//------------------------------// // 2 - D.I.Y. // Story: The Woman Who Lived Nextdoor // by Hazel Mee //------------------------------// Why had she come to Smile Harbour? Just to aggravate me, I bet. Somepony who hates me probably told her, "You want to have fun in Equestria? There's this fishercolt I know and-" Gnashing my teeth, I shoved the pillow off my head. It wasn't helping anyway. Three bleary-eyed steps took me from bed to my kitchen. My little dining table was now temporary (ha!) storage for my nets and eel trap. I stirred the embers in my potbellied stove and put on the kettle — might as well brew up if I couldn't blintzing-well sleep. My ear muscle ached but wouldn't stop twitching at every sharp report of hammer head on nail. It started yesterday. I woke before Princess Celestia's blessed orb rose, and broke fast with cold porridge before sailing out to one of my favourite spots on the shoals. The trawlers didn't work such shallow waters and the Red Claw was after lobster a few miles north, so everypony was happy as clams with their patch. I hauled in a reasonable catch, docked and unloaded, then headed home for lunch and a nap. Only to find a dozen or more earth ponies and unicorns swarming like ants as they hauled loads of lumber and crates between the train station and Mayree's house. With all the shouting and tromping of hooves I didn't get any rest yesterday and was pretty grouchy at the pub that evening. Might have said a few unkind things about my new neighbour. This morning I struggled to get out of bed and caught more restless naps than fish. Only to come home to this! Tap tap. Bang bang bang! The other townsponies were cupcake-lucky to have The Hump between them and this racket. I shambled outside with a cracked mug of tea clenched in a fore and sat by my door to watch Mayree working on my cou… on her house. Tap tap. Bang bang bang bang! Bang! She was tightening the loose siding and replacing salt-rotten boards, but at the rate she was going she'd be at it for days! She'd had a crew of construction ponies deliver the stuff, why was she doing all the work herself?! What an inconsiderate, dough-headed, ugly, backward, annoying… Mayree saw me glaring her as she walked to the pile of seasoned lumber stacked between our homes. She ignored my foul mood, all smiles and a cheerful nod. I just narrowed my eyes and slurped tea. She carried a fresh plank of siding to the wall while humming a happy tune. She was having fun! Fun annoying me or doing the work? I guess that's one thing we might have in common — I enjoyed working with my hooves and those flexible hands of hers almost seemed designed to work a saw or swing a hammer. Hands. Yeah, not claws or paws. At least I could pronounce that alien word without swallowing my tongue. Her long brown mane was bundled together behind her neck, held with a loop of glittering pink frill. Mayree called it a ροηλταιℓ, which Sun Squall thought was hilarious for some reason. She wore a white pull-over shirt with short sleeves over her upper fores. I couldn't pronounce her word for a human's forelegs: a short guttural growling grunt with a sibilant hiss at the end. Her thin barrel and hinds were covered in something like a farmpony's smock made of blue canvas, and over her paws, bright yellow slippers. The only sensibly colourful part of her drab outfit. If a mare was going bother wearing anything it should at least be pretty, right? In photos I'd seen of humans they'd all been wearing dull clothing that covered most of their bodies. With no fur they must fall prey to chills and sunburn, but did they go properly naked indoors? I sipped my tea and watched her struggle to hold a fresh board against the wall while lightly tapping a nail into it. Stupid mare. She should start all of the nails with the board on the ground, then hold it up to- Bang bang thwack! "ƒμςκ! sнιτ! ƒμςκιηg мοτнεя ƒμςκεя!" She danced around, clutching her left hand. It was mean but I couldn't help smirking, just a little. I got up, set my mug on my door stoop, and ambled over to her. She cursed some more, even in a foreign tongue those were obviously livid curses, then whirled around and kicked the board. It fell off the wall and it finally happened, what I'd feared from the day I met her, she toppled and landed hard on her rump in the scrubby grass. "Are you alright?" I asked and she whipped around to glare at me. "I'm fine", she said tightly. "I'm just ƒμςκιηg great." With her head at my level, I saw tears just starting