The date was the first of December on a Monday, and the beginning of the final month of the year had overnight begun the annual Hearth’s Warming hype. Radio stations across the country advertised special sales and deals occuring in shops all over Equestria, and whilst the impending stress of choosing the right presents for their loved ones increased, ponies eagerly anticipated the 25th of December. This was not the case for one family.
“The jury have come to a decision. Please rise.”
In West Fillydelphia’s local courtroom, the defendant, her lawyers and the audience sitting at the back of the court all stood up as the jury (made up of nine ponies) entered the court.
Once they sat down at the bench next to the judge, the verdict was passed.
“On the charge of drug distribution, how does the jury find the defendant?”
The jury’s spokespony, a pegasus grey stallion wearing a suit, stood up.
“Not guilty, your honour.”
The defendant and her lawyers breathed a huge sigh of relief. The sentence for drug distribution was the most severe out of the charges the defendant was facing, and the defense lawyers were relieved that their client wouldn’t be facing a substantial sentence.
“On the charges of drug purchase, how does the jury find the defendant?”
“Guilty, your honour.”
“And for the charge of drug purchase?”
“Guilty, your honour.”
“Miss Pumpkin Spice, your drug usage has already been documented by the police, and I believe that time in jail will be a suitable punishment. Therefore, I will be sentencing you to a month in jail. Take her away.”
The judge banged his gavel on the table as he passed Pumpkin’s sentence, and two security guards began putting hoofcuffs on Pumpkin, and they took her out of the court and to the carriage waiting at the back that would take her to the local jail.
The ponies that had been watching the trial slowly filed out of the court.
“It's okay Rose, she’ll be fine.”
Tea Rose wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly. She was angry with Pumpkin for taking drugs again, but also with herself for not stepping in when she found the money under her sister’s mattress. During questioning, Pumpkin admitted that she had withdrawn the money from her bank account to pay for her drug habit, and Tea Rose felt betrayed that the money she had given to her sister over the past six weeks had been blown on drugs.
“Come on, let’s go home.”
Syracuse led his wife out of the court and Atomic followed after them.
“Sir, sir, would you like to answer a few questions?”
Outside the courtroom, a few journalists and photographers were waiting, and when Syracuse, Tea Rose and Atomic came out, they hurried towards the family. The three of them continued walking, trying their best to ignore the reporters.
“Atomic, how do you feel knowing your aunt is a drug addict?” one reporter asked, shoving a small recording device into the colt’s face.
“Hey, leave my son alone!”
Syracuse stepped between Atomic and the reporter, and he gave the journalist a ferocious glare.
“We’re not going to answer any of your questions, so leave us alone.”
The journalists finally moved away from the family and let them pass.
The mood at the Tangerine home had mostly been solemn in the four days following Pumpkin’s trial and incarceration. Atomic spent most of his free time either outside playing with Thunderhoof or hanging out at his best friend’s house. In school, Atomic was still out of lessons with Pablo, and the two colts had swapped glaring at each other and exchanging occasional insults to simply ignoring each other. Right now, Atomic and Pablo were in the isolation room behind the main reception, waiting for their lunch.
“Here you go. A cheese sandwich for you, and macaroni cheese for you.”
The teacher watching over the two colts gave them their lunch and went back to her seat next to the door, picking up her book and reading.
In front of him, Atomic picked up a fork began to scoff down his lunch, the combination of pasta and cheese satisfying his hunger. He briefly turned around and looked at Pablo, who was slowly opening the package holding his sandwich. As he turned back around, thoughts of Amber surfaced from the back of his mind.
You don’t have a crush on her Atomic, you’re just friends.
Yeah, she might be above-average looking, but it doesn’t mean anything.
“Miss, can I go to the toilet please?” Pablo suddenly asked.
“Come on then, I’ll go and find Mr Swift.”
Pablo followed the teacher out of the isolation room, and he waited the door whilst Mr Swift came to take him to the toilet. The teacher eventually arrived, and Pablo was taken to the colts’ toilets. On their way, Pablo spotted Amber walking with Blaze and Mustang the opposite way, and he decided to not say anything.
After he came out of the toilet, Pablo was taken back to the isolation room and he finished his lunch, plotting how to get out of isolation and get a chance to speak to Amber. Suddenly, Miss Bellflower came into the isolation room.
“Have they been behaving themselves?” she asked, and the teacher sitting next to the door nodded, telling Miss Bellflower that the colts had been quiet the entire day.
“Miss, is there any way I can apologise to Chestnut?” Pablo suddenly asked.
“Er, yes, you could write a letter,” Miss Bellflower suggested, and Pablo agreed.
