All was peaceful, quiet, and serene. The most gentle of summer breezes made a slight whistling noise as it passed through the branches, tenderly kissing every leaf.
ACHOO!
The leaves exploded from the tree, as a sneeze of cartoonish magnitude blew a section of it completely bare.
“What in tarnation!” Applejack declared.
She ran towards the tree, and examined it. There was a wooden ladder, ascending upward. A small filly tried to hide when she realized what had happened, but there wasn’t enough foliage to conceal her.
“Dang it Apple Bloom, this is one of our best cider producers.”
“Sorry sis, I didn’t mean to.”
“I know, I know, but if you still have your cold, then you shouldn’t a come to work.”
“This morning you said I had to work.”
“Well, yesterday you were out playing with your friends, and you seemed completely fine. How come it’s only at work that you keep sneezing, and scratching.”
Apple Bloom scratched her neck as AJ spoke.
“Stop that! You’re just making your rash worse by scratching it. Do you want me to put a doggy cone around your neck.”
“No sis, please no.” Apple Bloom believed that AJ would really do it.
“Are you still getting those tummy aches.”
“Only…” She stopped herself.
“Only what!” AJ practically demanded.
Big Mac cut in, in an unusual show of verbosity. “I don’t think it’s a cold. I reckon it’s some kind of allergy.”
“Allergy.”
Applejack wasn’t exactly a stranger to allergies. She’d get an itch from a type of spore that was bad for the trees. She reckoned it was natures way of telling her to remove that offending fungus. She examined the tree, but it was at least clear of fungus. There were signs of a vampire fruit bat family living in the tree.
“I bet it’s the guano from them darn varmints, the vampire fruit bats.”
“You said you was gonna stop blaming every little thing on the vampire fruits bats.” Big Mac said.
“It’s them I tell you.”
“Nope”
“Eyup.”
“Nope.”
“Eyup.”
While her brother and sister argued a friendly vampire fruit bat flew into the tree and dropped something. Apple Bloom caught it with her hooves and examined it. “Where did a fruit bat get a bar of aloe vera soap?” She wondered.
“It can’t be something she wasn’t allergic to before; can it?”
“Eyup.”
“It can. I guess fillies bodies do go through a lot of changes at her age, hormones and what not.”
“Eyup.”
“It’s only when she’s in the apple orchard that she sneezes and itches.”
“Nope.”
“That’s right, she got a rash doing the dishes last night. We had an apple scented dish soap, and she was scraping crust off an apple pie tray.”
“Eyup.”
“Most of our cooking gives her tummy aches.”
“Eyup.”
“And the thing we always cook with is…”
“Eyup.”
“Wheat! It grows wild between the trees, and we use flour in all our baked goods.”
Big Macintosh thought for a moment. He scratched his chin. AJ looked deep into his eyes, “Eyup.” Said she. “Eyup.”
“Eyup,” Big Mac finally echoed.
“Good news Apple Bloom, we figured it out. Tonight you won’t get any tummy aches. I’ll just have to make one of them gluten free apple pies.”
“Eyup.”
“So how do you feel?” Lily asked.
“I’m fine.”
“No tummy ache.”
Daisy shook her head, then took another bite of her fresh baked apple betty.
“See, I told you it would wear off in three days. Though for a filly it would probably last a week. That was a pretty mean prank for Strawberry Sunrise to play on Apple Bloom, putting ground pedals from the rare malus sylvestris repulsa plant into her food. I can’t believe she has it out for Applejack that badly.”
“I don’t know if it was just a prank. She seems to like Apple Bloom very much.”
“Besides,” Roseluck added, “wouldn’t it be funnier to play that prank on Applejack herself.”
“It’s not that funny to begin with.” Daisy changed the subject. She had a bad habit of sounding like a mom to the other two. “Gee Lily, you’re so smart, guessing what that drug was just from the symptoms.”
Lily turned up her nose in pride, but Roseluck just laughed.
“And what’s so funny.”
“Remember last week, I had Time Turner over for tea, and he asked you if there was any way to make a pony hate apples.”
“Huh, I’d totally forgot about that.”
“That didn’t strike you as an odd question?”
“He said it was for his research, didn’t he?” Lily responded. “What was it: Pavlovian responses versus pharmacological reconstitutions?”
“Lily, you helped with their mean prank.”
“What, I’d never!”
“You totally did. You practically planned it for them.”
Daisy just sat there and quietly ate her apple betty.
“I did it.” Applejack beamed with pride. “I made a crust from oats and a topping with a honey walnut crumble. There ain’t no bit of wheat in this here pie, and I’ll bet you it’s still one of my tastiest ever.”