to trickle down her fur-less cheeks. I coughed as she roughly swiped her eyes with a sleeve. "Would you like a helping hoof?" She squinted at me and heaved herself upright. "Why? Are you offering one?" She patted and swiped dirt off her rump. "No, I thought it'd be fun to ask and then gallop away laughing if you said yes." I yawned and shook my head. "I really will help if you want, honest." She scowled at me. "Last time I'll offer." She inhaled deeply through her tiny nose, held it a moment, and exhaled from her mouth. "Okay, why not?" She looked down at me and frowned. "But what can you even do? You're not exactly a unicorn, unless you're hiding a horn up that tight rump." I rolled my eyes, scooped up the fallen hammer in the crook of my fore and held out a hoof. "Give me a nail." She furrowed her brows at me and frowned even harder. I rolled my eyes and said, "Please." Her pocket jingled and she dropped a nail into my upturned hoof. I popped it between my lips. It was warm. I shuddered and stepped around her to lay the fallen board flat on the ground. A quick twist of the hammer's hook and the bent nail popped out. I kept an eye on where it landed so I could pick it up later, because getting a nail in your frog is not fun. I held the new nail in place and tapped it sharply with the hammer to get it started. "Another… please", I said while holding out my hoof. Mayree stared at me with what I'm pretty sure was a shocked expression on her flat face. Eyes wide, eyebrows up, mouth open. Her mouth snapped shut and she handed me a nail. Wack. I held my hoof out. "Another." Wack. Hoof out. Wack. Wack. Wack. "Okay, I'll hold it and you drive them home." The weird pink wigglers on her hand touched me as I hoofed her the hammer. My gut shrieked 'octopus!' and I couldn't help yanking back as if I'd touched a hot stove. "Wow", she said with a smirk. "Kind of touchy, aren't you?" I snorted at her and picked up the board with my teeth. It was light as a feather and I stretched my neck to get it flat on the wall. Standing up on my hinds was more difficult and I spread my legs while using my fores to shove the board into place on the wall. Mayree loomed over me with the hammer and pounded the first nail flush with a few efficient strikes. She moved to hammer the next one, but I said, "No, do the one at the other end so I can let go." "Oh, right." She walked around me and I had to flick my tail or she would've stepped on the blintzing thing! While she was finishing the rest of the nails I trotted to the lumber pile and pulled out another siding board. I had to be careful because they were rough-sawn and lip splinters were a nightmare to get out. She passed me the hammer and this time I didn't shudder like a filly when her pink tentacles brushed me. I prepared the board, held it in place, and she finished it off. Again and again, board after board, we hammered and sawed until that side of the old house was shipshape and ready for a lick of paint. My lips curved in a tight smile. This work had been on my to-do list for months, but my cousin was too cheap to pay for new siding. It may not be in the family any more, but at least it would be in good shape by the time we were done. "Let's take a break", Mayree said while wiping sweat from her brow. "Okay." I ambled towards my shack, thinking I would finish of my cold tea, when she called to me. "I have soda if you want one." "Oh, okay, thanks." A breeze blew in from the South Luna Ocean but it was still hot as baked biscuits in the sun. Mayree went inside but I didn't dare follow since I didn't have permission, but there was plenty of shade beneath the porch's roof. "Cola okay?" she yelled. "Sure!" I sat, squinted at the bright reflection from the waves, and a few moments later she returned with a bottle of Celestial Cola in each hand. It was cold! So cold a white mist formed on the glass as I took it from her. Weird. I twisted the cap off with my molars and drank half the bottle of cold sweet fizzy pop in a couple of swallows. It felt like an icicle sliding down to melt in my sweaty belly. "Ahhhhh…" I hadn't had one in months and never one this cold. Not in the heat of summer, anyway. It felt glorious! "That good, huh?" asked Mayree as she walked around me. "Yeeeesssssssss…", I burped like a foghorn and barked a laugh. "Jεsμs!" She laughed as she set her rump down beside me and leaned back against the house. Shrill cries from a flock of gulls made my sore ears twitch as they hovered on wind blowing up the