Apparently, not early enough.
The first Derpy knew about it was when White Lightning the pegasus shook her awake and pointed at the bedside clock. It soon turned out that Derpy had overslept, Rarity had refused to wait much longer, and White Lightning had been collared during her morning shift and press-ganged into acting as runner. Since White Lightning never spoke, her gestures and facial expressions were an impressive feat of charades, and even Derpy couldn’t misunderstand them.
One thing led to another: she fled Cloudsdale, which led her to Rarity, which led to a bit of scolding, which led to a few mumbled apologies, which led to a walk, which led to a street, which led – at last – to Barnyard Bargains.
Filthy Rich, owner of Barnyard Bargains and living proof that no amount of money will make a slicked-down mane look good, was already inside overseeing the trolleys of stock and the ponies pushing them along the aisles. Ponyville didn’t have supermarkets per se, but that didn’t stop him trying to upgrade from the modest “general department store” classification. Apparently, he wasn’t bad to work for, and even remembered his employees’ names and birthdays.
As soon as he turned around, he gave them a free sample of his warmest Barnyard Bargains beaming smile (trademarked), at no extra cost. Derpy returned a mere imitation so as not to infringe copyright.
“Miss Rarity of the Carousel Franchise!” Filthy chuckled and slapped Rarity on the back. “Always a delight to see you!”
“Likewise, Mister Rich of Barnyard Bargains,” said Rarity with a wince, and she gestured to Derpy. “I’m not staying long. I wanted to make sure Derpy got here on time.”
Derpy kept her face carefully blank. Easier said than done when her eyes started drifting off again.
Ever so slightly, Filthy Rich’s smile was discounted at the corners. News like Derpy got around.
“Think of everything, huh? Glad we could come to an agreement,” he said, recovering somewhat. More enthusiastically, he added, “Thanks again for the help, Rarity. This time of year is always a scrabble, but that’s what we live for, eh? Oh, and” – he raised a hoof to cover the whisper – “nice suggestion for the Manehattan site. Just bought the place, and it’ll need a bit of work, but I’m sure we’ll have it ready for next year’s Hearth’s Warming. We’ll be so far in the black they’ll have to invent a new colour for us!”
“Any time. Really, you should thank Miss Pommel for the suggestion. She’s the one who pointed the site out to me.”
At this, Derpy remembered Rarity’s talk from yesterday. He’s always wanted to start up a franchise, but poor dear’s been brought up on too many traditions. He never had a chance to start up from scratch. That sort of thing can shackle a business mind, if you’re not careful. So I simply have to pull a few strings, give a little advice here and there, and he’ll be so grateful that I could give him a coma patient and he’d agree to this arrangement. Oh, er… No offence, that is, aheheheh.
“What did she mean by that?” Derpy wondered aloud. “What offence?”
“Now I must dash. Busy, busy, busy: you know how it is,” said Rarity.
“Huh. All too well. Take care of yourself, Miss Rarity!” said Filthy Rich.
By the time Derpy returned to the present, Rarity was walking out of the door and Filthy Rich was waving for her to follow. Along the cash tills, ponies carefully counted coins and tested the barcode scanners with bleeps and blares.
“To business,” he said as he went, talking over his shoulder and occasionally waving at a cheery employee. “Miss Hooves, Rarity tells me you’ve had plenty of experience volunteering for charity?”
He looked at her hopefully.
“Oh, that,” said Derpy. Act confident, the little Rarity in her head insisted. Act professional. “Lots. Every Hearth’s Warming is when I’m at the top of my game. Ha. One year, I took part in three dozen charity fundraisers throughout the entire month!”
“For more than a day each?”
“Huh? What?”
Filthy Rich cleared his throat. “Nothing. Thinking aloud, that’s all.”
“So what do I do?” She nodded towards the ponies stacking shelves. “Will I be doing that?”
“No, no, no. They’re paid employees on a contract. You’re a volunteer. The Barnyard Bargains Community Outreach Program says we ought to have a collection going for charity every Hearth’s Warming. My grandpappy set it up as a way of saying thanks to the town that helped get the business off the ground.”
“Ooh! Ooh! So I go around collecting money from customers?”
Her eyes drifted off again, and she shook her head viciously until the scene refocused.
Filthy gaped over his shoulder at her. “Er, something we should know?”
“Nothing important.” Cheerfully, she added, “I love the decorations, by the way, but you’ve got a crack in your ceiling.”
