It was a warm Monday morning a few days after the release of the Chemiker story that, without a sign of Grapevine since publishing, Ornate called me into his office. The Chronicler building had been even busier than usual, as if each new story Grapevine and I released put our building on a few more maps. I noticed as I walked in that his office had been soundproofed since I last had been there.
That wasn’t the other change, either. The corkboard was more full than I had ever seen it, and the clutter on top of his desk had increased tenfold. The room seemed to have aged several years in just five days’ time. Of course, the same could be said for the stallion that occupied it: dark circles ringed the underside of his eyes and scraggly beard had sprouted unevenly from where he hadn’t shaved.
“Glad to see you on time for once, Miss Flower,” Ornate said as I came in. “Now if only you’ll make a habit of it you may yet be a proper photographer.”
I sat in my usual chair--not even daring to think to take Grapevine’s even when she was still at home--and yawned while rubbing one eye open. Whoever had said that Pegasi needed less sleep must have been nuts. We aren’t freaking birds!
Ornate looked at me expectantly.
“Uh, good morning, sir,” I said. “Is there any reason you called me in here without Grapevine?”
He nodded. “She’s called in sick today. Said she barely made it out of bed to get to the phone. That kind of stuff.”
I paused. “So . . . what have I got to do with it?” Visions of having to wait hand-and-hoof on a sickly Grapevine caused me to shudder. Even if she had been acting strangely nice the last few times I had seen her, it was still a prospect that I didn’t really want to consider.
Ornate harrumphed. “When she called, Grapevine requested specifically for you to be sent over to her home. Told me that she wanted to talk to you, or something.”
Well that added a whole new context to the situation. Grapevine just wanting to talk? About what, exactly? That night . . . that kiss, more than likely. A topic I had taken pains to avoid in the days after Chemiker’s death. In a way, the numerous tongue fights with Sterling after “the event” had been an attempt on my part to symbolically get her and her memory off. Okay, so that wasn’t the only reason . . .
“Are you alright?” Ornate asked, a look that could be interpreted as both concern and annoyance on his face. “You look troubled, Miss Flower. And I won’t be having one of my top staff getting a headline story in any sort of bad state.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. It’s just . . .”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you have a problem with your current partner?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Good. Because, as of right now, you two are the only ones making any money for this paper. Anything past page one isn’t even worth the paper it’s printed on. And now both of you are going to be out until Grapevine gets better.”
Somehow, gruff Ornate being so willing to let Grapevine lie around at home surprised me. “Uh, sir, can’t you just . . . make her work?”
“No, no, not after . . . last time.” He shuddered. “Besides, then she’d go complain to the union.”
“We have a union?”
“Moving on,” he said, “the point is that we need more reporters of Grapevine’s quality out in the field.” He scratched his stubble and looked at the overflowing story corkboard behind me. Finally, he said, “You came here with the general idea of being a reporter, didn’t you?”
My heart leapt to my throat. Had I really heard him right? Since the nastiness with Pullmare, the idea of being a reporter had settled to the back of my mind, and I’d started to accept being a photographer. But now, those dreams and aspirations came flooding back to me like they had never left. “Y- Yes I did, sir,” I said.
Ornate smiled. “I thought you might like that.” He held up a hoof. “However, you aren’t ready to be a reporter--not yet. The prose from what you sent us was decent for whatever you had back home, but that won’t fly here. No, we’ll need Grapevine’s help for this one.”
“What are you going to have her do?” I asked.
“I’m going to put her to work,” he said, “in a manner of speaking. If she wants to call in sick but request another paid employee’s presence, that’s fine. I’m willing to wager she isn’t too ill to teach.” He pulled out a piece of paper and grabbed a pencil. “I’m writing you an order of the day to deliver to Miss Lulamoon. Until she’s well enough to actually work again, she’ll be teaching you to write a little on your own.”
My concerns for forcing a sick Grapevine to teach me were--regrettably--glossed over as Ornate’s words danced around my skull. Reporter. Just the word was something to savor. “You’re sure about this, right?” I said cautiously, cringing while waiting for an answer.