Applejack looked around. “Apple Bloom, where are you?”
For a pegasus, she didn’t fly very often. Strawberry Sunrise was even a little bit unsteady in her landing. Her descent was slow enough, though she had meant to land on the walkway, and instead ended up on the cloud lawn. She immediately moved to said walkway to avoid trampling the clouds. At least it made for a softer landing, though the lawn was very much in need of a trim. How do ponies let their homes go like that?
She knocked twice on the door, and Rainbow Dash answered.
“Hello, do you have time to spare for a quick survey?”
“Nope, sorry,” the unapologetic Rainbow Dash started to close the door.
“We have gift certificates for any pony who participates; ten bits off on a hooficure at the Ponyville salon.”
The door creaked open, but Rainbow Dash looked left then right.
“Were you seen?”
Strawberry Sunrise’s brows lifted in confusion. “Seen doing what?”
Rainbow Dash pulled her inside, then peaked out to see if any of the neighbours were watching them. Closing the door, she grabbed the gift certificate from Strawberry Sunrise, then checked it to make sure that Lotus Blossom’s, the spa ponies, signature was genuine.
Strawberry took this to mean that Rainbow Dash was participating in her survey. She looked at her first question, then immediately regretted agreeing to canvas Cloudsdale. The first question was ‘What is your natural mane colour?’ She could just picture Time Turner opening with that line and getting door after door slammed in his face.
Naturally, all the questions were about mane colours, the survey was for a heredity study.
Though red was obviously her favourite single colour, she had to admit that ponies like Rainbow Dash had a certain flare.
Skipping to question number two. “So who else in your family has the same natural mane colour as you?”
“My Dad,” Rainbow Dash pointed to a family photo. The photo was in her trophy case. In it she was holding up best young flyer trophy. They trophy was broken in a crash years ago, so she put the photo in its former place.
“I see.” It immediately caught her eye that Rainbow Dashes mother had a lovely red mane. It was a subdued red, though definitely not pink. It’s almost certain that the polychroma came from her fathers side, which could mean either that red loses to rainbow or that she recieved something recessive from her maternal grandparents. Knowing things like this would be a big help in Time Turners experiments. Although, she was beginning to question whether the goals of Time Turners research were simply beyond the scope of their current understanding.
Your mother has such a lovely mane.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Do you ever wish you’d inherited her colour.”
“I did inherit it, along with six other colours.”
Time Turner stared into the lens of his invention. Through the same principles that allow a telescope to look at astral bodies that are far away, he’d been looking at himself up close. What he found was amazing.
“What you see in there doc.”
Apparently we’re all made out if tiny gooey things that split apart into more tiny gooey things.
“You sure you aren’t just seeing water bubbles on a dirty slide.” Flim asked.
“Oh your probably right. Thanks for pointing that out.”
He was ready to toss his magnification o-scope aside, like the waste of time it was. At that moment, Flam startled everyone by dumping a stack of books on a desk.
“Here doc, I thought these might help with your research.”
His surprise overcome by his curiosity, Time Turner started glancing through the different titles: Origin of the Species, DNA Decoded, Human Genome Editing.
“My goodness, however did you get these.”
“Princess Twilight’s been collecting them from that other world she visits.”
“Aren’t the creatures of that world supposed to be rather lacking in intelligence?”
“That’s what everypony thinks because they can’t do magic. Twilight says they learn other things to compensate, like computers.”
“What the devil is a computer?”
“It’s a box that people stare at all day long.”
This led to an awkward silence. Changing the subject, Flim asked how Flam managed to obtain all these incredible books.
“Oh I have my methods.”
Time Turner opened the cover of the first book. There he saw the stamped card, telling when it was due back at the library.
It was already dusk, and shades were placed over the windows of the CMC club house. The inside was dark, the only light was the dim glow of a candle.
“Do you have it?” Apple Bloom asked.
Twist grabbed a paper bag with her mouth and presented it to Apple Bloom. The Apple girl examined the contents. Inside were three strawberry danishes, prepared just hours ago by Strawberry Sunrise.
She reached in to grab one.
“Hold on, do you have mine.”
Apple Bloom passed her a fresh baked apple pie.
Satisfied with the transaction, they each had greedily bitten into their desserts when they heard a creak.
The trap door to the clubhouse opened suddenly.
Startled by the creaking door, Apple Bloom turned toward the direction. Strawberry filling still dripped from her muzzle. “No,” she cried, “it’s not what it looks like.”