He glanced up. “Oh, right. I’ll have Gizmo look at that later. No, your job is simplicity itself.”
Both of them stopped. Beside them, next to some benches for waiting shoppers, was a bucket. It had a coin slot on top.
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “You want me to wait for the customers to finish shopping.”
“That’s right.” He nodded happily.
“And then I give them my best sales’ pitch. ‘Ma’am, are you aware that even as you’re shopping for fatty foods, there’s a poor foal sick in the hospital with Pegasus Pox’ –”
“That’s not right.” He shook his head much less happily.
“Oh. Then I shake the bucket meaningfully under their faces? To encourage ‘em?”
“No, Miss Hooves. You simply –”
“Do tricks and sing songs so they’re entertained and give money while they’re laughing with joy?”
“Sorry, Miss Hooves. I don’t have time for this.” He checked his watch, which due to some oversight – or so Derpy was sure – was not actually on his leg. “Look, just pick up the bucket.”
Derpy did so. Right now, the whole was so light that the handle barely pressed against her lips and teeth.
“Great work, Miss Hooves!”
“Now wad?” she said around her mouthful.
“That’s it!” he said. “Tada!”
“Waid…” Derpy’s face fell. “Dad’s id?”
“Yep! You got it!”
After a while, she added, “Juss… holdin’ der buck-id?”
“Big responsibility, and a part of our community outreach. Great start, Miss Hooves! I’ve got to check on that cleanup in the snacks aisle. Stand here for now. When it’s lunchtime, I’ll let you know. Have fun!”
“Waid a minnid, I god more kwess-chuns I… Oh, OK. Never mimd.”
He was already past the checkout tills and heading around one of the many corners. Derpy sighed.
For a while, she managed to clamp down on her disappointment. She even got a nice chance to see the store running for a few minutes; this early in the morning, not many customers came in, so she idly focused on each one as they approached the checkouts. They mostly went for snacks and cartons of eggnog, and had a certain “Get in, get what you need, get out” level of hurry.
However, this paltry entertainment barely kept her going for long. The ponies walked past her as though she wasn’t there.
Eventually, she thought, Forget his suggestion: I’ve got to do something!
“Charidy?” she said to the next stallion.
Startled out of his daydreams, he stopped and read the message on her bucket. “Oh, sure. Of course. It is Hearth’s Warming, after all.”
He put a couple of bits on his hoof before tipping the lot into the slot.
“Dank you!” said Derpy.
“My pleasure!” He beamed at her and walked out.
To make sure, Derpy deliberately avoided talking to the next three ponies. Not a thing.
See! This works! It’s all the rushing around that does it! If I just get their attention…
“Charidy?” she said to the fourth pony, who turned out to be Cheerilee.
“Absolutely! For such a noble cause, here’s ten bits.”
“Hey! Danks a dun! You’re aweshome!”
“Have a great day.” Cheerilee waved until she was out of sight.
Curious, Derpy took the bucket out for a moment and inspected it. “Ponyville General Hospital Sick Children’s Charity”. Ha. No wonder Cheerilee had delivered. She worked with children all the time.
“Charidy?” This earned her one bit – stingy, but better than nothing.
“Charidy?” Two bits again. Good.
“Charidy? Charidy, shirr? Charidy, missh?”
More bits tumbled in. Coins jingled on impact. Slowly but unmistakeably, the bucket grew heavier, and the coins inside jingled more loudly and more often each time she moved.
“Dank you!” she said to the roller derby foals.
“Dank you!” she said to Vinyl Scratch, who shrugged.
“Dank you, dank you, dank you!” she said as the queues started to form and the aisles began to fill up with ponies inspecting the goods.
Unfortunately, Derpy started to get creative.
She patrolled along the checkouts, pouncing at ponies who looked ready to leave. More coins entered her bucket, which by now was making her neck sag. Customers left with more interesting items now: little toys, bits of stationery, a few cheap cleaning fluids. Relatively more interesting, at least.
Unwisely, she pounced at Lily, who yelped, jumped up, and dropped her bags.
“Oh,” said Derpy, dropping the bucket onto the –
She snatched at it before it could hit the floor. The hard, wooden, easily crack-able floor.
“Phew,” she said.
Her legs sagged under the weight until she got her hooves slowly trapped between bucket and floor. Only then did she let it slip off so she could help pick things up.
