//------------------------------//
// Part 1: The Store – XI 
// Story: Trolley Pushers 
// by Acologic 
//------------------------------//

‘And I guess we’ll have to report it to Gat,’ Ale added with a sigh. ‘Again. He’s going to be so happy.’

A car horn beeped loudly nearby, and Ale jumped. He turned around and saw a broad foreleg waving at him through an open window, its owner grinning. Lime was sitting in a stout red car and, to Ale’s exasperation, clearly wanted to chat, which was no surprise. He turned slowly to Hull and said resignedly, ‘Just head into the hut. The cone’s in the corner. I’ll be here.’

Hull nodded and left Ale to walk over to the red car. 

‘What do you think?’ Lime near-shouted at him as he approached.

‘What?’

‘The car! Check it out!’

Ale knew absolutely nothing about cars. He didn’t care about them. He didn’t want to talk about them. But he just widened his eyes and smiled and said, ‘Looking good! Is it yours then? How come you’ve got it?’

Lime grinned slyly, as though he’d pulled off a great coup. ‘Company privileges. I got it really cheap, second-hand from a friend who lowered the price for me. Plus all the discounts, and I cashed my saver scheme to pay for the bulk of it.’

‘Nice!’ said Ale, trying to grin back. ‘Nice colour too.’

‘Sick, hot-rod red,’ said Lime appreciatively. ‘I’ll be cruising in style from now on. You’ll see me coming.’

That really is a plus was Ale’s immediate thought, and he controlled the smirk it tried to coax from him. He smiled earnestly instead, though insincerely. He hated being interrupted, and the pressing issue of mysterious, moving potholes demanded his attention far more than Lime and his new car. So why didn’t he just turn around and leave him? But it was as he’d reasoned earlier. He’d established a particular character when speaking to Lime. He couldn’t break it, and if he did, the consequences of doing so would be uncomfortable to say the least. Ale liked his comfort too much. So he stood there and smiled, though he hated it, though he didn’t need to do it. Perhaps it showed because something in Lime’s face seemed to fall for a fraction of a second as he caught Ale’s eye. As if he’d glimpsed the thoughts beneath. 

‘Who’s the new guy?’ said Lime, tossing his head in the direction of the trolley hut.

‘Hull? He’s from Canterlot, but he’s lived up here for years.’

‘Canterlot?’ said Lime, his face twisting as if the very word were gall. ‘Is he a posh boy?’

‘No,’ said Ale quickly, unsure exactly why he felt he should defend Hull. But then he disliked backbiting on principle. Yet there were times he’d gone along with it. Never saying anything, never betraying anypony. But he wasn’t averse to pretending he agreed with a gossip if it would placate them. He wondered why he was feeling brave. He wondered why he was feeling brave on Hull’s account. ‘You’d never tell where he was from, speaks like a northerner, accent and all. He went to school here.’

‘He looks like he’s afraid of the trolleys,’ said Lime, chuckling. It was a joke, but a cruel one. Lime’s sense of humour didn’t quite sit nicely with Ale. He had nothing against insulting humour, but Lime hadn’t earned the camaraderie required to make such jokes in his presence. It made Ale uncomfortable. He didn’t really want to defend Hull, but he didn’t want to insult him. In any case, his silence had prompted Lime to move on. ‘How long are you on for?’ he asked.

‘Pretty much the whole day,’ said Ale, and to move the conversation away from himself and Hull, he added, ‘By the way, I heard Gourd’s applied here?’

‘Yeah, did I not tell you that?’ Lime screwed up his face, trying to remember. He shrugged. ‘But yeah, her application’s been accepted. She’ll be coming in for an interview once they stop advertising the vacancies.’

‘Nice! A shopper, huh?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Ale nodded as Lime went on. ‘So it’s good for us because we’ll finally can our shopper and Gourd’ll be able to do it from now on. And she can pick up her own chocolate now!’ He laughed, and Ale joined in a little sycophantically. ‘Well, if she gets in.’

‘Well, that’s it,’ said Ale. ‘Good luck to her anyway. Maybe it’ll be better for us too. She’d probably be the sort to actually put her trolley away.’ He grinned as Lime guffawed, but hoped they’d wrap up soon. The more he thought about it in the back of his mind the less it made sense and the more it irked him. That pothole, the one he’d first reported to Gat, it had moved.

‘I’ll be making sure she puts her trolley back,’ Lime was saying. ‘She would anyway because she’s not a dick.’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Just think how much of a dick you have to be if you can’t even be arsed to stick a trolley into –’

A yelp hit the air quite abruptly and it made Ale jump. Lime frowned and then he grinned. ‘Who the fuck was that?’ he said, half-chuckling. ‘Sounds like someone’s balls just dropped!’

But Ale did not laugh, though he would perhaps have found it funny under normal circumstances. You could always tell when a shout was one of genuine need. It had a quality to it that couldn’t be mistaken, however much Lime had just proved otherwise. He scanned the shopper park, frowning himself. His eyes widened up fast when he spotted Hull. Lime had spotted him too.

‘What the –?’