cliff. One folded its wings and dropped like a spear, disappearing behind the grass stalks waving on the edge. I could just make out a crash of waves hitting the beach far below us, a constant whoosh and roar like some vast beast breathing. My ears jerked as Mayree made a piercing hoot beside me. Her lips pursed as she blew across her bottle's neck. Freak. She stared out to sea and asked, "Why are you helping me?" I shrugged. "Mostly so it gets done quicker and I can go back to getting some sleep in the afternoon." "Oh, sorry." She frowned and sipped from her bottle. "You could have told me. I didn't know you were asleep." I grouched, "I didn't think you'd care." "Hey, you're the pony that hates me! Don't go assuming the feeling is mutual." "I don't hate you." "Oh, no?" She set her bottle down and started ticking off on her creepy tentacles. "You bad mouth me around town. You take off from the pub when I show up. You told Sun Squall she could only be friends with you or with me." I flinched as she waved her hand threateningly. "I should smack you for that! She's a nice pony, you jεяκ. And when I showed up on your crappy little boat to tell you to make up, you screamed at me until she dragged me away." I made a sour face and poured soda into it to try and sweeten my mood. The town's rumour-mill was still grinding that tasty nugget of drama. Licking my lips I carefully said, "I don't like you. That doesn't mean I hate you." She snorted and waved her hands. "Same difference! I'm stuck living next to the only pony in town who doesn't like me." "You could always move." "ƒμςκ λομ, λομ αηηολιηg ℓιττℓε sнιτ." I smirked. "That didn't sound polite." "It wasn't." She sighed, wrapped her long fores around her hinds and pulled them to her lumpy chest. "It's because I stole your cousin's house, isn't it? Or are you just a tribalist road-apple that hates humans?" Turning my head, I dry-spat into the grass. "Ptew on tribalist muffin-heads!" But anti-human? Yeah, I could see why a pony might fear and dislike them. It's tough to love your 'creators' when they turn out to be lunatic predators who were blintzing up their world and enjoyed killing things — especially one another. That's if you believe the story that a bunch of humans made up a fairytale for their foals, and, poof, somehow our world sprang into existence. Load of sourdough if you ask me. She sipped her drink and asked, "So it's the house then?" I snorted and drank the last of mine. She sighed and said, "Well, I'm sorry, okay, but I'm not moving out! You might as well stop being a muffin-head to me and Squall just because I bought your cousin's old cottage. Place was falling apart anyway." That stung. Sure it was a bit rundown, but I'd worked hard to make sure it wasn't a boarded-up heap like the other abandoned houses north of The Hump. She wanted to know why I was angry? Fine. "This should have been my house." "Oh, really? How do you figure that?" I looked into her small sea-green eyes and there was tension around them. Annoyed? Curious? Both? Some alien emotion? It was hard reading her expression with those frozen ears and thin lips. "This used to be my band's home when I was a colt. When my mother ran away to Manehattan she sold it to my aunt and then she willed it to my cousin. Rosy Dawn let me stay until she married and then I had to move out to make room for everypony." I waved a hoof in the general direction of my hovel. "They graciously gave me our old storage shed and I made it comfortable enough." Mayree winced and made an odd popping sound with her lips. "That's harsh. Why didn't your mother give you the house?" My lips curled in a humourless smile. "The same reason my cousin sold it to you — for the bits. Moving to Manehattan isn't cheap, you know." "I guess, if it's anything like мαηнατταη on Earth." She grimaced and stared hard at the bottle in her hand. "I couldn't do that to my foal. If I ever have any." Odd, I'd assumed she had a foal or two by how swollen her misplaced teats were. Mom had other reasons, but that was none of Mayree's business and I didn't want to think about it. I stood and stretched my legs. "Are you done? I'd like to get back to work." She grumbled something under her breath and shoved herself away from the floor, levering her long body upright again. I shied away as she stooped to pick up my empty. I nodded to the bottle and said, "Thank you for that." She called over her shoulder as she went inside, "It's the least I can do." I had to agree with her. It really was.