“I am so sorry, Lily.” She scrabbled for the bags. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Lily panted heavily, patting her chest. “I think… I think I’m having… having a heart attack!”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Derpy, relying totally on Lily just being her usual hypochondriac self. They were drawing a few stares.
“Well… then maybe a stroke! A heart failure! Sudden arrhythmia!”
“Here are your bags. I really am sorry. Um…” Feebly, she pointed to the bucket. “Charity? It’s for a good cause.”
Lily’s breathing settled down now, and she stopped clutching at her chest or checking for heartbeats. “If I give you the money, will you promise not to do that again?”
“Uh… yeah?”
She got four bits and then watched Lily scurry out the door. Eventually, the stares wandered back into their own private worlds of commercialism. The fact that Lily was a known worrier probably helped.
Grinning apologetically, Derpy picked up the bucket again. All right, so maybe jumping at them on the way out is a bad idea. Maybe… Maybe I should just walk around and ask nicely? Some of them are leaving without buying anything, and obviously they’ll have more money before they go to the checkout.
She checked the plan for possible drawbacks. Seemed secure enough. Walking around talking to ponies was not going to cause a disaster, surely? Ponies did it all the time.
Neck straining to keep the bucket from scraping the ground, she went around and walked down the first aisle, which had a notable apple theme to it. Most of the shelves were empty, but one or two kegs of special winter cider sloshed here and there when she bumped into them and hastily stopped them toppling.
Only two ponies too. Well, easy enough. In fact, she recognized one of them…
“Hey!” She put the bucket down. “Tag-a-Long!”
The little Filly Guide looked strangely small without her uniform, and upon seeing Derpy contrived to look even smaller. “Oh. Hey. Derpy.”
“Left hoofshake!” Derpy held out hers.
After a while, she put it down again. “OK, I understand. You’re off-duty. Hey, remember all the cookies we sold last year for the Cookie Drive? Hundreds of them! Thousands! That was a great springtime, wasn’t it? I loved that one.”
“Yeah. Uh. You helped.”
“I sure did!” said Derpy, glossing over the incident with the slope, the cliff, gravity, and a cookie cart with no brakes. “Well, guess what I’m doing now? Tada!”
Dramatically, she stepped aside and gestured to the bucket. Unfortunately, she bumped into the stacked barrels and had to straighten them sharpish.
“Aha,” she said once they stopped wobbling. “I’m collecting for charity. Wanna make a donation?”
“Uh. Sure. It’s for a good cause.”
“And it’s Hearth’s Warming! The timing couldn’t be better!”
As soon as the five coins slid through the slot, however, the floor creaked ominously. And there was maybe a slight sagging.
Thinking fast, Derpy hovered, flapped hard, and picked up the bucket by the handle with both hooves. The thing was stretching her limbs. She could feel the strain.
“Aheh,” she said, checking the floor underneath. No cracks. “So many generous ponies. Well, thank you for your donation, and I hope to see you again next spring –”
She looked up. Tag-a-Long was gone.
“Oh. All right, then. Um.”
At least now she could speak properly. She went along aisles without feeling like her teeth were going to be pulled out, though her forelimbs were sending urgent messages to her brain. Mister Rich hadn’t said what to do if the bucket got heavy.
By the fourth aisle, she had to scrape the bucket across the ground. Marks stretched out behind her. Worried, she looked out for Mister Rich, or failing that an assistant.
“Char… ity?” she groaned to the next pony. Her wings were struggling not to pop with the effort of flapping.
“Here you go. Three bits. Hello again, Miss Hooves!”
“Hello… Mister… Waddle.” Against the strain creeping up her face, Derpy tried to grin at him. “Fancy… seeing… you… here?”
“Nice to see you,” said Mister Waddle, jowls aquiver, squinting through his glasses. “I was wondering why you weren’t showing up at the Ponyville Retirement Home anymore. You found a new job, I see?”
He nodded to the bucket. Derpy began to sweat; she risked a shake of her head.
“Got… kicked out…” she said.
“Did you? I don’t remember that.” At least he sounded genuinely surprised.
“Had to…” She flapped hard enough to buzz, and only managed to rise a few inches. “Almost… medicine… mix-up.”
“Oh yeah. Haha! Now I remember. The Old Chess Grandmaster and I had a laugh over that one. Not really funny at the time, I suppose, but at least no one was hurt, and you gotta laugh, right?”
Derpy grimaced. That wasn’t how Nurse Redheart had put it.