He waved a hoof dismissively. “Don’t count yourself among the lucky; I’ve been meaning to do this for some time now. Most of our staff that aren’t paper pushers get a chance at some point.” His voice grew cold. “Which means this will be your one chance, Miss Flower, to show some potential. If Miss Lulamoon decides you’re not ready to be a reporter, you won’t be. Are we clear?”
My eyes must have been as large as saucers. “C- Crystal.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.” He held out the piece of paper to me. “Take this to Grapevine and she’ll get you started. If she complains, tell her that I’ll be putting this down as paid leave.”
I nodded and put the paper inside my camera bag slung over my shoulder. “I’ll be sure to, sir,” I said.
“Now, don’t think this excuses you from a story; I want a new one from the two of you by next week--and a picture to go with it,” he called after me as I left his office. At the front desk, I was informed that Ornate had called and paid for a ride already. It was waiting outside, she told me over the general din of the the Chronicler’s waiting room.
I hurried outside, expecting at least a cab, only to find a wooden carriage. Or, to be specific, the same wooden carriage that had dropped me off at this building in the first place. The scruffy stallion with the wheel cutie mark didn’t look any happier to see me this time around than before.
“Are we going, or what?” he said.
I climbed into the car and sat on the bench that afforded me a look out the front. My camera bag was kept on my back this time. We got underway, and were out onto West Fillydelphia’s morning traffic in a frustrating slowness. In my time in the city, I’d apparently gotten a little too used to a cab or trolley’s brisk pace, despite the fact that Derbyshire’s most popular--and usually only--mode of transportation was the carriage.
“Well I see you made it in West Fillydelphia after all,” the driver said after a while. “Nice job; I’ve been hearing all about you and that partner of yours. What’s it like working with her?”
I rested my chin on one of my hooves. “It’s great . . . really great,” I said.
“You know, there’s been a few rumors that you and her-”
“No!” I shouted. He looked back at me funny, so I took a deep breath and said, “I mean, no, we’re not.” I rubbed my arm. “I have a coltfriend, after all.”
He nodded. “Well, uh, good for you. To tell the truth, I didn’t imagine you’d last more than a day here when I dropped you off that day.”
“I had a lot of help from my friends.” The conversation ebbed and I was content to watch out the carriage as we went along. We were headed away from West Fillydelphia, but not in any direction I had ever gone. The decadent and squalid homes and businesses fell away and for a time there was a gap of little parks and fields. Then the houses began again, but these were . . . different. Not anything rich, but not poor either; a middle ground between the two.
“Welcome to the Burb,” the driver helpfully said.
The streets were clean and foals played openly in them. Steamcars filled many of the driveways in front of neighborhoods full of look-alike homes. Stores looked the same too, and were grouped into their own sections away from houses and all lacked a living space. Everything was . . . brighter here, and it somehow disturbed me. Maybe I had become too used to grime.
“What is this place?” I asked, noticing that I didn’t have to yell as loud due to the lack of most city noises.
“This is the Burb: the mayor’s pet project,” the driver said. “They used to advertise it all over the city; it was supposed to be like a little utopia. Only families with high enough incomes would be let in. Everything would be clean: no factories could be built inside, all the cars burn clean coal, and trolleys aren’t even allowed inside the city limits.” Now that I looked at the street, I noticed it was paved smooth: no trolley lines anywhere. In fact, I saw more carriages like the one I rode in than back in West Fillydelphia; cleaner, I guessed.
“So what happened?” I said.
He shrugged. “Nothing, really. The Princess eventually forced Mayor Pullmare to let anyone move into the Burb, but it didn’t really matter; if you don’t fit the demographic, there isn’t much of a chance you’ll be let in by you own neighbors. It’s all a big clique, if you ask me.”
I slumped back on the bench. “And Grapevine lives here.”
“Looks that way.”
Somehow, my vision of Grapevine’s home hadn’t exactly fit the standards of the Burb. Somewhere dirty and old where dark stories and darker characters could be found sounded more up her alley. Not . . . manicured lawns and white wooden fences. I noticed that we were pulling closer to one of these neighborhoods.