“Atomic, I also want to apologise to you.”
“Huh?”
“It was wrong of me to fight you the way I did, and I understand that you were defending Chestnut. Can you forgive me?”
Atomic stared at Pablo with his mouth wide open, wondering if the colt in front of him was the same pony he had known for years. He finally closed his mouth.
“Yeah, I…..forgive you.”
“Atomic, do you have anything to say to Pablo?”
Atomic shook his head. Miss Bellflower cleared her throat and stared pointedly at Atomic.
“Oh yeah, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have attacked you.”
Miss Bellflower stood silently, considering whether the two should return to their lessons.
“Miss, I’ll get started on the apology letter now if you want,” Pablo said, trying to push Miss Bellflower’s mind towards letting him out of isolation.
“How about I take you to him now?” Miss Bellflower asked eventually.
“Yes, Miss.”
Pablo began packing up his belongings and Miss Bellflower told Atomic that he was coming too. They left the isolation room and Miss Bellflower took the colts to her office so she could check what lesson Chestnut had. Once she had found Chestnut’s timetable in his file, Miss Bellflower escorted Pablo and Atomic upstairs to room 24, where Chestnut was in the middle of his Science lesson.
Once Chestnut had come outside, Miss Bellflower nudged Pablo forwards.
“What did you want to say to Chestnut?”
“I’m sorry for what happened last week. I know what you did was an accident and I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Can you forgive me?”
“.....Alright then.”
Pablo smiled and held out a hoof, and the two shook hooves.
“Alright then you two, you can go back to your lessons,” Miss Bellflower said, and Atomic checked his timetable. His mood instantly deflated.
Room 6, here I come.
Ms Ivory’s fifth-period Maths lesson had crawled along for the first half, and Atomic was struggling to stay focused. He looked at his exercise book (which only had the date written in the top right corner) and sighed.
I never thought I would say this, but I’d rather go back to isolation than be here right now.
“Hey. Atomic.”
Just as Ms Ivory had left the class to fetch what she had printed from the printer in the corridor, Amber had tossed her pen back to Atomic’s desk, and as the other pupils took advantage of their teacher’s absence by talking, she dashed over to him.
“How come you’re back in lessons?”
“I had to say sorry to Pablo, and Miss Bellflower let me go.”
“Oh.”
There was a brief silence.
“Atomic, I’m sorry for not listening to you.”
“About what?”
“About Pablo. You were right, he is a total jerk and I don't wanna be friends with somepony like him.”
“Well, at least you know now.”
A small voice told Atomic that Pablo had already apologised to Chestnut, but the colt decided that Amber didn’t need to know that.
“I also need you to come to my home after school,” said Amber.
“Why?”
“The police came to me and told me about the trial, and my social worker’s been helping me with my testimony. Do you wanna compare?”
“Yeah, sure,” Atomic said with a nod.
“Thanks!”
Amber smiled and quickly went back to her seat before Ms Ivory returned with the final task of the lesson.
“It took me a while to find it, but here it is.”
As soon as school had finished, Atomic had sprinted home to find his testimony (which he had begun writing on a piece of lined paper he had found under his bed) and walked all the way back to school, where Amber was waiting for him with her social worker in her carriage. When they had arrived at Amber’s home, the social worker unlocked the front door and let the foals inside. Two fillies came running out of the living room and sprinted up the stairs, laughing all the way. A tall, skinny colt galloped after them, begging the fillies to give him his book back.
“You guys can go upstairs to Amber’s room. It'll be much quieter there.”
Amber led Atomic up the flight of stairs and towards the last room on the first floor, which had her name written on a plastic name holder on the front of the door.
“Amber, is that your boyfriend?”
Amber rolled her eyes at the colt that had spoken.
“No, he’s just a friend. Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
Amber opened her door and let Atomic inside. The bedroom was mostly bare with only a few personal belongings; a poster of the Fillydelphia Dragons on the light blue wall, a stack of books in the small desk next to the bed and an open wardrobe packed full of clothes.
Amber invited Atomic to sit on her bed whilst she looked for her testimony.
“Here it is.”
Amber had kept her sheet in much better condition than Atomic, and she carefully straightened out her paper onto her bed.
Atomic quickly read down the sheet, remembering the details from what Amber had told him the ugly the night they’d escaped.
“My best friend is dead and I have to live with the guilt of surviving for the rest of my life,” Amber’s testimony concluded.
Atomic sat back in silence, realising that Amber had gone through a lot more hardship and pain than he had thought.
“Here’s my one if you wanna read it.”
Atomic gave Amber his testimony and she read through it slowly.