“I think… I gotta… move.” Some passing ponies noticed her and dropped some more coins in. The few inches she’d gained disappeared with a thump.
Derpy tensed up at once.
“Everything OK, Miss Hooves?” Mister Waddle’s face creased with concern. “You don’t look too peachy.”
“Gotta… go.” Scraping the floor, she fought against the heavy bucket and strained to reach the end of the aisle. Too many ponies were wincing or staring.
She looked down. The coins hadn’t actually gone in; the slot was blocked by sheer numbers. The sides of the bucket were bulging dangerously. Even the handle was stretching so much it was turning into a triangle.
Then the handle broke.
The bucket sank into the floor, and like a see-saw the middlemost plank rose up. Or tried to: the hair product shelf was in the way.
To her alarm, the whole shelf creaked and began to lean away. Slowly at first, but with the deceptive slowness of a boulder just breaking free.
Uh oh.
At once, she was on the other side, bracing her shoulders against the tinned foods, ignoring the ones sliding out around her, and pushing back. Her wings were buzzing and burning under the effort. So long as she stopped the dominoes effect, she was safe. So long as she stopped the dominoes effect.
Ponies muttered and hurried out of the way. Her shelf toppled, almost touched the other shelf opposite, and then stopped short. It started rising again. It was almost vertical.
Before it could tip the other way, she flew up and over and gave a counter-push. Around her, a half-dozen shop assistants converged on the ground and in the air. She knew what she was doing. No ironic last-minute toppling for her.
The shelf rocked, dropped a few more items, and then stood perfectly still. Several ponies let out sighs of relief.
Derpy waited, still braced against the shelf. Best not to assume too much, she felt.
Assistants picked up and restacked merchandise when she landed next to Mister Waddle. Up ahead, Filthy Rich hurried down to meet her.
Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh…
“Is everyone all right?” he said. Then he caught sight of Derpy, and his flustered face became even more so. “Miss Hooves? What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stand by the checkouts, didn’t I?”
“I got more money, Mister Rich,” she said desperately. “Look, the bucket’s over there.”
Wood snapped. Metal things clanked below. There was a final thump deep in the bowels of the basement.
“The bucket… was… over there,” she corrected.
Underfoot, cracks snaked out from the hole in the floor. Mister Waddle and Filthy Rich backed away nervously, but the cracks shot past them and ran along the aisle and under the shelves on either side.
And stopped.
“Um,” said Derpy. Filthy Rich stared in horror at the ground.
“I’ll uh, get some help?” she tried.
“The construction ponies know me well,” she ventured, trying to dress up a regrettable fact as a laudable qualification. “I could get them.”
Eventually, Filthy Rich sighed. He didn’t quite meet her gaze.
“Well, good work, uh, collecting the charity money, Miss Hooves. There’s that. Can’t fault you for that. Can’t fault you. Can’t…”
A distant door burst open. One stallion assistant – who was considerably grubbier and sootier than the others – came up and removed his goggles and hard hat.
“Mister Rich, we’ve got a problem with the boiler downstairs,” he said.
Panic crossed Filthy Rich’s face. “Problem?”
“As in something smashed it to pieces. Came right through the ceiling, sir. Took out a few pipes along the way. We can fix it – I know a few contacts – but we’ll have no heating for a week.”
“A week?” Panic shattered under shock, which froze into place and didn’t leave that face for quite some time.
“Sorry, sir. It’s not an easy fix.”
“We’re going to have no heating for a week?”
“That’s how it is, sir.”
“Right. I see. Uh huh. OK.”
“You OK, sir?”
Filthy Rich tugged at his collar. He smoothed down his mane. Still, he kept staring in shock.
“By the way, what happened up here?” The assistant looked at the cracks, the hole, and the one shelf now teetering dangerously towards them as the floor sagged under it.
Feeling a bit stupid, Derpy raised a hoof for attention. “Is this, uh, going to come out of my salary?”
Filthy Rich took a few deep breaths, a stallion contemplating a store shutdown in the middle of the busiest season of the year. He staggered in a daze. His face was turning pale.
“Miss Hooves,” he managed to say after he stopped the worst of the staggering. “I think it best… if you leave right about now…”
Veins throbbed on his temple. Assistants scattered at once, barking urgent orders at each other.
Derpy didn’t need telling twice. She was out the door before she could cause any more damage, and got away with merely toppling a stack of chocolate boxes on the way through.
She got as far as the next street before his screeching cry of woe echoed through the air.