Clapboard houses stretched out in neat rows on tree-lined streets where soft-faced grandparents watched their grandchildren play in the shade while the parents were at work. Above the rooftops the brilliant blue sky was broken only by a few white clouds that kept the sun from directly shining in any delicate eyes. A few Weather Corps Pegasi flitted about, keeping them in place. Paid off, no doubt. A large, official sign out front read “Carter Ranch Estates”.
The carriage came to a stop in front of iron gates that kept out any unwanted visitors. Large gates covered the road and forced any cars to stop and show an ID, and smaller ones blocked a single walkway that led into the neighborhood. While I watched, a black Cattleac pulled up to one of the booths, a card was flashed, and the large gate swung open and the steamcar went through with a puff of smoke. The doors closed immediately behind it.
I hopped out once we stopped at the sidewalk in front of the main walkway and security booth. “Is this it?” I said.
“Let’s not go through this again,” the driver said. He nodded to me once and set off back down the main road, leaving me alone on the sidewalk to stare at the neighborhood spreading out intimidatingly before me. Another, fancier carriage pulled up behind me and a posh stallion got out, dressed in a suit that looked like it was worth more than Joya’s entire store. A colt in a red uniform with shiny brass buttons immediately in the driver’s seat pulled away and drove off to places unknown.
The ritzy stallion refused to look my way as he passed, and acted no better around the jacketed pony at the gate who let him in after a moment. No other choice, I followed him to the booth.
The little green building was little more than four walls and a small control board that featured a large shiny lever. The outside was decorated in fancy iron arrangements that looked aesthetically pleasing but seemingly served no other purpose. The tiny gate clanged shut behind the post stallion, and it was my turn.
A brass relief of an ancient mustang warrior in full gallop decorated the inside of the booth and under it sat a sour-looking unicorn. She was wearing a tiny round cap on her head which, to be honest, would set me in the same kind of mood.
“Whad’ya want?” she said when I approached.
“I’m here to see a friend,” I said.
She glanced down at some papers on a clipboard in front of her. “Are you on the approved guests list?”
“The what?”
She sighed. “Name?”
“Oh, Minty Flower,” I said.
“Minty Flower . . .” she muttered under her breath as she flipped pages on the clipboard. I was afraid for a second that I wouldn’t be on the list, but her eyes brightened and she tapped the paper. “Here you are; an approved guest for Miss Grapevine Lulamoon. You’ve even been approved for priority access.” She reached beneath her desk and produced a key stamped with an address on a ring.
When I reached for it, though, she backed her hoof away. “This key works only on Miss Lulamoon’s domicile, and is to be used exclusively for such,” she said. “Any attempt to open doors to other houses will result in your immediate expulsion from the premises and the authorities will be called. Understand?”
I nodded and she reluctantly allowed me to take the key. I walked past the booth and she pulled the lever, letting the iron gate immediately swoosh open. Feeling eyes boring into the back of my head, I stepped inside and let the door clang shut behind me.
* * *
The neighborhood past the gates could not have been any different than anywhere I had been before if it had tried. Cars moved at a slower, leisurely pace, letting their tires really feel the asphalt beneath them. The children weren’t mussed or scuffed up, but rather had nice neat coats and clothes that looked like they had been bought the day before. Even just the way ponies walked was different: with their heads up and shoulders forward like they had nothing to fear from the world around them.
From their perspective, I must have looked practically alien. I was thankful I had remembered to comb my hair back to its straight position over one ear today, but that was the closest I resembled them. My camera bag already looked worn, and my coat had a slight shade of grey from soot. The bright pastel colors of their coats were like those I had never seen in Fillydelphia; the air was clear here.
I walked down the clean sidewalk under shady oak trees, constantly checking house numbers and street names for Grapevine’s. My path took me first down a long straightaway, then right, then left, then right again. If my directions were correct--and we Pegasi are rarely wrong--her house was near the back of the neighborhood, on the last lateral street that ended in a cul de sac.
The key’s address read, “405 Connemara Trail,” and I stopped in front of the house whose mailbox had those same numbers painted on it. But somehow, my brain just didn’t want to register that what I was seeing was actually Grapevine’s house. It was a quiet, one-story bungalow painted up in a faint blue, with an even green door in the middle of two matching windows on either side. The model was identical to many of the others I had passed, besides a few personal touches. Shrubbery out front was cut down to an efficient size compared to others, and the flowers that grew in the garden were ones that needed little water. The lawn was of similar shape.
