled, and a sense of certainty fell over her. At this rate, they’d reach the location of the wheel in another few blocks. Right in front of Rarity’s house. Right where Basil Bones had started to ‘solve’ their mystery. “Okay, so here’s the plan …” Scootaloo jumped forward. “Did you find my wheel!?” “Not yet, but we’ll be there soon. But when we do find it, it’s important that we have a plan, if we’re going to trap Basil Bones.” A flash from her horn faded to purple when she looked towards Scootaloo, so she shot her head forward. “Once we know where it is, we need to be careful not to move it.” Scootaloo grumbled and kicked at the ground. “I wanna fix the dumb wagon already.” “I understand, but it’s important to not look like we figured out where it is yet.” “Huh?” said Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash at the same time. “I get it!” Sweetie said. “We’re gonna trick Basil into solving it for us, and we can’t do that if the mystery looks like it’s already solved, right?” Twilight grinned and nodded. “We might not need to do that, but it’s a very important alternative to leave open.” The pulsing had shortened to once every few seconds as they hit the clearing around Carousel Boutique. Twilight was within ten yards of the wheel. “The first thing we’re going to do is look over the wagon again and try to figure out what connections there are between the wagon and the actual location of the wheel.” “Huh?” said Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash at the same time. Twilight stopped and rubbed her chin. “Sort of a backwards abductive reasoning. Starting from a conclusion, we try to figure out what observations would make sense to lead us to that conclusion. We’re trying to figure out on our own how Basil Bones set up the mystery for us, and if we can’t manage that, we’re going to at least try to figure out what he is going to say had happened.” Rainbow lifted up off the ground and flew in front of Twilight. “And if we figure that out, we know he did it, right?” Blue light strobed in Rainbow’s face and she cringed back. “Augh!” “Well, maybe. It isn’t really proof either way, but we might be able to confront him with evidence of his tampering, or at the very least convince him to ‘solve’ the mystery for us and, using what we figure out from our own investigations, see if we can poke any holes in his story.” Apple Bloom huffed. “This all sounds real complicated, n’ like even if everythin’ goes our way we still don’t know anythin’ for sure.” Sighing, Twilight gave a pained smile. “That’s a … rather accurate description of nearly all of science.” Apple Bloom crinkled her snout. “So—” “Why’d we stop?” Sweetie asked. Apple Bloom snapped her mouth shut and Twilight blinked and looked around. “Oh … um … because we’re here.” Carousel Boutique stood a few yards ahead, just as empty as it had been earlier in the day. Twilight’s horn flashed constantly, bleeding from blue to green to purple as she shifted her head from side to side. The green strengthened as she turned, until it was a vibrant emerald when pointed at the tree to Twilight’s side. The same tree Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had crashed into. Fine-tuning her aim, she smiled with her horn pointed at a crook in the tree’s branches, her magic evening out to a solid beam of color shining at the spot. She dropped the spell. “It’s there, in the tree.” Rainbow flew up higher and pushed some leaves away. “Careful! Remember we don’t want to move it.” “Yeah, I got it, Twi.” Rainbow craned her neck in, and shoved a second branch aside. “Well, damn, here it is.” “Lemme see!” Scootaloo called, her wings buzzing enough to lift her an inch up. “Soon,” Twilight promised. She turned back to Rainbow. “And language.” Scootaloo looked to Apple Bloom. “Is ‘damn’ a curse word now?” Sweetie tsked. “Language!” Sighing, Twilight refocused on Rainbow. “Anyway. The wheel. Where is it exactly?” “… In the tree.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I mean, where in the tree? And how? Is it stuck to anything, is it hanging from something?” “Well, uh, it’s just sitting here on its side. It’s kinda propped—hold on.” Rainbow grunted and shoved her upper body deeper into the canopy.” “Caref—” “I’m not touching it! Jeeze! There’s something else it’s sitting on, it’s hard to see and—” Rainbow’s tail shot out straight behind her. She blasted backwards out of the tree, stone-faced with twigs and leaves stuck in her mane. Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What is it?” “Hold on, be right back.” Rainbow streaked through the air back into town. Twilight huffed and rubbed her face. “Great.” She took a deep breath and turned to the crusaders. “Well while we wait for her to … do whatever she’s doing, let’s take a look at the wagon and see if we can figure anything out.” Scootaloo shrugged and pulled the wagon to the center of the group. “I looked it over pretty good already. What sorta stuff are we looking for?” Twilight took hold of the handle with her magic and twisted the cart around, upending it halfway off its remaining wheels to look at the bare axle. “I’m not entirely sure, but maybe some leaves that match this tree? Or dirt that matches the ground here.” “There was some stuff like that, I guess. I wiped all the gunk off it this morning. Does that matter?” Wincing internally but keeping her face even, Twilight focused on the wagon. “It might, but it does look like there’re some scrapes on the underside here.” She pointed at a scuff mark across the bottom corner near the missing wheel. She could tell the mark was new compared to some of the other bumps and dings based on the flaking of the paint at the edges, and looking closely she could see some dusty brown powder running through the middle of it. It didn’t look like dirt to her, so she guessed it was likely crumbled tree bark. “This might match the bark of this tree.” Apple Bloom fidgeted. “We did crash full on into the tree, like, fifteen minutes ago.” Twilight’s ears fell. “Yeah, you’re right,” said Scootaloo. “Heck, I bet a lot of what we find on it could be from the crash.” Twilight settled the wagon back down. Sweetie peered up into the tree. “I bet somepony could even say the wheel came off and landed in the tree, if they didn’t know we lost it before the crash.” Apple Bloom’s eyebrows screwed up in confusion. “Ya think Basil’d try an’ tell us we lost the wheel in a crash that not havin’ a wheel on made happen?” “I dunno.” “Well,” Twilight cut in, “we know that he wouldn’t make that argument already.” At their questioning looks, Twilight continued. “He started to help you girls out earlier, and his argument was the wheel had been stolen, remember?” Twilight narrowed her eyes and frowned in thought. “And … come to think of it, when you did crash, I don’t think the wagon really hit the tree at all, did it? It sort of flipped around and landed against the tree.” “Yeah?” Scootaloo asked. She ran over towards Rarity’s door and looked at the skid marks through the ground. “It, like, swung around here,” she pointed, then swept her hoof a couple feet closer to the group, “and tossed me and AB off over here. I didn’t really see what happened after that. Did you see, Sweetie?” Sweetie Belle shook her head. “I was more worried about you guys than what the wagon was doing. Did you see, AB?” “I was gettin’ tossed around same as Scoots.” They all turned to Twilight. “Um … I caught a little bit of the crash, but I was more concerned with making sure you were both okay, too. I’m pretty sure it went end over end a few times and then landed against the tree, though.” She turned her attention to the ground and extended the search past the initial skid. “Yeah … here, look at these marks.” Twilight pointed at a divot in the turf. Dirt showed in a small crescent where something had cleaved into the ground, then raised a hunk of sod up, as if a farmer had struck it with a hoe. A few feet ahead, a wildflower lay half-crushed on its side, not quite trod upon, but more like something large had been set down on top of it. “See, here the wagon caught on the ground, probably with the lip since it dug in a little. And here it landed on a flower, probably with the flat of a side.” She turned around and lifted the wagon with her magic again. Spinning it around, she looked at the edges of the basket one by one, then grinned when she got to the front side. A smear of rich clung to one of the corners. “Yes, see?” She prodded the dirt with a hoof. The surface was a dry, light brown crust, but the inside was still damp. “Oh, neat!” Sweetie said. “Is there any sign of the flower?” Twilight pictured in her head how the wagon must have rolled, and spun it around to look at the back. “Mmm … no, looks like it didn’t leave anything …” Scootaloo leapt forward. “Wait! Look there, at the rivet!” Twilight arched a brow and followed Scootaloo’s hoof. The dinged up metal of the wagon seemed to be a uniform mottled mess to her, but sure enough there was a rivet near the corner. A wisp of a flower petal poked out near the bottom, wedged in between the rivet and the metal. She grasped it in her magic and pulled it free. “Good eye, Scootaloo!” She set the wagon back down and brought the petal over to the flower. Its color matched the petals remaining around the pistil. “Perfect! It would take some tests to tell if it’s