“I had no idea you were locked up in a basement, Atomic.”
“Yeah, but at least we made it outta there.”
For the next hour, the two compared their testimonies, making sure that their statements matched up chronologically so that there weren’t any mistakes or contradictions in it.
“Atomic, your mom’s here to collect you!”
Amber came downstairs with Atomic and she hugged him goodbye at the door. As soon as Atomic saw his mother smiling at him, he knew what she was going to say.
“You’re spending a lot of time with Amber recently. She seems really nice.”
“Yeah, we’re just good friends, that’s all,” Atomic replied quickly, although his reddening cheeks contradicted this.
Tea Rose gently pinched her son’s cheeks.“These are telling me a different story.”
“I don’t like her or anything! We’re just friends!”
Tea Rose smirked. “I never said you liked her.”
Atomic groaned as his mother laughed loudly.
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a crush. I remember when I met your father, he had the biggest-”
“Lalalala, I can't hear you!” Atomic exclaimed, covering his ears.
Tea Rose laughed again but dropped the subject. On the opposite street of the foals’ home, the carriage that had dropped Tea Rose off to collect Atomic was waiting.
“Thanks for waiting,” Tea Rose said as she got into the carriage after Atomic.
Once the carriage stopped outside 27 Mayfield Avenue, Atomic got out and knocked on Thunderhoof’s door as his mother paid the driver.
After a few knocks, Thunderhoof opened the door. “Nopony was answering when I knocked. Where were you?”
“I was with Amber. She wanted to make sure our testimonies were alright.”
“Just you?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Nothing,” Thunderhoof replied with a small smile.
“I’m gonna put my things away and then I’ll come outside,” said Atomic, before quickly going inside his house. A few minutes later, he came back outside and caught the hoofball that Thunderhoof had tossed to him. The two lined up approximately twenty yards away from each other and began playing throwing the hoofball back and forth to each other.
“We can’t let Pablo win the game for us again,” Atomic said as he threw the ball back to Thunderhoof.
“Yeah, but you have to admit he did play really good. By the way, what was it like in isolation with him?”
“You’ll never guess what he said to me.”
“What?”
“He said sorry.”
Thunderhoof laughed. “Now I know you’re trying to trick me.”
“No, I’m being serious. He said that he understood why I fought him and he said sorry to Chestnut as well.”
“.....Wow. Maybe he has changed,” Thunderhoof eventually said, and despite himself, Atomic agreed.
The two colts were soon joined by their neighbours who had just come back from their elementary schools, and soon Mayfield Avenue hosted a large hoofball match, with nearly all of the colts living on the road taking part.
“How have you been? Are they treating you alright in here?”
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
In the Fillydelphia Correctional Facility’s female wing, it was visiting hours for the prisoners and on one of the tables in the visiting room, Tea Rose sat opposite her sister. Pumpkin was dressed in an orange jumpsuit with her prisoner number (1932645) sewn in black across the breast pocket.
“Do they search everypony this severely?” Tea Rose asked, referring to the search she had undergone when she arrived at the prison. The mare that had searched her had been excessively rough, and Tea Rose was irked about it.
“Not usually, but they probably just wanted to make sure that you weren’t bringing anything in for me,” Pumpkin replied, and the two mares sat silently for a few moments.
“Pumpkin, why didn’t you tell me what you were going through? I could’ve helped you, and I wouldn’t have judged you or anything.”
“You would’ve judged me. Besides, I didn’t think you’d ever want to see me again.”
Tea Rose shook her head. “Don’t be silly, of course I’d come and visit you.”
“How are Atomic and Butterscotch?” Pumpkin asked.
“They’re doing fine, although I think Butter misses you.”
The crushing feeling of guilt (which had become very familiar over the past few days) washed over Pumpkin, and tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She took a tissue from the pile in front of her and wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry for what I did, Rose. I should have never taken money out for drugs and now I have to pay the price.”
Pumpkin hung her head low and let the tears drop onto the table. She suddenly felt a warm hoof enclasp her own and she looked up.
“I forgive you Pumpkin.”
“You do?”
Tea Rose nodded, and Pumpkin broke down into sobs, drawing the attention of her other inmates and their relatives. The older sibling got out of her chair and comforted her younger sister.
“Ssshh, it's okay now. No need to be upset,” Tea Rose said, and eventually Pumpkin calmed down. Tea Rose went back to her seat.
“Who’s in your cell?”
“Some mare in her seventies. She got caught stealing from a department store.”
The two mares spoke quietly for another half hour, the topics of conversation ranging from
life in prison to the latest dresses available in Fillydelphia. When the clock reached noon, the security guard announced that visiting time was over.