I was about to walk up to the front door when I felt something thump me in the back of the leg. I looked down to find a small rubber ball lying, curiously, at my hooves. When I bent down to pick it up, I heard a voice call out, “Hey, Miss! Can you kick it back to us?”
The voice belonged to a foal about eight, dressed in a white vest and cap that sat low on his head. His voice whistled when it came out through the gaps in his teeth. He waved in my direction, obviously hoping for his ball back.
I smiled a little and gave a mighty kick . . . which managed to send the ball about ten feet before it started lamely rolling to the kid at a snail’s pace. Him, and his friends who had arrived behind him, didn’t even laugh. They just sort of gave me a combined look of pity. Pity from schoolchildren. I resisted the urge to hide my face.
They took off down the sidewalk and I walked up the pathway to Grapevine’s front porch. My hooves made an odd sound as they walked on the clean brick, and I edged up to the front door. Though I had a key, I decided to knock. I rapped twice on the wood and waited.
“Who is it?” came a chirping voice from the inside that only vaguely sounded like Grapevine.
“Uh, it’s Minty,” I said. “Can you let me in?”
The door almost immediately swung open, to reveal a smiling Grapevine dressed in a bright pink bathrobe. “Come in, come in!” she said. I complied, and she shut the door behind me.
There was a small hallway that I was taken through before arriving in the main living room. The room was covered entirely in a bright white carpet as soft as cumulus clouds. A couch and a couple chairs made a sitting area and were positioned around a large box that I realized, to my shock, to be an actual radio. Off to one side was a kitchen complete with a small breakfast nook, and to the other was a hallway that branched off into other rooms that I assumed to be bedrooms or studies. The kitchen itself had sparkling-clean appliances, including one of those steam-powered iceboxes, and a countertop that sheened.
The back wall consisted mostly of large, plate glass windows that afforded a majestic view of her small backyard, fence, and the sky beyond. From the window, I could see downtown Fillydelphia, now far off in the distance, and the small silver cigar of Serenity floating quietly above it on a warm summer morning. One wooden door led to a backyard porch, which had a couple sitting chairs on it.
“So, what do you think?” Grapevine said, spreading her forehooves out in a big sweeping motion.
“It’s, uh, well, it’s . . . wow. Nice, very nice,” I said. “How did you afford all of this?”
“Let’s just say there’s a bit of a disparity in our pay levels.”
“Right.” I looked her up and down. “You know, you don’t seem very sick . . .”
Grapevine quickly coughed into her hoof and wrapped the bathrobe tighter around herself. “Yes, well, it comes and goes,” she said. Before I could say anything else, she gestured to a small table that had been set up for two in the breakfast nook in front of a window. “Would you like to join me for breakfast? I know you and Joya run on very little most of the time.”
My stomach growled at the sight of a platter overburdened with warm muffins, perfectly white eggs cooked sunny-side up, and even steaming hashbrowns. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Grapevine said brightly.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” I said.
“I still can’t; we can get food delivered out here.”
She led me to the table and I fell into a chair that somehow contoured to the shape of a pony without sacrificing the efficiency of sitting upright. Even my wings had room to breathe. I didn’t think much more of that, however, as I was already piling food onto my plate. It was a fight just to keep from seeing how much I could stuff in my throat until I choked. Even then, Grapevine gave me a worrying look when I soon began to outpace her.
She merely picked at her plate, and mostly kept her eyes on me. An action that, even in my famished state, did not go unnoticed. “I see that you decided to come here naked,” she said finally.
I nearly choked on my food, and a little bit flew out of my mouth and landed on the table. When I had finished trying to cough up an air sac, I said, “Um . . . yes? I mean, most ponies around here are naked too, you know. Heck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear anything more than that bathrobe!”
“I meant that it’s simply unusual to see you this way, now,” she said in a measured tone. “Wasn’t Joya using you to test out some of her new designs?”
“She was,” I said, “but she’s been coming up with a new line for stallions; Sterling’s her new test subject now.” When I mentioned his name, I noticed her bright expression briefly turn back to the old norm, but it was gone in a second. Deciding to press, I said, “Speaking of Joya, you do know we have a phone now, right? You didn’t have to get Ornate to drag me down there--in fact, he did so by calling me!”