actually from this flower, but it’s pretty strong evidence that I’m remembering right.” “That’s pretty dang cool.” Apple Bloom scratched her head in thought. “So what’s it flippin’ over like that tell us that’s important?” “Well, when it landed, the wagon’s lip is what leaned up against the tree, because we could see the wheels, remember?” “Uh huh.” “Since it was flipping end over end, we know how it landed that way, right?” Twilight raised a hoof and swung her leg, simulating the wagon raising off the ground in a forward flip to hitch up against the tree. “If that’s how it landed there, then the smear of wood on the bottom …” Scootaloo leapt forward again. “Ooh! It wouldn’t get there from the crash! It’s on the wrong side of the wagon!” “Exactly!” Twilight beamed. Apple Bloom stepped over and hauled the wagon up to look at the bottom. “… Huh.” She let it plop back down. “That is real weird. How’d it get there?” Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow and turned to Twilight. “Think Mister Basil put it there?” Her smile fell. “Well … I don’t know. Maybe? Or, it could be that it’s from something else.” She turned to Scootaloo. “You said that you cleaned it up this morning, right?” Scootaloo nodded. “Did you notice the scratch then? Can we say for sure whether or not it’s new?” Hesitating for a moment, Scootaloo crossed both sets of legs and looked away. “I mean … I’m pretty sure I wiped down the bottom.” Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes. “What’s pretty sure mean?” Scootaloo huffed and sprung to a wide, defiant stance. “Look, it was missing a wheel, I was kinda distracted by trying to figure out where the heck that went to pay attention to what I was doing with the rag, okay?” “Don’t gotta bite my head off, jeeze.” Twilight cut in as Scootaloo puffed up again. “It’s okay, really, this is just part of the process. Would anything that happened yesterday explain the mark?” Sweetie scuffed the ground. “You mean like going off a ramp, landing directly on top of a log, and breaking the log in half?” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked at each other, then turned to Twilight and smiled sheepishly. “… Yes, Sweetie.” Twilight let out a long breath and turned back to the tree. “Not that I’d have any idea what to think if we were sure that it was unaccounted for. Why hide the wheel in a tree? We’re still missing something.” Rainbow Dash blurred in over a house and landed with a thud in the middle of the group, her teeth grinding together. “I’m gonna kill him.” Twilight blinked. “… What?” “He took my coffee mug! That’s what’s up in the tree with the wheel, the mug I was drinking out of this morning! That weasel broke into the library and stole my damn mug!” “What!?” Rainbow leapt back into the air and lunged at the tree, then dragged herself to a halt. “Not touching it! Just … it’s … it’s my mug! Right there!” She dropped back to the ground. “That little jerk stole their wheel and hid it with my mug, because he knew we’d find it, and then we’d know he knew, and he knows we know he knows! He’s mocking us!” “… Um.” Rainbow glared at her and stuck out her bottom lip. “What? Do you have a better idea?” Twilight opened her mouth and took in a breath. She closed her mouth again. “… No, I don’t.” “See? So—” Twilight shook her head and glared, her voice raising. “That doesn’t mean that he’s trying to ‘mock’ anypony, Rainbow! What it means is that it doesn’t make sense!” She spun around and yelled directly at the tree, “None of this makes sense!” She whirled back to Rainbow. “Are you sure it’s your mug!? Why is your mug up there!?” “Of course I’m sure! Look!” Rainbow charged forward and hoisted Twilight around the middle, then jerked them both up into the canopy. “Augh, Rainbow, you didn’t—” She rubbed the leaves out of her eyes, and when they sprung right back into place, she flung her hooves out to her sides. The branches parted with a shower of creaks and pops as she strained the wood. She heaved in a few breaths to get her bearings, some of the wild energy draining out of her. Feeling more centered, she looked down. Sure enough, in the crook of the tree sat a wheel, identical to the three attached to the crusaders’ wagon. Underneath it was a coffee mug. The mug Rainbow always used was nondescript, a plain white mug, oversized but otherwise normal, with a small loop of a handle. Twilight could still smell a faint trace of coffee from it. It occurred to her that it might be a different, similar mug that smelled like their brand of coffee, but she assumed Rainbow had just flown to the library to check. It would make less sense if it wasn’t Rainbow’s mug, which in some ways made Twilight feel worse. She furrowed her brow. “How’re these things even staying up in the tree?” “So you believe me now, huh?” “I didn’t—” She pressed her lips together and forced herself to take a breath. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t saying that, this is just so … so stupid!” She growled and craned her neck around to try and see it from all angles. She thrust herself further into the tree and when she looked back at it, she could see that the mug’s handle had been wedged into a fork in the branch. “Okay, so the mug isn’t going anywhere, and the wheel is just propped against—Celestia, why am I doing this!?” She wrenched back out of the tree with another protest of crackling from the branches. “Rainbow, put me down!” Rainbow brought them both back to the grass and Twilight dropped to her haunches. She scrubbed her face with both hooves and growled again. “What is the point of taking your mug?” “He’s mocking us, Twi.” “But that also doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t know we’re trying to trap him.” Rainbow raised a hoof in objection. “But you said he is pretty good at figuring stuff out sometimes, what if he already knows we’re doing this just from, like, looking at us?” “But we didn’t decide to do this until after he left. And even if he did somehow figure it out, the way we’re trying to trap him is by proving he took the wheel, and if he took the wheel and wanted to mock us, why would he leave your mug where we could find it and know he actually did take it!?” Rainbow stood stock still for a moment, then lowered her hoof. “… Uhhh …” Scootaloo shifted from one hoof to the other, said half a word, then trailed off and looked away. Twilight looked from Scootaloo to the other two, then lowered her voice and forced her tone to be calm. “I’m sorry, girls, I’m not trying to make a scene. Did you have an idea, Scootaloo?” Scootaloo cleared her throat and looked down. “Is … maybe Mister Basil was right and somepony else in town took the wheel? And your coffee mug?” She shot Apple Bloom a pointed look. “I know it sounds dumb, what about today doesn’t sound dumb?” “I wasn’t gonna say nothin’.” Twilight closed her eyes, then shook her head to clear it. “Maybe it is somepony else, though why they’d do this I couldn’t begin to guess.” Rainbow huffed. “It’s gotta be him.” Twilight raised her head and turned to Rainbow. “But … why?” A silence fell as they looked at each other. “… I didn’t think it was that dumb, Scoots,” Sweetie said, before being shushed by Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. Eventually, Rainbow shrugged in defeat. “You’re right, Twi. It’s dumb, it’s all dumb, everything about today’s been dumb.” “It really has.” The tension clawing at Twilight broke, and after a moment she cracked a smile. Rainbow returned it. She giggled and leaned forward. “You’ve got a lot of twigs in your mane.” “You too.” Twilight took a deep breath and got to her hooves. “Okay, I think that’s enough of this insanity for now. Maybe there’s a way to use this to our advantage, maybe not, but I need a break. Maybe extra time is all I need for things to make sense again, which I doubt, but that doesn’t matter.” She offered an apologetic smile to the crusaders. “Anyway, thank you for your help, girls, even if we didn’t figure anything out, you were a big help.” They beamed and Twilight’s smile widened. “Rainbow, you can reach it the easiest, let’s give them … their …” Twilight trailed off as she looked back over the road. A pony walked his way toward their group at an unsteady gait, somewhere between determined and terrified. Basil Bones puffed thick clouds of smoke from his pipe, as if to screen himself from view. For a moment Twilight thought he was trying to go unnoticed to slip past them, and doing a bad job at that, but he stopped directly in front of their group. The cloud of pipe smoke grew thicker. Twilight shot a look to Rainbow, checking her expression. Rainbow looked impassive. She wagered it was a better sign than anger, and turned back to Basil. “Um … beg your pardon, madams,” Basil said in faltering steps. “I am loath to interrupt you, but would it be feasible to borrow a moment of your time?” Twilight pressed her mouth into a thin line. Perhaps something could be salvaged from the day yet. She hoped Rainbow and the fillies would know not to say anything about the wheel and let her take the lead. She ran through what to say, how exactly to say it, to as yet turn the wagon wheel into a trap. The game was still ahoof. “Y—” “What do you want?” Rainbow hissed. Basil flinched behind the cloud. “Please don’t throw anything at me.” Groaning, Twilight muttered, “The day gets stupider.”