Pumpkin and Tea Rose got up. “Same time next week?” the younger sibling asked.
“Mom and Dad are coming to see you, after they stop by at my place,” Tea Rose announced.
“How did they take the news?”
Tea Rose grimaced. “Not very well.”
The two sisters embraced tightly and Tea Rose promised Pumpkin that she would be back soon.
“Hurry up, or we’re not gonna enough space!”
On the first floor of Sycamore Elementary School, Atomic had dashed out of his Science lesson and met up with Pacific Sail and Banoffee Pie at the stairs, and they hurried downstairs to the ground floor, sprinting through the corridors to the canteen.
In the canteen, there was already a large line waiting at the hot meal section (the colder weather leading to more pupils wanting to eat something warm for lunch) and at the front of the queue, Pacific Sail pointed out Thunderhoof and Amber, who had just gotten their food.
“There’s no way we’re waiting back here, let’s go,” Atomic said, and the three colts shifted to the right, before walking towards the front of the queue. Every few moments, the colts would stop next to the ponies they reached to avoid getting caught, and luckily for them their peers were too engrossed in their conversations to notice them.
“I’ve never made it to the front without being caught,” Pacific Sail said at the front of the queue.
Once they got their food, the three colts joined their friends sitting at the large round table next to the canteen exit.
“You guys took your time,” Thunderhoof commented as Atomic sat down next to him.
“You’re lucky your Science teacher always lets you out on time,” Atomic replied, before tucking into his food.
The foals quickly ate their food and threw away their leftovers in the bins. The colder weather had pushed the teachers to ban anypony from going onto the field, and this meant that the courts outside the canteen had become much more packed than usual.
“There’s some space back there, quick!”
The group sprinted to the last court outside, which luckily for them Maverick, Spade Ace, Jackpot and Moon Dust had already reserved for them.
“We practically had half of the ponies here fighting for this last place,” Maverick remarked as the younger foals arrived.
The group quickly split into two teams and started playing a game of 7v7 hoofball.
“Hey, what are you doing here?! This is our space!”
Pablo and his friends charged into the court and the game quickly came to a stop.
Pablo pointed to a group of rucksacks propped up the fence sweating the court from its neighbouring court. “We left our bags here at the start of lunch, so you guys can find somewhere else to play!”
“We’re not moving for you, so why don’t you go and find somewhere to hang out?!” Atomic countered. The two colts approached each other and appeared to be ready to fight.
“Atomic’s right, Pablo. Why don’t you just go away,” Amber said, stepping between the two colts and directing her request to Pablo.
Pablo was stuck. On one hand, there was no way he was going to let Atomic kick him off the court that he had reserved. But he wanted to get back into Amber’s good books, and maybe finding somewhere else to play would be a good start.
“Lemme think about this.”
Pablo turned his back on the group and called his friends over.
“Ringside, get all of our bags.”
Ringside sprinted to the back of the court and brought the rucksacks back. Pablo took his and quickly took out a quill and small piece of paper, writing a note on it.
“Alright, we'll leave you guys alone.”
Pablo led his friends past Atomic and the others. As he walked past Amber, he quickly stuffed a piece of paper into her hoof.
Once Pablo and his friends had left, Amber unfolded the piece of paper and read what was written on it.
“What does that say?” Atomic asked, trying to peer over and read the note.
“Nothing important,” Amber said, before putting the piece of paper back into her saddlebag.
She’s gonna come. I know she will.
Instead of following the rest of his friends out of school, Pablo had gone straight to the library as soon as school was finished. He took out a book from his bag and tried to read it, his eyes looking up at the library door every few seconds.
“Why did you want me here?”
Pablo looked up from his book and quickly closed it.
“I just wanted to talk to you.”
Amber slowly sat down opposite Pablo.
“Um, I don’t know how to say this but…..I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For what I did to Chestnut. I’ve already apologised to him.”
Amber was surprised. “You did?”
Pablo nodded.
“Oh.”
Amber had enjoyed spending time with Pablo outside of school and she couldn’t deny that she had a lot of fun with him whenever they teamed up in PE. But she had seen a side from him that she didn’t like at all, and she was stuck between two decisions.
“You’re the only pony I’ve ever taken to my house,” Pablo suddenly said.
Amber looked up and took a deep breath.
“Alright. You get one more chance. But I don’t ever wanna see you be rude to anypony for no good reason again.”
Pablo grinned. “Deal.”
There was a brief silence.
“So….do you wanna go get something for my the shops?”
Amber nodded and the two got up, ticked their chairs in and left the library.”, with Pablo unable to wipe the beaming smile off his face.