Grapevine shrugged. “Just thought I’d get you to see Ornate for me before heading over here; save me the inevitable trip,” she said. “Plus, I had to make sure you wouldn’t be followed.”
“So make sure I came alone?”
“Same difference.”
I was beginning to get the feeling that I knew exactly why she hadn’t wanted to ask me over at Joya’s, where Sterling could hear. She cleared her throat, and quickly changed subjects. “So did the mare at the gate give you any trouble?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not really,” I said. “But, I have to ask . . . why here? Out of all the places to live in the city, why choose the place that’s the most, well, the most- . . . the most unlike you!”
At first, Grapevine didn’t say anything, but just blinked in response. Her fork dropped out of its magic field and clattered to the table. I thought I might have actually brought the old her back for a second, but then her demure smile returned. “I know it seems different from how I normally act, but I prefer it in this neighborhood. It’s quiet and peaceful . . . a welcome solace from the work we normally go through.” She laughed. “The police don’t usually storm any houses on my street.”
“Yeah, well, it just doesn’t seem like you is all,” I commented. Then added softly, “You don’t seem like you, is all . . .”
“What was that?” she said.
“Oh, nothing.”
If she had heard me, she quickly let the matter drop. Instead, Grapevine used her magic to gather up the dishes and dump them into a machine that she assured me, to my complete disbelief, would wash them for her. Something about magic soap and steam-propelled water jets. Another flash of her horn and the radio over in the living room turned on and began projecting the warbling tune of some singer, probably from Manehattan or Las Pegasus.
We fell back to the living room, and I sank into the couch like it was a bale of hay, patting my stomach now full to bursting of my meal’s contents. Grapevine, after a second of decision, sat down on the couch as well: near me, but not too near me. There was an almost visible tension in the room that sparkled like electricity between us, but neither of us chose to address it.
Each of us remained silent through the rest of the bebop song, but when the station went to commercial Grapevine turned down the volume and spoke to me. “I’m going to have to assume Ornate gave you a job for me to do, right?” she said. “I don’t remember the last payday that he didn’t.”
I nodded and reached in my bag to pull out the note. I hoofed it to her and her eyes scanned its contents faster than I thought possible. After she finished, her face genuinely started to light up. “So it finally happened,” she said. “Little Minty’s getting another shot at reporter after all.”
“What, like you expected Ornate to do this?”
She shrugged. “In all the time I’ve known Ornate, he’s never hired anyone to the main staff without some potential.”
“But . . . he said what I sent in wasn’t any good,” I said. “Kind of a mixed message, don’t you think?”
“Oh no, what you sent in was terrible; trust me, I read it,” Grapevine said. She smiled reassuringly. “But it still had potential, which is what Ornate must have seen. Just not as much as your pictures. Usually, he’ll take a few months to send one of our prospective reporters to me, then I flunk ‘em out in a couple of days.”
I practically leapt off the couch as I sat up. “But I’ve only been on for about 2 weeks, so that must mean Ornate thinks I’m special!” I paused. “Right?”
“Uh, well, no . . . as I said, I read what you sent in.” When she saw my face fall, she quickly added, “But that’s alright, because I can help. If you’re willing to work at it, I can teach you how to start writing like a reporter in no time.”
“And then I’ll be a reporter?”
“Then you’ll know how to write; using those skills to be a reporter is up to you.”
I nodded. “Alright, so can we get started?”
Grapevine smiled. “Certainly.” She shuffled off the couch and walked back toward the hallway leading farther into the house. “You coming?” she called. I followed her back down the white-walled hallway past a small guest bedroom on the right and a small bathroom--I guessed also for a guest--on the left. Directly back was a much larger bedroom.
The bed in the middle of the room easily dominated mine in size: it had to be a Luna-sized, at least. Besides that, there wasn’t much else. A wooden dresser directly across from the bed with a large mirror on top and many drawers on its front. On one wall were indentations from where pictures had once hung, but it was now blank. A final door led to the master bathroom, and Grapevine stepped inside.
“I’ll be just a minute,” she said, and shut the door. I could hear the sound of running water on the other side.
I was content to wait on her for a few minutes, but when the running water kept going and going, I started to get bored. And when I get bored, I get antsy. The bedroom still wasn’t much to see, but I spotted a closed closet on the other side of the room from the bathroom. I walked up to it, figuring I would have a rare chance to see a completely empty closet for once: after all, I hadn't really seen her wear anything of her own.
The door opened easily, but what surprised me was what was on the inside. Instead of an empty room, racks overburdened with clothes ran the length of the closet on each wall. Dresses, vests, shirts, saddles, gowns, and every other type of outfit I could think of hung in dozens of different shades and, strangely, sizes. There were three racks filled with shoes to match the outfits, and a massive mirror leaned against one wall.
I ran one hoof across a nearby dress. Silk, for sure. Purple and white pattern studded with diamonds; much more than anything I could ever hope to afford. I wanted to see more, but Grapevine chose that moment to start getting out of the bathroom, so I quickly shut the closet door.
Her hair was done up in a braid, and a bright red headband held the rest of her mane in place. Other than that, she only wore her usual saddlebag. “Ready?” she said. I nodded. “Then lets go.”
* * *
Grapevine locked her front door behind us and took my key. For safekeeping, she told me. We walked down the bare sidewalk side by side, making sure to keep under the shade and avoid the direct heat from a sun higher in the sky than it had been when I arrived. The group of foals had moved on some time ago, so only Grapevine and I occupied the entire street.
“So what exactly are we doing?” I said. “I mean, how is this going to help my writing?”
Grapevine waved a hoof in front of her to illustrate her speech. “Any idiot off the street can do an interview and take notes, so we can skip that part for now,” she said. “What you’ve got to master first--especially when your samples were lacking it---is detail.”
“Detail?”
“Yeah, you know, making your story really stand out.” She indicated to the street around us: the towering oak trees flush in summer and the smooth concrete drive that they lined. “You have to learn how to describe your story in a way that highlights the most interesting parts without sacrificing the little nuances.”
“Alright,” I said, “so how does us taking a walk help with that?”
On cue, she resumed walking, though this time a little ahead of me like she was the head of our little classroom. “If you can learn to describe an outdoor scene with the right balance of focus and detail, then you can do the same in a story.” She laughed. “And I needed to go out for a few things.”
I huffed a little and continued following her. She fell silent when we drew up on a house at the corner of her street, and I soon saw why. A plump mare out front was waving to her. “Oh, Grapevine, is that you?” she called. The mare had a light blue coat and a frizzy brown mane and looked horribly, incredibly normal. And knew Grapevine by first name, apparently.
Even more surprising, Grapevine called back, “Morning, Mrs. Rose!”
The hefty mare strode down her front walk to us with a big smile on her face and held out a hoof, which I took. “Pleasure to meet you, dear,” she said. “My name’s Anita Rose.”
I smiled back. “Minty Flower.”
“Oh, so you’re the partner Grapevine’s always going on about,” she said. For some reason, the way she said “partner” irked me a little. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”
“Uh, the same,” I said.
Anita turned back to Grapevine. “Are you two working on a story today?” Her face lit up. “Ooh, are you working on one here?”
Grapevine shook her head. “‘Fraid not, Anita. I’m just helping Minty here learn how to write. I even called in sick today.”
“Ah, right, sick,” Anita said with a wink. The cries of a young foal could suddenly be heard from inside the house. Anita turned, then look back to us. “Well, I won’t keep you two any longer. Good luck on that writing, Minty, and you two make sure to stick together!” And then again the way she said “together” just didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t have any time to question her, though, as she was already back inside.
Grapevine set out again. “So . . . Anita?” I said as I followed her.
“It’s the new thing for names here in the Burb,” she said. “Well, it’s new now, but supposed to be based on some old naming system. Everyone around here’s been changing their names, and naming their kids that way; Anita used to be called Rose Petal.”
“That sounds pretty weird,” I said.
She shrugged. “It won’t catch on; there’ll be a new fad around in a few months, I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” I said, then let the conversation peter out. We walked on for a little bit, enjoying the gentle breeze that wafted in from the nearby mountains: the same my train had passed through to get to Fillydelphia in the first place. “So, speaking of Anita,” I said eventually.
“Hm?”
“She seemed to think you and I were very . . . close,” I said. “Have you been talking to her much?”
Grapevine took a minute to respond. “Not more than usual,” she said. “But you know how some mares are: you mention the word ‘partner’ once and they take it the wrong way. Some ponies just see things that aren’t there.”
“They still need the context in the first place . . .” I said. The statement just kind of hung in the air, and eventually dropped to the sidewalk when neither of us was willing to pick it up. So, we started walking . . . again. We weren’t exactly exciting in our movements.
She filled the gaps in conversation with idle gossip from her neighbors. Apparently, they had been naive enough to believe that a reporter wouldn’t share their little anecdotes. Mr. Wrenchhoof had a drinking problem. Mrs. Sunwell was a bit too friendly with the deliverycolt, and Miss Ratatouille and her coltfriend lost their jobs at a restaurant; some rodent infestation. Grapevine enjoyed telling the stories, and I admit it was fun to listen to them; part of being a reporter, I supposed. It even assuaged some of my concerns about Anita, though only a little. For a little bit, she almost seemed like she was her normal self, instead of whatever peppy persona she had taken on the night after the trolley ride. I would need to bring that up at some point, but my desire for her to teach me to write was greater.
We passed back through the gated entrance to the neighborhood, and the same mare from before tipped her head to Grapevine. She didn’t even look at me. We walked beside the road on another sidewalk as clean and empty as the one in the neighborhood. A part of me almost wondered if the Burb was just a giant model of a community that someone had accidentally let ponies inhabit, as clean as it was. Every neighborhood we passed by had the same gate and, from the looks of it, the same houses inside. As if someone had taken four designs and copied them a thousand times all over the Burb.
A little while later, we entered a massive flat slab of blacktop that was ringed by colorful little stores. Dozens of stamcars were parked in neat and orderly rows divided into spaces by yellow paint. “What is this place?”
“The entire place is called a strip mall,” Grapevine said, “and what we’re standing on is a parking lot. They’ve started getting popular back in Los Celestias, but only now are Fillydelphia and Baltimare catching on.”
“But . . . isn’t a mall the place between buildings with trees and grass and stuff?”
“Not anymore.”
There was a squat building shoved between two identical in size and shape to it that simply read “Cleaners” on the sign. Grapevine stopped outside its entrance. “Alright, you’ll need to stay out here while I go inside.”
Looking around, I said, “Why?”
Grapevine reached in her bag and pulled out a pencil and paper. “While I’m in,” she said, “write down everything you see and describe it in the best way you know how. I’ll check on it when I get back.” She forced the materials to me, and I grabbed them with my wings as she went inside.
I turned around and tried to see something worth seeing in the parking lot. There wasn’t much, though. Just the scattering of cars--all of them nicer than anything West Fillydelphia but nothing too fancy--and a few more shops. All of which lacked any color: it was like shopping inside a government office, it looked like. The strip mall faced away from the city, so I drew my eyes up, and took a look at the view. Tall mountains rose above the Burb, their snowcaps lighting against a clear blue sky. On the other side, I knew, were the great plains that stretched from Fillydelphia all the way to great cities of Manehattan and Canterlot.
The parking lot was boring, but when put into the context of resting beneath the mountainside, there was something . . . more to it. I gripped the pencil and held up the notepad and started to write. I took care to try and focus on the blandness of everything below the mountain: write out a contrast between them. Like orange and blue, my own colors.
I put myself into writing that little piece, though it only came to a couple hundred words. My gaze didn’t stray from the paper except for a quick glance at the scene before going back to writing. It felt like time slowed until I finished, and I realized that it had been ten minutes since I started. I gave it a look, and was personally impressed with what I’d written. Just from hanging around Grapevine, it was obvious I had gotten better.
Just as I finished looking over it a fourth time, Grapevine walked out of the cleaner’s. “Thanks again, Ms. Qingjie!” she called back. Draped over one hoof was an empty saddlebag . . . that looked exactly the same as the one on her back.
“You have more than one saddlebag?” I said. “And get them dry cleaned?”
Grapevine smiled. “Well duh, did you think I wore the same one everyday?”
I was suddenly very aware of having never made a single effort to clean my own bag. “No . . .”
She held out a hoof. “Mind giving me my stuff back?” I hoofed her the pencil and pad, but she only put them in her bag without looking at them. “I’d like to grab a cup of coffee before I look at what you wrote.” We headed across the parking lot to another store that, while identical in size and shape to the others, was at least a little bit more decorated. A neon sign in the front window gave its name as “Cream & Foam.”
“You want anything?” Grapevine said as we walked in.
I shook my head. “We just ate, and I don’t really drink coffee . . .”
“Suit yourself.” She joined the small line in front of the cash register, and I sat down at a table in front of the window. I carefully placed my bag on the floor, and tapped one hoof impatiently while waiting for Grapevine to get her drink.
Finally, she sat down and took out the paper pad to read. She sipped on her tall cup of foamy coffee, using the aid of her magic to bring it to her lips while her hooves held the pad. Eventually, her eyes stopped scanning the page and she lowered it to the table.
“Well?” I said.
“Needs work,” she said dismissively, some of the old Grapevine shining through. “I mean, it’s not bad, but it’s not good either. I liked how you did the contrast, but it didn’t have any focus. If you’d chosen a particular car or mountaintop, that would have been fine, but you wrote about the whole thing as if it were a postcard.” She shrugged. “It’s like, if you were describing a court case, you focused on every member of jury, the judge, and the audience at once, instead of picking out the interesting parts.”
I knew I looked crestfallen, but I couldn’t help it. I’d felt like it had been good, and it had even looked part. “Um, well . . . okay then,” I said softly.
She put a hoof on my shoulder. “Hey, don’t feel bad,” she said. “I’ve seen many worse first tries. You just have to learn how to make it flow naturally, is all.”
“But it doesn’t come naturally,” I said. “Not like photography does. I want to be a reporter, but it isn’t my special talent or my cutie mark. For you, it’s the opposite: you can just use your magic to help.”
“You think I use magic when I write?” she asked. When I nodded, she started snickering.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
“Oh nothing, it’s just that . . . well, I’ve haven’t used my magic to help me be a reporter since the day I got my cutie mark.”
I sat up a bit straighter in my chair. “Wait, why? Your magic is geared specifically toward reporting, right?”
She nodded. “It is,” she said, “too bad it’s useless.”
“Useless?”
Grapevine sighed. “Look, it’d be better if I showed you, okay?” I nodded. Taking a deep breath, she placed the notepad on the table and held the pencil at the start of a new page. Her horn began to glow, faintly at first then picking up in brightness and power. Her eyes closed, then snapped open to reveal a white-purple light shining from them.
Before I could really fathom what was going on, the pencil held in her magic started moving. Rapidly. It sped across one page, then a second, then a third. Halfway through the fourth, the magic abruptly cut off like a switch had been flipped, and her eyes returned to normal. A few of the patrons in the coffee shop had been watching, but now went back to their drinks.
“What . . . was that?” I said.
Grapevine grinned. “That was my talent magic. It picks my brain and writes down everything I’ve seen in the past hour and puts it down on paper.” She held up the notepad. “The problem is that most of what I write is unorganized gibberish.”
She offered the pad to me and I took it. Sure enough, most of what was written was unintelligable at best. “Blue flower pot rest yellow flower green green grass purple self white sidewalk,” was only one short line. It was possible to decode it, but I was beginning to see her point.
“Once I figured out that my magic’s method of reporting was pretty useless, I just focused on writing on my own with my good ol’ brain,” she said. “I only use that when I’m so wasted or tired that I can’t remember a single thing.”
I listened to her while scanning further down the page, trying to search for a mention of me. Strangely, there was nothing. Maybe I wasn't newsworthy, I guessed. Though it wasn’t like any of it was particularly useful information.
Or so I thought. Near the bottom of the second page, I found a sentence that stopped my blood cold. My brain shut off from whatever Grapevine was saying. I re-read the passage over and over, trying to see where it was wrong. Because shoved between two more nonsensical sentences on the page was one little piece that my eyes couldn’t stray away from. “Red house in window stallion gun point wife,” it read. “Bang.”